Issue(s): Captain America #243, Captain America #244, Captain America #245
Cover Date: Mar-May 80
Title: "The Lazarus conspiracy!" / "The way of all flesh!" / "--The Calypso connection!"
Credits:
Roger McKenzie - Writer
Rich Buckler / Don Perlin / Carmine Infantino - Penciler
Don Perlin / Tom Sutton / Josef Rubinstein - Inker
Bob Budiansky - Assistant Editor
Jim Salicrup - Editor

Review/plot:
The first two issues in this story are part of a pretty goofy plot where an old guy whose body is failing, and so he's hooked himself up to his factory's machinery...

...arranges to have a SHIELD LMD Master Matrix stolen so that he can have his brain transferred into a new body.

But the old man's son resents him and between his interference and Captain America's attempt to retrieve the Matrix, the process goes awry and the man turns into a monster ironically called Adonis.

Cap initially loses track of Adonis, but he resurfaces after some downtime scenes. I am surprised to see that Steve Rogers is the type to let dishes pile up in the sink.

Adonis is eventually fried by some electrical equipment.

Sloppy, weird, art by Perlin in #244 creates a strange but appropriate tone for the Adonis story.

On his way home from the Adonis fight, Cap stops at a local diner, to the delight of the owner. Cap lets the guy pretend like Cap is a regular customer and orders "the usual", which the owner interprets to be a slice of apple pie.

The guy in the background complaining about the service is Jack Lockley, aka Moon Knight, who offers Cap a ride home in his cab. It's a cute scene highlighting Captain America's popularity.

Things get a lot more serious when we switch over to Anna Kappelbaum, who bumps into Dr. Mendelhaus, a Nazi that worked at the concentration camp that she was kept at during the Holocaust and apparently paid special attention to her.

Kappelbaum goes into shock and is taken to the hospital. She's met there by an Aaron Heller, a Nazi hunter.

Later, while Steve Roger's apartment mates are throwing a surprise birthday party for him, Kappelbaum is later kidnapped by Neo-Nazis, who have also captured Dr. Mendelhaus, who we learn is having some regrets about his past life.

But the Neo-Nazis intend to use him to begin a new Nazi movement in South America. Steve sneaks away from his party and Captain America arrives at the site where Kappelbaum is being held thanks to a tip from Heller.

Cap beats up the Neo-Nazis. Kappelbaum has an opportunity to shoot Mendelhaus, but before she can decide, he's killed by Heller's daughter. Heller himself dies of a heart attack.

These are Roger McKenzie's last issues. After a fill-in by Peter Gillis, Roger Stern and John Byrne's run begins.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Avengers #189-190. There's a downtime gap in the middle of issue #244 while Adonis is laying low. Issue #245 is a separate story but it starts in the aftermath of the Adonis fight.

References:

• Steve Rogers meets with another editor during this arc, looking for an alternate boss for his commercial art career after meeting the editor in Captain America #241. Also in that issue, Anna Kappelbaum thought she saw a Nazi through the window. Captain America later thought it was the Punisher that she saw. But i wonder if it was really meant to be Dr. Mendelhaus.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

No commentary on the cheesecake shower scene? Only when it's a female hero?:-)

I know you're just joking with me, but i did almost comment on it; that's why it's in the scan. If they had next shown Cap seductively drying himself off and then slowly getting dressed, i probably would have. And if it happened every issue i definitely would have. I did skip over a shower scene from an issue of She-Hulk i recently reviewed because it wasn't a consistent thing in that book like it was in Dazzler and Spider-Woman.

Besides, everyone knows if you want to constantly see a dude in various states of undress, Iron Man is the book for you.

Thanks for the tip:-)

Kveto, that would be a *beef*cake shower scene. :-)

Cap's a bit steroidal-looking for my taste, as drawn there.

Oh, and he never had his own book, but the reigning undressed male hero in the Marvel Universe (disqualifying the obvious likes of the Sub-Mariner) would have to be Angel. I get it, shirts would be a nuisance if you had large wings, but he seemed to have three modes in various team books: (1) costume, (2) suit for formal occasions, (3) hanging around HQ topless.

Wouldn't Angel's old buddy Iceman run him close for consistent panels in a state of near nakedness? There was the earlier Silver Age X-Men, the Champions, the New Defenders, though at least Bobby's modesty was protected by his best (IMHO) costume during the X-Factor era.

Iceman's full body Champions costume wasn't bad either.

I started noticing that Wolverine gets nude pretty often, more often than Cyclops that's for sure.

@Jay D: "Iceman's full body Champions costume" = 1960s THUNDER Agents Dymano ;)

Agreed on Iceman's later period Champions costume. I miss Iceman having a proper costume, actually. Seems all he does now is hang around in ice form most of the time while wearing regular civilian shorts.

I have to agree with David Banes. It hasn't happened much yet at this point, but I think Wolverine is absolutely the king of being nude in the Marvel Universe.

20th Century Danny Boy has scans of the penciled art for an earlier version of part one of "The Lazarus conspiracy" story, which was originally going to appear in issue #240. For reasons lost to time, it was scrapped, and a completely different issue was created. It's interesting to compare the unpublished art by Alan Kupperberg to how Rich Buckler drew #243, and see the different layout & storytelling choices utilized by the two pencilers in drawing the same plot.

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/11/original-art-stories-captain-america.html