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

General Lukin is speaking with someone in a limo, confirming that his instructions have been carried out - and that he'll place a call to Mr. Cross. His aide, named Leon, complains that between the Cosmic Cube, the cyborg assassin, and so forth, Lukin has made things too complex. Lukin tells him to cease his complaining and focus on the job at hand - taking over Roxxon Corporation.

Steve is working out on the punching bag, when he gets a call from Fury about something, perhaps connected to the Red Skull assassination. Cap makes arrangements to fly out to investigate... meanwhile, Fury assigns Sharon to find Jack Monroe through a homing device signal.

Captain America arrives in Arlington, VA, at the military cemetary. Someone has vandalized the graves of Willaim Naisland (Spirit of 1776/Captain America II) and Jeff Mace (Patriot/Captain America III). Cap tells the military guard escort about the significance of those two men, and how they'd earned his respect for their actions and dedication during and after World War II.

As Captain America leaves the cemetary, he is ambushed both by another round of false-memory flashbacks and by Crossbones; between the two, he is unable to defend himself. On the defensive, he accuses Crossbones of defacing the gravestones; Crossbones resents that Lukin set him up to do Lukin's spadework, and leaves, telling Cap that he can tell the Russian to get someone else to do his work, and that when Crossbones takes revenge it will be for the Red Skull, not someone else's plot.

Meanwhile, Sharon has tracked Jack Monroe's body to its location in Pittsburgh, and goes in to investigate. She finds Jack's body, and is knocked out by a metal fist (presumably the cyborg's).

Commentary

• Massive speculation about who the cyborg is, with many people guessing that its the original Bucky Barnes.
• Jack's body has a GPS chip, which is how Sharon found the body. As an active SHIELD agent, presumably she also has one - and probably a better one... of course, the biggest question is, when she discovered the door was unlocked, and was suspicious, why didn't she call for backup?
• According to Brubaker in an online post, the false memories and flashbacks with which Captain America is struggling comes from Lukin's use of the Cosmic Cube.
• I wouldn't have thought that Crossbones would scruple about killing Captain America, given his past history of expeditious ruthlessness, but I suppose since he's doing it to revenge the Red Skull, he's taking a page from the Red Skull's book and wanting Captain America to know he's been defeated while at his peak, and with nothing he can do about it.