"None Of Us Will Be Carrying You Anymore"
The central conflict in Captain America and Bucky isn't the newest concept in the world. Faced with the growing number of metahumans involved in the fight, how can Bucky compete? Men who can turn into fire, super soldiers, imperius rexes...it's hard to keep up!
Brubaker and Andreyko do some simple, but effective storytelling here. Bucky is a normal man who wishes he was as strong as his compatriots so that he can be as effective. He later faces the Ubermensh, a Germanic super soldier who is temporarily endowed with the super powers of Bucky's super teammates. This is your classic story where you are facing that which you aspire to be and Bucky somehow manages to be up to the task because there's no shortcut to creating greatness (let's just ignore the Captain America part of the equation, shall we?). In fact, it turns out that Bucky's tenacity and willingness to leap before he looks is precisely what enabled him to save Cap and the others.
We're not reinventing storytelling here, but simplicity can be effective and, hey, when you've got Chris Samnee's art to prove it, it becomes even clearer. Samnee has a classic style that seems very simple (few, sharp lines) and has a Golden Age feel, but with more complexity beneath what you're seeing. This is a perfect art/story pairing, without a doubt.
The other great thing was seeing Marvel's roots all in one place. Cap, Bucky, Namor, The Human Torch (not Johnny), and Toro were all Golden Age Marvel characters. They are among the first ones they ever created and it's just a real treat to see them all together fighting the good fight against the Nazis. What a book!
Captain America and Bucky may not be as great as Thor: The Mighty Avenger was, but I assure you that it's a solid book that has yet to put out a stinker. You could do much worse than read this lighthearted and happy book that hearkens to the olden days of comics without getting too Silver Age in its writing style.
