The first issue of this arc was different from any Captain America story that preceded it, and it has its own post here. Now, we get an inkling of how rich Ed Brubaker’s vision will be. It will integrate esoteria with core concepts from Captain America’s half-century history.
Last issue, Red Skull was killed by a mysterious assassin who stole the Cosmic Cube. This issue begins with SHIELD and Captain America investigating the murder. The clues lead to a spinter faction of AIM, who vow to burn the world down in Red Skull’s memory.
Across these issues we see Captain America having repeated flashbacks to World War II.
There’s a nice sequence with the new Union Jack, where we see that the AIM group is also active in Britain.
Union Jack finds the faction members slaughtered. Mother Night is among the dead, and we haven’t seen her in a long time.
Meanwhile, Jack Monroe (aka Nomad and a version of Bucky) is murdered.
SHIELD finds the gun used to execute Red Skull, and Monroe’s prints are on the weapon.
Lots of long-time characters are being killed in these early issues!
While Captain America is tracking down Red Skull’s killer, General Lukin–who ordered the hit–hires Crossbones to kill Cap. Crossbones catches up to Cap after Steve visits the graves of two former Captain Americas (William Naslund and Jeffrey Mace), which have been defaced. Cap thinks Crossbones is the one who vandalized the graves and attacks him, but during the fight he has more WWII flashbacks and Crossbones is able to defeat him.
Crossbones does tell Cap, though, that he was hired by a Russian–and that’s enough for Nick Fury to figure out that it is General Lukin.
Sharon gets captured by Lukin’s assassin, Cap saves her, and she tells him that the man who took her was Bucky.
We see him on a rooftop. Reading this now, we know that of course it’s Bucky. In real time, though, that was far from clear.
And we’re at the end of the first “arc.” The Brubaker run is really one, long story–but this is identified as the last part of the “Out of Time” segment of the tale.
These issues also revive the letters page with major creators writing in to say how bad this arc is. Kidding, of course. They all love it because it’s perfect.
