Issue(s): USAgent #1, USAgent #2, USAgent #3, USAgent #4
Cover Date: Jun-Sep 93
Title: "Road to redemption" / "Inside moves" / "Bloodlines" / "Field of angels"
Credits:
Mark Gruenwald - Writer
M.C. Wyman - Penciler
Keith Williams - Inker
John Lewandowski - Assistant Editor
Nel Yomtov - Editor

Review/plot:
This is an important one because, for better or worse, it shows Mark Gruenwald's resolution to the Scourge situation. Otherwise i'd be saying (and am still saying, obviously) that while i like USAgent as a foil for Captain America and as an unlikeable character in a team book, i don't think there's much point to him having a solo series. But since this miniseries is basically a vehicle for the Scourge resolution, that's kind of moot.

Let me also get out of the way my opinion that anything Scourge related should have stopped after the initial story. There's no point in belaboring it since that ship already sailed in the Captain America series, and it's good to have a resolution.

And one more point: i tried to make a quality vs. quantity argument on a recent Nomad entry, suggesting that the energy put into plotting that series could have been put into the Captain America book, which has been floundering and will continue to do so. Here's another example. The story here is pretty decent, and i quite like the art. Overall the quality is much better than what's going on in Captain America's regular series. I don't think anyone would have complained too much if we took a break from Steve Rogers for four issues and had this story there. That book would have been invigorated for a bit, and we'd have one less random miniseries clogging up the stands. Of course Marvel's strategy at this time was very much to flood the market. My point is that that strategy didn't just over-saturate the market with mediocre (or worse) material; it actually drained the potential quality of the core books.

The story starts with what seems like another Scourge hit, this time against the Matador.

A complaint: the Matador is Spanish, i.e. from Spain. Putting him in a wife beater in a rundown apartment with too many children (who appear to be clones) is a whole different set of stereotypes. I mean, a down-and-out European supervillain can wind up in the slums same as anyone else, but i get the feeling someone said "He's Spanish? Let's put him in a Los Angeles ghetto.". As it is, i guess the one thing cancels out the other.

A more continuity-minded point of order is that the last time we saw the Matador, he was going into the Brooklyn Bay with the Man-Bull's hands wrapped around his throat in Daredevil #129, and he never resurfaced. He's now saying he's served his debt to society. So, assuming he's not lying, i guess he survived the Man-Bull's attack (which already seems a little iffy from the way the scene was depicted), and then he was picked up by the police off panel and served his time without incident. Which sounds about right considering the loser status of the character, but how ignominious. Can't even take comfort in blaming some super-hero for his capture.

And to Mark Gruenwald's credit, all of the above makes him a perfect candidate for this scene. Because the idea is that even though he's Scourge bait in the original sense of being a super-villain scrub, the fact that he hasn't been active in close to two decades means that he doesn't really meet the criteria of being in need of "Justice". So he tells the Scourge that he's not going back into crime after serving his time. And the Scourge has a crisis of faith and spares him.

To be clear, that's not standard Scourge policy. The Scourge in question is really Priscilla Lyons, aka Vagabond, former girlfriend of Nomad and associate of Captain America. So she's got morals and conditioning that a different Scourge wouldn't have had.

As for USAgent, the West Coast Avengers are throwing a party. But John Walker doesn't want to go to it, so he rides around on his sky sled looking for something to do and eventually finds someone that needs help changing a flat tire. The guy turns out to be a priest, and he notices that something is troubling Walker, although Walker doesn't want to admit it. Walker then goes back to the Avengers compound and has to walk past the party to get to his bungalow. You can really feel the awkwardness here; it feels less like the Agent disapproves of partying and more like he just doesn't know how to socialize.

Then of course you have Hawkeye being a dick.

USAgent can't sleep because of the party noise, so he goes to hang out with the Avengers staff person who monitors emergency channels (he's Sandrose but i think this is his only appearance) and eventually hears a call from help from Priscilla, who says that she's being targeted by the Scourge. USAgent goes to the bar where she is hiding out. She initially claims to by the twin sister of the super-villain Mysteria (a very minor villain who only appeared in the Superia story in Captain America #387-329). USAgent draws out the Scourge by using the blow-up doll that Hawkeye left him as a decoy...

...but the Scourge gets away. They are picked up by Wonder Man.

USAgent figures out that Priscilla isn't Mysteria's sister and she is in fact a Scourge herself. Priscilla admits it but says that she's never killed anyone (Matador was her first assignment). She identifies herself as Vagabond and explains her history, culminating in the time that she and USAgent actually met, in Captain America #358-364. In that story she was trying to get powers from the Power Broker (we learn that this was because of the death of her brother; she wanted to get vengeance on the crime world). After that failed, she was recruited by what turned out to be the Scourge organization. She was trained by a mysterious man said to be the best fighter she's seen this side of Captain America. Her training was far superior to what she got from Nomad and D-Man.

While Vagabond is explaining her origin and tagging along while USAgent searches for the Scourge organization, we see a Scourge kill off Blowtorch Brand at a porn theater.

