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Captain America Epic Collection
Captain America Epic Collection, Vol. 9: Dawn's Early Light
Even for Captain America, life has rarely been this eventful! Battling the robotic Dragon Man above New York, considering running for President, and saving Manhattan from fiery destruction at Batroc and Mr. Hyde's hands is all in a day's work. And a trip to England proves to be no vacation either, as Cap encounters the vampire Baron Blood and the chilling Ghost of Greymoor Castle! Back home in the States, our hero learns that Hollywood plans to make a Captain America movie...the only problem is, his greatest foe, the Red Skull, has a very different script in mind! Finally, Cap has to prevent Morgan MacNeil Hardy from rewriting the American dream. COLLECTING: CAPTAIN AMERICA (1968) 247-266, ANNUAL 5, (CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION VOL. 9)
479 pages, Paperback
First published March 4, 2014
12 people are currently reading
145 people want to read
About the author
John Byrne
2,960 books360 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.
Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.
Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 27, 2025
The first half of this is by Roger Stern and John Byrne and it's fantastic. They were collected years ago in Captain America: War & Remembrance. The stories are great and Cap has never looked better. Cap fights Baron Strucker, Dragon Man, Machinesmith, Mr. Hyde and Batroc, and Baron Blood. These issues were written 40 years ago and still feel fresh today. This was also part of John Byrne's golden years at Marvel where everything he drew was fantastic. The first 6 pages of art from the 10th issue of the Byrne/Stern run are also included.
Sadly they both left the book before it was complete. So there's a bunch of fill-in stories and then JM DeMatteis and Mike Zeck take over in the 2nd half. Zeck also draws a great Captain America. He's one of the characters Zeck is most known for. The stories after Stern and Byrne leave just aren't nearly as good though. They are middling at best.
Sadly they both left the book before it was complete. So there's a bunch of fill-in stories and then JM DeMatteis and Mike Zeck take over in the 2nd half. Zeck also draws a great Captain America. He's one of the characters Zeck is most known for. The stories after Stern and Byrne leave just aren't nearly as good though. They are middling at best.
August 30, 2015
This TPB covers the full Roger Stern/John Byrne run (none of which I have read), and about half of the Mike Zeck run. For me, the best part was the art. Between Byrne and Zeck it's a visual treat.
The stories vary and cover a wide range of themes and villains. You get quite a bit dealing with the supporting cast for Steve Rogers along with his issues of trying to maintain a job as a commercial artists (which never quite sit well with me.) There's a minor significant moment where Cap gets his star-spangled motorcycle and I'll have to research but there's a story that I think is when Spider-Man finds out Cap's identity.
Again, most of the stories were the straight bad guy plot that the good guy stops. Some were entertaining and some were average and most were fairly wordy as was typical for the time period, but all worth reading at least for the artwork.
The stories vary and cover a wide range of themes and villains. You get quite a bit dealing with the supporting cast for Steve Rogers along with his issues of trying to maintain a job as a commercial artists (which never quite sit well with me.) There's a minor significant moment where Cap gets his star-spangled motorcycle and I'll have to research but there's a story that I think is when Spider-Man finds out Cap's identity.
Again, most of the stories were the straight bad guy plot that the good guy stops. Some were entertaining and some were average and most were fairly wordy as was typical for the time period, but all worth reading at least for the artwork.
June 6, 2017
I'm not a big Captain America fan. I've read very little of his solo books. But I have read the Masterworks that have been released. And of course the Kirby run which I love to death. It's some of Kirby's best work, as is all of the material he did upon his return to Marvel post-DC era. And I've read spotty bits of the more recent material since the turn of the century.
What I found in this book I liked quite well. Each issue is mostly self contained. And this book could easily be the starting point for a reader new to the character. The John Byrne run that kicks off the volume was phenomenal. The rest is a bit of a mixed bag. There's some great Mike Zeck art including a Spider-man and Nick Fury team-up that serves as the book's super-fun mad scientist finale.
