Aug 1984
Things Fall Apart!
by J. M. DeMatteis, Paul Neary, Sam DeLarosa, Diana Albers, Bob Sharen, Mark Gruenwald
Falcon gets attacked on his home turf, in Harlem, by the Sisters of Sin. He puts up a fight but the four sisters prove to be a little too much for him. They knock him out and carry him away.
Wasp and Starfox find Bernie missing from her Brooklyn apartment. There is a skull burned into one of the walls. They head back to Avengers Mansion to regroup and try to make up for failing Captain America.
Cap and Nomad are still trapped with Arnie Roth, who is in bad shape. Steve takes off his mask and tries to reassure his old friend only to discover that it is yet another android duplicate of Arnold Roth.
One of the walls in the room slides back to reveal a passageway. Cap and Nomad follow it to a room where they find the corpse of Horst, the Red Skull’s assistant. Captain America is confused because Horst looks old. He catches sight of his own face and sees that he is also looking much older than he was a few minutes ago.
Cap and Nomad leave the corpse and continue to explore the hallways of Skull House. They wind up in what looks like an old cabaret nightclub. The waiter and all the customers look like robot duplicates of Arnold Roth.
Sister Pleasure is on stage singing a song about Captain America. Bucky recognizes her and realizes that she was Scarlet, the woman he met in Captain America (1968) 287. She drugged him with her kisses and forced him to feed Cap the drugs that made him old.
The lights suddenly go out. Nomad and Sister Pleasure are gone when the lights come back up. Arnie is on stage. He seems to be going insane. Captain America is prevented from getting to him by a force field. He breaks through and gets to his friend but by then Arnold has collapsed and is unconscious.
Mother Superior appears. Cap attacks her but in his weakened state he is no match for her. She shows him his friends (Nomad, Falcon, Bernie, Arnold) whom she and her minions have captured. She stabs Cap, when he turns to look at the, with a poison dart. He collapses.
The Red Skull and Baron Zemo have seen all this. Zemo, dressed now like his father, is ready to get his revenge on Captain America.
Thoughts
This makes at least three consecutive issues where the inker is different from the previous issue. I find this to be a bit jarring. I have to wonder how it impacted the writing.
The story seems to be moving very fast. It lacks the nuances that I like to see. Some of the twists in the story seem to come out of nowhere, such as Cap discovering that he’s turned old. That was very sudden and the explanation that it was Nomad’s fault seemed very left field. I can appreciate the call back but it felt clumsy.
I did find the nine-panel grid page where Arnold seems to be going crazy to be moving. Cap tries to reassure his friend but it seems to be too late. Is it?
I think I am going to take a break here. I was thinking of sticking with this story. There are five more issues in it. It is the end of the 1981-84 run that I planned on reading but this seems about as good a place as any to take one last break before diving in for the conclusion.
American Graffiti
Three letters about Captain America (1968) 292 focus on Black Crow, Captain America’s opponent in that issue. The question of the month is “what was the last good book you read?” The special announcements section focus on the imminent departure of assistant editor Mike Carlin who is leaving editor Mark Gruenwald to edit Dazzler, Rom, and the Thing.
Bullpen Bulletins
Jim Shooter issues an apology; highlights the first issue of Questprobe; talks about the cancellation of Micronauts, Moon Knight, and Ka-Zar the Savage; and celebrates the relaunch of Micronauts and Moon Knight. He hints that Ka-Zar should be relaunched in the future but it would be more than a dozen years before Ka-Zar got another series.
The Hype Box highlights The Transformers 1, High Adventure 1, Power Pack 1.
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