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Out Of Time, Part 2

CA #2

Credits

  • Writer: Ed Brubaker
  • Artist: Steve Epting and Michael Lark
  • Colorist: Frank D'Armata
  • Letterer: VC's Randy Gentile
  • Assistant Editors: Wiley and Lazar Schmidt
  • Editor: Tom Brevoort

Quick Summary

Crossbones is back, and working for the Red Skull - of his plans to make Paris, London, and Manhatten burn, he's in charge of the Manhatten unit.

Meanwhile, Steve Rogers awakens from a nightmare - a World War II combination of dream and memory, where Bucky dies. Before he can go back to sleep, he is contacted by Sharon, and taken to the SHIELD Helicarrier, where he and Fury witness the autopsy of the Red Skull. Cap descends to the crime scene, where SHIELD techs are still working. Cap remembers that he was, in part, created as a symbol to counter the Red Skull. One of the SHIELD technicians discover a signal from the case which held the Cosmic Cube to a spot somewhere in Manhatten.

Sharon and Captain America head to the sewers, tracking the signal. They discover and fight Crossbones and his rogue A.I.M. flunkies, and disarm the firebomb scheduled to destroy Manhattan. They call Fury, who tells them that the same fellows who killed the Red Skull took the Cosmic Cube, and that they still don't know who that was...

...but Crossbones has overhead their telephone conversation. He makes a call of his own, to confirm that, in the Red Skull's memory, London and Paris will burn!

Commentary

Again, Brubaker and Epting pull off what the Marvel Knights run should have been in the first place - adult-intelligent adventures within the context of the Marvel Universe. This is a Tom Clancy novel done with SHIELD instead of a government agency, with Captain America in the lead, and using Marvel-brand terrorists (for how else would you define A.I.M., Hydra, etc., if not terrorists?), and Marvel-brand devious masterminds!
  • The summary in the front of the book reveals that the assassin who killed the Red Skull is a cyborg, probably the one the Red Skull wanted to buy from Lukin five years ago.
  • Its nice to see the Red Skull back where he belongs - the right-hand man for the Red Skull. Hopefully, we'll get to see other members of the Skeleton Crew.
  • Cap's defusing the A.I.M. bomb was classic comics; since A.I.M. always requires their devices to have a large power requirement, you disarm it by (essentially) unplugging it.