Randy Jackson reads Captain America

[Randy Jackson]

So yeah, another reading project. My Luke Cage project is nearing it's end, so I figured I'd start another.

As of right now, I'm not sure how far I'm going to go with this particular project. I'll definitely be covering Tales of Suspense #59-99. I may also cover guest appearances in other books that aren't named Avengers.

With that said, let's get this show on the road.

Tales of Suspense #59 - "Captain America!"
Cover Date: November 1964
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby

Captain America is stationed at Avengers Mansion awaiting any crisis situations. Jarvis leaves him a pot of coffee. As he  has little to do, he looks through one of his old scrapbooks.

Meanwhile, some mobsters are planning on taking on the Avengers. Their leader has two of them stretch a chain. To prove a  point, the leader--a guy named Bull--shatters the chain using karate! He explains that a chain can be broken if you find the  weakest link, and that link is Captain America, since he doesn't have any super powers.

At this point, a couple of the mobsters haul in Jarvis to ask him who's minding the store. Jarvis tells them it's no secret  that Captain America is there and that they could have found the information by using the telephone. Bull tells his men to  get their hardware as they're going to attack Captain America. They release Jarvis.

Back at the Mansion, Cap is looking through his scrapbook when he sees a photo of his former partner, Bucky. He feels pangs  of guilt. Suddenly he's attacked by the mobsters. They fight. The mobsters are well prepared, even having a man in an  armored suit. They get off a lucky shot (just a graze) while Cap is waiting for his magnetically attracted shield to return.   While he's knocked unconscious, they tie him up while they look for the Avengers safe.

They locate the safe and produce a torch to cut through the door. Cap regains consciousness at this point, and using the  heels of his boots--which are razor sharp--he cuts through his ropes. His feet are still tied, but Cap begins to fight  through the mobsters anyway until a stray flame from the torch cuts the rope around his legs free. The armored thugs grabs  Cap and boasts that he won't be able to break his grip. Cap breaks his grip and knocks him out.

At this point, the rest of the gang attacks. Cap recovers his shield, and despite all of them attacking at once holds his  own. The armored thug gets back in the fight, but can't touch Cap. Cap induces him to charge into a fireplace, knocking him  out again. Another thug plans to launch a sleep gas capsule. Cap blocks the gun barrel with his shield and forces the gas to   backfire.

Bull sends in his karate! team. However they're outmatched by Captain America. At this point, Bull charges and head-butts  Cap in the mid-section. He gets in another blow before Cap fights back, dropping Bull like a side of beef. He thanks the  thugs for livening up his evening and calls the police to pick them up.

My rating: 7/10

This is a good, if simplistic, reintroduction of the classic character in his first new solo story. Captain America has no  powers, but he's more than a match for as many criminals one can bring to an ambush. It's fun seeing Kirby allowed to draw  Cap as dynamically as possible, and the pacing is crisp and sharp.

There are some inconsistencies that are endemic to superhero stories however: why release Jarvis? If the thugs were willing  to attack Cap with guns before, why tie him up instead of shooting him? Also, why doesn't Bull ever get a last name?

All things being said, though, this is a solid effort.

[Randy Jackson]

Tales of Suspense #75 - "30 Minutes to Live!"
Cover Date: March 1966
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

After defeating the sleeper, Captain America is falling to his death (didn't he have a parachute last issue?). Meanwhile,  elsewhere in Europe, some shadowy figures are watching a test of a new element called Inferno 42--supposedly the most  destructive element of all time. As we watch, a small parachute descends on a model of a city. As the parachute enters the  city, it begins to glow, then erupts into flame. It turns out to be a great demonstration of the element's ability to  destroy a model city. We also discover that the element was extracted from a meteor (the same meteor as Norton G. Fester?).  One of the men asks another why they don't immediately begin their plans for world domination, and we find out that SHIELD  stole the element from them, and they need to retrieve it. One of them suggests that no one is powerful enough to get the  better of SHIELD, and another mentions someone called Batroc.

Returning to the plight of Captain America (I know he had a parachute) he manages to straighten his body into a high dive  and therefore is able to land safely in the water. He's picked up by some British sailors (I can tell they're British  because they keep calling Cap "mate") and returned to shore for some rest.

Back at Avengers Mansion, Cap is brooding that he doesn't have a place in the world that's his and that Bucky's dead and  whatever happened to poor Sgt. Duffy and whine whine whine. He decides to go for a stroll. On the street, he suddenly  notices a girl carrying a package that seems really important to her. She also closely resembles the girl he knew back  during the war. He begins following her. He sees her exchange her cylindrical package with that of another person. Thinking  the man has made a mistake and given her the wrong package, Cap tries to stop the man before leaving, but the girl tells him  not to make a scene. She tells him that she has the right package, and Cap realizes that something just a tad unusual is  going on.

