AVENGERS #388 & CAPTAIN AMERICA #441

"INTO THE BREACH"
Story: Bob Harras & Terry Kavanagh | Writer: Bob Harras
Breakdowns: Mike Deodato | Finisher: Tom Palmer
Colorist: Mike Thomas | Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Ralph Macchio | Editor-in-Chief: Mark Gruenwald

The Plot: CAPTAIN AMERICA #441: "Through the Perilous Fight" by Mark Gruenwald, Dave Hoover, and Danny Bulandi, Don Hudson, Rick Hoover, & Keith Williams: Captain America and Bucky battle MODOK, until the villain escapes. Falcon finds Cap, but Bucky is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, Adaptoids take Free Spirit and Jack Flag to the A.I.M. command center, where they are ordered to dispose of the trespassers. Elsewhere, Superia and Snapdragon explore the island, while MODOK flies down into the huge crater in an attempt to stop the chain reactions across the island. Elsewhere still, Black Widow and Hercules explore the island, encountering Cosmic Cube-created simulations of the Widow's ex-husband, Red Guardian, as well as Taylor Madison.

Inside the A.I.M. base, the Red Skull confronts A.I.M.'s leader, Alessandrio Brannex, who reveals himself as the Super-Adaptoid. Meanwhile, outside, the temporary antidote Superia gave Captain America wears off, and Cap's atrophy returns. Falcon picks him up to carry him. Back inside, Jack Flag and Free Spirit escape the Adaptoid agents carrying them, just as the base begins to fall apart thanks to energy beams lancing up from beneath the island's surface. Outside, one such beam kills the Red Guardian simulation. Captain America and Falcon are attacked by Adaptoids, and Falcon drops Cap. Jack Flag and Free Spirit exit the base and spot the battle. While Spirit checks on Cap, Jack runs off to help Falcon. Superia and Snapdragon find Free Spirit and Cap, and Snapdragon battles Free Spirit, beating her. Superia grabs Cap, but more energy beams separate them. Cap is hit by a beam, but suddenly his armor appears and he flies into the main energy source, where he finds MODOK begging for help.

AVENGERS #388: The boy who previously found Captain America watches as Cap is sucked into the vortex. Within, Cap finds MODOK, babbling about the power of the Cosmic Cube being too much for humanity to contain. Elsewhere, Black Widow, Hercules, and Giant-Man watch as the island of Boca Caliente changes, revealed as a metal construct created by A.I.M. Quicksilver and Crystal rejoin their teammates, while inside the energy vortex, MODOK allows himself to be sucked into the dimension that birthed the Cosmic Cube. Meanwhile, in the ruins of the A.I.M. complex, the Red Skull is found by a female agent under his command, who flees over the power of the Cube. Captain America, now emerged from the vortex, finds the boy, revealed as an Adaptoid and the island's guardian.

The Avengers work to evacuate Boca Caliente's civilian population. Falcon arrives to join Black Widow and Giant-Man in searching for Captain America. Meanwhile, Superia finds Cap and offers him more of her antidote in exchange for his services. While the Avengers continue their evacuation, they are joined by Snapdragon. Cap refuses Superia's bargain, but the Red Skull arrives and takes her serum instead, then blasts her. The Skull leaves, while Cap and the boy/Adaptoid move toward the heart of the demolished complex. Black Widow, Falcon, and Giant-Man find the Skull's agent, who directs them after Cap. At that moment, Cap and the Adaptoid reach the source of the Cosmic Cube energy. The Adaptoid sacrifices itself to contain the energy and stop the island's destruction. Falcon, Giant-Man, and Black Widow find Captain America as the sun rises over the metal island of Boca Caliente.

Continuity Notes: It's really more of a CAPTAIN AMERICA-centic note, but it happens in Avengers -- Snapdragon, Superia's bodyguard, unmasks herself as Cap's ex-girlfriend, Diamondback, in this issue (though to readers of CAPTAIN AMERICA, this would not have been a surprise).

Also more CAP-centric than anything else -- the Red Skull blasts Superia in AVENGERS #388 and she's not seen again for the rest of the story. For several years, this was considered her death, though the story itself is ambiguous on that front. But in any case, she has subsequently appeared again a handful of times since the turn of the century. I've always found this a bit of a shame, as I considered her a pretty cool antagonist for Captain America during her heydey.

In a bizarre continuity hiccup, the Red Skull has an agent here. A young woman who tells him in AVENGERS #388 that she "saw what happened in Canada." I think she's supposed to be the same woman who called the Skull to Boca Caliente in issue 386. Which means she most certainly did not see what happened in Canada -- she wasn't there! Also, she changes her appearance during the issue. In #386 she had flowing dark hair. Here, when she first pops up, her locks are straight and blonde -- but later, she's back to her issue 386 appearance. But these two seemingly separate women are clearly both intended to be her, as the Skull has no other female agents (indeed, no other agents at all) in the story. Further, the Black Widow recognizes her here as the Red Skull's agent, even though she never met any such agent anywhere in the crossover!

Assemble: No, though Falcon does trot out "Once an Avenger, always an Avenger" at one point. ("Avengers Assemble!" count: 11 in 55 issues to date.)

My Thoughts: "Taking A.I.M." is unfortunately kind of a mess. It feels the least organized of the handful of crossovers in which the Avengers have participated since I began this retrospective -- which seems insane when you think about it. This event is told by two writers on two titles, under the same editorial office -- and both writers are staff editors to boot, so could easily meet in person to discuss the story! Yet somehow, "Operation: Galactic Storm" -- a nineteen-part saga by six different writers across seven titles under four different editors -- feels better plotted and executed than this thing.

In part, it's because Mark Gruenwald and Bob Harras seem to have very different ideas about the story, to the point that the two sides of the crossover feel practically unconnected. Who is the villain here? A.I.M.? The Red Skull? MODOK? Superia? All or none of the above? I guess in the end, it's A.I.M. simply by virtue of the crossover being named for them, but it's really hard to tell at various points. The Skull and Superia are just here as "wild cards" -- which, when done well, would work fine in a crossover like this. And Superia's role does have an impact on the story, so she at least has that going for her. The Red Skull, however, is just... there. Nothing in this crossover would read any differently if he was entirely removed, so he probably didn't need to be involved in the first place.

The Avengers are barely a factor either, to be honest. Harras gets some character stuff out of them in issue 387, but in 388 they're relegated to damage control, while Captain America and his little Adaptoid pal save the day. I'm hard-pressed to find a reason they needed to be here either! This is really a Captain America story told across two issues each of CAPTAIN AMERICA and AVENGERS. Which means it probably could've been done just as easily in four issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA (or even three issues, since all the extraneous Avengers material would then be removed). Indeed, I wonder if the crossover started as the brainchild of Mark Gruenwald in just that capacity -- a CAPTAIN AMERICA story -- and then perhaps Ralph Macchio approached Gruenwald and Harras about turning it into a crossover. Because I gotta say, it really reads like the two writers aren't interested in actually doing a crossover!