Featuring: Captain America
Release: March 17, 1941
Cover: May 1941
10 cents
By: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
17 pages
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Captain America Comics #1, Story D | Prelude | Young Allies #1 |
| Sgt. Fury #16 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #65 |
We’ve visited Captain America Comics #3 before. We read the text story, notable for being the first story written by a young Stan Lee.
The issue also contains three other Captain America adventures, a Tuk story, and a Hurricane story.
There’s a cool feature called “Amazing Spy Adventures” which tells a loosely accurate historical story from ancient Greece, about a secret message tattooed onto a bald head, then hidden as the hair grew. Perhaps the world’s first example of steganography. You can read more about the story here.
What interests us today though is the second appearance of the Red Skull. I’m just as confused as you are, because I also remember him dying in his first appearance. Let’s read on. Maybe they’ll explain.
Ah, so it seems that the Red Skull–unmasked as George Maxon– was immune to his own poison. That makes sense. And Captain America and Bucky did just run off leaving the body in the previous story. But then we clearly saw FBI agents at the scene standing over the body. Now, the Red Skull stands up in an empty room and runs off. Hard to reconcile these things.
Maybe the FBI looked at the body, didn’t check his pulse, left the room for a moment, and then he escaped. Of course, if his body was gone at any point, nobody would presume him dead. Yet, he is presumed dead by everybody when this issue opens.
Either way, he is not dead and has a new shtick. With each appearance, he will have a ghastly new method of murder. Last time, the gaze of death. This time, the touch of death.
Some impressive destruction wrought by the Skull’s Power Drill.
Two plots are going to collide this story. Red Skull is up to his machinations. Meanwhile, some hoodlums have a scam to use a fake Captain America and Bucky to steal some money. Thus we get the chain-smoking midget dressed up as Bucky. (This one’s for you, Mark.)
Cap and Bucky are pretty upset with the impostors, but as crimes go, this seems pretty innocuous. I don’t see it as much worse than a guy at Disneyland dressed as Captain America to greet children.
Does the real Santa go around beating up mall Santas?
In a rather dark moment, the fakes get mistaken for the real thing by Red Skull, and hanged to death.
As with the gaze of death, there turns out to be a non-supernatural explanation for the touch of death. The Skull has electric wiring in his suit to shock people to death when he touches them.
The Red Skull dies in an explosion. But then I thought he died last issue. And there’s an old saying in Tennessee– I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee– that says, fool me once, shame on– shame on you. Fool me– you can’t get fooled again.
No body. “Probably dead”, says Cap. Not convinced.
Rating: ★★★½, 60/100
I read this story in Golden Age Captain America Omnibus vol. 1. You can also find it in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Captain America vol. 1. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Red Skull
- Captain America/Private Steve Rogers
- Bucky/Bucky Barnes
- Major Douglas
- Smoking Captain America/Duffer
- Smoking midget Bucky/Midge
Story notes:
- Red Skull immune to his own poison; didn’t really die. Lots of plot questions raised.
- Military conference at Hartley Hall.
- Gaze of death replaced with touch of death.
- Red Skull kills Major Douglas to steal Power Drill plans.
- Red Skull notes even Hitler will fear him.
- Red Skull builds his own Power Drill.
- Power Drill heading to Ebbet’s Field.
- Fake Captain America and Bucky.
- Fakes appear at Coney Island.
- Fakes mistaken for real by Red Skull and hanged.
- Touch of death from electric wiring.
- Explosion destroys drill and kills Red Skull.
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Captain America Comics #1, Story D | Prelude | Young Allies #1 |
| Sgt. Fury #16 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #65 |
Hooray! Was hopin’ you were gonna cover my favorite Captain America story. So much widescreen destruction and shockingly violent death. What more couldja ask for?