This second issue of Mark Waid and Ron Garney’s first extended storyline on Captain America finds our hero working very uncomfortably alongside his greatest foe, the Red Skull, and his former love, Sharon Carter, who he (and we) had believed dead since issue #237—and we learn exactly how she has been alive all this time and what she has been up to.
We open after, as seen at the end of the last issue, Cap’s Tricky Trio was transported to a reality Sharon described as “the new Fatherland” before referring to it as “World War III.” (Otherwise I’m sure it’s fine.)
After the Skull mentions “the cube” to Sharon, Cap asks for clarification, but the Skull wants to discuss more important things, including a “New World Reich” and, as if that weren’t scary enough…
…the “Kübekult.” Yes, both are just as bad as they sound… but it gets worse.
Red Skull explains that years ago (in Super-Villain Team-Up #16–17), he and Hate-Monger (Hitler’s mind in a new body) conspired to create a new Cosmic Cube, but Skull trapped Hitler’s mind in the cube, which is now in the possession of AIM, who have used it to recreate the world in Hitler’s image in preparation for his return. (As the Skull says, “the entire world will change in a blink… it will be as if the Nazis had won World War Two… and ruled the Earth,” which sounds awfully familiar.)
The Skull tells Cap that he was made to fight Hitler and then he owes the Skull for his life, neither of which Cap comments on, instead telling Sharon he has doubts about all of this, but for now he will confront the threat before him, as he always does.
This is followed by an incredible double-page spread by Ron Garney, Denis Rodier, and John Kalisz…
…the bottom of which shows the Red Skull cares, he really cares, before he sees the Cosmic Cube itself.
Cap’s recovering skill with his shield is still better on the throw than the return, which is good enough to get the Cube away from the Skull…
…but a Kübekult member gets away with it after his colleague hits Sharon with the butt of his rifle.
Cap criticizes the Skull for going after the Cube before the enemy was defeated, which the Nazi resents… all the while, Sharon is extracting information from a Kübekultist who feels particularly betrayed. When she’s got what she wants, she lets Cap know, but his suggestion that they leave the Skull behind is dismissed out of hand.
And this, after she took the Captain’s name in vain! Nonetheless, he assures her that his eyes are wide open regarding his temporary partnership with the Red Skull before turning to the burning question I’m sure we’re all asking.
After making clear she had assumed he knew she was alive but simply didn’t care, Sharon explains that SHIELD—who she implies faked her death that Cap saw on videotape in issue #237—dropped her “behind enemy lines” and then deserted her. Feeling betrayed by both SHIELD and Cap, she became a freelance mercenary, which hardened her and made her cynical about the world they live in.
That brings us to the current situation, which began when she infiltrated the Kübekult, ran into the Skull, and realized they had a common interest. Cap is stunned but optimistic about her future—he knows better than to mention their future—but Sharon dismisses the idea of a future at all.
(See what I mean about becoming cynical?)
When the three arrive at the government base, Cap greets the local guards, who are surprised he’s still alive and inclined to give him the customary latitude he enjoys from the military…
…until the Red Skull steps in and leads the guards to doubt the real Cap is alive after all.
Understandably, the guards pounce on the man they believe to be an imposter who is disgracing the name of someone they admired.
Cap has to protect them from the Red Skull…
…while fighting them off himself, being careful not to hurt them, but needing to go after the Skull.
But before he can, he runs into General Ulysses R. Chapman, the man who eulogized Cap at his funeral in the last issue. Cap tries to convince the general that he needs to get inside—didn’t he see the Skull run in there a minute ago?—and that he’s the real thing.
General Chapman doesn’t doubt that, citing their shared military background and dedication to duty to argue that Cap cannot disobey a direct order from his commander-in-chief.
This would normally be true, of course, if only there weren’t even more important principles—freedom and democracy—at stake, forcing Cap to set aside one treasured principle for another. We see from the close-up on his face below, however, how difficult this is for him, even though he knows it is right.
Once in the compound, Cap joins Sharon and the Skull in fighting the Kübekult members, who still manage to activate the Cosmic Cube, transforming at least the military personnel on the base into New World Reich soldiers.
Before addressing the men who only wanted to subdue him earlier, but would now like to do much worse, Cap wants to destroy the Cube, but it is gone… and so is Sharon. Which way did they go? Find out in the next issue…
ISSUE DETAILS
Captain America (vol. 1) #446, December 1995: Mark Waid (writer), Ron Garney (pencils), Denis Rodier (inks), John Kalisz and Mailbu Color (colors), John Costanza (letters). (More details at Marvel Database.)
Collected in: Captain America Epic Collection: Man without a Country, Captain America: Operation Rebirth (trade paperback), and Captain America: Operation Rebirth (hardcover).
PREVIOUS ISSUE: Captain America #445 (November 1995)
NEXT ISSUE: Captain America #447 and The Savage Hulk #1 (January 1996)
THE VIRTUES OF CAPTAIN AMERICA 
Waid starts off with a really good story arc and the Garney art was such a welcome change. But the Waid era is also the beginning of a long, slow process that would change Cap over the next ten years from the quintessential superhero to a soldier. Witness the comment from the general that Cap’s “first & foremost a soldier” (Really? He was created to be an “agent” a year before Pearl Harbor and spent ten times as many years fighting crime etc. as he did fighting WWII). Waid’s era would see Cap saluting more often as opposed to on very rare special occasions. Also his Cap would be the first to accept lethal force being used by his friends. Waid himself would seem to have contradictory takes on the character because there were also times when his Cap would say “I’m not a soldier.” I think Waid used the soldier thing when it provided dramatic effect but up to this point that wasn’t truly what the core of the character had been. Anyway, Waid & Garney brought fresh blood to things and would come up with a few really good story arcs.
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