Meanwhile, the man who bumped into the woman is being watched carefully by a shadowy figure. Suddenly the figure reveals  itself by attacking the man with a massive leap. He introduces himself as Batroc the Leaper and that he intends to take the  Inferno 42. However, when Batroc opens the cylinder, he finds it's a decoy. He realizes that the package must have been  exchanged shortly beforehand, and remembers a collision with a woman who was also carrying a similar package.

Back with Cap and the woman, he asks if they've ever met before, and she tells him no. she does tell him that she feels as  if they should know each other. As she walks away she muses that her sister told her so much about the boy she knew in the  war, but that he'd be much older now. She also wonders what would have been his reaction if she asked him if his name was  Steve Rogers.

As she turns the corner, Cap hears a gunshot. He immediately changes to Captain America and bounds to the rescue. He  encounters Batroc and the young woman struggling over the cylinder. Batroc sees him and tells him that he's honored as he's  heard so much about Captain America and has admired him for a long time, and now he'll get the chance to be the first to  defeat him in man-to-man combat. He attacks before Cap can land a blow. Cap correctly identifies his fighting style as  Savate, a French martial art of boxing with one's feet.

Meanwhile, the woman is reaching for her gun again, thinking she needs to get the cylinder back before Batroc can deliver it  to the enemies of SHIELD. However, Batroc crushes her pistol before she can recover it. He and Cap fight, Cap giving a  speech as he beats up on Batroc. Downing him, he demands answers about the cylinder, and Batroc realizes it's gone, along  with the woman. He tells Cap that they are all in danger because of the Inferno 42, and that there's enough to destroy the  city. He tells Cap that if he releases him that he'll help. Cap asks him why, and he tells Cap that his life is at stake as  well as everyone else's. He then mentions that the cylinder was cracked during the fracas and that soon it will glow, and  once that happens it will blow up in 30 minutes. He spots a glowing light a couple of blocks away and tells Cap that the  woman doesn't realize the danger, and that they have to find a way to reseal the cylinder. Cap says it shouldn't be too hard  to catch her, and Batroc tells him that she is no ordinary female, but an agent of SHIELD. The two of them head in hot  pursuit of the woman.

The woman has realized that both of them are following her now. However, she's determined that they won't find her, and  tripping an unseen device, walks through a hidden door in a wall, planning to hide inside until they're gone.

To be continued...

My rating: 9/10

Now this is more like it! Captain America shouldn't be battling giant robots, he should be fighting French mercenaries  attempting to steal secrets. Or something along those lines.

The comic may be just a tad padded out, but it's a good, exciting story hook, and I'm digging it. Also, full disclosure,  Batroc is one of my favorite villains (perhaps I'll do a favorite villains list some time) and it's nice to see a character  so well realized from his first appearance.

[Ronald Morgan]

This is the story they decided to put in the back of the first Captain America annual, and to this day I haven't seen how it ended. Starting an annual with this story would have made sense. Ending one with it is just confusing. Putting it in the back of the second annual, which reprinted the Sleepers storyline, would have been better.

Has Cap made contact with Fury yet, or is this the first time he's come across a SHIELD agent?

This story idea would be reused several years later to give Captain Mar-Vell cancer.

Batroc is the only Cap villain that I've seen an action figure of, so they must still consider him an important character.

[Commander Benson]

Ronald Morgan said:

Has Cap made contact with Fury yet, or is this the first time he's come across a SHIELD agent?

At this point, Captain America didn't even know that the organisation of S.H.I.E.L.D. existed.  (In its earliest days, the idea was that S.H.I.E.L.D. was a clandestine organisation, its existence unknown to the general public.)  Neither had Cap had his post-suspended-animation reunion with Colonel Fury, yet.

As it developed, the first item affected the second.

In The Avengers # 15 (Apr., 1965), the Star-Spangled Avenger writes a letter to COL Fury, requesting duty under his command, as a counter-intelligence operative for the U.S.  Cap mails the letter to Fury care of the Pentagon.

By The Avengers # 18 (Jul., 1965), Cap has not gotten a response from Fury and he frets about it.

In The Avengers # 19 (Aug., 1965), we, the readers---but not Cap---discover that the reason he has not heard from COL Fury is because Fury has not received it.  When Cap's letter arrived at the Pentagon, it was misdirected to Fury's old office at the C.I.A. (The folks at the Pentagon mail room were unaware of Fury's new---and above-their-classification---reassignment as director of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

The letter sat on Fury's old desk, collecting dust, until---in that same issue---it was "misdirected" again, by agents of Hydra, hoping it would contain information they could use against Fury.  It did not, so they tossed the letter away.  (It was found by a passer-by, which led to an adventure of its own, but it did not involve Nick Fury or S.H.I.E.L.D.)

