I believe it's in the credits? IIRC he inked the panels with his counterpart's art in it, or something.

Good memory! Yes, it was the cover of The Avengers #78 (July, 1970), by the fantastic team of John Buscema and Tom Palmer--






It was always nice to see Steve and Bucky actually existing as regular people in the middle of the darkest period of history. It humanized them as more than just costumes leaping around.



The KKK imagery was always a little heavy-handed here, and incorrect, as the real Nazi party never held much respect for the American-created Klan (and some even questioned the racial make-up of U.S. white people as not being "pure").



Although the quest to replicate the Super Soldier serum was a good sub-plot, the discovery through a comic book seems a bit too meta, if not breaking the fourth wall, sort of like Johnny Storm reading Captain America and Sub-Mariner comics during the Silver Age.



Nice cliffhanger--THE Big Bad shows up at the Invaders' most vulnerable point.



Mooney was a nice change from the erratic Robbins work; the title could have used a different artist to give a different, more dramatic look to the title, and Mooney was quite capable of delivering that, as seen in this issue..

I'm familiar with the older versions, but here it is used to make a direct connection from one group of racial hatred to another. I would have preferred the WW2-set title to plant the seeds of Dr. Faustus' National Force group, which would make their real-time debut two years later (1979) in the pages of Captain America. That would have been a nice consistent link from Cap's past to his then-present day.



Also familiar with the Bund, although its leader (Fritz Kuhn) seemed to never be accepted as the Stateside Nazi Party insider he wanted to be. As for Rockwell's American Nazi Party--born long after WW2 (1959), largely to fight against the rising "threat" of communism, alleged "Jewish influence" and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement--they too were self-deceiving "inheritors" of people they were not related to, or never knew. Of course, that detail did not stop their sickening, violent activities, but even today, yet another rise of Neo Nazis in Germany see many of its leaders making a separation between themselves and American racists (Neo Nazi, Klan, Skins, Alt Right-ers, et al) as not being "pure", which was my reference to the use of Klan imagery being out of place in this Invaders story involving Nazis.

Master Man is referring to the multi-part story from FF Annual #11, and Marvel Two-in-One Annual #1 and issue 20, where the Thing teams up with the Invaders and Liberty Legion, via time travel...



They face Master Man and U-Man in those issues, as well as Skyshark, another Nazi villain.



The belt on the leg is supposed to be a garter, I think. Robbins pretty much took Wonder Woman (with Roy's conception of her as a Nazi villain) and turned the costume into a Nazi dominatrix version. So, we get leather bathing suit, thigh boots and gauntlets, then a whole lot of belts and whips, for that BDSM theme. It really fits, when you think about the Golden Age Wonder Woman stories, as her alternate-world Nazi doppelganger would pretty much look something like this. I have to say, Robbins was pretty darn successful, as it had my adolescent heart thumping. Wonder Woman was sexy; but, Warrior Woman was SEX!

If you notice, Robbins uses a lot of belts and buckles in his costuming of various characters. It really gives them that 1940s feel, with the leather Sam Brown uniform belts and holsters of the era, plus the combat boots of the era. They laced up; but, they had a leather cuff at the top, which buckled at the side, with two straps and buckles. If you look at Master Man's boots and gloves (and Union Jack's) they have those twin buckles. Robbins just takes it further with Warrior Woman.

I still wish DC and Marvel would have done a JSA/Invaders crossover, back when they were co-operating, with Roy Thomas as the writer and maybe Jerry ordway as the penciller. Who wouldn't want to see the Golden Age Wonder Woman go up against Krieger Frau? She and Paula Von Gunther would have made quite a duo. Heck, DC and Marvel could have turned that into a whole 'nother kind of comic, with Eric Stanton on art!

pinkfloydsound17 This was a great issue. Loved the re intro of some more Timely Golden Age heroes. And yes Cap did kill in the past.

Oh, if only Kane had been the regular artist for the interiors....




Yes. If you browse various Golden Age titles, you will see Cap using various means to kill. Whether it was "cold blooded" is up for debate.