I really wish more of this era was in print. There are very wide gaps that are now out of print or that have never been collected and are missing that hopefully will be filled by Epic Collections. This link will guide you to all of the collected editions for Captain America (Vol. 1 ) https://comicvine.gamespot.com/captai...
What I found in this book I liked quite well. Each issue is mostly self contained. And this book could easily be the starting point for a reader new to the character. The John Byrne run that kicks off the volume was phenomenal. The rest is a bit of a mixed bag. There's some great Mike Zeck art including a Spider-man and Nick Fury team-up that serves as the book's super-fun mad scientist finale.
I really wish more of this era was in print. There are very wide gaps that are now out of print or that have never been collected and are missing that hopefully will be filled by Epic Collections. This link will guide you to all of the collected editions for Captain America (Vol. 1 ) https://comicvine.gamespot.com/captai...
December 17, 2024
God I'm loving epic collections so much.
Captain America is my fav Avenger, and I knew I needed at least one epic collection for him. I hadn't really looked at seminal runs or big storylines to collect per say, but this was one of the ones that I'd seen recommended as good starting points for new readers.
In terms of reading Marvel and superhero comics as a whole, I am not a new reader. But in regards to reading older comics, this is a new thing that I'm diving into, and I knew I was not as experienced in this sub section of the comic community.
Needless to say, the recommendations held up. This book was really fun. Sometimes its nice to take a break from the trade wait storytelling of modern comics and read something more serialized and action packed. This executes that perfectly, with so many short stories in here that I actually really liked.
Roger Stern is a really good writer for old school comic books. I know he and John Byrne worked on this book together, but after reading Byrne's Man of Steel vols 1 and 2, I can tell that this was not Byrne's doing to make the book great.
There's not much to say that I find to be inherently special about their run, more so that I just enjoyed what I was reading. Cap feels like Cap, this embodiment of Americana and hope in the American dream. The writing's fun and has all the tropes of an old school superhero comic, but I typically find those more endearing at this point than I do annoying.
I liked the story about the man trying to be released from his hellish robo body and manipulating Captain America to do it. That's just such a great concept that I thought was good, but it didn't completely take my breath away. I just remember kinda nodding my head and saying "huh" allowed to myself in impression. I can't ask too much of these older stories so I'm not going to complain too much, but if you think any of these stories sound interesting just remember they're covered by dense, over the top, and oftentimes corny writing.
I love the idea of Cap being asked to be president of the US, and I think its a really fun idea to explore who would and wouldn't support that choice. There's a couple of things that I find to be out of character or not reflective of Steve Rogers, such as when Spider-Man says "gee I never saw Cap as a political guy". Like what? He's wearing literal stars and stripes on him, that is a political message whether you like it or not. If that's not enough for you, later on in this same epic collection, Cap advocates for police reform, fights men that are trying to burn buildings down just to get the property value down, punches literal Neo Nazis and fights racists and the KKK. Hell, before Stern's run on the character, Steve Rogers gives up being Captain America because he's disappointed in the way the country's run. Captain America is and always will be a political figure.
This was my only big gripe with the writing. The art is a very different story. I do not understand how anyone takes Byrne's work seriously. I HATE the way he draws his characters. Everyone has really buggy looking eyes that don't fit their face, the mouths contort in ways that don't look great, and for God's sake, why does every character have cheek bones the size of grenades on their face??? Every character looks like an alien tried to draw a human. Byrne only knows how to draw one face and unfortunately for the reader chose to stick with it instead of change. Its partly why I hate the Man of Steel book (among MANY other reasons), and it actually hinders his and Stern's writing for the book as well. I think the inker on the book switches, because the first two or three storylines it reads as not great but passable art, but by the Nazi vampire in London arc its pretty hard to look at.
There's plenty of other writers in here as well that do more for me than Stern and Byrne though. J.M DeMatteis, Chris Claremont, Jim Shooter, and David Michelinie take a stab at the character as well. There are some others that I can't remember off the top of my head but everyone here does a really good job surprisingly. Some of them surprised me in good ways, others in less good ways.
