A friend of mine read the comic in question and said the basic concept boils down to Hydra wasn't always evil and got "corrupted" in WWII. Steve is trying to reform it from within.

Fine. A silly idea but not completely without merit. However, the instant Steve kills a good guy to protect his secret, the whole idea becomes rubbish. As my friend points out, one of Steve Rogers' core concepts is he will always do the right thing even when it's incredibly difficult. And they've thrown that away.

ETA: He also says the writing and art is otherwise very well done, it's just unfortunately shackled to a terrible premise.

Yeah, the art is wonderful. But I'm cancelling my hold on it.

Groups that aren't evil shouldn't be naming themselves after monsters (unless they are a sports team, and then it's just cynical marketing, which now that I think of it is probably evil). That just makes it stupider.

This whole thing just strikes me as adolescent nihilism. "Yeah, I smeared shit on Mom's walls, see how much I don't care about your world, that's just how hip I am."

Let's see how edgy we can be...

I'm imagining the writer's voice breaking like that kid on The Simpsons while he describes his groundbreaking political allegory that's not at all an offensive mess.

So, you're saying last thing he worked on was Poochie?

I went to the comics store to pick up my hold and cancel Captain America. The guy at the counter sighed and nodded, "Yeah, I don't blame you." "Is there anyone who might be interested in the number one issue in there?" "Surprisingly, yes," he said, looking a little pained, "I won't have any trouble selling it to someone else." My comics pushers understand.

My comic shop manager completely understood me rejecting the new series, but then again one of the owners and I were ranting to each other about how wrongheaded the decision is.

Huh. I picked up all the back issues of All New, All Different Avengers. In issue 6, they're fighting a variant of Kang the Conqueror, who's playing with the pasts of people and affecting them in the current world. After the fight, Tony is wondering if Kang did it to anyone else other than the current Avengers people.

So is that what they're pulling with Steve Rogers? I don't remember the writer's interview where he said it wasn't brainwashing and other things. Still obnoxious.