The ostensible main topic of today’s post, Captain America #172, is the first issue of the series in which writer Steve Englehart and artist Sal Buscema’s “Secret Empire” saga has the center stage completely to itself. But the storyline may be said to have properly started three issues before this, in #169; and its earliest seeds show up a full six issues before that, in #163.
The bulk of that latter issue involves the concerted efforts of three supervillains — Cobra, the Eel, and the Viper, who together call themselves the Serpent Squad (and it’s like I’ve said before — I know and you know that an eel is a fish, but tell that to these guys — or maybe to Steve Englehart) — to destroy our series’ two heroes, Captain America and the Falcon. But just prior to the group’s deciding to eliminate their enemies by physical means (i.e., to kill them) the Squad’s junior member, the Viper (whom earlier stories had established to be a former advertising agency executive) conceives and sets into motion a more clandestine and complicated scheme to ruin the reputation of the Living Legend of World War II… (Pencilled artwork in the panels shown below, as well in all other interior art scans used in this post, is by Sal Buscema; the inks here are by John Verpoorten.)
Soon after this sequence, the Serpent Squad heads out to confront Cap and Falc directly; of course, they get their asses handed to them in fairly short order, and by the issue’s end, they’re on their way back to the prison cells they broke out of at its beginning… but that won’t stop or even slow down the Viper-initiated “Un-Selling of Captain America” ad campaign, which will be with us for months to come. (That phrase, along with the Viper’s comment about how “they sold the President through the media” is almost certainly meant to evoke the title of Joe McGinniss’ 1969 nonfiction bestseller, The Selling of the President 1968.)
Englehart was planning to play a long game with this developing plotline, meaning that he could ignore it completely in the next issue, which both detailed Captain America and the Falcon’s battle against the deadly Nightshade, and introduced the new “A” plotline involving the Yellow Claw that would continue over the following three issues. So our first inkling that the Viper’s mysterious former associate “Quentin” had gotten to work right away wouldn’t come until the middle of issue #165, in a brief scene between Cap, his lover Sharon Carter, and his former lover Peggy Carter (Sharon’s sister… yeah, it’s complicated) (inks here by Frank McLaughlin):
Having confidently blown off the very notion that American popular opinion could ever turn (or be turned) against him, Cap heads off to fight the Yellow Claw. After an initial, inconclusive confrontation, he takes a break, returning (in issue #166) to the fleabag hotel where, in his civilian identity of Steve Rogers, he resides… or used to reside, anyway, as Steve discovers that his landlord has responded to his refusal to pay extra rent by selling his possessions and evicting him (inks again by Frank McLaughlin):
(You noticed that Daily Bugle headline about Nixon addressing Congress, right? Of course you did.)
In his 2015 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Captain America, Vol. 8, Steve Englehart provides some useful context regarding his scripting of CA #166:
#166 — …in April ’73, I was writing this issue, to be published in July with an October cover date. And in April ’73, President Richard Nixon’s top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, as well as Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resigned over the scandal caused by the burglary at Democratic Party headquarters in Washington, D.C., a hotel called the Watergate. White House counsel John Dean was fired. And all of America said “Whoa!”
In April ’73, I had my first thought of Captain America facing a corrupt American government. I was allowed to think about a corrupt American government as a Captain America plot device because Roy Thomas had given me complete creative freedom and Sal Buscema had given me complete artistic freedom. People ask me if there was any censorship in what was to become “The Secret Empire” saga. There was none.
From The Washington Post, May 1, 1973.
For the record, there wasn’t an address made specifically to Congress by Nixon in April, 1973 — but there was an address made to the country as a whole on the night of April 30, immediately following the three resignations and one firing mentioned by Englehart above, in which the President accepted “full responsibility” for the actions of his subordinates and pledged to root out “such abuses” as had emerged in the growing Watergate scandal (see left). It’s quite possible that that address was on Englehart’s mind when he arranged for the lettering of that Daily Bugle headline.
But to return now to our story… setting aside his concern over the attack ads for the moment, Captain America resumes his battle against the Yellow Claw; a fight which he and the Falcon bring to a successful conclusion in the next issue, #167. Along the way, the now-homeless Steve Rogers takes up temporary residence in the office used by the Falcon in his secret identity of social worker Sam Wilson. (I suppose that must have beat the alternative, which would have been… a nice room of his own at Avengers Mansion?) We don’t hear anything more about the ad campaign against Cap in these issues, however; nor do we in the next one, a fill-in written by Roy Thomas and Tony Isabella that’s notable in its own right for introducing the second Baron Zemo (here called the Phoenix), but which, for obvious reasons, doesn’t advance any of Englehart’s subplots.
But a month later, in issue #169, the plotline we’d soon come to know as the Secret Empire saga finally kicks into high gear — though, for this issue as well as the next two, it’ll be required to share the spotlight with a separate plot thread involving the Falcon’s quest for a power upgrade.
