INVADERS #18

"ENTER: THE MIGHTY DESTROYER!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Illustrators: Frank Robbins & Frank Springer
Letterer: John Costanza | Colorist: George Roussos

The Plot: Captain America, hurled from Hitler's fortress ramparts by Warrior Woman, plummets toward the ground -- but he manages to break his fall with his shield and is caught on the ground by a costumed mystery man. Meanwhile, Hitler orders that Master Man and Warrior Woman will be wed to sire a new race of superhumans. When Warrior Woman bristles at this, Hitler gives her time to think it over.

Three Nazi soldiers arrive to collect Captain America's body, but instead find themselves attacked by Cap and the man who saved him, the Mighty Destroyer. The duo defeats the soliders and then ducks into the Destroyer's cavern hideout, where he describes his origin to Cap. Meanwhile, Hitler orders the imprisoned Invaders loaded up for transport to Berlin, where they will be publicly executed.

At that moment, Spitfire, Lord Falsworth, and Dyna-Mite arrive secretly in Berlin and link up with Oskar, an old German friend of Falsworth's. Back at the fortress, Warrior Woman orders Private Biljo White executed -- but after she departs, Cap and the Destroyer rescue him, and then learn that the Invaders have already been taken away.

Continuity Notes: Rather than the traditional couple pages of flashbacks to recap recent events, this issue opens a couple pages prior to the previous issue's end, showing certain things -- Cap being thrown from the fortress and the Invaders defeated -- over again. I think I like this approach better than the standard "character thinks about a bunch of stuff that just happened" approach.

The Destroyer is stated to have debuted in 1941's MYSTERY COMICS #1, though Roy Thomas seems to be ret-conning his origin here. It seems that originally he was an American journalist captured by the Third Reich -- and that's his in-universe comic book origin as known to Cap. But the Destroyer is actually British, which will become important in upcoming issues. Other than that, his origin apparently remains the same as in his first appearance: he drank a variant of the Super Soldier Serum and gained the typical enhanced abilities.

Shortly after explaining his origin to Cap, the Destroyer removes his mask, revealing his real face to the Star-Spangled Sentinel. But we readers are not privy to what he looks like.

There's no explanation as to what Spitfire, her father, and Dyna-Mite have been up to over the past few issues, but they're now calling Dyna-Mite -- who, it seems, suffers from amnesia -- "Roger" and they seem to believe that coming to Berlin will help them to remind him of who he really is. When Dyna-Mite mentions his amnesia, a footnote refers to issue 15 for his first appearance (though weirdly, it's a footnote without an asterisk in the word balloons above to point at it).

My Thoughts: As ever, Roy Thomas's philosophy remains that you can never bring back too many Golden Age characters. And as I said before, I don't necessarily mind. Were I a comic book writer, you can bet I'd be bringing back any neglected characters I remembered from my formative years. And the Destroyer has a really cool costume too -- plus, he's destined for some pretty major developments in upcoming issues, so what's to complain about?

(It occurs to me that when I spoke in the past about my main exposure to the Invaders being primarily material from John Byrne and Roger Stern -- with a bit from Ben Raab and John Cassaday -- I forgot that I also knew some of this stuff thanks to Fabian Nicieza's work on THUNDERBOLTS and its spinoff CITIZEN V mini-series, which featured a much older Destroyer as a supporting character.)

I really have nothing at all to complain about in this one. It whizzes along at a nice, tight pace, and though it turns out this story runs more than three parts, it does not suffer from the "middle chapter syndrome" I mentioned last week. That said, I do wonder if the previous issue and this one couldn't have been combined with the culling of a few extraneous pages.

Nontheless, this first protracted storyline in some time is running in fine form, and I can't wait to see what happens next!