I also want to pause here and point out the art. M.C. Wyman had done a fair amount of work for Marvel already, and it wasn't that great, but a lot of it was fill-ins. I really like the art here, though. Some of it looks like John Byrne swipes, especially in the faces, which i don't consider a bad thing.

The inker here is Keith Williams, who has worked a bit with Byrne. So i suspect he's responsible for the Byrne-isms, either because he's picked up traits from Byrne or because things that i associate with Byrne really come from him.

USAgent has Vagabond contact the Scourge assistant, Domino, and ask to come back in. I guess both sides realize it's a trap. A Scourge is sent to kill Vagabond. Note the metallic leg. USAgent doesn't comment on it - he's blinded by teargas at the moment - and it doesn't come up later.

USAgent manages to capture the Scourge. They bring him to the house of the priest that USAgent met earlier, and lock him up in the priest's basement! Not exactly what the priest had in mind when he invited USAgent over to talk further, but USAgent doesn't want the West Coast Avengers interfering in his interrogation. The priest allows the Scourge to be held prisoner there if he'll agree to have a conversation with the priest later. USAgent then disguises himself the way the Scourge was disguised, shrinking his shield with Pym particles.

He then contacts the Scourge organization to come pick him up, saying that he's injured. The organization sends someone named Caprice...

...who figures out that he's a fake.

USAgent is taken captive and drugged, and Domino, Caprice, and the mysterious trainer, whose name is Bloodstain...

...try to figure out his secret identity from what he says while he's hallucinating.

They eventually figure it out and then wake USAgent up. Bloodstain pretends to be his brother, who was thought killed in Vietnam (we're meant to believe that what Bloodstain is saying is true, but it's not). Bloodstain claims that his death was faked so that he could join the Scourge organization, which he claims (again, falsely) is a government-run organizaiton. And he tries to convince USAgent to join him. They let USAgent go, ostensibly giving him time to consider. But they really follow him back to the priest's house so they can rescue their Scourge and kill Vagabond.

That's Caprice and Bloodstain in the Scourge costumes above. While it sometimes seems like the Scourge organization has a million operatives, in this one we learn that there are no additional active agents in the field, so this is the entirety of it.

The captive Scourge is killed in the resulting fight, and Caprice is critically injured. Bloodstain is also shot, but escapes. USAgent then tracks down Domino...

...and makes him take him to the Scourge organization's "benefactor". Who turns out to be the Golden Age Angel.

It's said that the Angel retired after a civilian took a bullet meant for him, and he subsequently set up the Scourge organization to "atone" for his failings.

The details of what we learn here don't square with what we saw of the Angel in Marvel Super Heroes #7, which is why Peter David will have to retcon that character as being a half-brother of the Angel. I do find it interesting that two different writers seem to have independently come up with the idea of the Angel becoming a reactionary killer of criminals.

The Angel's nurse turns out to be Bloodstain, and he and USAgent have a fight. Note USAgent saying that his brother could "never have lost faith in God and country".

That's, uh, weird.

Bloodstain dies from bullets ricocheting off of USAgent's shield.

I guess at that range even the momentum-deadening effects of vibranium don't help.

Angel is left ranting in the grass.

And here's USAgent talking about his epiphany.

It's a decent story. I'd argue that too much space was wasted on flashbacks, resulting in not enough room for the real story. The priest therefore seems extraneous; there isn't enough time for him to interact with USAgent. If there were more time for that, the religious strangeness at the end might have worked a little better, although the symbolism would still have been way too heavy handed. And the fight with Bloodstain and Caprice and then the reveal and second fight at Angel's mansion are all compressed into the fourth issue. It would have been better to drop the extended flashbacks from the drug hallucinations - which occupy the majority of issue #3 - to space those events out. But even with all that, this was very readable, and better than most of what is going on around this time, including Gruenwald's Cap run.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - revelations about the Scourge organization and the Golden Age Angel

Chronological Placement Considerations: This takes place after War Machine is in the West Coast Avengers. And Wonder Man is with the team but wearing his pre-Wonder Man #25 costume. We could just assume that Wonder Man spilled something on his costume during the party and had to grab an old one, but since i've already carved out space between Wonder Man #22-24 (when he reconciles with the Avengers) and #25 for Wonder Man to appear in Wonder Man annual #2, this can be put in there as well. I'm following the MCP in tagging "Scourge IV" as appearing here. That's the guy that USAgent captures. It's said that the Scourge in the priest's basement was held there for "days", i guess while Walker was drugged at the Scourge base (even though Domino says that it will only take a "matter of hours" for him to learn Walker's ID).

References:

A flashback shows USAgent's history (no footnotes):
• We first saw USAgent as the Super-Patriot in Captain America #323.
  
• He became a replacement Captain America in Captain America #332-333.
  
• He was "forced to fight" his former friends Left-Winger and Right-Winger in Captain America #334 and Captain America #341.
  
• The Wingers revealed his secret identity to the public in that second encounter, making it possible for the Watchdogs to locate and kill his family in Captain America #345-347.
  
• Walker's death was faked after the return of the original Captain America #351 and he became USAgent in Captain America #354.
  
