About This Book:
*Review Contributed By Olivia Farr, Staff Reviewer*
graphic novel of superheroes and the supernatural
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE GHOST ARMY is a new graphic novel adventure of Captain America during WWII. Captain America is fighting off the emeny soldiers with a small team, including 15-year-old Bucky Barnes, when it seems they are vastly outnumbered. Luckily, the United States Ghost Army comes in with their tricks to make it seem like they are bringing in the cavalry. Later that night, as they sit around the campfire, a literal ghost army begins to attack. They are unable to attack them back and only make a retreat by using the knowledge of a Japanese American soldier who knows the mythology that they cannot travel over moving water. They make their escape across the river.
Attacks are escalating as the man in the castle improves his weapon of resurrecting ghosts to fight the allied forces. Captain America and Bucky Barnes will have to defeat him before it is too late and his weapon can be deployed on the larger scale and a demon brought out of another dimension.
What I loved: The illustrations are really fantastic with lots of detail. They really bring the characters to life with plenty of emotion and color. The amount of dialogue was great too, with a focus on the images. It was easy to follow and see who was talking and heavily relied on the images to tell the story, which they did quite well. There were a few important themes throughout, touching upon a history of prejudice with the Japanese American having been put in an internment camp with his family (and the main characters pointing out that this wasn’t right) as well as the Romani characters later discussing the terms they use and the things they have seen and faced as part of WWII.
What left me wanting more: This is being billed as a middle grade, and it was very violent with war scenes (a character loses a hand, though not as bloody as you might expect) plus guns and bombs throughout. The majority of the story is battle scenes. The characters are also older, 18-19 for most of the soldiers and even Bucky was 15. While this may work for some older middle grade readers, I think this would be better targeted to a YA audience. Additionally, the plot came with a few random surprises that seemed a bit out of the blue for drama at the end. It made the story feel less smooth and a bit more convoluted.
Final verdict: CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE GHOST ARMY is a graphic novel adventure of Captain America and Bucky Barnes that will appeal to fans of superhero warfare with a supernatural twist.
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