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Captain America #277: Review

Jan 1983

J. M. DeMatteis, Mike Zeck

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Story Name:

In Thy Image

Review & Comments

Rating:

Captain America #277 Review by Peter Silvestro (November 6, 2014)

Review: Baron Zemo wants to strike at Cap through his friends—but first he tries to talk Cap to death. Really, a summary of his father’s career, then his own, then he explains his plan for a full page, then turns the mic over to Primus who gives his own story. Good thing Vermin is an animal or we’d get a soliloquy from him too. Anyway, after DeMatteis brings us up to date on all the bad guys, we finally move ahead with the action portion of the program. The Cap and Vermin vs. monster Arnie and Michael brawl is well done and effective—and Mike Zeck can make the chatty bits visually interesting as well. And to add further verbiage De Matteis gives us Sam Wilson’s complete biography in the second story! Not to say the second one doesn’t require it but it all seems like overkill.

Comments: Both stories are part two of three-part tales. Cap’s first encounter with Zemo, then known as Phoenix, was in CAP #168. Reverend Garcia appeared in CAP #139-143.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #277 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Captain America is the captive of the new Baron Zemo, son and namesake of his wartime nemesis. This Zemo is seeking revenge for Cap’s destruction of his father and for their own earlier encounter which left Zemo’s face burned. And now Zemo is going to systematically destroy the life of Steve Rogers; his agent? Arnim Zola reveals that he is not the mad biologist but his shapeshifting creation Primus; Primus then takes on the form of Steve Rogers. Cap leaps at him but passes out as he has been drugged….

Interlude: Advertising executive Arthur Bennett decides to offer the job of illustrating the campaign of the Coalition for an Upstanding America to Steve Rogers….

Cap wakes up in a dungeon, chained beside the feral Vermin. Zemo explains that he has transferred the minds of Arnie Roth and Michael Bech into monstrous mutate bodies with exposed brains. Out of their minds, they attack Cap and Vermin, putting Cap in the difficult position of protecting himself from harm while preventing Vermin from injuring the mutates. This is more difficult than it sounds and Vermin rips open a mutate brain and Michael dies. The other mutate collapses as Arnie awakens and accuses Cap of letting his friend die….

Epilogue: the phony Steve Rogers goes home with Cap’s girl Bernie Rosenthal….

Story #2

Snapping: Part II

Writer: J. M. DeMatteis. Penciler: Mike Zeck. Inker: Joe Rubinstein. Colorist: Bob Sharen.

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

By Peter Silvestro

Sam Wilson wanders the streets of Harlem, tormented by nagging questions about his past. At home Sam’s sister Sarah reveals the truth about his childhood: he grew up in a loving family until his minister father was killed trying to stop a gang fight. After that he was determined to be a model youth, but when his mother was shot by a mugger, he rebelled and drifted into crime as gangster Snap Wilson. The Red Skull’s trick with the Cosmic Cube merely suppressed the snap personality allowing the real Sam to shine through….

Now Sam is sitting on the rooftop where he met the young victim of violence Angel in issue #272; Redwing comes to him as his only friend. Then he is found by the local pastor Reverend Garcia who has followed Redwing; Garcia offers to help Sam—but he explodes, knocking down the clergyman and insisting his name is “Snap” Wilson….

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