Marvel's Captain America - The Winter Soldier Prelude

Marvel Cinematic Universe

by Peter David, Stan Lee (Text), Ed Brubaker (Text)

Prepare for Marvel Studios' newest big-screen blockbuster by boning up with this essential collection of classics! First, relive Steve Rogers' transformation from 98-pound weakling into the living legend of World War II...and the tragic loss of his best friend Bucky! Next, thrill to an all-new Infinite-style adventure set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! And experience the dynamic debut of Cap's partner the Falcon, the Black Widow's first encounter with the Amazing Spider-Man, the startling revelations that lurk behind the mask of the Winter Soldier, and the ulti mate introducti on of Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.! COLLECTING: MARVEL'S CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER ADAPTATION 1-2, MARVEL'S CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER INFINITE COMIC 1, CAPTAIN AMERICA (1968) 117, CAPTAIN AMERICA (2005) 6, THE ULTIMATES 2, MATERIAL FROM TALES OF SUSPENSE (1959) 57; HANDBOOK PROFILES

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2014

About the author

aka David Peters

Peter Allen David, often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games. His notable comic book work includes an award-winning 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, SpyBoy, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Marvel, and X-Factor.
His Star Trek work included comic books and novels such as the New Frontier book series. His other novels included film adaptations, media tie-ins, and original works, such as the Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life series. His television work includes series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, Ben 10: Alien Force and Nickelodeon's Space Cases, which he co-created with Bill Mumy.
David often jokingly described his occupation as "Writer of Stuff", and he was noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real-world issues with humor and references to popular culture, as well as elements of metafiction and self-reference.
David earned multiple awards for his work, including a 1992 Eisner Award, a 1993 Wizard Fan Award, a 1996 Haxtur Award, a 2007 Julie Award and a 2011 GLAAD Media Award.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

An average score of 3 stars for the collection.
The adaptation of the Captain America: The First Avenger screenplay is very good--hits all the high points of the story and has really nice art.
The Winter Soldier – Infinite Comic #1 feels more like a vignette and is intended as a lead-in to the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It’s good that Natasha gets to play a part in it. The incident is another of those things Steve Rogers is referring to in terms of Nick Fury’s messes that he (Steve/Cap) gets to clean up and another example of the extreme “need to know” operational philosophy of SHIELD.
The two old-school stories by Stan Lee--one focusing on Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Black Widow and the other about Captain America, Red Skull and the Falcon--just weren’t to my taste. I found them too melodramatic. It’s cool that they decided to create an African-American hero, though. Hats off to Lee, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and others, nevertheless, for coming up with these characters that live on in other entertaining stories--characters for me to obsess about (like the film incarnations of Tony Stark/Iron Man and Steve Rogers/Captain America) or wish I could dress up as for Halloween (like the film incarnation of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow).
Captain America #6 (Out of Time) from 2005 has an intriguing story with good art; but here, it’s just a taste of a larger story arc that I’ll get to when I read The Winter Soldier: Ultimate Collection (which I plan to do soon).
The selection from The Ultimates definitely left me wanting more. It’s basically an alternate version of The Avengers, with some funky twists. Good writing/dialogue and very well-done art.
Basically a fun read. Even with the stories I liked less, I found it interesting to see different incarnations of the characters, variations on the plots and backstories. It seems James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes has been revamped a number of times over the years. I still like the film version that makes him Steve’s longtime friend, someone Steve looked up to (literally and figuratively) before his transformation into Captain America.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like these Soo much!

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you liked the movie, you won't like this one and if you liked this one, you should stop reading comics overall.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with other reviewers - parts of this were really good; others didn't really impress me. I'm not really sure why they included the Hawkeye comic in here; it didn't relate in any way (that I could see) to the rest of the material (and it was a bit campy for my taste). I did, however, really like the adaptations of the first Cap MCU movie, and the last two graphic novel stories were also really good. The Falcon origin story was interesting, too.

Looking forward to reading the next graphic novel collection, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Ultimate Collection). What can I say? My day's not complete without a little Cap in it. ; )

[Damon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry guys this one really sucked. It reminded me of everything I dislike about captain America. It would have been so much better if he had come out as gay or something. It makes me not want to watch the movies.

[Ivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liked it. For those who saw the movie, what did you think of it?

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been my favorite of the Marvel Movie "Prelude" editions so far. The film adaptation for Captain America First Avenger was nicely done as was the "Winter Soldier Infinite Comic" with the Black Widow/Captain America team-up. The weakest issue in the volume was the Iron Man/Hawkeye origin story as it seemed misplaced but it was still an enjoyable blast from the past (1964 to be exact). My favorite story was 1969's Captain America "The Coming of the Falcon" (as Captain America & the Falcon were two of my first comic book heroes). Captain America "Out of Time Part 6" had me hooked and anxious to read the continuing story in the "Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection." And while Cap is not a major force in the last story "Ultimates Issue 2 Big" it was quite the ride with Hank Pym & his wife Jan (aka the Wasp), Bruce Banner, Nick Fury & Iron Man Tony Stark. All in all, a very satisfying mix of tales.

