Issue(s): Captain America #273, Captain America #274
Cover Date: Sep-Oct 82
Title: "Cap and the Howlers... together again!" / "Death of a hero!"
Credits:
David Anthony Kraft - Writer
Mike Zeck - Penciler
John Beatty - Inker
Mike Carlin - Assistant Editor
Mark Gruenwald - Editor

Review/plot:
One really frustrating aspect of Roger Stern and John Byrne's Captain America run was when they revealed that the Baron Strucker appearances after his seeming death in the Steranko Strange Tales run were actually a robot. I'd like to think they would have delved into that more if they'd stayed on the book longer. Or you'd think their plans would have been shared with their editor (Jim Salicrup, no longer on the book).

This fill-in by David Anthony Kraft (the third during J.M. DeMatteis' run, and the second two-parter) finally addresses the topic, but it still leaves some open questions.

The real occasion here is a reunion of the Howling Commandos.

And Baron Strucker is the ideal villain to show up, since he was the arch villain in the Howlers book, to an almost tedious degree. But it's confirmed that this Strucker is actually a robot. More specifically, he's an LMD of the real Strucker who thought he was the real thing.

Now that i guess wraps up the technical details. There were a cadre of LMDs, and they were programmed to think they were Strucker and carry on his plans and think they were him, much like a Doombot. But it was implied in the Byrne/Stern story that the Strucker robot was a creation of Machinesmith. So does this mean he was supplying Strucker? Or, like Airwalker, was he really just collecting various robots with the intention of using them for his own purposes? But the Strucker LMD had been in prison since the 1970 Cap stories, so when did Machinesmith gain control of them?

And on a more meta level, what was the reason behind keeping Strucker dead, even retroactively cancelling out his last appearance? If that seems like a strange question, you probably haven't read that many Marvel comics. Were there even greater plans in the work for Strucker? Or was he deemed not interesting enough to use anymore?

Anyway, as if you haven't already guessed, the Baron Strucker LMD attacks the Howlers during their reunion. And the Howlers go back into action to defeat him.

General Sam Sawyer sacrifices himself to help defeat Strucker...

...and Nick Fury (correctly!) blames himself for not calling in SHIELD instead of handling things with the Howlers, and specifically for not having them check out Hydra island, the location where Fury seemingly killed the real Strucker in the Steranko story, when Strucker first resurfaced.

That island sinks into the sea in this arc.

As for catching up with the Howlers, well, Gabe and Dum Dum have been members of SHIELD and we've been seeing them all along. Eric Koening was a latter day Howler that joined after Cap's WWII meeting with the group. But he is also a member of SHIELD, and Cap met him in Captain America #146. So he must have Alzheimer's or something, because he doesn't seem to remember it (neither does Cap, but he's met a lot of people, you know?).

Here's Pinky, Izzy and Reb. Reb is a Senator now and that's why he's able to "outrank" Fury and ensure that the non-SHIELD Howlers are included in this mission.

And there's Dino, taking the "my mother is your biggest fan" line very well.

I call this a fill-in, and it is interrupting DeMatteis' run and delaying his Baron Zemo storyline. But we're not just treading water. This (sort of) answers the question of the Strucker-bot, has the death of Happy Sam Sawyer, sinks Hydra island (which definitely feels like a deliberate clean-up), and checks in with the Howlers, several of whom had not been seen for some time.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - death of Happy Sam Sawyer

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places these between Avengers #224-225.

References:

• No footnote, but the Captain America/Howlers meeting that Eric Koenig wasn't around for was in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #13. I guess hearing the other guys reminisce about and probably embellish that story a lot is what made Eric forget that he's met Cap subsequently.
  
• The last confirmed sighting of the real Baron Strucker was his presumed death in Strange Tales #158.
  
• Strucker next seemed to resurface in Captain America #130 and Captain America #131-132.
  
• But he was revealed as a robot in Captain America #247.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A