Ever since Captain America’s reception of his own upgrade in the strength department back in issue #159 (an inadvertent result of his being poisoned by our old friend the Viper in #158), the sudden disparity between the two heroes’ power levels had been a source of friction in their partnership. While they had appeared to have worked things out a few issues back, the Falcon’s frustration comes to the fore once again in #169, when the tide of a solo battle between him and a group of armed hoods is abruptly turned when the mere arrival of Captain America is enough to make the thugs break off the engagement and scurry for cover. Cap is all for going after them, but Falc demurs, saying that’s not important right now (inks by Frank McLaughlin)…
From The Washington Post, June 21, 1973.
The Committee to Re-Elect the President — ostensibly a fundraising organization established in 1971 on behalf of Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign, and headed up by Nixon’s former Attorney General, John Mitchell — had been in the news increasingly of late at the time Englehart plotted CA #169 (probably July, 1973). It had been linked to the Watergate break-in and cover-up as early as January, while in late June a federal judge had found the Committee guilty of mishandling financial donations (see right). The group was also getting mentioned regularly in the daily nationally televised spectacle that was the Senate Watergate hearings, which had begun in mid-May.
The Committee’s official acronym was CRP, but somewhere along the line people started using the unofficial (but irresistible) alternative, CREEP — something Englehart was doubtless aware of when he came up with the similar-sounding name, “The Committee to Regain America’s Principles”, which of course practically begs to be abbreviated as CRAP.
According to information provided by Roy Thomas in an editorial sidebar to an interview with Steve Englehart that ran in Alter Ego #103 (Jul., 2011), Englehart had originally asked for his Committee’s name in the last TV screen-based panel shown above to be lettered on four lines to vertically spell out CRAP, only to have editor-in-chief Thomas step in and have a production person re-letter the panel to break up the acronym. (Perhaps Englehart did, and does, perceive himself to have had “complete creative freedom” while working on this storyline, but the evidence appears to indicate that he hadn’t been completely let off the leash by Thomas.)
The next morning, Cap sees the Falcon, the Black Panther, and the Falcon’s girlfriend, Leila, off to Wakanda via the Panther’s private airship — and then sets off on his own to confront the Committee. (We should note here that from about this point to the issue’s end, the scripting is by Mike Friedrich, who was helping Englehart out for a couple of months during the latter writer’s move to California.)
Although this is the first time we’ve seen Quentin Harderman on panel, he’s been a part of this storyline since its humble beginnings back in CA #163, as he’s clearly the same “Quentin” that the Viper talked to by phone in that issue — his “old partner at the ad agency” — to get the whole “Un-Selling of Captain America” ball rolling in the first place. Of course, we didn’t know Quentin’s surname until now, and it’s a fair guess 
that it’s intended to remind us of H. R. “Bob” Haldeman, one of the top Nixon aides who was forced to resign in April, 1973. (For the record, Haldeman — who had indeed been an advertising executive in private life — had no direct oversight over CREEP, although the group’s treasurer, High Sloan, had formerly worked as Haldeman’s aide. Also for the record, Quentin Harderman, with his glasses and slick-backed hairstyle, bears little physical resemblance to the distinctively flat-topped Bob Haldeman, which is probably for the best; just because you enjoy complete creative freedom, that doesn’t mean you have to go around actively seeking lawsuits.)
Responding to the call for help from the liquor store, Cap discovers that an employee is down on the floor, while the robber is already fleeing out the back. Our hero recognizes the thief’s costume as belonging to an old foe of his…
As “R.T.”‘s footnote duly informs us, the Tumbler previously appeared in Tales of Suspense #83 (Nov., 1966), in a 10-page Cap story which, up until now, represented his one and only appearance. As the name suggests, he’s a costumed acrobat; with no actual super powers to speak of, he’s no real match for the Star-Spangled Avenger. Even so, he ultimately manages to escape by using Cap’s shield as a springboard, which allows him to vault onto a rooftop and then run for it. Cap attempts to track him down (presumably after seeing to the injured store employee), but when his extensive search turns up no trace of the Tumbler, he’s forced to give up the chase for now.
The next day, Cap shows up as promised for Quentin Harderman’s charity boxing exhibition…
The next issue sees Mike Friedrich continuing to help Englehart out on the series’ writing end — this time providing a complete script over the latter writer’s plot — while Vince Colletta steps in as the inker for Sal Buscema’s pencils.
As you’d imagine, the story picks up exactly where issue #169 left off, as the crowd of stunned bystanders — led, naturally, by Quentin Harderman — point fingers at Captain America, accusing him of murder. Cap, for his part, is smart enough to smell a set-up on the part of CRAP, and he seizes Harderman, intent on shaking the truth out of him. Naturally, that’s when the police show up…
As he flees the scene, Cap continues to agonize over whether he’s doing the right thing. On the one hand, he believes that if he doesn’t put a stop to the public’s suspicions of him right now, “there’s no telling where this all will end!”
