Look, blogging a Cap book is about as patriotic as I can muster nowadays.

But it's not too bad, I've had it since I was a kid and have probably bought it at least two more times. From 1981, Captain America Annual #5, "Deathwatcher!" Written by David Michelinie, pencils by Gene Colan, inks by Dave Simons. Cover by Frank Miller!

This one might be most remembered for the opening sequence, where the Constrictor and a small crew has commandeered a Coast Guard ship, and threaten to open fire on the World Trade Center! Cap manages to get on board, but the Constrictor still gets a shot off--or would have, if an unknown party hadn't planted a mine on the ship. The crew of scuba divers also videotaped some of Constrictor's men drowning, but their employer is not wowed by the picture quality. The lead diver returns to a somewhat delapidated mansion, and his main job as butler, for bored tycoon Samson Scythe. The wheelchair-bound Scythe finds food too dull to consider, opting to be fed intravenously instead; and only perks up to watch his James Bond-villain cat "Fur-person" eat a live mouse.

Meanwhile, Steve Rogers ponders the mine mystery, completes an art assignment, shows a lot of skin in a shower scene, and gets sexually harassed. (Oh, all right: an editor likes Steve's work, but she gets huffy when he declines an offer for dinner and drinks. It takes him a second to put it together...) And Scythe watches live footage of a mobster's birthday party, which cuminates in the boss cutting into a booby-trapped turkey and getting electrocuted. Rival mob boss Gamble goes to the cops and Captain America: he didn't do it, but doesn't want a mob war to escalate, or anyone to make a shot at him. Cap keeps a tail on Gamble for a week, as the mobster avoids committing any crimes; instead he nearly gets it in a booby-trapped elevator. Scythe is really excited, until Cap saves Gamble, but that gives him an idea...

This was pretty early in Cap's relationship with Bernie Rosenthal: not only did she not know his secret identity, but Steve goes full Clark Kent to ditch her when he hears a radio broadcast warn of a bank robbery. The bank robbers are still there, since they're waiting for him; and Cap doesn't have his shield! He admits he can't always take it with him; but you wouldn't have guessed, since I can't remember the next or last time I saw that! Scythe's butler escapes on a motorcycle, that rides into a trailer: Cap dives under a door to get him, but is surprised by two goons waiting for him. Scythe tells him the robbery was just a ruse to draw him out to talk. Scythe wants Cap to lay off, so he can kill some mobsters, because that's how he gets off. Not like the Punisher, no: just watching death. Born to the idle rich, Scythe had done and seen about everything by the time he was a teenager. He joined the army and discovered he loved watching someone, anyone, die; and enjoyed the hell out of the Vietnam War, then entered a brutal depression afterwards. Too bored to move, eat, anything, he began to physically detoriate; but an old army buddy became his butler, and made a suggestion: he arranged for a mugger to get shot in Central Park, and videotaped it. Scythe took to it like a junkie, setting up cameras across town, even occasionally doing some 'good' like saving the city by mining Constrictor's ship. Scythe confesses he also did it since there's no way he could've taped everyone dying if Constrictor had opened fire. But now, he wonders, what would it be like to watch a hero die?

Like most of the millionaires--they were millionaires, back then--gone bad in NYC at the time, Scythe has a mansion and grounds full of deathtraps, and challenges Cap to it. Or let the cops try it, and get ground into mulch, either or. Cap faces traps like robot dogs, and a golden shower--wait, what? It's a room that fills up with gold dust, what were you thinking of? Man, I hope Cap didn't use that phrasing in his report. There's also a tuning fork-like trap on the roof that is very effective; Cap barely gets out of that one. The last hurdle is the butler in the media room with a flamethrower: a weakened Cap accidentally hits the fuel tank, and the whole place goes up. While Cap gets the butler out, Scythe nearly makes it to a fire extinguisher, before seeing his own death on a screen, and dies transfixed by the sight. 

I suppose there wasn't as much networking back then: Scythe's mansion and traps remind me of Elizabeth Dawes Sterling's from Daredevil. Or, Scythe should've maybe outsourced his murders, to Arcade or something. There's something to be said for do-it-yourselfing though, I guess.