Captain America #165: Review

Sep 1973

Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema

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Story Name:

The Yellow Claw Strikes

Review & Comments

Rating:

Captain America #165 Review by Peter Silvestro (March 15, 2010)

The villain’s backstory comes from YELLOW CLAW #1 (October 1956). Nick Fury seems to assume Cap knew about SHIELD’s planned raid, which was impossible. Part one of a three-part story.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #165 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Outside Grimrock Prison, Nick Fury is angry at Captain America and the Falcon for interfering with SHIELD’s raid, allowing the Yellow Claw to escape, ending with him ordering Cap to stay out of SHIELD business. The Falcon elects to leave the Yellow Claw to Fury and his gang and head back to Harlem. An angry Cap returns to Virginia to say goodbye to Sharon; while there, Peggy mentions an anti-Cap campaign on the radio (begun by Eel and Viper in issue #163) but the hero brushes it off as of no consequence. Meanwhile in New York’s Chinatown the Yellow Claw proceeds with his evil schemes. First, he unveils the casket of his traitorous niece Suwan who sleeps the Dreamless Sleep. Then he lures a submarine from his former masters in Red China into a trap and by his hypnotic power commands the soldiers to kill themselves. The next day, the city is terrorized by giant spiders; Captain America swings into action, distracting them until the police arrive with heavy artillery to destroy the monsters. The skywritten message "Only the beginning" tips Cap that this is the work of the Yellow Claw. In Harlem, Leila brings the Falcon a message that gangster Morgan wants to meet with him. The hero heads over to yet another offer to work for the crimelord. Cap, meanwhile, has trailed the last spiders into the sewer where he is trapped in a tunnel and dumped into the presence of the Yellow Claw. The villain attacks him and Cap fights back; after a savage martial arts battle, Cap beats his foe savagely. Suddenly, Cap discovers with a shock that his opponent was Nick fury, disguised by the villain’s hypnotic illusion. The real Claw appears on a screen gloating over the success of his plan—tricking Captain America into murdering the director of SHIELD.

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