Some supervillains start small and only later become major players. But it’s surprisingly rare to see a supervillain start off as a henchman.
Or in this case, a henchwoman.
Captain America #192 (1975)
by Marv Wolfman & Frank Robbins
cover by John Romita
This is the last issue on the series before Jack Kirby takes over both writing and artwork.
Kirby’s run is somewhat infamous among Captain America fans for being a step back after the revolutionary Steve Englehart run, where Cap evolved into a more complex character that dealt with serious issues. But that’s not entirely right.
The Englehart run ended with #186 and was followed by very random creative teams, including several issues with Frank Robbins artwork.
Robbins started off doing comic strip in the 30s and was a VERY important Batman artist in the 60s and 70s. At Marvel, he’s mostly known as the main artist for the Invaders.
No disrespect for the man, but I find his 70s work at Marvel to be absolutely atrocious.
We begin in Los Angeles of all places, where Steve Rogers needs to catch a plane for New York.
First of all: the fact that SHIELD’s badge is a literal shield is a bit too silly.
Second: it might be because Robbins worked on Invaders, which was set in WWII, but is it just me or this guy is totally Hitler?
You just have to love how easy it is for superheroes to just stumble on supervillain plots.
Steve isn’t investigating anything, he’s just looking for the first flight available… and he JUST HAPPENS to get on a plane full of gangsters!!!
And here she is. The henchwoman in a sexy costume who plays almost no role in this story is eventually going to be a major supervillain!!!
According to legend (I couldn’t find a reliable source), Karla was supposed to be naked in that scene and be covered by the ammo and the conveniently placed gun holster; only the colorist’s intervention saved the scene from the Comics Code wrath.
It could’ve been worse.
(the stupid things I do for these reviews…)
Her role is to get the weapons off these criminals, so that everyone on the plane is unarmed. But of course Steve Rogers is *spoiler alert* Captain America, so he’s already unarmed.
And then she has no role for practically the rest of the story!!!
So we’re stuck with Captain America stuck on a plane with gangster cosplayers.
Another thing the Kirby run will be criticized for is getting the book in a sillier direction than the serious Englehart run. And while I’m not the biggest fan of Kirby’s stories, it’s a bit unjustified when THIS was in the previous issue.
The reason why there are so many criminals on this plane is that it belongs to evil psychiatrist Doctor Faustus, one of Cap’s enemies.
I did consider doing his first appearance as well, but he’s not that notable enough outside of Captain America. Still an interesting villain, though.
And his plan is suitably bonkers: he wants to use these gangsters to pillage Manhattan!!!
Which sounds silly, but he has acquired lots and lots of Stark weapons.
What the heck, Tony!?
So Captain America changes into costume in the bathroom, and OH GOD THE ARTWORK!!!
I don’t know if this is the worst drawn comic I’ve ever reviewed, but this is certainly one of the ugliest fight scenes I’ve ever seen.
I can’t imagine why Heels never joined the Masters of Evil.
So let me get this straight. Faustus has some Stark guns that are SO deadly he plans to threaten all of Manhattan with them… and not ONE of his henchmen fires on Captain America!?
Faustus… you’re the psychiatrist, so why don’t you explain to me why this isn’t COMPLETELY NUTS!? Instead he’s living this in the hands of the lame version of the Enforcers.
I typically don’t go the “why doesn’t the bad guy just shoot the hero!?” route, but COME ON!!!
Faustus has NO REASON for not wanting Captain America dead.
So naturally Captain America frees himself by… doing WTF this is supposed to be… and tackles Faustus.
Story’s over, right? Except… Captain America ACCIDENTALLY SHOT HIMSELF.
So Faustus is able to issue his threat to Manhattan BEFORE THE PLAN HAS LANDED.
But this gives Cap the time to recover, and he fights back Faustus before his “well modulated and pitched” voice destroys the brains of the New Yorkers.
And in case you’re wondering: no, Faustus doesn’t have any power or gimmick… he’s jus an evil psychologist.
But then one of the henchmen, trying to shoot Captain America, ends up cracking the plane’s window.
Are we SURE this is actually Captain America and not a poorly designed Life Model Decoy!?
And so we end with Faustus FALLING OUT OF THE PLANE…
…and Captain America landing the plane.
