Issue(s): Captain America annual #11
Cover Date: 1992
Title: "An epic adventure / Test flight"
Credits:
Roy Thomas / James Brock & Mark Gruenwald - Writer
Larry Alexander / James Brock - Penciler
Kathryn Bolinger / Charles Barnett III - Inker
Pat Garrahy - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
Citizen Kang is kind of a content-lite crossover event between some of the Avengers annuals and the Fantastic Four. I kind of think they came up with the title first, and then built a story around it. Or maybe they just wanted to do some fun time travel stuff, like having Captain America team up with ancient era Gilgamesh to fight the Stone Men of Saturn...

...and then meet a young Sersi.

The story is that the Vision has gone missing after finding a part in his body that was labelled as having come from a town called Timely in Wisconsin. After "several days", Cap goes looking for him and finds that the town of Timely is a throwback to the 1950s, with stores with names like Burgos' Burgers and Goodman's Groceries (these are all references to Marvel's original company name and Carl Burgos and Martin Goodman). Cap investigates and enters a factory that sends him back in time.

That's basically it, and the next part of this crossover will follow the same format. But these issues will also finally address the discrepancy of the two Nebulas that have been appearing in the Marvel universe, and in this issue we see the time-traveling Nebula contact Dr. Druid. He tells her he's not interested in talking to her.

In terms of back-up features, this issue has the usual top ten villains list, and it provides schematics of Cap's jet plane and a description of his shield. The page on the SHIELD repeats the mistake (?) that the shield is a vibranium/adamantium hybrid and also says that Tony Stark contributed the paint that is difficult to scuff and that Jarvis is the one that figured out how to attach durable straps.

Peter Sanderson has a saga style piece in each of the four annuals describing Kang's history. One thing to note is that it's still left ambiguous whether Kang is the descendant of Dr. Doom or Mr. Fantastic. But the story is told from Kang's perspective, so i suppose he might be a deliberately unreliable narrator.

And there is a story featuring the Falcon in which he debuts a new costume. Falcon is working as Sam Wilson, social worker, when a kid that he knows comes in and starts waving a gun around. Sam stops him and tries to find out what's going on.

The dialogue is a little odd. Tyrone was "fiendin'" to see Falcon, and Sam wonders if his tale is "righteous".

Jame Brock had more art than writing credits at this point, but he had written a few things at Marvel prior to this, most notably a Volcana three-parter that appeared in various back-ups. Per Mizark's comment below, James Brock is African-American. I bring up Brock's ethnicity because the scripting of African-American characters in this story can get (what seems to me to be) kind of dumb.

I wondered if Brock was brought in to do the "black" scripting the way Marc McLaurin was brought in to script the "Punisher turns black" storyline (per CBR).

But Brock had a more direct connection with the Falcon than McLaurin did with the Punisher. Brock redesigned the Falcon's costume as part of a pitch he was working on for a new Falcon series that didn't get approved. This is per a comment that Tom Brevoort left on CBR:

As I recall, that Falcon costume was actually designed by James Brock, a bullpenner who had pitched a Falcon project that was worked on for some time, but which didn't end up seeing the light of day. Mark ended up using the suit and the gimmicks from that aborted series.

Anyway, the story is that the Taskmaster is recruiting locals and he's going after Tyrone for running away.

To prepare himself for the fight with the Taskmaster, Falcon contacts a Desmond Burrell (his only appearance, as far as i know), who has been building him a new suit.

The suit hasn't been tested yet, but Falcon doesn't have time for that.

We see that it has magnification capabilities...

...and a projectile talon.

It also has "remote imaging", possibly from the eyes of Redwing.

Falcon has a brief fight with Taskmaster.

But Tyrone interferes in the fight, and Falcon has to save him, allowing Taskmaster to escape. Oh, the suit also has wings that come on and off as needed.

Tyrone remains an angry young man when it's all over.

I can understand the desire to upgrade Falcon's powers. The problem is that if the suit gets too techy, Falcon becomes more like a low rate Iron Man than the guy he started as. I mean, give him a chest blaster and he's basically Darkhawk at this point. I also don't love the new face mask.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part one of Citizen Kang. Part two is in Thor annual #17. The back-up in Captain America #408 takes place after Citizen Kang and after the Falcon gets his new costume.

References:

• Cap knows that Thor fought the Stone Men in Journey Into Mystery #83. Apparently that wasn't the first time they were driven off the planet by one of Earth's god heroes.
  
• Dr. Druid stopped "Nebula" from trying to turn the world back to 1961s in Avengers Spotlight #37.

Crossover: Citizen Kang

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

James Brock is an African-American.

Thanks Mizark. I've updated the entry a bit.

Shouldn't Sersi still be tagged here, despite appearing as a child? Her cameo here troubles me somewhat (she was born in Greece, not Mesopotamia; her power is matter transmutation, not "bringing dead things back to life" etc etc), but it's still a fun moment. Also, it is DEEPLY impressive that Cap can remember specific details from the Epic of Gilgamesh at a moment's notice with no advance warning. I actually teach that text and still have to re-read it every year to keep the details fresh in my mind. It would be fun to scour his appearances and compile a list of books that he knows by heart.

Fnord doesn't list the natives in time-travel stories. The character page must be kept in order.

Gotcha, thanks.

"I can understand the desire to upgrade Falcon's powers. The problem is that if the suit gets too techy, Falcon becomes more like a low rate Iron Man than the guy he started as."

And that's exactly what happens to him in the Disney cartoon.

"You hero-types sure get rattled when you don't know the name o' the guy yer fightin'. Now I'm never gonna tell ya."

Heh heh. Taskmaster is such a cad. It's a pretty original response. Falcon knew it was him anyway, he was just poking fun at "Kooky Caper"'s expense.