Captain America Annual 6

Captain America Annual 6

1982

The Shadows of the Past!

By J.M. DeMattheis, Ron Wilson, Vince Colletta, Don Warfield, Diana Albers

June 1945 - the original Captain America and Bucky are gone and believed to be dead. The man once known as the Spirit of '76 has assumed the identity of Captain America. He fights with the Invaders (Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, Toro, the Whizzer, Miss America, Bucky II) in the Pacific. The war in Europe is over. They have been sent to find and neutralize a deadly new tank developed by the Japanese. Captain America II gets lost in thought and the tank fires on him. He manages to avoid being hit directly but he is still impacted by the blast. He blacks out.

July 1954 - Captain America IV and Bucky III break into a warehouse in Watts (Los Angeles, CA) and break up a card game. They believe it is a conspiracy against the government. This version of Cap and Bucky are different from the originals in a significant way. They were driven a bit crazy by the process that made them into Captain America and Bucky. They break up the card game but one of the men gets away because Captain America IV can’t throw his shield as well as the original. He goes to retrieve the shield but as he does so he blacks out.

August 1982 - the original Captain America is patrolling the streets of New York on his motorcycle when he sees the Scarecrow robbing a bank. The two men fight. Captain America seems to be winning but then the Scarecrow calls in his birds and they attack Cap. The Scarecrow makes his getaway in a car driven by his assistant while Captain America fights off the birds. The Scarecrow doesn’t get very far before the Star Spangled hero catches up to him. Cap launches himself at Scarecrow’s car but then vanishes just before impacting the windshield. Captain America feels himself being pulled through space and time as he blacks out.

Captain America (Steve Rogers) comes to and finds himself standing before Mr. Buda who is flanked by two unconscious men who are also dressed as Captain America. Cap demands answers but then, before Mr. Buda can get around to giving him any, a familiar face steps from the shadows, also dressed as Captain America. Jeff Mace, the third man to assume the identity of Captain America. He tells Cap about how he came to be Captain America III after Captain America II was killed by Adam II, the Synthetic Man. He also tells of how he fought crime with Bucky II (who was later killed) and after that the Golden Girl. He gave up the identity of Captain America after a few years and went back to being a reporter.

Jeff Mace is haunted by memories of what he could have been and he recently learned that he has cancer. Mr. Buda created an alternate reality when he brought the four Captains America together. It is an Earth where Adam II conquered the United States and later the world. It is up to the four Captains to defeat Adam II.

Jeff Mace is eager to fight Adam II once again but Steve Rogers isn’t. He accuses Mr. Buda of corrupting a world just for his own perverse interests. He tries attacking Mr. Buda but the man has god-like powers and easily evades all of Steve Rogers' attempts to touch him. Rogers eventually cools down and Mr. Buda sends all four Captains America on their way to the new version of Earth. Their mission is to defeat Adam II and or inspire humanity to fight back against their robotic overlords.

Captain America II (Spirit of ‘76) and Captain America IV (1950s Cap) materialize together on the Earth that Mr. Buda spoke of. They see humans in chains herded by big orange and purple robots. They take down the robots and free the humans. The Spirit of ‘76 is shocked to learn that the freed humans don’t know the meaning of the word free. Captain America IV takes off in search of Adam II’s headquarters while the Spirit of ‘76 stays behind to help the freed humans.

The Spirit of ‘76 is caught off guard by one of the robots that returns to life. He tries fighting but it easily knocks him unconscious. Captain America IV is approached by Special Agent Smith of the United American Underground. He leads Cap IV to the organization's HQ but it turns out to be a trap. Smith is actually a cyborg that works for Adam II. He neutralizes the Captain America of the 1950s with an energy beam which renders him unconscious.

Captain America I (Steve Rogers) and Captain America III (Patriot) materialize in Washington, D.C. Mace is young once again. They barely get a chance to speak before they encounter the Invaders: Namor, Human Torch, Whizzer, Miss America, Bucky. Their former teammates are now cyborgs and the servants of Adam II. They attack the two Captains. Mace is very ineffective, despite having been de-aged by Mr. Buda. Rogers gets knocked out in the middle of the fight. He lowered his guard when he sensed that Mace was in trouble. Mace surrenders and allows them to be taken to Castle Computronex, Adam II’s palace, which was built where the White House once stood.

Captain America and the Patriot are brought before Adam II. They learn that he has already converted the other two Captains America into cyborgs. He threatens to do the same to them if they don’t tell him where they came from.

Patriot has had about enough out of the android. He beat him once before (in What If? 4) and feels confident he can do it again. He falters but he corrects himself and has Adam II on the ropes when he hears Mr. Buda’s voice in his head. He is distracted just enough and Adam II takes advantage of the opening.

The Spirit of ‘76 struggles against the circuits implanted in him. He moves towards Adam II, intending to cut him down but Captain America IV blasts the other cyborg Captain America with an energy beam. The fight goes on. Adam II is eventually defeated with Jeff Mace delivering the coup de grace as the two cyborgs restrain the android.

Everything fades and Captain America and the Patriot find themselves back in Mr. Buda’s lair. Mace is angry at Mr. Buda but he realizes, after they are returned to the real world, that he now feels at peace. He is ready to deal with the cancer diagnosis he recently received

Thoughts

This can be a confusing read. There is no visual way to distinguish between the four men known as Captain America. I had to read the dialogue carefully in order to figure out which Captain America was talking, on more than one occasion.

I think this could have been a much better book visually if only someone else had inked it. Vince Colletta is notorious for speed and butchering the pencils of many artists. I think the blame can also be placed on him for the inconsistent appearance of the four Captains America costumes. There are some panels in which the red and white stripes around the torso are missing, usually when depicted from the back.

This story made me think of the story from Marvel Two-in-One 100 (Jun 1983). The Thing travels, in that story, to a dystopian future and teams up with an alternate version of himself who never became the Thing (thanks to the events of Marvel Two-in-One 50, Apr 1979). Ron Wilson penciled that story, too, but it was not inked by Vince Colletta. It looks considerably better.

The Spirit of '76 first appeared in Invaders 14 (Mar 1977). He was first revealed to have assumed the identity of Captain America in What If? 4 (Aug 1977). He was killed by Adam II in that issue.

The Patriot first appeared in Human Torch Comics 4 (Spr 1941) and made numerous appearances throughout the 1940s mostly in the pages of Marvel Mystery Comics. He made his first appearance in over a quarter century in Invaders 5 (Mar 1976). He adopted the identity of Captain America in What If? 4 after the Spirit of '76 was killed. The full story of the Patriot was told in 2010 in the Captain America: Patriot mini-series. It's a longer story than the one in What If? 4 but it is also a much better one.