Issue(s): Tales Of Suspense #78, Tales Of Suspense #79 (Captain America stories only)
Cover Date: Jun-Jul 66
Title: "THEM!" / "The Red Skull lives!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Frank Giacoia - Inker

Review/plot:
Nick Fury shows up at the Avengers mansion and runs into Captain America for the first time in the Silver Age (they were both at the FF's wedding, but either they didn't bump into each other or the cosmic reset caused them to forget).

Fury wanted to see if the Avengers knew anything about Them...

...and while he is there, a robot sent by Them shows up and attacks Nick and Cap (the only Avenger present).

They defeat the robot and Nick leaves, but not before giving Cap an A-1 Priority SHIELD pin. I used to have a SHIELD pin but someone stole it from me.

Next, Cap is being driven mad by the minions of the Red Skull.

The Skull and his minions have been preserved by an experimental gas that was released in the Skull's final battle with Cap during WWII, and they have recently been discovered and revived by Them.

Cap figures out that he's being messed with and he gets SHIELD to create an electronic device that prevents the hypnotic rays. He defeats one of the Skull's minions and learns that the Red Skull is back. Meanwhile, AIM has developed the Cosmic Cube.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 9 - first modern Cap/Fury meeting, first Red Skull in Silver Age, first Cosmic Cube.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Nick Fury has encountered Them and knows that they can grow a brain. TOS #78 would seem to take place before Strange Tales #146 when SHIELD faces an army of lab-grown androids and learns that Them is probably AIM. By TOS #79, Them and AIM are shown to be the same organization.

This Cosmic Cube eventually becomes sentient and calls itself Kubik so i'm tagging all appearances of this Cube that way.

References:

• AIM employed Mentallo and the Fixer in Strange Tales #141-143.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Double Feature #2, Marvel Double Feature #3

You have Gil Kane listed as penciler for IM.

Whoops. Fixed it. Thanks.

I think that Horst, the Skull's servant in this issue, is supposed to be the same servant as in Captain America 294-295.

Horst has to be the same character, since in those later issues the Skull observes his death to see what will happen when the gas that preserved Horst, Wolfgang, and the Skull himself in suspended animation wears off. It can't be Wolfgang, because the Skull induces him to kill himself in the next issue or so.

Added Horst and Wolfgang. Thanks.

The gadgets that Cap was training with look like the devices that Luke Skywalker trains with in Star Wars Episode Four. I loved that they brought back the Red Skull who was Timely's only great villain.

Why are these issues together? Seems pretty stand alone to me...

Very strong set of issues here. Very surprising that Horst was never mentioned after this until DeMatteis brought him back in the run up to issue # 300. As someone who was an actual contemporary to Cap & Skull, he could have made an intriguing henchmen even if he was just kept as window dressing.

Roy, as noted on the Rules and Q&A pages, sometimes issues get grouped together just due to the nature of the reprints. The Double Feature reprints are kind of weird because they published Cap and Iron Man stories from Tales of Suspense, but not from the same issues of Tales of Suspense. So the way that i took these issues apart and reassembled them resulted in some choices about how they were grouped.

I would have placed TOS #78 after Avengers #28, because at the end Cap refers to a member of the Avengers being a biochemist. Presumably he is referring to Hank Pym, who only reveals that he is / was Giant-Man at the start of Avengers #28. Unless there is some previous evidence that Giant-Man knows biochemistry (which may well be the case and I have just forgotten this !).

There is some nasty continuity around this period due to Monsters On The Prowl that i don't want to revisit. But luckily, the situation around Pym's secret identity is less obvious than it seems. Giant-Man burst out of Pym's house in Tales To Astonish #49 and his fan club was showing up at his house in TTA #60. And in a back-up continuity insert in the Avengers Classic reprint of Avengers #9, Wonder Man is aware that the Wasp is powered via "Pym capsules". So it seems likely that Pym's secret identity was an open secret. I read Cap's "surprise" in Avengers #28 as sarcasm. "I'd never have guessed he was Henry Pym *rolls eyes*".