[Books & Vodka Sodas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wish I would've read this sooner, it collected a really good group of comics that compliment the MCU arcs, while also showing a multiverse always exhausted.

Not to mention the comic that shows cap, nat, and rumlow on other missions-- like can we get more of that?! That's like my fanfiction dream come true-- only it's canon!

Highly recommend this for new comic readers! A great dive into the genre.

[Jessi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not much was new

I enjoyed reading the First Avenger recap but I didn’t care for the old OG comics. The Ed Brubaker stuff was cool and the last part with Hank Pym and Bruce Banner was interesting. All in all was kinda Meh

[Ravindra Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just amazing

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the comic was from the first Captain America movie which I liked,but the other half was stories from other comics that were older that I didn't like.

[Brandon Skanes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of stories!

[Amber Rye]

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[J'aime · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve bought and enjoyed all the Marvel Cinematic Universe preludes up to this point. This is the first one to be such a disappointment.

The book opens with a comic adaptation of the first Captain America film. The other preludes also recapped a prior film, so this didn’t surprise me. It was a solid, succinct summary. After that, readers get the “Winter Soldier” prelude part – which amounted to nothing more than Cap, Rumlow and Romanov taking down some terrorists in an empty office building. It wasn’t even ten pages long and had no impact on the film’s story other than having 3 characters in common. Why not a mission from the Winter Soldier’s POV? The rest of the book is filler of old material. Two golden age stories of Hawkeye and Falcon’s first appearance, and two stories that are really teasers for upcoming collections as they actually say “continued in….”

Overall, this just wasn’t worth the purchase. Marvel can and should do better than this.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just... bad all around. The art for the recap of The First Avenger was static and rather poorly done, it just looked like they'd taken stills from the film and traced over them – and not too well at that. The only actual portion which was a "prelude" to The Winter Soldier was short, explained pretty much nothing, and only had three characters in common with the movie. The rest of it was a gathering off different issues from other collections (Black Widow and Hawkeye team-up; first introduction of the Falcon; Ultimates, which for the love of god why; and an issue from Man Out of Time). All of those are presented without much else, leaving a hodge-podge of confusion if you're unfamiliar. It was just slapped together and not at all enjoyable – it didn't explore the subject matter or expand on it. It was just a slap-dash cash grab for fans.

[Bethany Phillips · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was meh for me.

This is the prelude in the Winter Soldier but it kind of fell flat for me. It did show some background to the story of the Winter Soldier but it was just ok.

I enjoyed seeing Captain America and Bucky and seeing their story before the Winter Soldier because I don't know that much on Captain America. But that was about the only thing I enjoyed.

I don't know if the story telling was not for me or what but I just did not enjoy this book as much as I was hoping to enjoy it.

[Joe Scrubbins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generic media tie-in to the Winter Soldier movie to get people ready for the film to hit theatres. A very quick read, made most notable by a pretty good, if abbreviated, adaptation of the original Captain America movie. Much of the content here is choppy, due to a real reliance on single issues taken from larger stories meant to whet your appetite for more. This is really something of a Marvel sampler, with stories pulled from all over the place. The book also includes some old reprints of classic Captain America stories such as the original appearance of the Falcon.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A grab bag of Captain America related stories, some of which I've read relatively recently elsewhere. The Steve Rogers becoming Captain America is just a direct adaptation from the movie, though leaving out much. The first Hawkeye and first Falcon story are fine, but I've read them both before. They could have been a lot worse given their age. And the other stories are a little bit better. All in all not great, but not bad.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book includes a very scaled down version of The First Avenger (what was fit into two issues), and just one issue of new "Prelude" material. These were good but I would have preferred more of the same instead of issues relating to Hawkeye and The Ultimates (where Cap is still on ice).
This was good, but could have been better.

[Lincoln Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier Prelude is packed with comics detailing the origins and events of certain Marvel characters but does not show anything nerve-racking or really that exciting but it's fun to know how Falcon came to be (which is pretty weird but it's Marvel).

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant little bit of a primer for the new movie, can't wait!

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection is worth it for the Tales of Suspense #57 comic alone. Hawkeye's origin story is too good.

[John (JP) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not impressed. As a prequel it fell flat. There seemed to be only be only minor relationships between the stories and those stories did not contribute to a larger whole.

[Jenni R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Average collection. I've bought it originally as a present, and ended up reading it anyway - it's okay. Nothing unexpected and/or original. I liked Clint's story though!

[Kelly K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oddly enough the original Iron Man comic where Hawkeye and Black Widow first meet was my favorite.

[Cheno N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good, except for those... boring parts in between.

[nooker · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is crap! Bad writing, goofy rename of titles, and poor pacing. It spent about half the book recapping Captain America & Avengers and didn't even finish the Winter Soldier story.

[Bernice Rizor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy comic books

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

To quick of a read. Feel like I got more out of the movie which I have not even seen outside of trailers!

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly just illustrated versions of the movies with a tiny bit extra added in overall not really worth reading as didn’t add a whole lot to the MCU