DeMatteis to me is known for his Spider-Man story "Kraven's Last Hunt" (which I caved and bought the Epic Collection for as well), which was released several years after his Captain America run. You can see the writer really growing here, since his first published works in comics were in the late 70s and this series was in 81 or 82. I think this disappointed me since I've really only read the writer at his best with JLI and the story I mentioned previously. Which is why I have to report that this is only an okay storyline in my opinion.
This does not dissuade me from Mick Zeck as an artist though. He was definitely one of the best in the industry at the time, and I love how different each of his characters come across from their body types to their facial expressions, their hair and everything in between. He was destined for great things, and its no wonder he'd end up being a legend of comicdom.
Claremont's not one of my personal favorite comic writers either, but he did a great job with Captain America. I am not a personal fan of his run on X-Men, which is why I unfortunately never really got into the characters as a whole. But here, a lot of the Claremont-isms aren't as apparent. Its not written as soap opera-y and is more just a story about Cap helping his firefighter friend get justice for the murder of his friend. Really good plot here and I love the political commentary here about burning buildings to lessen the price of land as I mentioned earlier.
Gene Colan gets a chance to shine a couple of times here as an artist, and I think he does a great job here as always. He's a legend in the industry, and his heavy use of shadow, anatomy, and dynamic layouts always made the stories beautiful and interesting to read. The writers he was paired with don't do anything particularly great in my eyes, but whoever wrote the story about visiting the mansion with the z rays really took advantage of Colan's strengths. It plays into the horror elements that the artist was really good at in things like Tomb of Dracula and his work on Batman.
However, it is Jim Shooter of all people who actually put a smile on my face after reading his story. I am not a fan of Shooter's editorial system for a number of reasons I don't want to get into here. But goddammit, he wrote a really good issue of Captain America that did so much right. It is perfect start to finish and might be one of my all time favorite single issue stories.
So basically, Steve had an old friend from the war that he visits. He finds that the man's mechanic shop has been robbed, and he doesn't seem like himself. We come to find out that the war pal's son was the one who stole that money and is hanging with a bike gang that are no good. So no good that they wear Nazi memorabilia and complain about Cap being a has been. Steve's able to talk some sense into the son, not by forcing him to go home and do the right thing, but by showing him that the only person with the power to fix this is himself.
Eventually, the son realizes that Steve's right. Its not Steve giving the guy the right answer or forcing him to submit, its allowing the man to realize the error of his ways and change for the better. By the end, the young man goes back home, works off the money that he stole for his father, and he goes and visits Captain America, thanking him with an awesome modded out America bike.
This is such a wholesome story to me, I just love seeing heroes do little things like this that effect people's lives, and I feel like its stories like this that evolved our favorite characters out of the propaganda golden age and silly shenanigan silver age to something more concrete. These heroes are like clay, constantly molded and chipped away at to shape what is the present day version of these characters.
Needless to say I had a lot of fun reading this book. I'm not going to cover the other stories in here because those were good but didn't stand out to me the same way these did. But I wanted to take the time to mention the ones that really did capture my attention, the ones I could see an older generation growing up with and treasuring, and something I want to pass on to the next to inspire them to be the best version of themselves.
Captain America is my fav Avenger, and I knew I needed at least one epic collection for him. I hadn't really looked at seminal runs or big storylines to collect per say, but this was one of the ones that I'd seen recommended as good starting points for new readers.
In terms of reading Marvel and superhero comics as a whole, I am not a new reader. But in regards to reading older comics, this is a new thing that I'm diving into, and I knew I was not as experienced in this sub section of the comic community.
Needless to say, the recommendations held up. This book was really fun. Sometimes its nice to take a break from the trade wait storytelling of modern comics and read something more serialized and action packed. This executes that perfectly, with so many short stories in here that I actually really liked.
Roger Stern is a really good writer for old school comic books. I know he and John Byrne worked on this book together, but after reading Byrne's Man of Steel vols 1 and 2, I can tell that this was not Byrne's doing to make the book great.
