Issue(s): Tales Of Suspense #69, Tales Of Suspense #70, Tales Of Suspense #71 (Captain America stories only)
Cover Date: Sep-Nov 65
Title: "Midnight in Greymoor Castle!" / "If this be treason!" / "...When you lie down with dogs..!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler /Layouts
Vincent Colletta / George Tuska - Inker / Finished Art

Review/plot:
Private Steve Rogers goes AWOL from a mission in order to rescue Bucky and stop a British traitor from bombing the Prime Minister's office with a V-2. The British scientist, Cedric Rawlings, reminds his sister every five minutes that it's her fault that his hand had to be replaced with a robotic claw.

The scientist's plan was to shrink Cap and Bucky. He proves he can do it by shrinking dolls. The logic of that doesn't quite work for me, but it's good enough for the Nazis.

The Nazis of course have no long term use for a traitor so they throw him and his sister in a dungeon and the scientist turns on them.

The most interesting aspect of this story was how Rogers would deal with the fact that he was branded a deserter but that plotline is left dangling.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: We'll find out in Captain America #72 that these are stories that Cap is retelling to the Avengers, but these stories themselves are standalone World War II era with no bookends.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: Captain America Annual #1

the british scientist gets dumped in the dungeon but because the sister tried to help cap, she is going to be blasted off in the bomb along with cap and bucky.

the scientist spends the whole book either whining about his hand or ineffectually ranting about how he's going to get revenge on the nazis for treating him badly. wank.

mebbe (hopefully) they deal with rogers' desertion in the next cap issue.

Actually, they do follow up on the desertion thread but the next issue takes place in 1966 so you won't read it for a while. It turns out these stories are actually being retold by Cap to the other Avengers in the Silver Age.

I read this in my Marvel Masterworks and just shook my head. It shows that Steve Rogers is still a regular soldier and has to do double duty as Cap and Pvt Rogers. This makes no sense. While it makes perfect sense that the government would want to keep Cap's identity secret, it makes zero sense why he would still be assigned a cover identity as a common soldier.

BTW, any placement of the Red Skull origin/Project Vanish? Don't see it listed.

Even with the upcoming backissue add, i am still missing a few early issues in Cap's Tales of Suspense run, including issue #68 which covers Project Vanish.

I've now added Tales of Suspense #66-68.

The doctor got what Was coming for him, shame about his Sister though :(

In terms of placement consideration, this seems too early. It is currently placed right before Marvels #1 and Marvel Project which mainly covers the events prior to the US entry into the war. Yet this story is clearing taking place during the war. The exact time is unclear because of contradicting elements. US Ranger attacks on German coastal installations could place this anytime between 1942 (the Dieppe Raid) to 1944 (D-Day), but involvement of the V-2 would historically put this into late 1944 at the earliest by which time there really wouldn't have been any justification for coastal raids by the Rangers. I think it's best to ignore V-2 references and just make this a generic comic book wonder weapon. This could then be placed anytime prior to D-Day (Howlers Annual #2) and probably after his Invader appearances.

Incidentally, this story establishes that Steve Rogers is in the Rangers, an elite unit that was counterpart to the British Commandos. This is hard to square with Pvt Rogers' reputation as a klutz, but perhaps was needed to explain his early arrival in Britain.

In Captain America 256, Rawlings claims that this happened in 1941. Now US Ranger attacks on the Germans in 1941 make no sense- the Rangers weren't founded until 1942 and the first American troops didn't arrive until January 26, 1942. Assuming that Rawlings meant December 31, 1941, one has to wonder how the troops managed to go into action 20 days after war was declared.

With regards to the placement of Marvels and Marvels Project, i always place books that span a period of time based on where they end. And both of those books end with WWII already underway. Beyond that, i learned from the Sgt. Fury series not to try to worry about real WWI chronology. It does seem that this should take place "early" based on the Cap #256 reference (even if the date isn't accurate).