These three issues of The Amazing Spider-Man comprise the second half of the storyline "The Assassin Nation Plot," describing political intrigue in the fictional nation of Symkaria, which borders Doctor Doom's Latveria and is the home of the mercenary Silver Sable. Captain America becomes involved when the CIA is implicated in a political assassination, and... Continue Reading →
This issue is hardly significant, being a done-in-one fill-in, but it also comes between two longer storylines, and was published the same month as an important issue of Captain America, so it's most easily dealt with on its own. (Listen, they're not all going to be epic posts, OK?) It does feature a small group... Continue Reading →
This issue serves as an aftermath to last month's game-changing issue #350, a breather if you will, that reintroduces a beloved classic supporting character, reconnects Captain America with an old pal (and explains the recent tensions between them), and signals a change in the fortunes of one John Walker after his abbreviated term as the... Continue Reading →
This issue of Captain America brings Steve Rogers and Lemar Hoskins together for the first time, and reunites Rogers with Flag-Smasher and ULTIMATUM, which only reminds him of the catastrophic events of issue #321... and all of this happens in the last issue before the pivotal #350. (Also, note the cover by Ron Frenz and... Continue Reading →
This issue follows up on the "disagreement" between Iron Man and the Captain in Iron Man #228 over Tony's ongoing campaign to reclaim or disable all of his tech in other people's hands, including the U.S. government, and by whatever means necessary. This is just one of many examples of Tony's utilitarian approach to ethical... Continue Reading →
This issue follows directly from Iron Man #228, in which the Captain and Iron Man fought about Tony's attempts to get his tech back from the U.S. government—specifically, breaking into the Vault, a prison for superhuman convicts, to disable the Stark-designed armor of their Guardsmen. For all his claims to be a futurist, Tony either... Continue Reading →
This looks like a miniseries about the Avengers fighting the X-Men—and, to be sure, it is—but at its heart it's a story about Magneto and his continued struggle to try to be the hero Charles Xavier believes he is, while protecting mutantkind the only way he knows how (which is not Charles' way). There are... Continue Reading →
I'm covering these two issues together because a significant portion of each issue is taken up with the adventures of Nomad (last seen in issue #309), whom Captain America joins up with at the end of the story. More interesting for our purposes is Cap's ongoing confrontation of the fallout from killing an ULTIMATUM agent... Continue Reading →
This issue serves as the aftermath of the last one, which ended with Captain America shooting a terrorist ULTIMATUM agent to stop him from massacring hostages in a monastery in the Swiss Alps. Like the last issue, Captain America #322 is one of the most cited comics in my book, due largely to the fact... Continue Reading →
This issue concludes the three-part "Scourge of the Underworld" storyline, as Captain America finally comes face-to-face with the man who's been killing villains across the Marvel Universe (and in many titles) for the past year. (See the post on issue #318 for more background on the Scourge concept.) However, we open with Cap facing off... Continue Reading →
THE VIRTUES OF CAPTAIN AMERICA 