There's not much to say that I find to be inherently special about their run, more so that I just enjoyed what I was reading. Cap feels like Cap, this embodiment of Americana and hope in the American dream. The writing's fun and has all the tropes of an old school superhero comic, but I typically find those more endearing at this point than I do annoying.
I liked the story about the man trying to be released from his hellish robo body and manipulating Captain America to do it. That's just such a great concept that I thought was good, but it didn't completely take my breath away. I just remember kinda nodding my head and saying "huh" allowed to myself in impression. I can't ask too much of these older stories so I'm not going to complain too much, but if you think any of these stories sound interesting just remember they're covered by dense, over the top, and oftentimes corny writing.
I love the idea of Cap being asked to be president of the US, and I think its a really fun idea to explore who would and wouldn't support that choice. There's a couple of things that I find to be out of character or not reflective of Steve Rogers, such as when Spider-Man says "gee I never saw Cap as a political guy". Like what? He's wearing literal stars and stripes on him, that is a political message whether you like it or not. If that's not enough for you, later on in this same epic collection, Cap advocates for police reform, fights men that are trying to burn buildings down just to get the property value down, punches literal Neo Nazis and fights racists and the KKK. Hell, before Stern's run on the character, Steve Rogers gives up being Captain America because he's disappointed in the way the country's run. Captain America is and always will be a political figure.
This was my only big gripe with the writing. The art is a very different story. I do not understand how anyone takes Byrne's work seriously. I HATE the way he draws his characters. Everyone has really buggy looking eyes that don't fit their face, the mouths contort in ways that don't look great, and for God's sake, why does every character have cheek bones the size of grenades on their face??? Every character looks like an alien tried to draw a human. Byrne only knows how to draw one face and unfortunately for the reader chose to stick with it instead of change. Its partly why I hate the Man of Steel book (among MANY other reasons), and it actually hinders his and Stern's writing for the book as well. I think the inker on the book switches, because the first two or three storylines it reads as not great but passable art, but by the Nazi vampire in London arc its pretty hard to look at.
There's plenty of other writers in here as well that do more for me than Stern and Byrne though. J.M DeMatteis, Chris Claremont, Jim Shooter, and David Michelinie take a stab at the character as well. There are some others that I can't remember off the top of my head but everyone here does a really good job surprisingly. Some of them surprised me in good ways, others in less good ways.
DeMatteis to me is known for his Spider-Man story "Kraven's Last Hunt" (which I caved and bought the Epic Collection for as well), which was released several years after his Captain America run. You can see the writer really growing here, since his first published works in comics were in the late 70s and this series was in 81 or 82. I think this disappointed me since I've really only read the writer at his best with JLI and the story I mentioned previously. Which is why I have to report that this is only an okay storyline in my opinion.
This does not dissuade me from Mick Zeck as an artist though. He was definitely one of the best in the industry at the time, and I love how different each of his characters come across from their body types to their facial expressions, their hair and everything in between. He was destined for great things, and its no wonder he'd end up being a legend of comicdom.
Claremont's not one of my personal favorite comic writers either, but he did a great job with Captain America. I am not a personal fan of his run on X-Men, which is why I unfortunately never really got into the characters as a whole. But here, a lot of the Claremont-isms aren't as apparent. Its not written as soap opera-y and is more just a story about Cap helping his firefighter friend get justice for the murder of his friend. Really good plot here and I love the political commentary here about burning buildings to lessen the price of land as I mentioned earlier.
Gene Colan gets a chance to shine a couple of times here as an artist, and I think he does a great job here as always. He's a legend in the industry, and his heavy use of shadow, anatomy, and dynamic layouts always made the stories beautiful and interesting to read. The writers he was paired with don't do anything particularly great in my eyes, but whoever wrote the story about visiting the mansion with the z rays really took advantage of Colan's strengths. It plays into the horror elements that the artist was really good at in things like Tomb of Dracula and his work on Batman.
