The First Steps Of Recovery
I've never been much of a Captain America fan. Not because I dislike the character, but simply because I haven't read much with him in it. Now, since Cap isn't in this story, that hasn't changed. But this story has made me a fan, much to my surprise, of Bucky. Much like with Robin, it's easy to look at Bucky as just a cheesy sidekick if your unfamiliar with the material. However, also much like Robin, there's a deep and thought provoking character behind the name (or names, in Robin's case). Brubaker does a fantastic job of bringing this to light for James Barnes through both dialogue and action and, just like with the previous volume, it's that writing of the character that stands out above everything else in this story.
The Burden of Dreams reads at a much faster clip than its predecessor. The book contains a huge amount of action scenes and thus, with much less dialogue to read, you'll be finished with the book before you know it. That's not all bad though. For one, the action is well illustrated by Steve Epting and there wasn't a single fight scene that I didn't look over a second time just for fun. The fight between Bucky as Captain America and Crossbones is of particular note. Secondly, the action on display isn't of the mindless variety. Each action packed panel is used to show how Bucky is handling the weighty mantle he's taken up. As the new Captain America, he's constantly trying to do Steve proud through his fights and he compares himself to his mentor frequently, as highlighted by his inner dialogue. The best moment, though, comes when he realizes that it's not the fighting that's going to be the hard part. Living up to the standard set by Steve in leadership is.
Not everything is all fine and dandy with the writing though. I still don't care about Sharon Carter and the "emotional trauma" she's going through, Tony Stark and Falcon's investigation of Steve's death isn't exactly entertaining or thrilling, and the romance between Bucky and the Black Widow is flat. Fortunately, despite all this going against it, this story is still great by virtue of the excellent writing in regards to Bucky taking on the mantle of Captain America.
Art-wise, I'm not sure why I didn't notice it before, but all the characters in this story are really shiny, even when they're out of costume. It's kind of distracting, but it's really the only major hiccup with the art in this story. As before, there really isn't any one panel that sticks out as memorable to me, but just about everything is very well done and as I said before, the action scenes are all incredibly exciting.
A marginal improvement over the previous volume, though if only because the strengths of the last one are stronger here, and the weaknesses haven't gotten any weaker. Still, this storyline is much easier to recommend now that I've read this portion of it.