As with Vol. 1, Golden Age Captain America Vol. 2, reprinting issues 5-8, pairs Jack Kirby penciled stories with various and lackluster backup series (the most ludicrous being the scythe-bearing Father Time, who stops crime in the nick of..you know). As the issues progress, Kirby's attention (or the time he had to devote to the stories) begins to diminish. He's most strong on the book's covers and especially the splash pages and story openings (including at least two double-page spreads) which are expansively cinematic in nature, and utilize more careful, elaborate inking. Though the stories are often rote, some single images powerful in their nascent form stand out. A full-page diorama drawing of a submarine shaped like a sea-dragon could be mistaken for a page from Nick Fury, Agent of Shield twenty-five years later. In the book's first tale, "Captain America and the Ringmaster of Death" (the Ringmaster being one of two Marvel villains of the same name and temperament), Cap is knocked unconscious, his head banging into a brick wall. The fury shown in his bruised and battered face when he awakens ("Captain America's eyes gleam with a strange light. His face muscles tighten as his words hiss from between his bared teeth") is a prototype of Kirby's 1970s Orion, when his Apokoliptean nature takes hold. Kirby was at his best when he tapped into his own real emotions and I'm feelin' it here.
