Marvel 1974 Week--Captain America #180!!

Hey, 1974 was just like 2009--Steve Rogers wasn't Captain America!!!

As you may recall our discussion from back in July, in 1974 Cap uncovered Richard Nixon's dastardly scheme to overthrow the U.S. government, thwarted it, and caused Nixon to commit suicide. Really.

Well, Steve became so disillusioned with America, he decided that he no longer shared the value of our leaders and nation, and so he dumped his identity as Captain America!!

(Such disillusionment was clearly contagious at Marvel, because as we saw last Sunday, it was revealed that Gerald Ford was really the villainous Black Lama. Sheesh.)

So, what will Steve do with the rest of his life? Let's follow along, as he struts down the boardwalk in his Haggar slacks:

Who created this one?

Sal Buscema we know...it couldn't be a Marvel 1970s week without at least one Sal Buscema joint. And Steve Englehart was in the midst of looong runs on both Captain America and the Avengers. We'll take a little more about Englehart tomorrow...

Anyway, via a tiny one-panel flashback, we learn that Hawkeye convinced Steve that even if he weren't going to be Captain America, he could still be a hero:

So as Steve ponders his future, we hop over to the villainous plot for the issue. Jordan Stryke, the original Viper, is being transported by federal marshals, when:



Who's busting him loose?


This turns out not to be a good thing, however:

And why is Madame Hydra/the new Viper being such a rhymes with witch? Simple:

Man, that's what comics need: more villains fighting for nihilism!!

Meanwhile again, Princess Python is helping to free the rest of the Serpent Squad...

(That's Cobra and the Eel, by the way...)

Back to Steve Rogers. Sadly, we learn that the Sharon Carter of 1974 was pretty much a big party pooper, as she is not at ALL supportive of Steve's decision to take up heroing again.


Man...did anybody before Brubaker write a good Sharon Carter?

So, all on his lonesome, Steve works to come up with a new costume and new identity:


Yeah, stick it to DC, Steve.

I don't know...I would have loved a hero called "The Bum."

NOOO..not a cape!!

Ta-dah!!

Amazingly enough, on his first patrol, Captain Amer err Nomad stumbles upon the Serpent Squad on their first caper:

And the Viper just can't keep politics out of it:

The action moves inside the theater, where they're debuting a new documentary on Captain America...because the Marvel universe without crazy coincidences would be a fairly boring place. Besides, this gives us a little bit of unintentional commentary on the real action:

Well played, Mr. Englehart.

Nomad, no longer constrained by having to be the white-bread Cap, can make risque jokes:

Sadly, however, as he pursues the fleeing villains, we get graphic proof that Edna was right in The Incredibles:


Well, that was embarrassing...and now Steve is royally ticked off!!


You know what's interesting? During his first Nomad outing, Steve never once mentioned missing his shield...

So...it turns out that the dude the Snakes kidnapped was the president of Roxxon (a frequent Englehart bugaboo). And then the final member of the Squad reveals himself, with another Englehart mainstay:

Ahh, the Serpent Crown...what good times.

The change to Nomad wouldn't last long--only 4 issues. But it part of the longer Secret Empire arc, as Steve Rogers learned the difference between being disgusted with America's leadership and dismissing the American Dream. Sure, it was a little unsubtle and naive and high-handed at points--it was still a comic book, after all, and still under the Code--but it was much more sophisticated attempt at a political lesson than was going on anywhere else in comics at the time.

Englehart was also somewhat ahead of his time in the long game he was playing with Captain America and Avengers--storylines and plot points would takes years to resolve themselves, although it was very quietly done, and the reader didn't realize it until it reared it's head months later. The whole Serpent Squad story started 27 issues earlier; he'd been teasing the Madame Hydra story for almost 2 years, starting in the Avengers; Roxxon and the Serpent Crown would go on to be major factors in the Avengers 2 years later. Continued stories were nothing new for Marvel, but the way Englehart could keep them on slow boil (without becoming monotonous) and keep them popping up and intertwining in unexpected ways was a tad more sophisticated than the average Marvel book.

Of course, many readers weren't happy with Steve dumping the Cap identity. Neal Meyer of Bickleton WA wrote in:

Option 3 was the one they took during the Gruenwald run, and the Brubaker run...

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Speaking of Steve Englehart:

This was the final issue of the 5-part arc kicking off the new Doctor Stange comic, and Englehart and Frank Brunner were putting out some of the trippiest damn comics that you can imagine without the aid of illicit drugs. The Silver Dagger was a former Catholic Cardinal who went mad, and in his zealotry decided that all magic was evil and he must kill all magicians (not at all like to DC's use of the Spectre during Infinite Crisis...). Silver Dagger actually killed Strange in issue #1 (he got better)...and he ended up communing with a giant hookah-smoking caterpillar. Really. I told you it was trippy...