Tales of Suspense #72, Story B

Featuring: Captain America
Release: September 9, 1965
Cover: December 1966
12 cents
Stan Lee, sultan of script!
Jack Kirby, lord of layout!
George Tuska, archduke of art!
Sam Rosen, tired of lettering!
10 pages

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Captain Atom #78	INTERLUDE
Amazing Spider-Man #33	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #73
Tales of Suspense #72	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #73

You’re too late! You can’t… threaten me… now! There are three sleepers… and… when they awake… the Third Reich will rise again!

The story’s title is, “The Sleeper Shall Awake!”

Coincidentally the exact thing my cat says to me every morning when she wants breakfast.

While I would prefer to read whole comics at once, we read the first half of the issue a little bit earlier, because the Captain America and Iron Man stories of this issue align differently with the Avengers series.

This marks a turning point in Captain America’s adventures, as we’d spent the last several issues focused on Captain America’s adventures in World War II, which don’t create any editorial headaches regarding continuity with Cap’s appearances in Avengers. But now Stan claims readers have demanded modern Cap stories.

So we jump back to the present and see Cap relating the Greymoor Castle saga of last issue to the Avengers. They even answer some plot questions about the story.

Bewilderingly, Hawkeye did not know Bucky was dead.

And then is quite insensitive about it. “It happened more than 20 years ago!” Two notes. It was less than 20 years. Captain America slept for most of those.

Captain America sees Red Skull in a dream, and remembers it had been 20 years to the day since their last encounter. We’re going to talk about that point in great detail below.

We see the final battle between Cap and the Red Skull (rendered with the modern potato head version) in the last days before the surrender of Germany in World War II, presumably around May 1945. Of course, we saw many more battle between Cap and the Skull, set in the late 1940s and 1950s.

The Sleepers will carry on where the Third Reich failed 20 years later. There will be three of them. They will awaken on Der Tag.

Cap has the names of Nazi agents and towns where the Sleepers will awaken. None seem to be real towns, though perhaps they aren’t on Google Maps today because they were destroyed by the Sleepers. The first town to head to is Gortmund. Again, I don’t think that’s real. Dortmund is a real town. Went to a comic convention there once.

Not sure where the Avengers went. But Cap won’t be calling on them for help despite the apocalyptic nature of events.

It’s pointed out it’s illegal for Von Kimmer to be wearing his old Nazi uniform. This was true already by the 1960s. And Germany has no statues or monuments to celebrate Hitler or Naziism. Memorials to the victims of Naziism are prevalent. In contrast, America still in the 2020s has no shortage of monuments to the Confederate soldiers who fought to keep people enslaved.

The Sleeper is a giant robot that’s going on a destructive rampage. And this is the first of three…

It’s time to talk about time

What year is it? This comic was published in 1965. We see on a note that it is 1965 in-story as well. It’s a big deal in the comic that it’s 20 years to the day since the death of Red Skull, killed amidst the final Allied bombing raid of Berlin. In our world, that would be May 1945, suggesting again this story is set in 1965.

Throughout our reading we’ve seen explicit references to the date in dialogue, in narration, on newspapers, etc. Whenever we’ve seen a reference to the date, it’s matched the year of publication of the comic.

Note, a lot of these explicit references to time contain contradictions. Characters often refer to the events of last issue as last month even when all context makes it clear it was yesterday. The narration has used the phrase “seconds later”, when it was plainly several minutes and likely an hour or more later. So I often overlook these minor clues in favor of the more substantial.

What’s more substantial? Ties to our world’s history including references to World War II, events in Vietnam, or the Space Race. Peter and Johnny’s school schedules.

Pietro and Wanda claim to have been children in World War II, making them at least 23 or so years old. Reed was a major in World War II, making him a man in his 40s. Ben also served in World War II and was Reed’s college roommmate, so must be at least as old as Reed.

Peter and Johnny graduated high school at the same time and recently. If the final Allied bombing raids in Marvel history match our own, then it is now May 1965. We already saw Peter start college, suggesting that Spider-Man story was already August. But perhaps this story takes place a few months before the Spider-Man story we just read. That’s easy enough to shuffle. Spidey and Cap’s stories aren’t much intertwined.

Johnny was already in high school when he took the flight into space. Moreover, we know from Strange Tales #101 that a new school year had begun since his early FF adventures, as some of his friends had graduated in the meantime.

