Wait, didn’t I already do this one?
Capitan America vol.2 #28 (1983)
Published by: Corno
Not exactly! This is the second series, published in the latter era of the Corno translations.
But it’s not a complete recreation of issue 76 of the first series, despite sharing the same exact cover: this one only has 2 Captain America stories and nothing else.
All at the price of 800 “Fantalire”. Which, if those were equivalent to 800 Lire, would be roughly 1.58 dollars in 2024.
No sense in covering the first story since there are barely any differences and let’s move to the second story.
Captain America #165 (1973)
by Steve Englehart & Sal Buscema
Okay I get why they went with the Nightshade cover a second time… it’s Nightshade… but this cover isn’t bad either.
You might remember that last time Nick Fury showed up to help Cap wearing a ridiculous vest.
Too bad now he’s in his regular S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform.
This is some seriously convoluted conflict. Fury wants to go after the Yellow Claw, while Captain America wants to deal with Falcon’s wounds.
Why are they arguing about this? Just have doctors help Falcon and go on with the mission!
Especially since Falcon does have a point here: dealing with people like Yellow Claw is the whole reason S.H.I.E.L.D. exists, so just let them do their job.
This is a very weird Captain America. I get that he’s had bad experiences with S.H.I.E.L.D. lately, but usually when he’s needed he puts aside his pride and helps whoever needs him.
Since Yellow Claw is the villain of this storyline, let’s see what he does when he’s not commissioning the creation of werewolves.
One of his goals is to revive perhaps the only person he cares for besides himself, his niece Suwan.
The Chinese army is trying to leverage their alliance with Yellow Claw…
…but they really should know better, since they’ve been screwed over since the first Yellow Claw story. The footnote is missing from the Italian version, possibly because I think it’s never been translated.
Yellow Claw then uses his vaguely defined powers to have the Chinese slaughter each other.
You know it’s too bad that his origins are kind of racist and that he tends to have ridiculous designs, especially with this coloration… if it wasn’t for those, there’s really no reason why Yellow Claw fades into obscurity once the Mandarin is given prominence.
Meanwhile Cap has time to go back to Virginia, saying goodbye to Sharon Carter before going back to the mission.
Awkwardly, Cap is dating the younger sister of his WWII love interest.
Even in the 70s this was a bit of a stretch, but the age difference between Sharon and Peggy grew more and more ridiculous over the years.
We had to wait until the 2007 before Peggy was retconned to being Sharon’s aunt.
If Cap had trouble understanding the concept of fake news in 1973, he’ll be in much bigger trouble later.
The following panels lead to a rather amusing translation error.
The narration boxes inform us that the Yellow Claw that fought S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually a Doombot (I mentioned that ages ago), and Cap wonders if Yellow Claw really was the real mastermind.
The Corno translators do a good enough translation of Cap saying “maybe the mastermind was the real claw”… except they DON’T translate “mastermind”.
They probably thought that Cap was referring to Mastermind, as in the member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants whose name was untranslated.
So in this scene, the translated Cap is wondering OUT OF NOWHER if Mastermind was the Yellow Claw.
And the book end with GIANT SPIDERS attacking the city.
Well, that’s how the reprint ends anyway.
The rest of the story is in the following issue, which IS part of the retrospective since I owned it, but let’s finish the story anyway.
I have no clue why exactly Yellow Claw decided on giant spiders, since it’s not exactly his theme, but this is a decent action scene.
I think I just realized another reason why Yellow Claw doesn’t catch on… his symbol does not look threatening in the slightest!
Meanwhile Falcon is spending some quality time with his girlfriend, who confusingly doesn’t know his secret identity.
You know if I had to decide whether to deal with a mob boss and an army of giant spiders, I’d go to the mob boss too.
So Falcon ends up facing Morgan…
…and leaves immediately.
So glad we spent time on this subplot.
Meanwhile Captain America has located the Yellow Claw base, in the sewers.
See, I told you Yellow Claw can be a cool villain!
However, there’s those pesky mind powers at play.
And we’re already done because the reprint only has 2 stories, instead of the usual 2 1/2 of the first series.
Historical significance: 2/10
Since the S.H.I.E.L.D. story was revealed to feature a fake Yellow Claw, this storyline might be the highest profile he’s ever reached… and it’s still not much.
Personal significance: 6/10
I still have a soft spot for Yellow Claw.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Giant spiders out of nowhere!
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
A bit disjointed, and once again Captain America is not much of a protagonist here.
His beef with Nick Fury does make sense for the times, but Cap’s actions feel out of character for him. Falcon deciding to go back home is understandable, but at least give him something interesting to do!
That leaves the Yellow Claw to bear the weight of the entire story. And despite my fondness for the character, he’s as stereotypical as they come.