I hadn't read this before, and I maybe had even fallen off
Captain America before this crossover: from 1995,
Avengers #388, "Taking A.I.M. part 4, Into the Breach" Written by Bob Harras and Terry Kavanagh, breakdowns by Mike Deodato, finishes by Tom Palmer.
I have only the vaguest idea what was happening in the previous issues of this crossover, but this was very close to the end of Mark Gruenwald's
Captain America run, as the Super-Soldier Serum was deteriorating and Cap was fading fast, even with the prerequisite 90's big armor suit to keep him alive. Actually, we don't get armor-Cap this issue, since MODOK had tried to break him in the previous issue, and he spends this issue in a torn-up standard Cap suit as he and a newly-sentient Adaptoid try to save the world from some Cosmic Cube-related calamity. Superia, the Amazon-like villain of "
The Superia Stratagem" a few years back, offers to save Cap, if he'll agree to owe her a favor later. Cap says no deal, but slapping away her drugs, the Red Skull grabs them: he was inhabiting a clone of Cap's body, and so wanted to make sure he didn't fall victim to the same deterioration that befell Cap. (But, it took some time for Cap to go south, and other factors like, um,
crack use, could've been a factor. And I don't know that I would just take something Superia
said would cure me...) The Skull kills Superia (she'd be back, possibly because
Mike Deodato might've dug drawing her) and teleports away, apparently unconcerned about the impending end of the world. It might even be the Skull simply assumed Cap would sacrifice himself to save the world--and the Skull!--and there was no point in even worrying about it; although I would've expected a more snippy parting shot then.
The Avengers and Cap's new sidekicks Free Spirit and Jack Flag are mostly hung up trying to save the innocent bystanders on Boca Caliente, if this was
Boca Caliente: this artifical island doesn't seem big enough for that. Diamondback makes a brief appearance: she had been disguised as Superia's henchwoman
Snapdragon, who she had killed! The sentient Adaptoid sacrifices himself to save everything, since it thinks that might be his chance to touch the divine, and Cap hopes he makes it. Cap himself is rescued by Falcon, Giant-Man, and the Black Widow; who perhaps don't realize how bad Cap's condition really was...
I didn't love this one, but some of Deodato and Palmer's work there is pretty dynamic. I also think that was towards the end of Black Widow's stint as Avengers chairwoman, and I'm not sure if that's because she thought she failed Cap, or something else.
3 comments:
Oh yeah I remember seeing the ads for this. Never bought any of it though, but I do remember it.
I can't really say this era of the Avengers really aged well, as the book in general seemed to be just going through the motions after the ending to the Gatherer's storyline. Harras tried, I'm sure, but probably should've called it quits with the ending to that one, as everything else after that leading up to the next even that didn't age well, The Crossing (Even though I was a big fan of it myself at the time) wasn't really good or memorable.
Honestly, at that point when I was buying issues of the Avengers it was mostly because of Deodato Jr's art, certainly not because of the story.
I will say, even though it's not really remembered all that well given when it happened, I am glad Natasha got a run as Avengers' chairwoman. She definitely tried.
Gruenwald definitely should've stepped away from writing cap after the 50th anniversary issue as the quality of the book dipped hard after that, especially & maybe not too coincidental after Ron Lim left. I get what Gruenwald was trying to do, but he'd clearly burnt himself out by being on there for too long. RIP Mark Gruenwald.
I remember, post-Onslaught, the Black Widow seemed to be suffering from survivor's guilt over the rest of the team "dying" while she was in charge. (Granted, I'm basing this on one appearance in an issue of Daredevil). I've never been clear on why she wasn't with the team during the fight against Onslaught then.
As for Avengers, I never bought the book regularly until Busiek and Perez took over, but I had a few issues in the bomber jacket era, when Steve Epting was drawing the book.
I think she was on a solo mission or mission for Fury at the time. Tried looking it up on her Marvel wiki entry but it doesn’t specifically address where she was.
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