However, it is Jim Shooter of all people who actually put a smile on my face after reading his story. I am not a fan of Shooter's editorial system for a number of reasons I don't want to get into here. But goddammit, he wrote a really good issue of Captain America that did so much right. It is perfect start to finish and might be one of my all time favorite single issue stories.
So basically, Steve had an old friend from the war that he visits. He finds that the man's mechanic shop has been robbed, and he doesn't seem like himself. We come to find out that the war pal's son was the one who stole that money and is hanging with a bike gang that are no good. So no good that they wear Nazi memorabilia and complain about Cap being a has been. Steve's able to talk some sense into the son, not by forcing him to go home and do the right thing, but by showing him that the only person with the power to fix this is himself.
Eventually, the son realizes that Steve's right. Its not Steve giving the guy the right answer or forcing him to submit, its allowing the man to realize the error of his ways and change for the better. By the end, the young man goes back home, works off the money that he stole for his father, and he goes and visits Captain America, thanking him with an awesome modded out America bike.
This is such a wholesome story to me, I just love seeing heroes do little things like this that effect people's lives, and I feel like its stories like this that evolved our favorite characters out of the propaganda golden age and silly shenanigan silver age to something more concrete. These heroes are like clay, constantly molded and chipped away at to shape what is the present day version of these characters.
Needless to say I had a lot of fun reading this book. I'm not going to cover the other stories in here because those were good but didn't stand out to me the same way these did. But I wanted to take the time to mention the ones that really did capture my attention, the ones I could see an older generation growing up with and treasuring, and something I want to pass on to the next to inspire them to be the best version of themselves.
August 7, 2021
A fase do Byrne e do Stern são poucas edições, mas eu acho bem divertidas.
Temos o Mecanus e o Homem Dragão, a introdução da Bernie Rosenthal, Capitão América candidato a presidente - vamos combinar, eleger um capitão não é a ideia mais brilhante da história -, Mr Hyde - um dos vilões mais ridículos da Marvel - e Batroc - meu bigode favorito dos quadrinhos - unidos num plano mirabolante para explodir Nova Iorque, e , o grande momento, Capitão América contra o Barão Sangue na Inglaterra. A fase termina com uma recapitulação da origem do Capitão.
Depois temos vários autores tentando escrever alguma coisa coerente, sem muito sucesso: Capitão América no cinema, Ameridroid e o Caveirão, cachorros robôs, controle mental, realidades alternativas, segredos do passado e aquelas coisas todas que sempre acontecem no quadrinhos e a maior prova é que nada possui consequência, ou mesmo uma pequena referência, nas edições futuras, vocês se lembram do Sultan? Pois é, ninguém se lembra desse cara.
Ah, mas o bigode do Batroc, esse sim, é inesquecível.
Temos o Mecanus e o Homem Dragão, a introdução da Bernie Rosenthal, Capitão América candidato a presidente - vamos combinar, eleger um capitão não é a ideia mais brilhante da história -, Mr Hyde - um dos vilões mais ridículos da Marvel - e Batroc - meu bigode favorito dos quadrinhos - unidos num plano mirabolante para explodir Nova Iorque, e , o grande momento, Capitão América contra o Barão Sangue na Inglaterra. A fase termina com uma recapitulação da origem do Capitão.
Depois temos vários autores tentando escrever alguma coisa coerente, sem muito sucesso: Capitão América no cinema, Ameridroid e o Caveirão, cachorros robôs, controle mental, realidades alternativas, segredos do passado e aquelas coisas todas que sempre acontecem no quadrinhos e a maior prova é que nada possui consequência, ou mesmo uma pequena referência, nas edições futuras, vocês se lembram do Sultan? Pois é, ninguém se lembra desse cara.
Ah, mas o bigode do Batroc, esse sim, é inesquecível.
