Captain America #100



"This Monster Unmasked!"
Writer: Stan Lee
Art: Jack Kirby (pencils) and Syd Shores (inks)
Cover Date: April 1968

Synopsis
Flashback to Steve Rogers frozen in ice, worshiped by the Inuit, until Namor comes along and throws the chunk of ice into the ocean, where the warmer waters melt it. The scene shifts to a gathering of Avengers hovering over the unconscious Captain America, who eventually comes to, ranting about Bucky dying...

...which turns into the realization that he is back in the present, trapped with Black Panther at the mercy of Baron Zemo and Irma Kruhl (a disguised Agent 13), who has been ordered to kill them. She hesitates, so Zemo tells her to pull the trigger or else die with the heroes, so as to keep her cover intact, she fires but misses high intentionally, a fact not lost on Cap. Telling Zemo there will be time to kill them later and that the mission to destroy every missile base on earth matters more, she manages to deflect Zemo's attention from Cap and Black Panther and gets him to explain how his solar ray is operated while Cap and Black Panther devise a plan for escape. Before they can strike at Zemo, however, Agent 13 reveals herself by using a miniature flame-thrower (smartly hidden within her attache), blowing up the control panel for the death ray.

Zemo orders her killed as she tries to escape, so Cap and Black Panther quickly join the fight to even the odds. The three of them take out many of Zemo's soldiers, but they are unable to keep him from summoning reinforcements. Realizing they need to get away, the heroes make their way through the complex, only to run headfirst into another cadre of Zemo's men. Ducking back into a tunnel, they find an air vent that leads away, but to where, they don't know. Zemo rallies his troops at this time, reminding them that at the other end of the vent, the Destructon stands guard.

Black Panther exits the vent first and is hit from behind by the robotic guard, and he distracts it, Cap sneaks up from behind and knocks it away, doing no damage however. They both engage it in hand-to-hand combat, which is ineffective, as is the bullet that Agent 13 fires at it, but Cap eventually finds the function controls, which he disables just as Zemo and his men enter. Cap engages Zemo, grabbing him and removing his mask, revealing an impostor in the form of Zemo's former pilot, who was present the day the real Baron Zemo died. Furious at his deception, the soldiers shoot and kill him, at which point Black Panther convinces them to lay down their arms in exchange for a fair trial. Cap and Agent 13 then discuss their future, while Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan blow up the death ray. After that, Black Panther flies Cap, Agent 13 and himself back to America, during which time Cap extends an offer to T'Challa to join the Avengers.

My Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about the Baron Zemo impostor reveal. On one hand, I was glad it was not another "back from the dead" situation, which we saw recently with the Red Skull. However, Zemo's pilot? Was this guy such a criminal mastermind that he could easily strap on Zemo's hood and coordinate something as complex as a global terrorist organization, complete with solar death ray? It either gives this schlub way too much credit or it diminishes what actual super-villains do as being something anyone can do.

In relation to the above, on page seven, "Zemo" runs down the rabbit trail of leading questions from Agent 13 like a deranged bloodhound, explaining exactly how his machine works and what defenses it has in its forcefield. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but maybe the one thing he did actually share with the real Baron Zemo was overbearing arrogance.

I've written it before, but for my money, Agent 13 is the best Silver Age Lee/Kirby female character. Sure, she has been captured and had to play "damsel in distress", but she kicks butt more often than not. In this story, without her, Cap and Black Panther would have both been killed (excepting any plot-induced stupidity from Zemo or his henchmen), as she saves both them and the world with quick thinking and a miniaturized flame thrower(?!) hidden in her case. She also volunteers to stay back and hold off Zemo's men because she's the one with the gun, and she ably fights Zemo's men as well as either of the costumed heroes. Lastly, she gets respect from Dum Dum, who replies to Fury's comment about the force field being down with "It figgers!--Agent 13 wuz on the job!"

Something I really didn't like was the Destructon, yet another in a line of robot guardians/assassins that Lee and Kirby kept putting into this title. Sadly, beyond it being yet another boring robot, it had a horrible design, with reddish "skin" covered by a green helmet, diaper, and boots.  On the plus side: no nipples! 



Lastly, I did like how Zemo's men were pissed off at the impostor for deceiving them, ending his life with a well-placed bullet. Even though they're evil henchmen, you have to respect their loyalty, as they did it because they "only serve Zemo".

My Grade: B
This was a nice upgrade over the previous chapter of the story in ToS #99. It was well-paced, had some nice action sequences drawn by Kirby that highlighted his skill with those types of scenes, and there was no glaring plot-induced stupidity on anyone's part. If there is anything to quibble about, it would be that for this being the first issue of Cap's solo title, he was truly upstaged by Agent 13 in the heroics department.

Agree with you on this, Kurt. The cynic in me thinks they did it to goose sales of the new book, the optimist in me just wants to think they reached a logical point to split the title and this was an unexpected result, and the realist in me knows it was a little bit of both.

The art is very nice to look at. There is a panel about midway through where Cap, Black Panther, and Agent 13 are being surrounded by Zemo's men, and even though there is a lot going on in it, the panel never seems claustrophobic to me. That's why Kirby was the King, in spite of crap like Destructon.

The titles were serving two purposes: launching a character popular enough to hold his own (obviously), but to maintain a smooth flow of continuity for the reader. Rather than have Tales of Suspense #99 have a hard series finale, it was logical for the characters to take the readers by the hand and run them into the new title with no hiccups that would've rubbed some the wrong way, as it would be suggesting Cap's ToS stories were some other era now closed, instead of this ever-growing saga built so carefully since his revival.

With Cap, #100 continued a ToS story, so readers simply moved from one title to its new version, but retained his developing plotlines. I feel that worked well, since I cannot recall readers being confused by the change, but appreciated uninterrupted world-building.

Not having read the earlier Sleepers storyline or the Skull appearance in ToS #90-91 at the time this three-issue arc came out, it was all fresh and new to 10-year-old me, and all that Kirby tech with those wonderfully textured Syd Shores inks blew my li'l mind. It's too bad the book promptly goes down the craphole after thus until Steranko steps in.

Cei-U!
I summon all those drawings I did of the Fourth Sleeper as a kid!

I did read the original Sleepers story, and when this fourth one came out I thought, "Another Sleeper? Have you run out of ideas?". When the fifth one came out, I was really disappointed and disillusioned.