Captain America #24: Review

SHIELD Director Maria Hill summons Sharon Carter to a meeting aboard the Helicarrier. Since Dum Dum Dugan and the staff psychiatrist have both recommended Sharon be returned to active duty, and Sharon herself assures her boss she is no longer conflicted about the civil war (which we know is the result of a hypnotic suggestion by Dr. Faustus) Hill is ready to give her a new assignment. Agent 13 will be joining the task force hunting down the rogue Nick Fury. Sharon withdraws to a secret room where she meets with the Life Model Decoy controlled by Nick Fury (first seen last issue) to be filled in on the situation with Captain America….

As he runs over the New York rooftops, Cap is angry that the superhero civil war is too much of a distraction from the urgent need to find the Red Skull. The Skull made his televised statement (issue #21) a week before the Stamford incident (CIVIL WAR #1) and since then Cap has been battling Tony Stark and not his archenemy. A tip from Nick Fury has led Cap to a secret Hydra meeting place. Cap overpowers the two guards and dons a Hydra uniform. He searches the building for clues to what the criminal organization was planning and makes a shocking (unseen) discovery—but he is caught by a Hydra team. Cap strips off the Hydra suit revealing the red-white-and-blue and launches into them; suddenly the room is full of Hydra agents, and they just keep coming, as fast as Cap can take them down. One of the villains detonates a suicide bomb, killing everyone but Cap, who was protected by his shield. Dazed, he makes his way out of the building to discover a SHIELD Cape-Killer squad already on the scene. As they try to place him under arrest, the agents are all paralyzed by a sudden electromagnetic pulse coursing through their high-tech headgear. Sharon Carter, in a flying car, calls to Cap to get in. She explains how Fury was able to devise that device based on a stolen helmet (nabbed by Bucky in the last issue) and Tony Stark will likely redesign the technology to prevent it working again. She explains she is no longer conflicted about which side to choose in the conflict—not since Goliath was killed (CIVIL WAR #4). Cap wonders if Stark has resorted to recruiting Hydra to do his dirty work in his war on unlicensed heroes; Sharon points out that the war is forcing Cap as well as Tony to do many things they would not otherwise have considered. Cap brings up what he learned about the Red Skull’s plans….

Epilogue: At the Kronas Corporation, the Red Skull is introducing his newest recruit—Arnim Zola—to the lab facilities; the plan: to destroy Captain America….