January 5, 2024
Esse volume de Epic Collection Marvel, o primeiro focado no Capitão América, é bem fácil de dividir. A primeira parte, conduzida por Roger Stern e John Byrne traz histórias bem elaboradas, bem pensadas, lindamente desenhadas, que até mesmo articulam diversas críticas sociais em suas páginas. Um arco que já foi publicado no Brasil pelo menos duas vezes no formato original. Depois, segue uma segunda parte deste encadernado que são histórias sem eira nem beira, sem pé nem cabeça, feita por "too many hands", como a Marvel mesmo dizia. São diversos roteiristas, diversos desenhistas e muito mais artefinalistas trabalhando na outra metade deste Epic Collection do Capitão América, o que não traz nenhuma consistência para as histórias, que são ruins e até mesmo patéticas, como uma que apresenta o Capitão contra cães robôs raivosos. Pode-se perceber que as histórias foram encomendadas de última hora e que faltou braço editorial para dar unidade àquelas histórias. Ou seja, metade da publicação vale muito a pena e metade não vale nada (mas eu gosto de você).
February 1, 2021
This books starts off with some of the best Cap stories I’ve ever read. The Byrne/Stern team was just knocking them out of the park one issue after another. The stories involving Machinesmith, Batroc & Mr Hyde, and Baron Blood were so much fun to read. After that the book drops in quality in terms of story. A lot of the issues are Cap stumbles into the base of someone trying to rule the world and he fights the henchman before taking out the boss. Though we do get some terrific art from Gene Colan and Mick Zeck. Still giving this book four stars because of how much I loved the first third of this book.
August 27, 2018
Some of it is pretty silly, as you'd expect from that era and from the fact that there are a lot of fillers in here. But there are some gems in here, too. Especially the art by John Byrne and Mike Zeck and some of the stories by Stern, DeMatteis and Michelinie make this run worth to be rediscovered. I was especially charmed by the cute romantic moments between Steve and new love interest Bernie Rosenthal, who I'd always had a soft spot for. All in all a fine 80s collection of superhero comics.
November 12, 2020
Mostly three stars for the Stern/Byrne beginning. I had always heard high praise for that run, though short (10 issues). But really, most of what it did was clean up continuity messes of the post-Kirby era and retell Cap’s origin with an editorial mind to fuse disparate elements, all with Byrne’s polished art. It was not the Cap masterpiece, but it was a righting of the ship. The rest of the issues are not stellar. I am hopeful for the furthering of DeMatteis’s run however.
December 1, 2021
Cap sure is one fightin SOB... in this Epic he's fighting racism, nazi terrorists, art deadlines, reality warpers, vampires, punks and thugs, sexual harassment and robots... geez, so many robots. Even the dogs in this book are robots. Capt might have been a robot, I got lost. Its good if you dig robots and you know I do.
January 14, 2026
Definitely prefer the Roger Stern portion of this collection but there’s some good stuff in here with Steve Rogers facing off against Baron Strucker, Machinesmith, Mr. Hyde, Baron Blood and the stupid corny ass Batroc the Leaper. Covers 1980-1982.
August 2, 2019
This book restored my faith and love of Captain America... even if a few favorites were missing and a few plot lines were a little silly.
March 25, 2020
Not as fun as some of the other comics I’ve been reading. Cap feels a little stuffy. I enjoyed the crossovers with some of his old Invader pals and the final issues with Spider-Man.
July 28, 2021
The first few issues in this collection, previously collected as "War & Remembrance," are the best ones here. The rest are a hodge-podge of issues that don't string together very well.
August 15, 2021
One of the better Epic Collections I've read. The art is a real standout.
June 16, 2022
I have a special fondness for this Cap era. It’s right when I started collecting the title as a teen.
January 28, 2017
Una voluminosa raccolte di storie. Le prime nove, ossia la run di Stern e Byrne, sono tra le migliori di sempre. Poi una serie di storie singole, alcune di alta qualità come Greymoore Castle disegnata da Colan, altre meno. Le ultime storie del volume sono le prime di De Matteis e Zeck, buone ma inferiori a Stern e Byrne.
October 1, 2015
This book was amazing by taking all the stories and putting them together so instead of wanting to go get the next issue its right there. the book is filled with cliff hangers and suspense. i recommend this to some one who likes 1% romance 5% normal talking 90% action and 4% narrative.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews