Issue(s): Captain America #259
Cover Date: Jul 81
Title: "Rite of passage!"
Credits:
David Michelinie - Script
Jim Shooter - Plot
Mike Zeck - Penciler
Quickdraw Studios - Inker
Bob Budiansky - Assistant Editor
Jim Salicrup - Editor

Review/plot:
A Captain America / Doctor Octopus fight could be a lot of fun, but although Doc Ock is the villain here, this isn't an epic battle sort of issue. The real story is about a Ray Coulson, who was a courier that lent Captain America a motorcycle during World War, II, and his son John Coulson (called "Joey" once in this story). No telling if there's a Phil "Cheese" Coulson in the family. But John has gone off and joined a group of Nazi-fetishist bikers after a fight with his dad, and Cap has agreed to go to just deliver a message to John saying that his father is sorry.

Just in order to talk to John, Cap has to endure the bike gang's test of not having your arms ripped off by motorcycles..

...and then Doctor Octopus attacks because he's interested in the material in Cap's shield.

Cap defeats Doc Ock, and his heroism inspires the bikers to reject Octavius' offer to hire them as goons to fight Cap.

When Cap finally delivers Ray's message to John...

...it convinces John to go home, and "three days later", while the Beast is regaling Cap with his latest exploits (and doesn't Cap look interested?)...

...John shows up with a new bike for Cap.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - Cap gets a new bike

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Avengers #208-209 and before Cap's appearance in Marvel Team-Up #106.

References:

Doctor Octopus notes problems he's had with his cybernetic arms in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man annual #1 and Daredevil #165.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Quickdraw was actually Frank McLaughlin and some unidentified guys.

Based upon further reading, Quickdraw seems to have been just McLaughlin & Dick Giordano.

For a spider-man villain, Doc Ock sure got around. Cap, DD, Iron man, Dazzler, Angel. Anyway, nice little fight here.

Bought this off the spinner rack and it always bugged me a bit. Doc Ock always gave Spider-Man a run for his money, sometimes over 2-3 issues. Cap defeats Octavius in a few pages. I guess it was stories like this that do Ock becoming something of a joke.

Can't explain the typo in my last comment, meant to type "that led to Ock becoming something of a joke."

It's not too hard for me to believe that Cap could beat Ock in just a few pages. We don't see the clincher of the fight here, but Cap beat him by "KVOK"ing him in the head with his shield. Cap is a highly trained, strategic, and disciplined fighter, with a totally different style than Spider-Man. No comparison really. Cap has built up quite a reputation for surprising everyone by holding his own against much more powerful foes. With his shield he could probably take Spider-Man in at least 2 out of 3 rounds. And Ock is about as susceptible as anybody would be to a high-velocity, alloy-steel kvok on his unprotected noggin. What's most cartoonish about it is that Ock wakes up so soon, and doesn't even have a big gash, or at least a giant lump, on his poor head. Doc Ock's head must be harder than Joe Frazier's, what with all the hard knocks to the cranium he's survived over the years, and not even a super-soldier formula to compensate for them.