Issue(s): Captain America #168
Cover Date: Dec 73
Title: "...And a Phoenix shall arise!"
Credits:
Tony Isabella & Roy Thomas - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
George Roussos & John Tartaglione - Inker

Review/plot:
The son of Baron Zemo shows up wearing a terrible costume and wielding his father's greatest inventions, the Death Ray and Adhesive X.

He's calling himself the Phoenix.

Cap knocks him into a boiling vat of the super-glue, which seemingly kills him.

There's some personal stuff going on as well. Cap is mopey cause Peggy Carter has resurfaced, making him remember that he's a man out of time. The Falcon is tired of being treated like a sidekick.

This issue is basically a fill-in during Englehart's run, but it turns out to be significant due to the first appearance of the second Baron Zemo (although he won't make another appearance for over 100 issues). It does a decent job of keeping up the themes and qualities of Englehart's issues. A bystander in a crowd mentions the radio spots that have been talking about Cap like he is a menace, continuing the set-up for Englehart's Secret Empire arc.

And Isabella gives a good "Captain America" line while Cap is tied up and trying to talk Phoenix down: "Give it up son. You don't really want to continue a battle that should have ended twenty-five years ago, do you? You lost your father -- I lost my partner. Aren't those sacrifices enough to offer up to the gods of war?". Zemo is too far gone to respond, but the little speech really is a great encapsulation of the modern Captain America.

There's also been some question as to whether or not Zemo the younger was a believer in Nazisim. He refers to the Falcon as a "black flunky" in this issue, so that settles it for me.

Also this:

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first Baron Zemo II

Chronological Placement Considerations: Captain America #175-176 are concurrent with Avengers #125-126, and Avengers #125 is concurrent with Captain Marvel #31. Captain America #169-176 is a more or less continuous story. So this issue has been pushed back in publication time to accommodate all of that.

References:

• When trying to guess the identity of the Phoenix, Cap considers the Red Skull, presumed dead as of Captain America #148...
  
• ...the original Baron Zemo, presumed dead as of Avengers #15...
  
• ...and Solarr, last seen in Captain America #160.
  
• The Death Ray of Baron Zemo first appeared in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #8. (The footnote here lists the reprint in Special Marvel Edition #8.)

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

So calling somebody a flunky makes them a nazi?:-)

While bringing back Peggy Carter, Englehart created his own continuity problem. Peggy Carter had been stated before as knowing Steve Rogers in America. Englehart says she was the unnamed French Underground lady Cap knew in the Tales of Suspense flashbacks. So Peggy knew Steve before meeting Cap, and didn't recognize them as the same guy? Foom #8 recognized this problem and pointed it out(and also mentioned another lady Cap met in WW2, another "Agent 13", that Englehart never followed up on). This was later brought up in the Cap letter column, and the answer basically never addressed if Peggy did know Cap was Steve before getting amnesia,but said that since the Space Phantom wiped everyone's memory of Cap ever being Steve, the point was moot.

On another entry, Kveto provided a Youtube link to the Power Records record & comic combo for this issue:

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gERe0pB-DpQ

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODgdBIgM15A

And aside from the hilarity of the stereotypical steel-jaw hero voice saying "What? You'll have to run that by me again, Sam. I'm a bit slow on the uptake this evening.", i noticed some dialogue revisions, especially around Zemo's racism. So i've added more screenshots here for comparison.

No wonder Kveto thought the word "flunky" was the problem. ;-)

Bet you never guessed that captain America sounds just like Sam the Bald Eagle from the muppets.

Piggybacking off the Power Records comments, Phoenix/Baron Helmut Zemo was voiced by the late, great Peter Fernandez, best known for giving the English-language voice to Speed Racer, as well as his vocal voice-over talents being peppered throughout the "Mach 1" run of Power Records stories, most often as narrator.