Random Happenstance

This is a quarter-bin copy, of a book I know I've had since it came out, but hadn't read in years: it was just prior to a big change, although there were signs. That and it's got one of my favorite bits, from a character who has not fared well in the years since. From 1987, Captain America #329, "Movers and Monsters" Written by Mark Gruenwald, breakdowns by Paul Neary, finishes by Vince Colletta. "To Live and Die--Under L.A.!" cover by Mike Zeck! (It's a riff on the 1985 movie To Live and Die in L.A., which to the best of my knowledge doesn't feature literal monsters.)

Following up from plot points in the Thing, this was the second of four issues, with Captain America on the trail of the Power Broker: after a second clash with the super-strong Super-Patriot, Cap had recognized his fighting style as wrestling-trained. Meeting up with the Thing's friend Dennis Dunphy of the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, Cap wanted to figure out how the Power Broker gave many of those wrestlers super-strength, and to maybe find something in their files on Super-Patriot, but he had been drugged by Dr. Malus, who tried to kill Cap in the strength-enhancing machine, but was saved by Dennis, in his new identity of "Demolition Man," or D-Man for short. D-Man then offered to make Malus give Cap strength equal to Super-Patriot, but Cap passes...and wonders if he was making the right choice. (Cap seemed somewhat pensive around this stretch, and appeared to be questioning a lot of his calls.) He then questions his decision again, as the goons of the Sweat Shop arrive: the Power Broker's super-strong...moving men? Maybe they had other skills, they all had matching jumpsuits and toolbelts. (The GCD notes, all the goons were named after SCTV actors or characters!)

D-Man had left to pick up lunch, and was dismayed to find trucks in front of the building when he returned. Passing himself off as "Deliveryman," he tests a theory by giving the goon on guard a flick, that would've sent a normal guy flying; and realizes these guys were augmented as well. The Sweat Shop guys seemed to have no fighting training, though: while D-Man kayos the guard, then smashes a truck into the building, Cap was able to avoid them but was having trouble knocking them out. After Cap knocks one off a pipe in the boiler room, the goons decide to work smarter rather than harder, and just put a big lump of machinery in front of the door: "He likes the boiler room so much, he can have have it." Those goons then find D-Man had beat maybe five of them already, but jumped and outnumbered, he gets knocked out. Loading up what they could before the cops show, the Sweat Shop takes D-Man with them.

In the boiler room, Cap was stuck with Malus, and a gas leak: even if the cops showed, Cap wasn't sure they'd be able to hear him or move that machinery, so he was going to have to figure a way out. Finding a hollow-sounding point, Cap smashes his way through a drain covering, so they could escape through the sewers. Malus seems reluctant to do so, eventually admitting he--er, the Power Broker, that is--had dumped the deformed, brain-damaged failures of the augmentation process down there. (I remember an old gaming module recapping this, it wasn't a 100% certainty to get powers!) Meanwhile, across the country at Avengers' Mansion, two familiar-looking feds (Jake and Elwood? Hmm.) get trapped by the security system, but are freed by Miss Captain Marvel. They tell her Cap needed to contact them, on a matter of national security; a phrase still trotted out by the government to do whatever they wanted to do, to this day.

Beaten up some more to keep him down, D-Man is brought before the shadowy Power Broker and unmasked: PB recognizes him, but doesn't want to waste the investment by just killing him. After all, research and development could always "use another expendable." Back in the sewers, the aforementioned augment failures attack, jumping Cap: Malus takes the opportunity to flee, squeezing through a grate they wouldn't be able to follow him though. One waves Cap's shield around, while another tries to strangle him in the sewer waters...to be continued! 

D-Man is legitimately a cool guy and one of Cap's bravest sidekicks, but after a stretch where he had been amnesiac and stuck in the arctic, he was reduced to the default characteristic of "stinky." It didn't help that he got sent to live in the sewers with the Morlocks--actually, that would've improved his street credibility, he was sent to live in the sewers and take care of the Zero People. Although his stench was an admittedly kind of funny joke around Busiek and Perez's Avengers #1, Cap still checks in on him there. Go look at D-Man on the Marvel Database, and just about every plotline or appearance he had after that was just dumping on the guy. I mean, winning a pie-eating contest was a highlight for him. He served in Iraq, was denied as Luke Cage's nanny, was a "Revenger" with Wonder Man, turned into the new Scourge (which technically got him an action figure, even if it's not recognizable as either D-Man or Scourge) and was maybe killed and brought back but is a vampire now. Sigh. Look, if you don't like a character, maybe just don't use him?