It’s All Coming Together: Reviewing ‘Captain America: Symbol Of Truth’ #4

Things have been steadily building up, the plot of the villains and the actions of the heroes overlapping but staying in their own lanes through the first three issues of Captain America: Symbol of Truth. With the fourth issue though, all those paths are now not only coming together but are crashing together pretty explosively.

Within this issue Tochi Onyebuchi gives us a spin on a variety of typical situations that come in action/thriller stories of this sort, adding in twists and bits of his own alongside a lot of very relevant real-world situations/issues. We get the escape sequence/rescue moment for Juaquin Torres/Falcon, the failed spy attempt of Sam Wilson, the hero finally battling one of the villains, the subsequent villain starting to reveal the evil plan, and then the inevitable heroes clashing over the current situation.

It’s one of those issues where it simultaneously feels like a ton is happening but also not a ton is happening but it’s all relevant and reads swiftly. All while giving us more insight into various characters and the overall plot itself. Again, I like that while we learn far more here, we still are not being given every piece of White Wolf and Crossbones’ full plans, leaving some mystery for us to discover as it moves along. Onyebuchi makes the slow burn approach to plot work because so much of the time is spent on really great character and world-building alongside elements of the main plot.

As I stated in the last issue review, I appreciate that Sam and Joaquin are in separate places dealing with different situations rather than being tied together because of their partnership. Both are very capable in their own ways, Joaquin is much more of a seasoned hero thanks to years with the Champions and others in the years since he first met Sam, and have different paths to take. Granted, those paths were ones that were foreseen by White Wolf as he guided each of them to the places that he wanted them, as Crossbones reveals.

Once more we have a combination of work from R.B. Silva and Zé Carlos within the issue with Jesus Aburtov handling the coloring still. Carlos and Silva’s styles are on the surface different but similar enough that it’s not jarring and doesn’t really take the reader out of the issue like some artist jams can end up doing because of very different styles. Having Silva handle the Sam/Wakanda/Crossbones scenes and Carlos doing the Falcon scenes helps with this, as each section has its own look and feel.

Unlike the last issue where the action levels were low, we get some fun action sequences with Sam and Crossbones coming to blows and the escape/rescue happening with Joaquin. Both artists have the ability to infuse their work with smooth kinetic energy as the action flows through the page, while also really nailing the more emotional/character beats that are needed. Also, I would love to see Silva get to regularly handle someplace like Wakanda because those pages were just utterly gorgeous and did so much justice to that advanced and beautiful city.

Whichever sequence one points at, Aburtov makes them look bright and colorful while also bringing in all the more neutral and realistic sort of world element colors. Both bits of coloring share so much in common, yet there are minor differences that he brings to each page to fit the style of the particular artist. In the Wakanda/Sam pages they have a bit of lightness and toned-down nature while still being bright/slick, and in the Joaquin pages, they are a bit more saturated and heavier in some ways.

A veteran letterer like Joe Caramagna brings a lot to any series they work on, making it seem easy to have the dialogue flow through the pages in the best way possible. At the same time, making sure that every bit of emotion or personality is coming through, and that we’re able to read it in a way that we can perfectly ‘hear’ precisely how the character might be speaking at any given moment (louder, softer, etc).

Captain America: Symbol of Truth #4 is now available.