This issue, the penultimate in the current storyline which began in issue #14, is a unique entry in the Captain America canon, a time-travel story in which he dies a lot, but keeps coming back to fight for liberty and justice. (You may have seen this movie.) In the last issue, Cap leapt into the timestream in pursuit of Korvac, who fled into the future after stealing both the Cosmic Cube power from the Red Skull (whom Cap killed) and the universal information from Galactus’ ship, which granted him ultimate power and knowledge to conquer the world (which the Skull was planning to do himself).
We start the issue in the year 3007, after Korvac has defeated an invasion from the alien Badoon, after which he took over the world and imposed “peace and order” in exchange for obedience, striking all the fascist notes, such as eliminating free will because “independent thought is a disruptive cancer.” But the spirit of liberty still lives in occasional rebellion under familiar colors…
…inspired by a very particular figure who is an old hand at resisting tyranny.
In a page reminiscent of the cover of Uncanny X-Men #142, Korvac casually kills Cap…
…and while most of his followers despair, one continued to spread his message (until Korvac kills them all on the next page).
Afterwards, we learn that, similar to yet another movie, Korvac has been repeatedly “rebooting” the past, returning to the start of his dominion and tweaking events to achieve his utopian vision. When Primax, the silver-faced fellow above whom Korvac transformed into an robotic assistant, asks why Cap persists in confronting him…
…Korvac reviews the events of the last issue before getting to the point, lamenting a character trait in Cap that Korvac had long since eradicated from his subjects.
In the next reboot, we hear a voice addressing a secretive underground meeting…
…inspiring the downtrodden with appeals to both liberty and solidarity, this time invoking famous words often attributed to Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill (but whose actual providence is unclear).
When Korvac appears, he reveals his new strategy is to take Cap off the board before he can inspire a movement, but he toys with him first, killing random supporters…
…and then goading Cap into killing him as he did to the Skull, but Cap refuses.
Instead of killing Cap, Korvac explains what he’s doing, constantly restarting time so he can fine-tune the workings of his mechanistic view of the world (which must deny any human free will, initiative, or creativity).
Then he changes the rules to teach “humility” to the man who, as we know, exemplifies that virtue, when he actually simply wants him to admit defeat, by allowing him to retain memories of his past lives and deaths when Korvac reboots time.
In the next reboot, Cap is nowhere to be seen until a strange vessel appears at Korvac’s door. (There is a relevant movie here too, but it’s much less well known.)
Cap tries to enlist the aid of Primax, appealing to the humanity and individuality inside him, but Korvac assures him that Primax is simply part of the machine now.
In the next reboot, nearly fifty more years pass before Cap appears, having gathered an international coalition against Korvac, but to no end.
More and more reboots are shown with the same result, until one time, when Cap emerges from a wall of flame—impressing Primax, who has watched him rise time and time again in unrelenting defiance.
This time Korvac seems to be fed up, desperate to break Cap’s will once and for all…
…until an ally presents himself.
Cap rejoins the fight, explaining to Korvac that he cannot eliminate the human independence he hates so much because it persists in him, which makes his quest for mechanistic perfection futile… all stemming from his actions “way back” in our time.
Korvac admits Cap is right, and then explains his intention to reboot all the way back to 1999 to do it right. But before he does, he reminds Cap that if he finds a way to prevail over Korvac, he won’t live on to repel the Badoon invasion—but Cap is confident humanity will still be better off for its freedom to fight for itself.
As Korvac and Cap disappear into another reboot, they leave Primax—or Jaromel—behind with Cap’s shield, to fight for the ideals Cap taught him…
…as that timeline’s Captain America.
This is Jaromel’s first and last appearance (so far), but his story is fleshed out a bit more in this profile from 2011’s Captain America: America’s Avenger #1.
We’ll see our Cap return to 1999 in the next issue, but before we sign off, he also somehow found time to appear in Nova’s new book to help him fight his old foe Diamondhead, whom Cap offends by calling him “son.”
Nova doesn’t mind if Cap calls him “son,” as long as he gets first crack at D-Head—with some coaching from his elder.
Cap tries to convince Nova he can ask for help, but he doesn’t exactly ask…
…and uses Cap’s shield to completely shatter Diamondhead. (Watch out, Emma Frost!) Cap is both understanding and forgiving, as he usually is with others, and much more than he would be with himself in the same circumstance. He assures the younger hero that there was no way to know Diamondback would be so easily destroyed… because he was, after all, living diamond.
Cap follows up by saying he’s been there, things happen either because of desperation or mistake (neither of which applies in this case), and recommends that he doesn’t get used to killing as an easy way out.
(He does.)
ISSUE DETAILS
Captain America (vol. 3) #18, June 1999: Mark Waid (writer), Lee Weeks (pencils), Robert Campanella, Jesse Delperdang, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, and Tom Palmer (inks), Christie Scheele and Gregory Wright (colors), Todd Klein (letters). (More details at Marvel Database.)
Collected in: Captain America: Heroes Return–The Complete Collection Vol. 2.
Nova (vol. 3) #2, June 1999: Erik Larson (writer), Joe Bennett (pencils), Armando Durruthy (inks), Steve Oliff (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters). (More details at Marvel Database.)
Not yet collected.
PREVIOUS ISSUE: Captain America #17 (May 1999)
ALSO THIS MONTH: Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #10, Avengers #17 and Black Panther #8, Avengers Forever #7, and Cable #68 (June 1999)
NEXT ISSUE: Captain America #19 (July 1999)
THE VIRTUES OF CAPTAIN AMERICA 
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