When Cap comes to, he’s in a jail cell… and Harderman and Moonstone are having an impromptu press conference:
The first question Moonstone takes regards his origin; and over the next few pages, while the narrative captions relate Moonstone’s version of those events, the accompanying panels show us readers what really went down. So, while the press gets a tale about how America’s newest “hero” started out as a humble janitor at a small university, where he accidentally gained super-powers through exposure to radiation from a moon rock in the university’s museum collection, we learn that he was actually a burglar who was attempting to rob the museum of said rock — and that he’d killed two guards in the process of escaping.
And what’s the first order of business if you’re a small-time crook in the Marvel Universe who’s just lucked into undeserved super-powers, and are eager to cash in? Well, obviously, the first order of business is to put together a costume. After which, naturally, you’ll need a catchy moniker…
Meanwhile, the Falcon and the Black Panther have settled in to work with Wakanda’s finest engineers on Falc’s upgrade. Alas, Leila finds this all too boring to deal with, and she prevails on T’Challa to provide her with a quick shopping trip to Lagos, Nigeria; unfortunately, while in that city, she’s kidnapped by an old acquaintance from Harlem, a now-exiled gang-lord who goes by the name Stoneface. In the process, Stoneface’s henchmen gun down Leila’s Wakandan escorts — and when they fail to report in as scheduled, T’Challa realizes this can only mean trouble…
It’s a big moment for the Falcon — at least the biggest since he changed costumes back in issue #144 (Dec., 1971). Nevertheless, our present episode doesn’t wrap up with him, but heads back to his senior partner for one final page:
“The country polarized into two camps –” Gee, where have I heard that before?
The same creative team that gave us #170 continues on into #171 (albeit with what seems to be an increased role for Friedrich in the writing, as Englehart is only credited with “story idea” for this one). This chapter begins as the last one ended, with Captain America facing the quandary of whether or not to break the law by going with his self-described “supporters“. In the end, however, he decides not to take the chance he’s been offered to escape, telling the armed and uniformed men (who call themselves “America’s Sanitation Unit“) thanks, but no thanks. “I know things look bleak for me, but I must believe the due process of law will eventually clear me!”
Going on the offensive, Cap quickly takes down the whole Sanitation Unit, though he does leave one member conscious long enough to be questioned:
At this point, our story hops across the Atlantic Ocean to rejoin the Falcon, as he gets the opportunity to field-test his brand new wings quit literally under fire. In the interest of brevity (yeah, right) we’ll skip through most of Falc and the Panther’s battle against Stoneface’s minions, picking things back up as the two heroes put the finishing touches on Leila’s rescue by dealing with the last man standing, i.e., the gang-lord himself…
And with that, the Falcon’s brief but very eventful African adventure comes to a close. The Black Panther sends Falc and Leila back home to Harlem via private Wakanda aircraft, and after promising to take Leila out later, Falc goes off to find Captain America so he can show off his new wings. But when he arrives at Sam Wilson’s office, he finds not Steve Rogers waiting for him, but, rather…
The Falcon sends his falcon out scouting for Cap, and within minutes, Redwing returns, his mission a success. Falc promises Iron Man that he’ll be seeing him again soon, “in the company of an innocent man!“, and then he and his bird are off. Meanwhile…
Cap is delighted to see his partner, and eager to see what his “additional threads” are all about. But, first things have to come first, and so he fills Falc in on all that’s been happening, going back to when he first became aware of the ad campaign against him. One row of flashback panels later, Sam is pretty well caught up…
Yes, it’s another cliffhanger, one which leads right into the next issue — though, as you’ll see, the splash page for #172 makes sure we won’t think Marvel has already forgotten about the new villain due to enter our storyline, as promised by the book’s Gil Kane-Frank Giacoia cover. (You remember that cover, right? If not, you can find it at the top of this post.)
As indicated by the credits, Steve Englehart is firmly back in the driver’s seat as of this issue — although “amigo” Mike Friedrich appears to still be playing some undefined writer-ly role — while Buscema and Colletta remain the penciller/inker team.
“People always want new thrills, but death is too oppressive.” Pretty cynical words for a 1970s Marvel comic — but, of course, that doesn’t make ’em wrong (even if they are being spoken by the bad guy).
The Sanitation Squad members’ unfavorable comparison of contemporary leaders to Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower is kind of ironic, considering that their name is pretty definitely a nod to the Nixon Administration’s covert ops unit, informally known as the “White House Plumbers”. (Your humble blogger owes a shout-out here to regular reader/commenter frednotfaith2, as without his noting of this reference in a completely different forum [the Masterworks Message Board] a month or two back, I probably would have missed it in 2024, just as I’m sure I did in 1974.)
After incapacitating (no pun intended) their guards, our heroes make tracks out of the park — bowling over a returning Moonstone along the way. Expecting a media contingent to come along within the next few minutes to see how he’s single-handedly captured Captain America and the Falcon, Moony is forced to ask one of the Sanitation Squadders to smash him on the back of the head, so that he can claim he was jumped from behind. (Aww, poor guy.)