• He was assigned to "keep an eye" on the West Coast Avengers in West Coast Avengers #44.
• USAgent has personally encountered three Scourges. One was present during the faking of his death. One was a henchman of the Red Skull's, seen in Captain America #350.
  
• The third was in the back-ups for Captain America #358-364. That story is also relevant for this series for featuring Vagabond, showing her trying to get powers from the Power Broker.
  
• USAgent is also aware of the original Scourge, who Captain America saw killed in Captain America #320.
  
• Priscilla Lyons met Nomad in Captain America #325, her first appearance. In that story her brother was mixed up with the Slug, but he didn't want to be "rescued". We learn that the brother later died.
  
• Lyons then became Vagabond, getting training from Nomad and D-Man, and hung out with Captain America during his "The Captain" phase, circa Captain America #342-344.
  
• She and Nomad parted ways after Captain America #345-347.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I see the Byrne influence in the art, but that last panel is very (John) Buscema-ian as well.

I always liked Vagabond. And I liked how she posed as the sister of Mysteria. Too bad no one thinks of using her these days.

USAgent is such an odd character. How come people keep doing stories centered around him? He is anything _but_ protagonist material.

One thing about this limited series always bothered me- it never explained where the Scourges working for the Red Skull came from.
One problem with placing this in between Avengers West Coast 95 and 96- the West Coast compound is damaged in those issues and the staff was gone. But in these issues, the Compound looks fine, they're having a party and the staff seem to be all there. But there's no easy way to solve this since in Avengers West Coast 102, the Vision says the Compound hasn't been repaired yet and in that issue, the Avengers West Coast become Force Works and Agent loses his vibranium shield.
When I first read this issue, I didn't know Gruenwald was an atheist and assumed he was a Christian because the faith theme was so heavy handed. I was surprised to find out he was an atheist.

fnord raises a good point. Considering how the ongoing Captain America series had been meandering for quite a while now, it would have been a good idea to have this story told there. Thinking about it for just a few minutes, instead of having the awful "Superia Strategem" running as the Summer 1991 bi-weekly storyline, Gruenwald could have written a six issue Cap / U.S. Agent team-up that was along the lines of this miniseries, with each of them investigating the Scourge organization separately, bumping into each other along the way, and then having to join forces for the big finale at the Angel's compound.

Interestingly, that little patriotic list brings a few golden age heroes into continuity, major liberty, el gaucho and the fighting yank.

Agreed that the Scourge story finished long ago, no need to "ëxplain" it. But if you are gonna do a scourge story, at least use it to clean up some more deadbeat villains. I mean Water Wizard is still out there.

Considering how they were considered "losers" back in the 60s, I find it actually sort of funny that early Daredevil "villains" like Leapfrog and Matador were able to blend right back into society. At least they didn't end up with something that sort of prevented that sort of thing from happening...like Stilt-Man.

Michael: I'm guessing that Mark G. probably came to regret at first having the Scourge(s) seem like a part of the Red Skull's organization. I think he wanted to show the Skull had many irons in the fire, so he showed that a lot of organizations were being controlled by him (Watchdogs, Sweat Shop, Resistants, etc.), but the Scourge program being one of them was the only one that didn't seem to make sense, as far as aiding the Skull's goals. The OHOTMU in '86 (or maybe '89? I don't remember off the top of my head) tried to rationale the Scourge program as "getting rid of potential threats", but with the possible exception of Albert Malik, I'm at a loss to explain how anyone killed by Scourge was a threat to the Red Skull.

I think after this story, all references to Scourge ties with the Red Skull were dropped.

The Fighting Yank was actually published by Better/Nedor/Thrilling/Standard, but by this time he'd probably become public domain.

@Michael. Different fighting Yank than the one you mention. Marvel/Timely had their own fighting yank http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/William_Prince_(Earth-616)

I meant @Mark Drummond. Sorry Michael.

Let me also get out of the way my opinion that anything Scourge related should have stopped after the initial story. There's no point in belaboring it since that ship already sailed in the Captain America series, and it's good to have a resolution.

Of course the tale of the Scourge isn't actually "resolved" here as future writters while bring the concept up again and again. (Speaking of which, Vagabond's introduction into the plot becomes rather ironic.)

You make a good point, fnord about the use of this story here as opposed to an arc in Captain America. I would also bring up the question of why Walker was the lead of this story at all instead of just using Steve Rogers (because USAgent is more likely to be tempted into joining the Scourge program?)

Minor annoyance: Why are the Avengers in full costume while the guests are in bikinis? To me that would be like the hosts strutting aroung in a tuxedo at a casual pool party. It's so weird and it makes it look like the underdressed extras are the "entertainment" as if they music video groupies.

In issue #4, the Angel explained that he supplied the money and that Dominic/Domino recruited the personnel.

That contradicts a scene in Cap #320 in which Scourge is talking to Domino on a two way monitor. Before turning on the monitor, Scourge puts on a rubber mask of a blonde woman, indicating not even Domino knew what Scourge really looked like.

That scene is shown in fnord's entry for Cap #320
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/captain_america_320.shtml