Marvel 1975.04 - Captain America #184

Captain America and the Falcon #184

Title: Cap's Back!

Writer: Steve Englehart

Artist: Herb Trimpe

Villain: Red Skull

Regulars: Sharon Carter, Peggy Carter, Leila Taylor

Guests: Gabe Jones

Cap's back! Don't you love those words?

Captain America searches for the Red Skull, but all he finds is a large television screen through which the Red Skull issues his threats to reverse the loss suffered by the Third Reich in 1945.

After this he goes to visit Sam Wilson, the Falcon, to see how he's doing. Sam is battered and bruised, but he feels well enough to accompany Captain America in his fight against the Red Skull. Leila Taylor tries in vain to talk Sam out of it.

Captain America and the Falcon find the Red Skull in Washington DC. They're too late to stop him killing Herbert Glass, a high ranking diplomat. He's a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group which formulates American economic policy. The Red Skull announces that he'll kill a second member, Lawton Sargent, at midnight. The Red Skull proclaims, "A military victory was beyond Mein Führer's grasp, but America shall lie in economic rubble before it can mark his final hour again".

This  gives Captain America a few hours to check up on Sharon. She's angry that he's become a superhero again. She wanted to have a quiet life with him. Evidently she's never heard the words, "With great power comes great responsibility".

Captain America and the Falcon go to the lighthouse where Lawton Sargent lives. He's already under guard, amongst others by Gabe Jones and Peggy Carter. The Red Skull attacks Peggy while she's walking outside. The Red Skull flees when the others arrive. Back in the house they find that Lawton Sargent is already dead. They have no idea how the Red Skull got past them.

The action in this issue is slow-moving. Steve Englehart's pacing is always magnificent. He's giving us time to get used to Cap being back.

A few words about the cover. It's totally inaccurate. It shows the Red Skull about to throw Sharon Carter off the top of the lighthouse, but in the story she isn't even there. This is the sort of error that happened a lot in Marvel comics in the mid 1970's. The cover was drawn a few months before the comic was written, so that it could be used for advertising purposes. The writer told the cover artist (in this case John Romita) what would happen in the comic, but at this early stage changes could still be made. Maybe Steve Englehart originally intended Sharon to be in the lighthouse, but by the time he wrote the full script he'd changed his mind.