Credits

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

Quick Summary

In April 1945, Karpov was on an experimental sub in the British Channel...

In the present, Nick Fury is breifing CA on the Winter Soldier - and who they think he is...

Switch to Phily, during the firestorm. When last we saw our hero, the Winter Soldier and Lukin had detonated the firebomb, and Cap is running through the devastation, helping rescue survivors. He encounters an AIM team recovering parts of their technology, and lays into them. He beats the snot out of them until they call for backup - the MODOC (Military Operatives, Designed Only for Combat) Squad!

Switch to the Fury breifing, where Fury is recounting their theory - that the Winter Soldier, who is an accomplished assassin, is frozen between his mission windows.

Back to the fight the night before in Philly - Cap makes short work of the MODOC squad, except for one, who is about to shoot CA as he removes a knife from his ribs, when the MODOC operative is killed... by the Winter Soldier. Cap speaks... "Bucky?" and the Winter Soldier replies "Who the hell is Bucky?" More rubble falls, and when the dust clears, the Winter Soldier is gone.

Meanwhile, Cap finishes his breifing by smashing Fury's big-screen projector in frustration. The next step? A commando raid to sieze Lukin before he can use his fully-powered Cosmic Cube. Cap wants in. Fury says "I know". Cap leaves.

Fury takes a walk with Sharon, and tells her that the SHIELD agent she'd been dating (Agent Neal Tapper) was the first causalty of the firebomb.

Meanwhile, back in 1945, Karpov and his submarine have found a body... a body missing an arm... a body who might be... Bucky.

Commentary

Another stellar installment in the ongoing mystery!

• The firebomb detonated in Philadelphia. Jack Monroe's ward, Julia Winter, was in Philadelphia. Coincidence? (Edit - Apparently, because Julia Winter lives it Pittsburgh, not Philly. Thanks to Ed Brubaker for the correction, and proof that at least one person reads these things... *grin*).
• The Baby Bucky has been adopted by a couple in Pittsburgh, and her name is now Julia Winter. Any relation? A clue perhaps, that the Winter Soldier might have some over-riding connection to Jack?
• One wonders as to whether or not Brubaker would be spending a whole issue on Jack Monroe if the only role he was to play in the Winter Soldier saga was as a corpse; there has to be more to it, just as there has to be more to Winter Soldier than a re-animated Bucky.
• How much of Jack's illness might be side-effects of something done to him with the Cosmic Cube (like the Bucky hallucinations)?
• I think that the body recovered from Harpov is actually a clone/split from Jack Monroe, cast back in time for Karpov to find - Bucky's body was destroyed, and Lukin sent the body back to Karpov in 1945 so that he could build the Winter Soldier with which to bedevil Cap in the present.