For the record, there is indeed a moon rock in the collection of the Tennessee State Museum, which is located in Nashville. (Evidently, President Nixon gifted one such rock to all fifty states.) And, OK, Moonstone said he encountered the rock in a university museum, but, seeing as how he was lying about virtually everything else…
Steve — who hasn’t even bothered to change out of his costume, which is why Sam begs off on the truck driver’s invitation to shed their raincoats — soon slips into a silent, brooding reverie, which he doesn’t break for the whole ride to Nashville.
At this point, I’d like to pause to comment on how effective Steve Englehart’s characterization of Steve Rogers has been through this whole storyline. We’ve seen Steve go from flippant dismissal of the attacks against him, to shocked disbelief, to anger, and now, it seems, to depression. We’ve also seen him struggle with his uniformly poor options for dealing with his situation, deciding at at least one point to break the law by fleeing from the police, only to realize that it ultimately goes against his bedrock principles, and change his mind. At no time does his idealism, or his heroism, come into question — but there’s also never any doubt that he’s a fully human being, not some impossible, inhuman icon. It’s one of the main reasons that this entire storyline still holds up so well after half a century, in my opinion.
Returning to our narrative… all things must come to an end, even excruciatingly awkward all-day-and-night road trips, and so…
Not having been a regular X-Men reader back during the team’s original run, at this time my younger self only knew the Banshee from what amounted to cameo appearances in two of the handful of issues I’d bought, #58 and #60, where he was one of many mutants captured by the Sentinels. I thus may or may not have been aware that he wasn’t really a “bad guy”; while he’d fought the X-Men on a couple of occasions (beginning with his debut in X-Men #28), he’d been under coercion at those times.
Readers of a couple of my more recent Marvel Comics posts (those regarding Tomb of Dracula #18 and Werewolf by Night #15, specifically) will probably already have guessed why the two preceding pages look kinda funny; but for those coming in late, here’s Steve Englehart himself to explain, per his Marvel Masterworks intro:
…at this point we entered the brief period when Marvel’s solution to a reduction in story pages was to have two pages drawn on one sheet of paper, paying for them as a single page, and then blowing them up and publishing them as two pages. It’s usually pretty easy to tell where that happened, as I think you’ll see.
(Yep. We see.)
The Banshee’s flying power is connected to his scream, so he can only make a wobbly attempt to escape by air. Cap manages to latch onto his foot and hold on until his partner can swoop in…
Cap and Falc manage to avoid the falling debris, but the Banshee is just warming up. Next, he goes after their eardrums…
And with that, we come to the end of Captain America #172, as well as the end of this post. Next time we check in with Cap and Falc, we’ll not only find out more about the X-Men’s current travails, and how they tie into Cap’s own predicament — but also how this entire storyline can, on one level, be seen as the conclusion to one that had started in the pages of the former X-Man Beast’s short-lived solo series in Amazing Adventures, over two years earlier. All that, and we’ll even, finally, get to why this whole thing is called the Secret Empire saga in the first place.
See you in February, OK?
Great rundown of the events up through this issue, Alan! While I missed CA&TF 163, I did get 165 & 166 and then 169 – 177 before missing another issue, so got all the primary issues of the Secret Empire story, one of the first times I got the entirety of a multi-issue epic without missing an issue (I also got the nearly concurrent Black Specter epic by Gerber over in Daredevil). I loved this storyline as an 11 year old kid but it still resonates with me 50 years later. So many layers of intrigue in this tale and more to come. Funny that this would be the predominant story to feature the X-Men – now reduced to Cyclops, Marvel Girl & Professor X – in 1974, over a year before their own mag would finally start to feature new stories.
I must say, by the way, that although our pal Sal’s rendering of Harderman doesn’t look too similar to the actual Haldeman, it’s still a close enough resemblance for me — and I’ve always thought both Halderman and Erlichman have very sinister appearances. They look like villains! John Dean looks much friendlier (and I read his book about the Watergate scandal, Blind Ambition, back in the ’70s).
Only three issues more until the exciting conclusion, and then the unexpected aftermath. Still, even in this issue, we can see signs of how thoroughly troubled Steve Rogers is by all this, seeing how easily manipulated the American public can be, even to turn against him due to a smear campaign. He’s being shaken to his core as it is and things will get even darker, but that’s a bit further down the road.
Great analysis of a terrific storyline. I’ll throw in some notes.
I love the touch of the chief henchman lamenting the decline in American leadership.
Tumbler was fun in his first appearance, a criminal inspired by Cap himself (if an ordinary man can lead the Avengers, why couldn’t an ordinary guy like Tumbler take over the underworld?).
This is one of my all-time favorite Cap arcs but the idea these punks are only intimidated because Cap has super-strength feels odd. Partly because Silver Age and post-Bronze Age Cap are treated as so iconic, you wouldn’t think super-strength could make that much of a difference. But also I don’t think I’ve seen anyone back in the era of this book who’s scared by superhumans (they may realize they can’t beat Thor but they aren’t scared he’s going to punch them.
