One-third of this novel contains an adaptation (or rather a summarization) of Captain America's battles against the Red Skull, the death of Bucky, and other historic moments of his past, the remaining two-thirds is an original story that was simply so thin that I suspect the summary of the past events in the comic book issues was to help pad the novel. Three phantom figures of depravity, The Eagle, The Starling and The Raven, hatch a scheme on the entire gold reserve of the United States, estimated to be twelve billion dollars.
Oddly, the origin of a super serum for Captain America is replaced with a reference to having all of his bones replaced with steel rods, and when he loses one of his shields, he simply goes over to the Avengers Tower to grab another one. Endowed with extraordinary physical and mental powers, Steve Rogers, better known to the world as the invincible Captain America, races into action -- and into destruction -- to thwart the scheme.
Sincerely, this story came off like a made-for-TV movie or, had there been a live action weekly television series, this would have made up one of those hour-long episodes. Usually novels of this length have time periods that extend beyond a few hours and comes off like an epic. Instead, I felt like I watched an hour-long TV episode remnant to the 1970s Wonder Woman type of adventures.
As a fan of Captain America, however, it made for entertaining reading at the beach.
