Featuring: Captain America
Release: December 8, 1966
Cover: March 1967
12 cents
Editing: Stan Lee
Script: Roy Thomas
Drawn by: Jack Sparling
Inked by: Joe Sinnott
Lettered by: Sam Rosen
Subway swept by: Honest Irv
10 pages
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You may have had hours of practice… but I’ve had years!
That’s quite a surprising line-up of creators. Lee and Kirby have been handling Captain America thus far. Kirby took a couple issues off last year, with fill-ins by Ayers or Romita. And Kirby isn’t done with the book, but it will be a few issues until we see him again, with Gil Kane taking over. Lee is only taking this one issue off.
Thomas is Lee’s standard backup at this point, so his name isn’t that surprising. Joe Sinnott is our favorite inker these days, so it’s good to see him.
But who is Jack Sparling? That’s a new name to us. He’s one of those guys that’s worked in comics since the 1940s, seemingly at every company but Marvel. This is his first Marvel work and he won’t become a regular.
Here’s a sampling of his work.
- The Yorktown Younger Set, Calling All Girls #3, Parents’ Magazine Press, 1942
- Hap Hopper, Sparkler Comics v2 #10, United Feature Syndicate, 1942
- Nyoka the Jungle Girl, Master Comics #50, Fawcett, 1944
- Claire Voyant, Keen Teens, M.E., 1945
- Lovers Lane #2, Lev-Gleason, 1949
- Texas Rangers, Action Comics #140, DC, 1950
- Kid Lochinvar, Great Lover Romances #1, Toby, 1951
- Warfront #1, Harvey, 1951
- Masked Raider #1, Charlton, 1955
- The Sword and the Dragon, Four Color #1118, Dell, 1960
- Adventures into the Unknown #121, ACG, 1961
- Immortal Man, Strange Adventures #177, DC, 1965
He’s at this time a fixture of DC’s horror books, while still drawing romance, war, or other comics for companies like Harvey and Dell.
Many scans above come courtesy of Comic Book Plus.
We meet the Peerless Planner, who seems to be a poor man’s Mad Thinker. He’s got a plan to frame Captain America for crimes to lure Cap into a trap to steal his shield.
The Planner wants the shield because of the Stark technology embedded in it.
This is a very Roy Thomas type of plot, reminding us of Avengers #6, and the Stark enhancements to the shield. It also clarifies that all those enhancements are long gone, as they never suited Cap.
What Thomas doesn’t mention is that the shield had since been recently destroyed by the Living Laser, and this is another shield entirely.
Even seeing the shield in action, the Planner assumes it must have Stark technology to bounce around so precisely. Nope. 100% Cap. Just agility and good instincts for trigonometry.
Cap wins the day pretty easily. It seems the Planner is no better at planning than the Thinker ever is at thinking things through.
It may surprise you to learn this is the last time any writer bothers with the Peerless Planner. He vanishes into comic book limbo after this failure.
This isn’t the first time Captain America has been the victim of impersonation. The first time was in his third issue back in 1941, when Bucky was played by a chain-smoking midget. And we’ll never forget when the Acrobat impersonated him.
It’s the peril of wearing a mask all the time.
Next issue begins a new arc for Cap. But this was a standalone. Whereas Iron Man’s battle with Mole Man continues. So we’ll read Iron Man’s story in the next issue now but come back to Cap’s story later.
Mails of Suspense.
Rating: ★★½, 47/100
Significance: ★★★☆☆
Characters:
- Peerless Planner/Captain America
- Jarvis
- Captain America/Steve Rogers
Story notes:
- Planner wears Captain America costume and plans to lure the real Captain into his trap. His goal is to steal Captain America’s shield.
- Proton beam from wrist weapon cuts through girders.
- Planner robs bank disguised as Captain America.
- Robbers leave truck through hole in bottom to escape into manhole to subway hideout.
- Public is sad Captain America is a criminal.
- Cap sends an emissary to Police HQ to discuss. Police surround Avengers Mansion.
- Planner isn’t interested in the shield itself, but Stark’s transistorized modifications.
- Planner hopes to be the “Kingpin of Crime”.
- Steve Rogers represents Captain America to the police and looks at some of their maps. At the same time, “Captain America” robs Jadeson’s Jewelry Store.
- Cap had taken out all Iron Man’s gadgets, but Planner doesn’t know that.
- Planner runs to an underground electrical plant.
- Planner assumes Cap’s shield must be electrically powered to return to him; he’s wrong.
| Previous | #654 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales of Suspense #87 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #88 |
| Tales of Suspense #87 | Tales of Suspense | Tales of Suspense #88 |
