KIRBY IS BACK! As America's bicentennial year opens, we see Captain America co-creator return to his title as writer, penciller, and editor, where he'll remain for almost two years, from issue #193 to #214 in October 1977, plus two annuals and a special "Bicentennial Battles" issue. Kirby injects a science-fiction feel to his run, where... Continue Reading →
Just two months after Giant-Size Invaders #1, the (mostly) monthly Invaders title began (the first two issues originally intended for a second giant-size comic). As I wrote in the post for the last issue (after some background regarding its origins), this series is heavy of the action and light on the moral dilemmas—this being an... Continue Reading →
We have finally come to the first extended treatment of Captain America's World War II adventures in writer Roy Thomas's brainchild series, Invaders, drawn by Frank Robbins and others. Please indulge me for a minute: my favorite comics series when I was a little nipper (and exclusively a DC Comics reader) was All-Star Squadron, in... Continue Reading →
This two-parter represents Captain America's second appearance in a Marvel team-up title, this time in the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing's book Marvel Two-in-One. This story also fits in between Captain America #175 and 176, after he had learned the extent of the Secret Empire's reach into the highest echalons of the American government, but before he... Continue Reading →
After the prelude in issue #164, we have here the main three-parter featuring Captain America and the Falcon fighting the Yellow Claw, a Fu Manchu-type villain (see also: the Mandarin) who starred in his own short-lived Atlas comic in the 1950s, who reappeared in the 1960s to fight S.H.I.E.L.D. (including behind the scenes in Strange... Continue Reading →
These issues comprise the second half of Gerry Conway's short four-issue run, introducing Mr. Hyde and the Scorpion to these pages, wrapping up Captain America's brief career as a police officer, and introducing an important aspect of Cap's mighty shield. As issue #151 opens, we see who the mysterious speakers at the end of issue... Continue Reading →
This issue, Captain America is still reeling from the betrayal he thinks he suffered at the hands of his beloved Sharon Carter and his "beliked" Nick Fury in the last issue, although we know he was just too hurt and impatient to wait for the quite reasonable explanation Sharon would have offered. Luckily for him,... Continue Reading →
This standalone issue lets us see Captain America through someone else's eyes; reveals the compassion of an accidental villain; and gives Cap his first exposure to an alternative, version of himself—a man similarly modified by science but with less benevolent intentions and successful results. The issue opens with Silas X. Cragg, one of the "nameless... Continue Reading →
This issue begins an on-and-off period of self-questioning for Captain America along several angles, including continued angst about his own identity and purpose in life, as well as more outward-looking concern with the state of American society (befitting the time and the increasing social consciousness of comics). You have to hand it to Stan Lee,... Continue Reading →