It wasn't until the story "Them!", from Tales of Suspense # 78 (Jun., 1966), that Captain America finally re-met Fury, for the first time in the present day.

Hope this helps.

[Ronald Morgan]

Interesting Iron Man, who would have known about SHIELD (being Tony Stark and all) wouldn't have mentioned it to Cap, but I guess Cap didn't mention to him that he was thinking of working for Fury. Things were too hectic in Avengers#15, and Cap didn't come back in #16 until Iron Man was going out the door and in too big a hurry to want to stop and chat.

[Fred W. Hill]

Hey, if the heroes spent more time communicating there'd be less opportunity for fights based on misunderstandings!

[Ronald Morgan]

Horrors! That would mean having to find some other way to use up all those pages!

[Richard Willis]

Ronald Morgan said:

Interesting Iron Man, who would have known about SHIELD (being Tony Stark and all) wouldn't have mentioned it to Cap...

Was Tony Stark shown as being involved with Fury and SHIELD that early?

[Commander Benson]

Richard Willis said:

 

Was Tony Stark shown as being involved with Fury and SHIELD that early?

Sure was.  Stark appeared in the first S.H.I.E.L.D. story from Strange Tales # 135 (Aug., 1965), as the head of the organisation's Special Weaponry Division---and as one of the leading proponents of placing Colonel Fury in the director's chair.

In fact, that was one of the nice touches, for me, about the first year or so of the "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." series---that Tony Stark, and not Iron Man, was a frequent member of the cast.  Stark was shown as a resourceful, clever, and sometimes heroic character in his own right.  In fact, I don't recall him ever making a reference to his armoured alter ego in that title.  There probably was some mention of it, but it was so rare that I don't recall it.

[Ronald Morgan]

That's why I wondered why Iron Man didn't say "Colonel Fury? I know where he is." I guess after the original Avengers left they didn't stay in touch.

The way movies like showing their heroes without masks these days, that would probably be the best way to do an Iron Man TV series, have it based around Tony Stark with him rarely getting into costume. Sometimes George Reeves got one scene as Superman and the rest of the episode he was Clark Kent. And he didn't even wear a mask.

[John Dunbar]

Randy Jackson said:

Tales of Suspense #75 - "30 Minutes to Live!"

Cover Date: March 1966

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

My rating: 9/10

Now this is more like it! Captain America shouldn't be battling giant robots, he should be fighting French mercenaries  attempting to steal secrets. Or something along those lines.

The comic may be just a tad padded out, but it's a good, exciting story hook, and I'm digging it. Also, full disclosure,  Batroc is one of my favorite villains (perhaps I'll do a favorite villains list some time) and it's nice to see a character  so well realized from his first appearance.

I agree with this review.  A great story, lots of action, which was nice to see after the Sleeper snoozefest.  Nice intro for Batroc.  I didn't miss George Tuska's art, as he didn't seem to mesh with Jack Kirby's layouts that well.  Dick Ayers, on the other hand, had inked a lot of Kirby's work, so I'm not surprised this issue looked so much better than the last few.

[John Dunbar]

Ronald Morgan said:

This is the story they decided to put in the back of the first Captain America annual, and to this day I haven't seen how it ended. Starting an annual with this story would have made sense. Ending one with it is just confusing. Putting it in the back of the second annual, which reprinted the Sleepers storyline, would have been better.

That was an odd decision.  Even odder was reprinting the second part (Tales of Suspense #76) in Marvel's Greatest Comics 28 (Aug 1970), about six months earlier.  That was pretty random; MGC 25 reprinted the first Cap solo story from ToS 59, MGC 26 reprinted ToS 60, and MGC 27 reprinted ToS 62.  They skipped over #61 (Cap goes to Vietnam), #63-71 (stories set in WWII), the Sleeper story in #72-74, and #75.  The first Cap Annual (Jan 1971) reprinted #63 (Cap's origin), #69-71 (Greymoor Castle 3 parter) and #75.  The second one (Jan 1972) reprinted the Sleeper 3 parter.  Cap reprints started again in Marvel Double Feature 1-21 (Dec 1973 - Apr 1977) reprinted Suspense 77-99 in order.

[Randy Jackson]

Was there something you intended to say here John?


John Dunbar (the mod of maple) said:

Randy Jackson said:

Tales of Suspense #75 - "30 Minutes to Live!"

Cover Date: March 1966

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

My rating: 9/10

Now this is more like it! Captain America shouldn't be battling giant robots, he should be fighting French mercenaries  attempting to steal secrets. Or something along those lines.