Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #129 (Crossbones story only)
Cover Date: Jun 93
Title: "A time to die"
Credits:
John Figueroa - Writer
Ron Wilson - Penciler
Don Hudson - Inker
Mark Powers - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
Crossbones is a prisoner at the Vault, but he's participating in a program by a psychologist named Dr. Carolyn Lepre, who is trying to rehabilitate super-powered criminals. The program involves Crossbones getting transferred from the Vault to a hospital in Colorado on a regular basis. It seems to defeat the entire purpose of having an escape-proof Vault if you are constantly transferring the prisoners in and out of it.

Anyway, this time, there's a problem because a terrorist group called the Fortress is demanding that their leader be treated by the hospital's top neurosurgeon after he was injured in an explosion caused by the group. But the neurosurgeon was already in surgery on another patient, and the leader has died. Fortress is not yet aware of that. So Dr. Lepre offers to talk to Fortress, pretending that she's the neurosurgeon.

Fortress look less like terrorists and more like characters from Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball (the greatest NES game ever, by the way).

Crossbones has been plotting his escape since the second this all came up, and the minute he's left alone (!) in a "heavily guarded room", he escapes.

Meanwhile, i don't know what Dr. Lepre's plan was. She managed to delay Fortress for a bit, but eventually they come to the hospital demanding to see their leader, and there's nothing to be done about the fact that he's dead. We do later learn that the police have surrounded the building, but for now you've got several heavily armed terrorists inside the hospital with Lepre.

Luckily Crossbones' escape leads him to this room.

Crossbones doesn't want Fortress to think he's a hero or anything. He explains that helping Dr. Lepre should prove that he's been "rehabilitated". They don't quite get it and invite him to join them, but he chases them away.

He figures that now that he's disarmed them, it'll be easy for the police to capture them.

I'd say it's nice to have a story featuring a (non-comatose) villain, but it's not like we haven't had regular back-ups featuring the villains in Captain America's book, and those stories actually had more depth than this.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Crossbones was captured in Captain America #410 but he's shown to be free in Sleepwalker #20. So this should probably go in between, and i guess we can say that Crossbow's scheme worked, since the Sleepwalker issue didn't bother to explain how Crossbones got out of the Vault. It's said that Crossbones has been participating in the rehabilitation program "for the last six months".

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A