Issue(s): Captain America #229, Captain America #230
Cover Date: Jan-Feb 79
Title: "Traitors all about me!" / "Assault on Alcatraz!"
Credits:
Roger McKenzie - Writer
Roger Stern - Script on #230
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Don Perlin - Inker

Review/plot:
After Jasper Sitwell investigates the collapse at the SHIELD base...

....Cap pulls himself and the Constrictor out of the rubble...

...and grills Constrictor for info about who he's working for and where the Falcon is. He learns that Constrictor had previously been sent after Jim Wilson, but failed. To learn more, he needs to go to the west coast to grill the Super-Agents, one of which he thinks is a traitor.

After realizing that he's got no money available due to recent events...

...he heads back to the Avengers Mansion.

Since he can't use a Quinjet (the Beast thinks to himself that Cap could take a Quinjet if "he'd just ignore the bureaucratic red tape") and thinks that he'll be spotted too easily if Thor flies him in, he tries to borrow money to fly to LA. None of the Avengers have any money, but Jarvis lends him enough for bus fare.

When he finally arrives in LA (which must be something like 3 days later?), he immediately gets into costume and breaks into the SHIELD training area and accuses the super-agents of harboring a traitor. Now considering he gave up three days to travel incognito, you'd think he had something more subtle planned. Don't you think busting into a SHIELD base with Thor at your back would have only been even more impressive when busting into a SHIELD base? Never mind the fact that it's now three more days that your poor friend Sam is sitting in a dungeon somewhere?

Cap gets into a fight with the Agents. The Blue Streak is a joke; he's a guy in a disco jumpsuit and his power is he has roller skates.

The Texas Twister has good powers but he's such an awful stereotype.

Quasar is depicted as a neophyte with a lot of potential.

In any event, by attacking the Super-Agents, he flushes out the fact that the Blue Streak is a mole for the Corporation. Vamp is acting suspicious as well.

And the Texas Twister decides that the Super-Agents are a bunch of nuts and he quits the group. When you can't keep the Texas Twister on your team, it's time to hang up the cape.

Anyway, from Blue Streak, Cap learns that the Falcon is being held on Alcatraz.

Meanwhile, Fred Sloan and the Hulk are still driving up the road. Fred lights up the weed while he's driving, and the smoke calms the Hulk down and turns him back into Banner.

The pair then get pulled over by Corporation agents posing as police, who shoot both Fred and Bruce.

Soon everyone arrives at Alcatraz: Cap, Vamp and Quasar, Bruce Banner (without Fred), and Kligger with Jim and Moonstone. Already there is Curtiss Jackson, Kligger's west coast Corporation counterpart, and the Falcon, who is chained to a watery death trap.

The Vamp turns out to be Kligger's mole, and more, she's actually Animus, a giant mutated ogress that likes to shout "Die-e-ee!!".

Banner transforms into the Hulk but winds up attacking Captain America. Moonstone and Animus team-up to temporarily knock him out.

I like that we have a "team-up" between Cap and the Hulk but the Hulk doesn't suddenly act friendlier or easier to manipulate as he sometimes does in guest appearances.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Enough time has passed from the end of last issue for Agent Sitwell to arrive from wherever he was talking to Cap over the monitor, inspect the destroyed facility, and leave before Cap pulls himself and Constrictor out of the rubble. The Beast has returned from his date with a hangover (but he apparently managed to pull himself together long enough to sit through a meeting with Gyrich; see below), but Hercules and Thor are still in the middle of their armwrestling match. In Hulk Smash Avengers #2, Captain America is seen participating in a meeting with Gyrich and a few other Avengers (including the Beast, but not Thor or Hercules, who, since Hulk Smash Avengers #2 takes place after Avengers #182, are not actually members of the team at this point and i guess are just hanging out at the mansion) before declaring that he has to go out west to talk to the SHIELD super-agents in order to find the Falcon. Cap decides to go out west at the beginning of issue #229, so this all means that Cap's participation in Hulk Smash Avengers must take place during issue #229; i've decided that after finding his apartment in shambles, Cap goes to the Avengers mansion and finds himself pulled in to the meeting with Gyrich. He says he has to go out west. Then he tries to commandeer a Quinjet and Gyrich refuses. The scene of Cap bursting in on the Avengers asking for help then takes place after that (the original intention was that this story took place before the Avengers' security clearance was restored).

This story continues directly in Hulk #232. The rest of Hulk Smash #2, which features a small team of Avengers (not including Cap) fighting the Hulk, must take place during Cap's bus ride, meaning by the time Cap runs into the Hulk he's just met a bunch of other Avengers.

References:

• The Constrictor tried to kidnap Jim Wilson in Hulk #212 but was stopped by the Hulk.
  
• Cap's apartment was destroyed by the Corporation in Captain America #222 and he lost his credit card when he was attacked by Animus in Captain America #223, leaving him skint.
  
• On his bus ride (as Steve Rogers), he meets a kid who is ecstatic to learn that Gene Colan is back on Daredevil but dismisses Captain America as an old fogey. This reminds Cap of the disillusionment that caused him to become Nomad in Captain America #180.
  
• When Cap provokes the SHIELD Super-Agents, they think (or pretend to) that he's testing them like he did in Captain America #217.
  
• The Texas Twister is under suspicion because he attacked the Human Torch in Fantastic Four #192, but he claims the attack was just an attempt to recruit the Torch into SHIELD.
  
• Fred Sloan and the Hulk have been driving together since the end of Hulk #231
  
• Curtiss Jackson was last seen in Machine Man #8.
  
• The Hulk knocks out Quasar just for participating in that horrible story arc in Defenders #62-64. And it was well deserved.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Considering his mustache, Texas Twister may have been based on Yosemite Sam.

Man: what kind of weed connect does Fred Sloan have, that a contact high transforms the Hulk into Bruce Banner?!

I think General Ross needs to fire Doc Samson and the Hulkbusters, and just pay Fred Sloan. He has a better success rate than the Avengers, and is probably cheaper.

Captain America tests out Quasar again for Avengers membership in a later Captain America issue.

Having read these issues and the ones preceding, I definitely don't feel Roger McKenzie's run on Cap is off to a bad start. I hear it called a directionless mess by just almost everyone and Kurt Busiek but following from the Search from Steve Rogers, this is a godsend. I'm guessing everyone is just dumping McKenzie with the blame for those dreadful retcons due to being in the vicinity of that atrocity.

These Corporation issues are quite decent. I git to #230 and felt a bit disappointed I hadn't been reading Hulk issues concurrently though. I do think McKenzie is approaching Cap pretty well by getting rid of the stuff that was pointless and didn't work (S.H.I.E.L.D. Super-Agents and next arc Sharon Carter) and ignoring the stuff that should be ignored (Cap's secret origin nonsense). It might not be revolutionary Cap stories but I think at this point the book needed a stable creative team and status quo.

Also fnord, might I suggest renaming Animus to Vamp or Animus (Vamp) since there's other Animii characters lurking in the Marvel Universe and Vamp's Animus form was more like a form she could wear rather than something she was (if that makes sense).

Agree on the Animus tag. Thanks AF.

The Steve Rogers identity was always one of the worst-kept secrets in the Marvel Universe (ditto Cap's sidekick, Bucky, whose real name was...Bucky). But I suspect the framed photo of himself with the Buckster that Cap was keeping in Steve's apartment in #229 didn't help.