The use of Banshee may partly reflect Englehart’s fondness for reviving characters who’ve fallen off the radar: Immortus, Hugo Strange, Space Phantom, 1950s Cap.
I guess G. Gordon Liddy was not yet a household name in the Watergate scandal. He would have made a great Marvel villain. 😉
I only own the Steranko Cap issues. While I respect Steve Englehart’s writing, the art here is solid, but workaday Marvel fare of the late silver/early bronze age—not enough to make me want to buy these.
Liddy spoke at my college in 1980. Yes – he could easily have been a Marvel villain!
Englehart has written that he enjoyed working with Sal Buscema because he was an almost perfect storyteller, in the way he’d break down a page and position the characters. But because Sal mainly did layouts instead of full pencils, the overall effect of the art was even more dependent on the inker/finisher than with some other artists. In this case, teaming him up with the likes of John VerPoorten, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, and Vince Coletta did him no favors.
Interesting and nice to hear of Englehart’s appreciation of Sal Buscema’s talents. Especially when paired with a decent inker for his work, I was always happy to see him on a book – with Klaus Janson on Defenders, for instance.
Just wondering if he ever inked his own pencils at any time? I remember he inked Barry Smith’s Conan and his brother’s Silver Surfer, but can’t think when he inked himself. Would’ve been interesting to see.
Thor, right, when he worked with Simonson . . . .
Sal inked himself a bunch of times…Rom, Incredible Hulk, Spectacular Spider-Man in the late 80s/early 90s.
Sal pencilled and inked Rom, Spaceknight
I’ve always felt it was a real shame that Frank McLaughlin only inked the first chapter of “The Secret Empire” storyline, and that the remaining issues were all inked by Vince Colletta.
And others preferred the fine art approach taken by Mr. Colletta, myself included.
Hello, Alan! Hope the new year has begun well for you.
This was a tremendous storyline for CAPAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON, and one reason is not just the echoes of the Watergate crisis but, as you note, the characterization. Not just Steve Rogers, although that’s great, but also Sam Wilson and his efforts to assert himself while still maintaining a true partnership with Steve. It was the little grace notes of dialogue bits (as well as captions) that made me miss those times when Englehart didn’t do the actual scripting, though Friedrich did a solid job, as I recall).
I’m sure someone will correct me, but I seem to remember that Englehart said that he felt it challenging to write the character of Cap at a time when American spirit seemed to be at a low ebb, not only due to Watergate but the growing realization that Vietnam War was NOT going to end in triumph. Englehart’s response was to find ways to have Steve Rogers confront the spirit of these crises without being bogged down in the details of the news
And yes, the long game was definitely in his mind, as evinced by the fact that the seeds were planted in #163 even though the climax would not come for a year (and I can’t WAIT to read your analysis when we get to #175!).
Though DR. STRANGE and THE AVENGERS remain the books that I most valued Englehart for in 1973-1976, his work on CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON also gave me fodder to feel then – and still feel – that the best writer at Marvel in this era was Steve Englehart.
One more thing: Notice how Cap is able to link Moonstone’s references to country music (“clear as Hank Williams’ guitar”) to the museum, right down to being able to identify the actual panel? THAT was another Englehart hallmark. It’s all in the details.
Oh, and though you only get a little bit of it in the pages you cited, the Viper use lines from commercials in his dialogue always cracked me up. And for THAT, I believe we can thank former ad copy writer Steve Gerber, who actually scripted the first appearance of the Viper way back when.
It’s funny, although it will probably leave Gen Y on down scratching their heads. Ad-related humor has a short lifespan.
Did anyone else’s school spend many classes just watching the Watergate hearings? Mine even had us vote on what I think was impeachment.
50 years ago, I was 6th grade at West Jordan Elementary School in Utah (West Jordan is a suburb of Salt Lake City). They didn’t show any of the hearings at school, but I distinctly remember them still being on tv when I got home, although I wasn’t really paying much attention to them.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t read this storyline back in the day. I was never a huge Cap fan and usually, the only time I read his books was when a friend had one lying around and I could read it without having to pay for it. As you said, Alan, I’m impressed by the logical consistency of Englehart’s storyline; ie: letting us know that Cap was on the outs with SHIELD and had, no defenders in the government to vouch for him. Was it just me, or did anyone else expect for the Iron Man who sent Falcon after Cap to be a fake? Given all the rest of the flim flam we got from Harderman and his bunch, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all, if Shellhead had been a minion in disguise.
Still, it seems either Englehart or Frederich ret-conned a bit of this story. In the first issue you mentioned, Alan (Cap #163, I think), Viper calls up Quentin on the phone and pitches the Un-selling of Captain America as if he’d just come up with it, but in #170, while flashing back to Moonstone’s origin and how he got involved with Harderman and Viper, old Quentin made it sound like something much more insidious that they’d been plotting for awhile. Maybe Quentin is simply inflating the story for the sake of his own ego, but the story has definitely grown in the telling.
