Captain America #162: Review

Jun 1973

Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema

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Story Name:

This Way Lies Madness!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Captain America #162 Review by Peter Silvestro (March 15, 2010)

The account of Peggy Carter’s final adventure with Cap was told in TALES OF SUSPENSE #77. Conclusion of a two-part story.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #162 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Captain America, the Falcon and Sharon Carter battle Nazis in the streets of Paris at the end of World War II though the phony German accents of the enemy soldiers tip off Cap that it is some sort of staged event. A sudden scream from the veiled woman, which Dr. Faustus calls the rebirth of her mind, signals the end of the melodrama. The heroes are rendered unconscious by a light beam and they are placed in the dreaded Psycho-Pit. Faustus questions the no-longer catatonic woman but she only vaguely recalls the events of her loss of memory and escape from Europe at the end of the war, not Captain America’s secret weakness as Faustus had hoped. In the Psycho-Pit, the heroes are subjected to a series of fear-gas-inspired illusions of monsters and Cap’s old enemies including the Red Skull. It’s the appearance of a suffering Bucky that causes Cap to falter but Falcon strikes at the figure, breaking a glass screen and allowing his partner to see the phony components of the illusion. Making their way through the asylum’s halls, they free the Carters, who explain what is going on: the mystery woman in the veil is Sharon’s sister Peggy, who was Cap’s girlfriend during the War. She was left amnesiac at the War’s end and when she heard that Cap was dead in 1945, her mind broke down and she would dress only in black. Sharon joined SHIELD expressly to meet the man her sister loved only to fall in love with him herself. Peggy remained institutionalized until Faustus contacted the family with the promise of a cure…which turned out to be merely the groundwork for a trap for Captain America. Cap climbs an outside wall to Peggy’s room where her memory seems to be restored by the sight of him. Faustus’ guards attack and Cap fights his way through them until Faustus hits him with a ray weapon that will cause his head to explode. Peggy beans the villain with a candlestick and takes out his henchman Wolfgang with karate. Cap and Faustus come face-to-face and the hero easily punches out his enemy. The Carters celebrate the return of their formerly catatonic daughter and invite Cap and the Falcon to stay for a while, an invitation which is gladly accepted.

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