Let's start this off by remarking that I'm apparently making labels not only for the writer (Ta-Nehisi Coates) but the artist (Leinil Francis Yu) as well. I'm more surprised by the latter, as Yu is a well-established comics superstar I've enjoyed on a number of projects over the years, and his continued presence at Marvel has been one of the big lies fans have had to swallow in recent years when complaining that "all the good artists left."
Coates himself has been a hugely prominent literary figure in recent years, not just among black readers but in general; last year's The Water Dancer has been widely hailed as one of 2019's best books. I haven't read him outside of a few comics, including his Black Panther, and now this.
Ironically, this particular issue could just as easily have been written by Ed Brubaker. During his historic run, Brubaker, as least as far as I was concerned, often seemed as if he wasn't interested in Captain America himself so much as...anything around him, even before the Civil War death. Coates actually uses a Brubaker villain(s family) to achieve the effect, the Russian Lukins (including one brought back from the grave).
There was some concern, when Coates took over the title, that he wouldn't be the right fit for Cap, being as he is primarily interested in the black perspective. Such concerns were probably already racist, and at any rate have been proven baseless, given how, as noted, he delivers an issue like this that could've easily been part of someone else's (and notably a white dude who writes primarily white dude comics) run.
The next issue promised to continue the plot, another of those "Man Without a Country" arcs Cap has enjoyed repeatedly over the years. So yeah, I think Coates fits in nicely with Captain America.