Hitler and the swastika appearing wasn't a big deal, especially since this is set in WW2. You saw it quite a bit on men's adventure paperbacks, conspiracy theory books, etc... People have always been fascinated with WW2 and the rise of the Nazis.

Brian Falsworth being the Destroyer is a retcon. The original was a journalist, named Keen Marlow, who was trapped in Germany and who drinks the potion given to him, by a scientist. Roy tweaked it into being Brian Falsworth and that Keen Marlow was a cover name. You'll see Lord Falsworth and Jacqueline in the next issue.

I loved this issue. The scenes of Cap diving into the crowd of Nazi soldiers is one of my favorite Cap action sequences in his entire history. Robbins did that stuff well. His rubbery style with superheroes made them fluid, which lent itself well to the action sequences. By contrast, his work on Johnny Hazard was more solid and realistic (within his art style). This was Robbins adapting for modern comics.

Roy's playing a bit with some actual history, in Brian and Roger Aubrey's flirtation with the Nazis. When Hitler first came to power, he and the Nazis were widely praised in many corners of the world, including the UK. Some felt that strong leadership would help end the chaos of Weimar Germany and make them a better trading partner. Thing is, Hitler had already spelled out his vision in Mein Kampf, which most never read. Those that did were either horrified or were right there with him, with other anti-semites and fascist ideologues. Henry Ford was notorious for promoting the false Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-semitic tract that was used around the world to justify bigotry and persecution. In the UK, Hitler had many fans on the far right, including the black shirts of Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley. He flirted with both the Conservative and Labour Party, before becoming elected as a Labour Minister of Parliament. He split with the party and the government and formed the New Party and joined with the British Union of Fascists. He was satirized by PG Wodehouse, in the Jeeves and Wooster stories, with the character Sir Roderick Spode.

Even the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward the Eighth, was friendly towards the Nazis and was dogged by accusations of Nazi sympathies, right through the war (with much debate about how deeply). Certainly Hitler saw great propaganda in the Duke of Windsor and the former king and Wallis Simpson made a well publicized visit to Germany, in 1937, where he was seen giving Nazi salutes.

Roy's playing with the background of that visit and British fascist, like Mosley, to make Roger and Brian Falsworth seem like playboy aristocrat youths who supported Hitler's strong policies, while ignoring the harsher realities of the persecution of Hitler's "enemies," particularly Jews and Gypsies. The idea is that Brian and Roger are woken up to Hitler's atrocities and, after experiments, become superhuman and use their abilities to fight the Nazis; Brian as the Destroyer, within occupied Europe, and Roger, under Nazi influence, sent to the UK as part of the Crusaders, who were all Nazi dupes.

This is part of why I loved this series and this storyline, in particular. Roy weaved real history into the heroics, while expanding on the background of the Timely heroes wartime activities. This is definitely the pinnacle of what Roy has been building.

As we have seen and see here, Warrior Woman is a smart, tough, capable person, in a man's world. The Nazi ideology saw the role of women as wives and mother's, to breed their Aryan super-race. Women were encouraged and expected to wed and have many children, to build the population. There were even rewards, under the Nazis. Warrior Woman has been hit in the face with that ideology and finds herself torn between her desires to chart her own path and her devotion to her fuhrer. It makes her the most interesting character of the Nazi supervillains, as Master Man is mostly muscle-bound meathead and U-Man is a scheming traitor of Atlantis. Baron Blood appears to be "dead," (he is a vampire, so a return is possible) and out of the picture. Warrior Woman is now faced with having to marry a man she detests as her intellectual inferior (and a jerk, to boot) and, even worse, bear him children. That relationship is pretty much carried forward in future appearances, even after the Invaders series was over (such as when they were revived, in the Namor series of the 90s). Ozzy and Harriet they ain't!

If memory serves, Oskar isn't a Nazi and is a friend and contact of Falsworth, from his days as Union Jack. As such, he is part of the German resistance against Hitler.