I want to say Johnny was a junior by the first FF adventure against the Mole Man and a senior by Strange Tales #101. If so, then Peter was a junior when we met him and a senior by Amazing Spider-Man #1. It’s plausible there is an unseen year break there, and they were in fact both sophomores when we met them. That’s a stretch we can make if we have to. But not one I want to make.

The point is that if it’s currently May 1965, then Strange Tales #101 was circa September 1964 and no earlier than September 1963. Putting the creation of the Fantastic Four as no earlier than 1962. Which is a year later than I want to put it.

That Reed the WWII hero had a crush on Sue during World War II and that she has a high school aged brother she seems no more than a decade older than is already problematic to reconcile. The later we try to set the FF origin, the older Reed becomes, and the less this all works. Also, the later we set the FF origin, the less urgent the Space Race will become. It makes the most sense to believe their space flight predates Gagarin’s, which took place in April 1961 in our world. That certainly accounts for the urgency of the mission.

Why are we belaboring the date now? This comic is really heavily rooted in the fact that it’s 20 years after the fall of Berlin. Not 18 years. It’s not a minor reference but a fundamental plot aspect.

This will keep happening. References to time will make it seem as though each published comic is set in the then-present year, yet the characters’ stories will not proceed that fast, leading later writers to reinterpret older stories as having been set further in the future than they were, often declaring key facts as no longer canonical.

I think the Spider-Man story we just read should have been August 1964. Peter and Johnny should have graduated high school circa May 1964. Spider-Man’s origin and the FF battle with the Mole Man should have taken place in the 1962-1963 school year. And the origin of the FF should have been April 1961, near the end of Johnny’s sophomore year.

I can push all that ahead a year to match the new information of this issue, but to continue doing that will be untenable. Reed and Ben’s service in World War II ties them down to history. As does Nick Fury’s.

Captain America should have returned in 1963/1964, less than 20 years after being frozen in ice.

To believe this comic is set in 1965 begins a descent into absurdity that will lead the present comics to believe they are set in 2023, yet somehow a continuation of these stories, that Cap slept not for 18 years, but for 70 years. That Nick Fury is a remarkably healthy looking centenarian. And it even will mean crossing out significant facts from the comics we’ve read, including the World War II service of Reed and Ben, the Space Race, the Cold War, the Viet Cong, fundamentally changing these stories.

I don’t like that practice. I’m fine with superhero stories set in the present of the 2020s as the films are. But only if we recognize them as a different continuity from the stories we are reading now.

I’ll slow down before this becomes a rant. This issue marks a turning point, insisting that the timeline we understood slide a bit– not a lot, not irreconcilably, but enough to start to strain the logic of these stories. It will get worse. And at some point the logical structure of the Marvel Universe will collapse under itself. Let’s see how long it can hold.

Rating: ★★★☆☆, 52/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Captain America vol. 1.

Characters:

• Quicksilver
• Hawkeye
• Scarlet Witch
• Captain America
• Red Skull
• Herr Von Kimmer
• Erica Wolfmann

Story notes:

• Captain America had been relating Midnight in Greymoor Castle saga to Avengers.
• Captain America explained possible plot hole as to why Private Rogers was not in trouble for desertion.
• Quicksilver and Wanda were children during World War II.
• Red Skull dies in battle with Cap. He threw a grenade Cap deflected with his shield. Of course we see him a bunch more times.
• Red Skull swears his Sleepers will carry on. There are three. They will awaken 20 years from now. It’s referred to as “Der Tag”
• Final battle with Skull set during final Allied Raid.
• Cap uncertain if Red Skull lived or died that day.
• Cap had recovered metal box with names of agents who would awaken Sleepers: Von Kimmer at Gortmund; Wolfmann at Telbeck; Schlag at Molnitz. Note says 1965.
• Herr Von Kimmer the burgomaster of isolated Bavarian village, near Gortmund.
• Kimmer wearing old Nazi uniform, in defiance of German law.
• Covering on Sleeper’s head shaterproof plexiglass. Electrodes in place of hands.
• Erica Wolfmann in Telbeck.
• Walbeck, Lubeck, Ahlbeck are real towns in Germany. Telbeck does not seem to be.

Previous	#450	Next
Captain Atom #78	INTERLUDE
Amazing Spider-Man #33	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #73
Tales of Suspense #72	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #73