As you can guess from the cover, this issue elaborates on the backstory of Steve Rogers's neighbor Anna Kapplebaum, who survived the Holocaust (with the help of a young Captain America, as recounted in issue #237). However, much of what we'll cover in this post deals with Cap's interactions with his community, as drawn by... Continue Reading →
Captain America #243-244 (March-April 1980)
These two issues bring us back to Captain America's main storyline (after the last issue), in that it references Steve Rogers's burgeoning artistic career, while still having the feel of a fill-in story, this one about a fella named Adonis who definitely isn't. (No judgment... neither am I!) Issue #243 opens with Cap fighting unknown... Continue Reading →
Avengers #192-196 and Daredevil #164 (February-June 1980)
These six issues—only one of which even has Cap on the cover—have very little ethically interesting Captain America content, but they do include the Falcon leaving the Avengers, the new Ant-Man meeting the team for the first time, the introduction of the Taskmaster, a badly beaten Man without Fear, and Cap confronting a new and... Continue Reading →
Captain America #242 (February 1980)
This issue sees our hero manipulated by a fiend known as—wait, "the Manipulator," really?—who puts him through a series of set-ups and illusions to try to break him mentally. Although the Manipulator pushes all the right buttons, some of them enabled by Cap's innocent gullibility, it is no surprise that at the end Cap emerges... Continue Reading →
Captain America #241 (January 1980)
In this issue, Captain America meets Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, in one of Frank's earliest appearances outside of Amazing Spider-Man, two years before he appeared in Daredevil and six years before he got his first title. Accordingly, we get our first look at the differences between the two men, which we will see from... Continue Reading →
Avengers #190-191 (December 1979-January 1980)
These two issues contain a battle against the Grey Gargoyle, primarily a foe of Thor who also faced Captain America and the Falcon in Captain America #139-142, which is bookended by a more interesting story—at least for the purposes of this blog—featuring a Senate hearing on the issues of the Avengers' security clearance, which anticipates... Continue Reading →