Folks, you better stop and think: Graeme deals with Acceptance, 7/5.

You know, I really thought that Jeph Loeb was building to something with the whole FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA thing. I don't really know why, to be honest; I'd been through Superman/Batman and watched as those 25 issues resolutely failed to have any real sense of resolution. I'd put that down to everything else that was happening in his life at the time, and kept this vague hope that - despite all the usual claims and complaints about Loeb's writing - he really could finish a story after all.

And it seemed as if Fallen Son was building to something, you know? The way that the characters followed through the individual issues, with Wolverine seeming to act as some kind of guide through the whole shebang... I honestly thought that there was going to be some kind of emotional payoff, at least, in the final issue. And with the rumors of spoilers and big events that should get retailers ordering extra copies, and of news coverage of this issue, I thought: Okay. We're building to something after all.

Except we're not.

It's not that the final issue is bad, per se. John Cassaday's art is fine enough - As much as I recognize how technically good he is, I really don't get why everyone loves his work as much as they do - and I appreciate the weird, Sinatra-esque take on Rick Jones (complete with apparently-receding hair, which amused me greatly for some reason), but there's no there there. I appreciate that Loeb (and, presumably, Marvel) felt that Captain America's funeral was enough of an event to finish the series with a bang (or dull thud of a coffin going into the ground, perhaps) but there's still no proper closure. Lots of flashbacks and lots of dramatic speechifyin', sure, but nothing else. Maybe that's to be expected - it is just a spin-off cash-in to the central plot from Captain America's own book, after all - but logically knowing that doesn't stop this from being a letdown that makes you go Eh.