I've never been a fan of serialized superhero comics. They make me feel like I'm dropping into the middle of a soap opera, I don't know who half the characters are, and they don't actually end. They just lead from one cliffhanger to the next.

I felt that way while reading this, Vol 2 of Ta-Nehisi Coates's run on "Captain America." I enjoyed Vol 1, which I read a few months ago, but Vol 2 introduces so many new characters who are probably familiar to long-time readers, that I had trouble keeping track of who was who in the zoo, and why I should care.

Still, it seems that Coates is taking the franchise to interesting places and using Captain America's unique iconography to explore elements of the American Experience that bear inspection and introspection. If only I knew who was doing what, and why.