PRELUDE: Captain America Comics #1, Story C

Captain America and the Chess-Board of Death

Featuring: Captain America
Release: December 20, 1940
Cover: March 1941
10 cents
By: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
16 pages

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Tales of Suspense #64, Story BReading orderStrange Tales #131

We just read the modern retelling of the first two stories from Captain America Comics #1. We’ll soon read the modern retelling of the fourth story. These modern retellings will skip the third story, so we may as well read it now.

There’s also a text story, and stories featuring Tuk and Hurricane, but I’m not incentivized to read those at present.

This story is most notable for introducing us to the Sergeant overseeing Private Rogers at Camp Lehigh. The Sergeant is never impressed by the bumbling private, and will often give him a hard time. We will learn in issue 4 that his name is Sgt. Duffy.

The villain in this story is a Nazi spy named Rathcone. He plans out his strategies with pieces on a chessboard and communicates his strategies to his agents, all of whom have numbers, but some of whom also have nicknames like the Strangler. These plans involve assassinating a number of high ranking American military officials.

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