Thinking back to my own upbringing, I can say with confidence that, growing up in a Christian household, I also grew up in a Republican one, and because of my parents, I was a huge fan of Tricky Dick and his Band of Idiots. In fact, this was the period in US History, when my political beliefs began to tilt the other way. My dad’s belief that Nixon got shafted never faltered, but mine sure did, and by the time he resigned, I was saying, “good riddance to bad rubbish,” and by the time I was old enough to vote in my first election, I voted blue and never looked back. For that reason, and the general post-sixties tendency to not trust the establishment, I could understand the mindset of not trusting Captain America, even though I knew he was being framed.
Thanks for the rundown, Alan. Even though I missed it the first time, it’s fun reading this now.
Hi, Don,
Interesting point about the timing of the Viper and the Committee and Moonstone. In issue #175, Englehart rather specifically showed the Viper in prison and referenced how he had set the whole thing in motion “all the way” back in #163. Is it too much of a stretch to think that enough time had passed by the release of issue #170 that it wasn’t TOO much of a retcon? I’m really not sure.
And if you haven’t read this storyline, you’re going to be VERY interested when we get to the final chapter in #175, which I am certain Alan will be writing up. The last page….
I’ll say no more.
#175 was the first Cap book I ever bought, oddly enough while on holiday in Majorca. Even as a twelve year old, the BBC’s coverage of what was happening in the US meant I was clued in enough to make the connection. Might’ve been the first time I was relating comic events to those in the real world.
I recently bought a Cap collection of a dozen issues just for a few high grade issues to upgrade mine and ended up with a lot of duplicates, #175 amongst them. I hinted at the importance of the book in my sale description but I had to chuckle at myself being careful not to spoil the plot…of a 50 year old book!
These days they spoil anything a week old – hell, they’re texting as the credits roll in the cinema…but half a century and you and I are keeping the finale a secret!
Thanks for all of this. Englehart and Buscema are just the best.
John Verpooten’s basic, utilitarian inks really hold up best and Vinnie’s are, of course, the worst. 13 year old me was annoyed and 62 year old me is still irked!
Colleta could do nice work (early Thor, with George Tuska on Iron Man in 1971-;72).
The rest of the time it looked, per Marie Severin,
“Like it was inked with rakes.”
A few random thoughts:
—Was this an attempt to launch a new X-Men book? Perhaps this did not sell enough or they did not have the right team yet and it did not launch until the Spring of 1975, more than a year later.
—Dave Cockrum was only just having his dispute with Murray Boltinoff over his original art to Superboy # 200. So maybe they did not have the right team.
—This was one of the few things in pop culture that did a fictional commentary on Watergate in real time. Sort of a pop cilture time capsle. (The only other ones were Kammadi and War of the Worlds and they were one an dones.)
—Very good comments on how Englehart handled Steve Rogers here, In some ways it was like how O’Neil and Adams handled GL/GA but this was more organic and truer to the original character.
—Damn, Banshee comes off as a real steriotype. Check out that upper lip . . . .
—This arc and Friedrich’s work on Dr, Strange were the beggining of the end for Friedrich as a writer. It is too bad, a lot of his Iron Man stuff at Mravel and his Green Lantern & Batman/Teen Titans stuff was very good. I still wonder if the Ant-Man strip in Marvel Feature was something he was planning on doing at DC with the Atom, a character he used a lot in his last few JLA stories.
Hi, John,
In regard to your first two points – I believe this WAS meant to be a backdoor way of re-introducing the X-Men. In fact, the letter column for 173 (or 174 or maybe even 175) mentioned that they had originally planned to announce the new X-book, but plans changed. Not sure who was intended to be the creative team at that time.
The Wein-Cockrum “Second Genesis” was still about a year away. However, Cockrum did have some AVENGERS work that would see the light of day before 1974 ended (finishes on issues 125 and 126, the GIANT-SIZE issues #2 and 3).
From what I’ve read, Englehart himself didn’t include the X-Men in this story as a means to lead into a new X-Men series and if that’s what Thomas, as editor intended, they sure didn’t promote it to any great degree on the covers, the only reference to and appearance of the X-Men on a cover being 173, and only 2/5ths of the original team at that. Note that as of 1974, the Banshee had never been a member of the X-Men and had only appeared in the original series once (CA&TF was the first time I’d ever seen him). Of course, Banshee did become one of the new members in the revived series in 1975.
The real deal with the X-Men’s appearance in CA&TF was that Englehart was tying up loose ends begun in the Beast solo series as well as a subplot begun in the Avengers in regard to the disappearance of various mutants, including members of the X-Men. I don’t know if Englehart intended for the Secret Empire to be behind the disappearances all along but certainly wouldn’t discount it. The big reveal as to why the mutants were being kidnapped did seem a bit ludicrous. One of those, “ok, whatever” moments for me even as a kid. A bit later in 1974, Professor X would appear in the Defenders during Len Wein’s brief run on that mag, but, curiously, without any of the X-Men.
