Only a thin sheet between you and er, the full MODOK.

Despite the late arrival of Khonshu, last year still seemed a bit disappointing in the Build-a-Figure front (despite miscounting!) but I'm looking forward to this year's more than any figures from their waves! I already have ideas for both Ch'od and Puff Adder, the latter if I can find my other Serpent Society figures. Hasbro has been adding to the team extremely slowly, and most of the guys we see this issue are still waiting! From 1986, Captain America #315, "The Hard Sell" Written by Mark Gruenwald, pencils by Paul Neary, inks by Dennis Janke.

In Cap #313, the Serpent Society achieved their biggest win to date; assassinating long-time Cap villain MODOK! His track record had been pretty bad at that point, and I suspect Marvel thought he was becoming a joke and wanted to phase him out: the 80's were more about grit and realism, after all, not guys with giant heads. This month, the Society adds insult to injury, stealing MODOK's corpse from the morgue, to collect $100K from A.I.M, which had been pretty tired of his leadership for some time. On the way out of A.I.M.'s posh office, Cobra gets cornered by Alexander Gentry, who might be better known as the Porcupine! ...crickets. Gentry was trying to sell out, but no one was buying; Cobra foists a Society business card off on him to brush him off.

The Society's head, Sidewinder, was torturing Princess Python, since she had chickened out and run up against MODOK: admittedly, she didn't have any powers for that kind of fight, but Sidewinder felt he had to make an example out of her. Not fatally, though: he figured they'd be able to sell her back to the Circus of Crime. He's less thrilled, to get a phone call from Gentry; what idiot gave out their work number? Back in his dive apartment, Gentry laments his lot, but has an idea: if no bad guys want to buy his suit, maybe a good guy would? He calls Cap's hotline, and gets a visit from him right away, interrupting an unproductive penciling session and a talk with his soon to be ex-girlfriend Bernie. (She was a holdover from before Gruenwald's run and wouldn't be around as a regular for much longer.) Gentry makes his pitch to Cap, who is more interested when he mentions the Society; and Cap gets an idea...

Cap has the Porcupine suit up, and call the Serpent Society and tell them he captured Cap. Rattler, Cottonmouth, Death Adder and Diamondback show up, with the guys chomping at the bit to kill Cap immediately: Diamondback is already kind of sprung on Cap and doesn't wanna, but is overruled. Unfortunately for them, since they didn't check if Cap was really tied up, he's able to smash Cottonmouth's teeth and starts slapping around the others. (He's mildly dismayed that both Death Adder and Rattler's tails seemed to be real, and attached to them!) Not wanting to fight Cap, Diamondback opts to take on Porcupine instead, damaging his suit with an acid diamond, which makes Porcy mad enough to fight back. By the time Cap beats the serpent guys, Diamondback had split, and Porcupine was...mortally wounded. Trying to run, he had tripped, fell, and a quill had pierced his heart. Before he dies, Cap tells him they won that day, and he had respected him.

Later that night, Cap waits in jail with the serpent guys, since they had been arrested before and kept escaping somehow, and he finally gets to see how: Sidewinder teleports in. While he's not able to rescue his boys now, he gloatingly tells Cap he'll get them out later; but Cap knows who he's after now. And in Avengers' Mansion, in a glass case, the Porcupine's armor was put on display, as an honored foe. 

Diamondback's face-turn would continue in her next appearances, but the conversation on the letters' pages was, was she liable or culpable in the Porcupine's death? Or any of the other, multiple deaths caused by the Society? Furthermore, how much of Porcupine's figurative blood is on Cap's hands? Also, I honestly thought the Porcupine that appeared in Spider-Woman was Alexander, but nope! He stayed dead, unlike MODOK, who would return on or around 1995's Cap #441.