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Credits Writer: Ed Brubaker Pencils: Steve Epting Finishes: Steve Epting & Mike Perkins Flashbacks: Michael Lark Colorist: Frank D'Armata Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna Editor: Tom Brevoort

Quick Summary

Lukin has set up an auction for the Cosmic Cube.

Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter, and Nick Fury are discussing the file mysteriously sent to Rogers' apartment, detailing the history of the Winter Soldier. They discuss its veracity, and whether or not there is anything left of Bucky inside the Winter Soldier's body.

Flashback to 1941 - Steve Rogers is watching Bucky train as a commando. Bucky is revealed to be sixteen, and a naturally-skilled combatant. The General with Steve is un-named, but suggests Bucky as Captain America's new partner, stressing how an American teenager fighting alongside Cap will be another positive symbol for the war effort. Rogers' agrees to meet Bucky.

Meanwhile, back in the present... Sharon tries to talk to Captain America as he heads out on a city patrol, trying to excise some of his tension through exercise. She fails to do anything but annoy Rogers, and tells Fury that she failed, and that Fury should call someone else.

Back to the auction, where the authenticity of the Cosmic Cube is called into question - to demonstrate its power, Lukin uses it to force the enthusiastic signatures of all the attending CEOs to sign their companies over to Kronas corporation as subsidiaries. Lukin also is suffering quick mind blackout periods - and as his assistant finds out, is murderously possessive of the Cosmic Cube.

Back in Brooklyn, Captain America is leaping across rooftops, and remembers in instance where the Nazis sent prisoners who had been zombie-fied back against their comrades-in-arms. He remembers Bucky's horror at what had been done to them - and how he'd be horrified at what had been done to him.

Oh, and he stops a mugging while doing it.

As Captain America contemplates what it will take to stop the Winter Soldier, and whether or not his friend would be better off dead - the person Fury calls shows up, offering Cap a friendly ear if he wants one. And Captain America gladly accepts the offer from his friend... the Falcon!

Commentary

This is primarily a character issue, focusing on Captain America's internal dialogue - almost certainly the lull before the storm of the next two issues.

• The Cosmic Cube is showing more and more indications of sentience, and one wonders at this point whether Lukin controls it or visa versa. He certainly seems to be showing all the signs of an addiction; quite obviously the offer of an auction was a sham, and the end-result of the acquisition of the oter companies the desired goal all along.
• Captain America and Sharon's relationship is slowly evolving, and not towards a romance - she's beginning to lose that awful smugness that she knows him inside and out, as she fails to be able to meaningfully connect with him here.
• Captain America himself is in a hard place, mentally. He knows that the Winter Soldier is a tool, and not the person really responsible for the deaths in Philadephia - thats Lukin. On the other hand, the Winter Soldier has to be put out of commission, whether responsible or not - but for Steve, the question is how? Does he lean towards Sharon's belief that the essential part that was Bucky - his mind and soul - is dead and gone these years, or as Cap hopes (because of the episode in which the Winter Soldier shook off control and headed to NYC) that there is still some part of him left. Like the zombie soldiers, should he put Bucky's reanimate body down, or is there something within him that can be recovered?
• Nice to see Falcon back after his inconclusive disappearance at the end of the Priest Captain America and the Falcon series.
• An extra plea from the letters page - they're running out of steam with Questions of the Month - contribute your question, and get credit if they use it.
• Send letters and Questions of the Month to mheroes@marvel.com, and mark them "OK to Print".

Steve Epting provides his usual top-notch work, with Michael Lark doing the black-and-white flashbacks. Splendid work as usual, setting a high bar - which fortunately, Epting himself seems to easily reach.