As to the sales of CA&TF, I’ve read that the mag was doing very well during Englehart’s run, much better than before he started, but given that the X-Men’s guest appearances weren’t all that heavily promoted, I don’t think that had any bearing at all on the status of their starring in original stories in their own mag again. Seems to have just been one of those things that events didn’t quite align for that to happen until the following year. And probably a good thing as by then Wein had already introduced Wolverine in the Hulk and Cockrum had several character ideas to add. Consequently, they significantly altered the make-up of the team, bringing a very different dynamic to the series than on the original run while also building upon what came before. Very successfully, as it would turn out.
The Banshee apperaed in #28 as a good guy Mutant forced to fight the X-Men and then appaears in #35, 37 and 39 as an ally (a Mutant INTERPOL agent working against Factor 3) and then in the Thomas/Adams Sentenals story.
At this time, I guess you could call him a minor X-Men ally. Older and more experianced than the X-Men and a guy who works in law enforcement, but not a member because of his age and the fact of having his own life.
I was surprised he joined after Giant Sized X-Men #1 for those reasons/ He might have been better served by becoming the X-Men;s contact with INTERPOL and some one who elps out at times. Less may be more with this character.
Ah, I knew of his initial appearance during the Factor Three storyline but wasn’t previously aware that he showed up in later issues of the story as well. I missed the reprints of those issues, although I got the concluding issues, including the big reveal that the Mutant Master was a globular-looking, Lovecraftian alien. Hmm, did Wein borrow that for the big reveal of Nebulon in his run on the Defenders?
…. On further research, turns out issue #39 was the conclusion of that story and of which I do have the reprint but either Banshee’s appearance within was so minimal I forgot about it or it got the chopping block in the reprint as was standard in the ’70s when trying to shoehorn an original 20 or so pages of original story into a reprint that only allowed for 17 or so pages. I didn’t get the reprint of X-Men 37.
I think that was Thomas’ first or at least one of his first attempts at a big, multi-issue epic, which didn’t really come off all that well. But he’d eventually do better ones.
I agree Factor Three wasn’t great, though there’s quite a bit I like, such as the X-Men struggling Peter Parker style to finance a trip to Europe.
I do think Thomas deserves credit for writing a coherent multi-issue storyline as opposed to Conway’s Mr. Klein or some of Lee and Kirby’s that wandered off the beam (e.g., https://atomicjunkshop.com/lois-lane-would-be-embarrassed/)
I don’t believe he was Interpol at the time — he’d been enslaved by Factor Three’s agent the Ogre and knew what a threat they were. The Interpol thing was a later Claremont retcon. Can’t swear to this but I’m sure someone has the facts to correct me if I’m wrong.
I suppose that raises the question, if the X-Men had taken off from the Secret Empire arc, would we have gotten the new X-Men? Then again, the odds on that happening were probably long.
To my recall, in the letters pages of various mags, there were recurring requests to bring back the X-Men and Silver Surfer in their own mags. Of course, it took much longer for it to happen with the Surfer, but I think that worked out for the best too as Stan held dibs on writing any Surfer mag and not to disparage Stan but I just don’t think he had any really good ideas as to what to do with the Surfer other than to rehash the same sort of stories he’d done before — or rely on someone else to come up with plots – within a set criteria he would impose and which he would script. And I suspect that would not have made for a long-term successful mag. When Englehart was allowed to initiate a new Silver Surfer series, free of any constraints imposed by Stan Lee, and began with a series of stories unlike anything Lee would have come up with, including getting Norrin off Earth but not separated from the rest of the Marvel universe characters, and with a bit of a supporting cast, the mag succeeded. Of course, there had also been considerable changes in the comics marketplace by then, including the typical purchasers of comics.
Banshee as an Interpol agent did come later. When Prof X first recruited him into the team he said that it would be nice to tread the straight and narrow for a change. In his first appearance, he thought nothing about causing the people in an entire city block to black out to steal a painting and then tobacco. But then after the first mission he does say that he was a “barely literate ex-cop” so …
As for his large upper lip area, that is what he looked like from his first appearance until he joined the X-Men.
IIRC, his very public crimes in the first issue were an attempt to draw superheroic attention, so they’re not necessarily proof of a criminal past. Though the fact Ogre accepts them as in character for Banshee implies he was indeed a shady type.
There had to have been some kind of plans for a new X-Men book. The winner of FOOM’s create a character contest was supposed to appear in the book. That didn’t happen and Humus Sapien didn’t appear until 2001 in Thunderbolts.
Whether this Cap storyline was connected to those plans, I don’t know.
frasersherman, Ogre’s mission was to locate and capture Prof X, so he definitely was not looking to draw any attention his way. He was unaware of Banshee’s actions till after the fact and was not happy and was going to inform Factor Three about it.
In the *MAD* satire of “All the President’s Men” (“Gall of the President’s Men”)*, the Committee to Re-Elect the President is renamed “the Committee to Re-Elect the American President,” and there is a comment that it’s “CRAP” for short.
