Issue(s): Captain America #228
Cover Date: Dec 78
Title: "A serpent lurks below"
Credits:
Roger McKenzie - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Mike Esposito & John Tartaglione - Inker

Review/plot:
Cap is moping around the Avengers Mansion on a rainy evening.

There's some nice scenes of the other Avengers hanging around during their time off, including Hercules and Thor in an arm wrestling match, and the Beast heading off for a date.

Eventually Cap decides to follow up on the fact that the Falcon has mysteriously quit his job at SHIELD training the Super Agents. He heads to the SHIELD base under the barber shop in NYC and finds it's been abandoned. He talks to Sitwell and the SHIELD Super Agents over an intercom and learns that the old base is about to be demolished because it's been compromised. He also finds out that the Falcon has been missing for "days", saying only that "Jim's in trouble" when he left.

The Constrictor shows up at the SHIELD base and he and Cap fight, with the Constrictor not realizing that the base is about to blow.

Both are pinned down in the subsequent explosion.

This is the beginning of the fun Corporation wrap-up that ties in with the Hulk. It's a fun, straightforward story.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Kligger announces that he's heading to Gamma Base in Captain America #228. That leads into Hulk #231. Captain America is buried under rubble at the end of this issue and shouldn't appear elsewhere between here and Captain America #229. The Scarlet Witch is among the Avengers seen in Avengers Mansion. At the end of Avengers #182 we saw that she and Quicksilver intended to go to Europe with Django Maximoff, but she hasn't left yet since she appears in Hulk Smash Avengers #2, which takes place circa Cap #229.

References:

• Cap says things have been pretty quiet since his run in with the Red Skull's legions in Captain America #226-227 and the Avenger's fight with Korvac in Avengers #176-177.
  
• A footnote says that the Falcon has been missing since Captain America #217, but #217 is really just when he joined SHIELD to train the Super Agents. Cap found out that the Falcon quit SHIELD in Captain America #222.
  
• The Constrictor was first - and last - seen in Hulk #212

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

You'll notice that the similar scenario way back in MTU #57, where the Black Widow found S.H.I.E.L.D.'s H.Q. mysteriously deserted, was never (to my knowledge) explained or followed up on.

That was actually explained muuuuuuuch later as the field testing of a "hypno-beam" ordering everyone on the base to take an aimless walk, the first step in a sinister plot by Viper and Silver Samurai that wrapped up in MTU issues 82-85.

Andrew, was that actually explained in MTU #82-85? I'm noticing i don't have any Inbound References from that entry. Do you know which issue it was?

It was explained in issue 84.

Thanks Michael and Andrew. I've added a reference from that issue.

Sorry, I should have been more clear- the reference in MTU 84 was to SHIELD's base being deserted in MTU 57, not to it being deserted in this issue.

Ah, that makes sense in context and i already had a reference to that issue. Thanks.

Thanks so much for the refresher, everyone. I should really have said "to my recollection" rather than "knowledge," since my re-reading of MTU for Marvel University has only gone up to #75 so far. Now I have something to look forward to! :-)