I would like to thank Julia from Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan Books

Published – Out Now

Price - £8.99 paperback

Super heroes survive. It’s what they do. But so, do the villains that haunt them.

Steve Rogers knows the art of survival better than most. Decades under ice will do that to a man. But the Avengers chipped more than rock-hard morality and super-strength out from under that permafrost. When Cap takes out a terrorist cell threatening to poison the world, he’ll discover a threat far more deadly. An incurable virus has hidden in his body for years – and now it’s come to the surface. To save the world, he’ll have to return to his own personal hell: deep freeze

And he’ll have to take an old friend with him. Having survived his own death by inhabiting a clone of Steve Rogers, the Red Skull has inherited the virus – and he’s a little less willing to play martyr. AS the deadly disease shifts and evolves, new patterns emerge. Can Captain America contain the red Skull before the virus runs rampant?

Dear reader I think its important I reveal something very important about myself.  I love giant robot/machine battles. Pacific Rim, Power Rangers or Voltron I love those kind of battles. They are FUN with all the destruction and epicness that you cannot get in other genres. In Captain America - Dark Designs by Stefan Petrucha; the latest in a series of Marvel prose novels based on the comic universe rather than the MCU films it delivered me giant robots, superhero banter, battles against Nazis and therefore it was just a huge amount of fast well based fun.

The action starts with Cap about to stop terrorists releasing an enhanced version of rabies on Wakanda. While Cap manages to stop them his two medical experts the extremely focused Dr Kade and the more free-wheeling Wakandan scientist Dr Nia N’Tomo when performing a deep scan of Steve Rogers afterwards make a terrifying discovery. He appears to have been carrying for many years an undetectable latent virus capable of wiping out the human race. They suspect this is related to his original deep freeze in the arctic following his WW2 adventures. Dr Kade however has made projections that it is possible that this virus will reactivate itself and kill billions.  The only solution is to deep freeze Captain America until a cure can be found – Cap reluctantly agrees this is the safest option.

But at the same time The Red Skull (who in this universe is in the body of a clone of Steve but with the lovely skin regime we know and love) has started to feel very ill (how suspicious) and has decided in a fit of pique that before dying he should awaken some ancient Nazi technology – the Sleeper Machines – huge destructive devices that want to find and kill Captain America (and are voiced by Hitler!). Steve and the rest of Shield; including Nick Fury and Tony Stark, need to work with an incapacitated Steve to stop them before it’s too late for everyone.

It would be very easy to push this into the realm of over the top fan service but Petrucha avoids slamming the tale into permanent fourth gear and the action has some well-crafted lulls and key for a novel format gets to play with the character’s internal battle too. An idea I liked here is that this a Captain who can’t throw himself into the battle and instead needs to watch the action from a helicarrier hospital ward. Tony and Steve have to find new ways for him to get involved and push himself out of his comfort zone – replying on technology that is not a shield; giving orders from the back.  It’s interesting to see a Steve Rogers being pushed rather than leading and his drive to do better each time really gives a nice insight into his character.

I think the novel also gets two things right that I would expect from any Marvel tale.  Here the action scenes really do flow and while we cannot get the visual splendour of a two-page splash we can get huge battles in the sea, air and even on the streets of Paris. There is also some lovely Tony Steve banter that feels right – these two annoy each other and yet respect each other at the same time which does bring a smile to the face at times. My one reservation is we really could have done with more female characters I love the way Dr N’Tomo is shown as a competent expert the team respect but a few more heroes and villains who were not men would have made this a little more reflective of where the marvel universe now is going.

Overall a really fun and surprisingly inventive tale with some unexpected turns.  Petrucha clearly has a good ear for these characters combined with a style that can balance character moments with lush action scenes.  Very much one of those reads that it’s hard to stop smiling as the tale progresses so please join me!