CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER – THE ART OF THE MOVIE By Matthew K. Manning

Titan Books are rereleasing the 24 books of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a unified set. This is the fourth, following Iron Man 2, which I reviewed HERE.

So, like last time…. Imagine that it is now 2011. Iron Man 2 was released last year, and was fairly well received critically. It also earned over $629 million against a cost of about $200 million.

The pressure is now on for the next movie to carry the franchise forward. Captain America the First Avenger is that movie, the fifth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Like before, Captain America: The First Avenger – The Art of the Movie assumes you know the plot of the movie. (For those who can’t remember, briefly: It is the origin story of how Steve Rogers in World War Two became Captain America after being administered a super-serum. He then spends his time fighting Hydra forces and meets enemies such as the Red Skull before being frozen in an aeroplane crash. Other movies will tell how he is then found and resurrected to join the modern-day Avengers.)

The Foreword is by designer Rick Heinrichs, written in 2011. The Introduction, written by Manning, gives us a fascinating overview on how Captain America came into being and has evolved over time – in the 1940’s he was initially a character that Americans could get behind, a patriot designed to inspire America’s youth, fighting characters such as the Red Skull and even the Japanese and Adolf Hitler.

Post-World War Two, Captain America fell out of favour until the 1960’s when he was resurrected by Jack Kirby. Now questioning the government and its agenda, Cap found himself popular again.

The chapters after that then deal with different facets of the Captain America origin story – the war effort, the actions against Hydra in the 1940’s. Much of this is illustrated with Keyframe and concept art, mainly by concept artist Ryan Meinerding, which has the look and feel of old-school poster art. As the movie is set mainly in the 1940’s, I loved the fact that the artwork often matches the detailed styles of artwork of the time.

The attention to detail is seriously impressive – it is, frankly, stunning.

Other characters are also given their moments – the Red Skull, played by Hugo Weaving, is appropriately horrific, the love interest Peggy Carter but also minor characters such as evil scientist Arnim Zola, the Hydra troopers and Tony Stark’s father Howard Stark, played by Dominic Cooper. Each has production drawings of how their outfits were worn, often combined with production stills to show the final product.

Sets, guns, submarines, tanks and aircraft are included, all impressively presented with a combination of artwork and computer-generated images. The final chapter shows some of the artwork created to promote the film.

Confession time: Captain America: The First Avenger is one of my favourite Marvel Universe movies – perhaps my favourite. This art book does it justice, with detailed pictures, production drawings and stills from the movie. As much as I liked the Iron Man 2 book, I liked this one more. There are fascinating details on the movie’s vision, with revelatory interviews with the production staff throughout, not to mention that some of the images in this book are so good that they would be worthy enough to go on my walls at home.