Captain America #7 (February 2003)

This issue launches a new storyline, “The Extremists,” as Captain America begins a new life without a secret identity while uncovering more and more secrets within SHIELD. It also incorporates a perspective on the history of America that is too seldom mentioned in the comic that includes its name, but which is essential to appreciating Captain America’s broader mission and purpose.

We open on a dream, more accurately a nightmare, with Cap seeing prisoners at a concentration camp during World War II and not being able to look away…

…because his eyes are frozen underwater after that fateful day in early 1945. From there, he is forced to witness the evils humanity inflicts on itself while unable to do anything to help.

He feels responsible, having failed the American people by not being there when they needed him.

Eventually this guilt and frustration inspires him to break through the ice to fight for the one thing he believes in more than anything else—more than even death.

He awakens to find the repeated KRAKs in his dreams were actually gunfire outside his new apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

While he leaps down to enter the fray, Steve suggests his presence in the neighborhood has already done some good…

…but there’s still work to be done.

He waxes romantic about the street gangs of the old days, who operated like the original organized crime families in Europe, running their local communities, settling disputes, and enforcing rules against theft and violence, all in the absence of an effective government. But these kids today, Steve thinks, just want to play tough guys and assert themselves over others and against rival gangs (much like some modern organized crime families).

On the bright side, this helps him get his mind off things.

He also seems to have a day job at the docks, one he can leave at the end of the day, with dirt that actually washes off, as opposed to the “dirty hands” the tragic choices Captain America often faces. This day, after work, he reflects on the time since unmasking to the world and deciding he wanted to live with the people again, not far from his earlier home in Brooklyn Heights, but in a distinctly less “posh” neighborhood.

He wonders how long he has before the media takes his newfound serenity, but is interrupted when he has to warn a young friend of trouble brewing.

Even if the media doesn’t know he’s there, the locals do—and when they try to intimidate them, they fall embarrassingly short. (If only they knew how he grew up and how “street” he actually is.)

He does give his distinctly un-street version of “don’t start none won’t be none” as he tries to explain how violence hurts everyone, including those practicing it and invoking one young man’s family by name, showing he’s a part of this community.

Tony hears him and orders his men to lay their weapons down, citing Steve’s confrontation with the other gang the night before, but warns the Avenger their agreement is contingent and precarious.

Afterwards, Tony says Steve reminds him of a sifu his grandfather told him about who practiced a serene form of nonviolence that was all the more deterrent for its peacefulness—while nonetheless referring to Cap as a soldier.

Back in his apartment, Steve mimics more esoteric martial arts weapons training with his shield while ignoring a call from “his ex”…

…who drops by anyway.

Steve references his experiences with SHIELD in the last storyline, which strikes the same tone as the scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier when he tells Fury, after viewing his plans for 24/7 surveillance, that “This isn’t freedom—this is fear.”

In the end, Cap suits up and heads south to meet SHIELD agent Samantha Twotrees, and even though they don’t get off on the right foot, they connect over a common friend, Inali Redpath, who would seem to be no longer.

Cap gets in another dig about SHIELD surveillance (similar to his issue about the CATtags in the last storyline)…

…before they reveal more about Redpath and what happened to him.

But when Cap takes a closer look, Redpath’s odds improve considerably, although Fury’s head in the opposite direction.

(I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m usually not crazy about the “points” in Cap’s cowl under his cheekbones—I associate them more with Batman or the Flash—but I sort of like them here, as drawn by Trevor Hairsine, who does amazing work throughout this story.)

Cap wants to know where SHIELD makes their clones and learns that he’s already there. (And he signals further discontent with his old pal Nick.)

While Twotrees calls her boss—who is not Nick Fury—to tell him Cap’s on his way, Cap concedes that everyone is lying, but cannot accept that as the way his country works.

His progress is suddenly impeded by a wall of flames and then just a plain wall… or, as the fella responsible would probably call it, a barricade.

Obviously, Cap challenges Barricade’s assertion, calling back to the opening of the issue…

…but their confrontation will have to wait until the next one.

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ISSUE DETAILS

Captain America (vol. 4) #7, February 2003: John Ney Reiber (writer), Trevor Hairsine (pencils), Danny Miki (inks), Dave Stewart (colors), Wes Abbott and Richard Starkings (letters). (More details at Marvel Database.)

Collected in: Captain America Marvel Knights Volume 1.

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LAST ISSUE: Captain America #6 (December 2002)

ALSO THIS MONTH: Avengers #61 (February 2003)

NEXT ISSUE: Captain America #8 (March 2003)