I know 70s New York had some weird stuff going on, but I’m half convinced that he landed the plane in Las Vegas.
Cap’s chronology after this is insane.
Avengers #141 to 149, as well as Captain America Annual #3, are set between this and the next issue. That’s TEN WHOLE STORIES between #192 and #193!
So what happened to the henchwoman who completely disappeared at the beginning?
According to her next appearance, she hid in the overhead compartment!!!
Who would’ve thought that the throwaway fanservice henchwoman would eventually become one of the coolest Marvel villains!?
Historical significance: 2/10
It’s the technical first appearance of Moonstone, but I bet even she would prefer we’d forget this.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
I was fortunate enough to start reading CAPTAIN AMERICA during Englehart’s run. Everything after was a huge disappointment.
Frank Robbins was a weirdly perfect fit for the Invaders, where his “are you sure he’s not drawing this with his toes while tripping on acid?” style managed to evoke the feel of Golden Age comics that Roy Thomas was after with that series. It gave the series an off-kilter energy that was pretty enjoyable and was the only place Robbins’ art ever felt right. Everywhere else, egad.
But no, this is not the issue with the worst art you’ve ever reviewed. Nothing – NOTHING – will ever be able to pry that title from Doom 2099 #42-43, which contained artwork that was so appalling that I nearly cut my own hands off to ensure that I never ran the risk of inflicting anything similarly terrible on the world while doodling on a notepad during a boring meeting.
Oh God, I totally forgot that 2099 story. Or rather I managed to successfully remove from my brain the defiling of the last issues of one of my favorite series.
I get your point about Invaders: Robbins was indeed as close as you could get to the insanity of Golden Age artwork.
I’m a lifelong New Yorker and trust me, that depiction of Times Square in the 1970s is pretty darned accurate. Only to someone who’d never seen it does it seem more like Las Vegas.
I always found it a bit odd that Frank Robbins actually got work as an artist at DC and then Marvel in the 70s. He stuck out like a sore thumb. The art is all so wonky.
Kind of
I love that Moonstone and Moondragon both debuted as obscure characters that had to nothing to do with what they eventually became, but for whatever reason were plucked from obscurity by later writers and retrofitted into something much cooler.
The same thing happened with Bobbi Morse – unnamed woman turns up in a couple of issues of Ka-Zar trying to reach the Savage Land for unexplained reasons, then oh, hey, we have an unpublished Man-Thing story from Savage Tales we need to burn off, let’s put it in Ka-Zar and now that unnamed woman from Ka-Zar can be the unnamed woman in that Man-Thing story, so let’s say she’s a scientist and hey, if she’s a scientist and a good guy she must be from SHIELD and if she’s from SHIELD she must be a spy so she can fight and now we need a kick-ass female character for this Punisher magazine we’re going to do so why not grab that lady spy from Ka-Zar but dang it, we waited too long to do another story with her and DC stole the Huntress name out from under us so let’s call her Mockingbird and y’know, our Green Arrow analog needs a Black Canary analog, so let’s have our blonde butt-kicking bird lady marry Hawkeye and eventually Bobbi Morse very nearly got her own tv show being played by the actress who almost got to be Wonder Woman, most likely wondering how she got there from running in to one panel in a Ka-Zar comic 40 years earlier demanding to go to the Savage Land.
It’s nice that writers at Marvel in the 70s decided to rescue several random minor female characters from obscurity, and it’s entertainingly weird how a naked gun moll, a nutjob with a snarky computer and a generic damsel in distress all ended up as major characters a zillion miles away from whatever it was their original writers intended them to be. Comics!!!
…One of thos things I’d rather have NEVER learnt about Moonstone!
Don’t worry about saying bad stuff about Robbins. It is just bad. It was ok for the Invaders (until Invaders annual 1 showed us that all the old golden age artist could do better).
And for me, Engleheart’s Cap run started off with an awesome bang with the 50s cap, meandered a bit, was lots of fun for the Nomad part, but ended really badly with the Red Skull created the Falcon crud.
Cap’s eyes when he come busting out of the bathroom in costume…wow!
“Welp, gonna fight this plane full of gangsters, guess I better do ALL THE COCAINE!!1!”
Actually, you could do this story today if he did the cocaine accidentally, then as he comes down at the end he realizes they were all innocent civilians on their way to a gangster themed costume party.