Larry Siegel probably didn’t know Steve Englehart’s work, though.
* See *MAD* #188, cover-dated December 1976, AOTFYOCBers — Annotative Anonymous
I own Mad 1-4, and a few more of the comics, then all of the magazines from 24 to 185, and read 186 to 233. Loved the Mort Drucker satires, including “Gall,” but by 1976 many of my old favourite artists began running out of steam: cover artist Norman Mingo did his last (for a while) with #185, then was relegated to painting simple images for the paperback books, as health was failing (he was the only WWI vet on Mad). Don Martin and Dave Berg likewise seem to have gone stale by 1976. A shame, as they had done great work for years. I was never a fan of Jack Rickard, so when he took over as the main cover artist with #186 that was another minus in my book. I only hung in there until around 1982 because Sergio Aragones, Al Jaffee, George Woodbridge, Antonio Prohias, and Jack Davis were always in good form.
It seemed to me Colletta’s inking lacked the characteristic ‘skritchiness’ of the Thor books , until I remember that Colletta was very often only the name marvel put on the cheque and that he farmed a great deal of what was credited to him, out to others who could do a fast, competent-enough, job
I read “The Secret Empire” storyline in the mid-1990s. It took me a few years to track down Captain America #169-175, especially as the X-Men were red-hot at the time, so the later issues with the X-Men were more expensive. But I was finally able to get them all, and I read them in one sitting. It’s definitely one of my all-time favorite Captain America storylines.
Thanks for providing a detailed list of the references to the Nixon administration that Englehart utilized in this storyline, many of which I was previously unaware of, having been born in 1976.
The Committee to Regain America’s Principles may have been primarily Englehart riffing on The Committee to Re-Elect the President, but it also has a very Orwellian name to my thinking, basically evoking on the surface a call to patriotism and “the good old days” while in fact actually having a very reactionary, fascist subtext. And, I mean, there have been plenty of real-life social & political moments with names just like The Committee to Regain America’s Principles which have been motivated by a desire by those in power (either politically, economically or religious) to reverse progress and restore an oppressive status quo. Make America Great Again is just the latest of these.
It didn’t occur to me in the mid-1990s, but nowadays it’s definitely clear that the Sanitation Unit / Squad is Englehart alluding to the Watergate Plumbers.
Looking forward to your retrospectives on the remainder of this classic storyline.
The period was a tumultuous one in world affairs, with the Oil Crisis & Stagflation, Watergate, Plane Hijackings, High profile Kidnappings, the Red Brigade in Italy, Baader-Meinhoff gang in Germany, the situation in Northern Ireland, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, South Africa etc. Nothing is really that much evidenced of all this in most mainstream comics of the period, and those that did, did not do so explicitly. So full marks to Englehart, Thomas and Marvel to directly deal with the US’ political distress in such a manner. For my own part when I came to reading the series, I came away disappointed; the ending after such a build up underwhelmed me. I more enjoyed the stories after: the ramifications of Cap resigning, the Nomad stories, and the brilliant return of the Red Skull. Cap was a top seller again, but all the same, I still have to chuckle when Hawkeye as the Golden Archer removes his Golden Archer mask to reveal….Hawkeye in his Hawkeye mask! Otherwise Englehart was fandom’s blue-eyed boy, with top work on the Avengers, Dr Strange, Cap, the Hulk, the Defenders ( and Captain Marvel and MoKF and Batman and Star-Lord…essentially anything that he wrote!!)
ps of other comics in the period, only Kamandi joined Cap in featuring Watergate, and that from memory was 1-2 issues; some comics featured plane highjackings ( not contravertial) and Tony Stark left the arms industry ( but this was more a reaction to Vietnam, as was DC’s war comics banner: Make War No More).
Kamandi was one issue, though it’s hysterical (“Summon the captives! Place them under oath that we may — interrogate them!”). There’s also a throwaway reference to Watergate in an issue of Killraven.
Making Roxxon a recurring big bad in Marvel during the Bronze Age did reflect the oil crisis: Big Oil became a villain in a way it hadn’t been before (e.g., when an oil company tried exploiting Wyatt Wingfoot’s tribe in the Silver Age, it was specifically identified as a RUSSIAN company).
Thanks, I didn’t go back an re-read the issue of Kamandi, just remembered that the Watergate tapes had been featured. I don’t recall the Killraven reference though; was this before or after Craig Russell joined the comic? And great spot on Roxxon, which from memory was a storyline going almost concurrently in both Cap and the Avengers ( and of course both by Englehart! ).
And Roxxon became a recurring villain in She-Hulk a few years later.
I think the Killraven scene would have been while Herb Trimpe was still the artist.
Before. McGregor/Trimpe,
The bad guy was a Secret Service guy who had mutated into a Humanoid Rat (who found the Watergate tapes. and deemed them unimportant).
It was somewhat like the Kamandi story with Prince Tuftan (a Tiger) being allowed to “twist and turn slowly in teh wind” while Apes played the Watergate tapes at full volume . . . .