As soon as Steranko arrived and took comic books to the next level, he left.
John Romita steps in for one issue. Big John is great, but what Steranko was doing was revolutionary. It’s amazing to think that JR could be seen as a come-down from what preceded him. He’s legendary, and deservedly so.
That’s just how good comics were in the ’60s.
Steve Rogers is “dead” and now Cap thinks he can be whoever he wants.
He resents being overshadowed by … Captain America?
This seems extremely out of character–he’s a patriotic hero who is all about duty and country. He’s really not an egomaniac–seems like putting country before self is more like him.
But the Marvel formula is to be tortured by your own amazing abilities.
It’s a very short-lived plotline, at any rate. While he’s out there, walking in the rain, thinking and sulking, we get a very brief glimpse of his Avengers teammates watching him.
They give him his space.
For the action part of this book, Cap and Rick Jones Bucky save Sharon from AIM. He has to go to SHIELD’s hidden base to get the info about the job.
I love that sequence. It’s so much like that old spy show Get Smart.
But…Doesn’t anyone wonder why a man is sitting in a barber chair with his head covered by a cowl?
Anyway, this is a 25 page comic. With all the character work, Cap and Rick take down the AIM robot army pretty quick.
He can’t stand that her job as a SHIELD agent puts her in danger, so he demands that she quit. She says no, and he walks away–seemingly breaking off the relationship.
At the very end of this issue is a cliffhanger…
A very intriguing prelude to one of the greatest ‘Captain America’ epics ever published- the ‘Cosmic Cube-Red Skull-Body Switcheroo’ saga, which also, quite incidentally, gave us the debut of the Falcon. My only quibble with this prelude is the sequence where Cap, in deep disguise, checks into the fleabag motel, and drops his last ten bucks on a room. This motel must have been some kind of a serious dump, if you could lease a room there for an entire week for just a ten-spot! I have a hard time believing that a motel room could be leased for an entire week for that cheap, even as far back as 1969, and especially in New York City! But, the REAL quibble is- why is Captain America flat-broke-?? As an Avenger, who draws a nice salary, ( $1,000 a week/$52,000 per year, according to several sources, including ‘Avengers’ volume one, issue# 236 ) and a sweet side-gig as an at-will, freelance Agent of SHIELD, and with an almost zero-overhead lifestyle, ( I figure meals, clothes, and that’s it ) Captain America’s existence SHOULD be pretty money-easy! So, where does all his Avengers salary and SHIELD payments GO to-??! Maybe he over-donates to charity-who knows-?? In any event, I must have been seriously impressed with the sequence where Cap, in heavy disguise, walks the streets of Manhattan in the rain, in the middle of the night, because, in the miserable heat of the Summer of 1969, I restaged that scene in my father’s trenchcoat and top-hat, with my ‘Captain America’ sweatshirt and red-white-and-blue garbage-can lid strapped to my back, walking around the block in the middle of the heat of the day! I suppose it would have gone a lot better had I not been spotted by my chums-of-the-time, ( my versions of the Avengers, I suppose ) who all ran up to me on the street, and all split their ever-loving guts laughing their asses off! Ah, the days of youth! In my entire life, I have only made one other human being laugh at something even harder and longer, but that is a tale for another time………….. I agree with Mr. Ekko’s rating for “The Man Behind the Mask”- a solid ‘B’!
P.S. – The answer to Mr. Ekko’s query as to why Cap is sitting in a barber’s chair with a full cowl on, is because, he is NOT there to get a HAIRCUT- he is there to A) Visit Nick Fury, and B) To persuade the lovely Agent Thirteen to quit SHIELD!! I hope this dispels this baffling mystery!