Fifty years and one month ago, on the final page of Captain America #182, writer Steve Englehart promised his readers that the next issue would feature “The Return of Captain America! Eight months in the making, and worth every second of the wait!” That bottom-of-the-page blurb struck an unmistakably triumphal tone — but it was a tone that was significantly tempered by the full-page splash panel that immediately preceded it, in which the Red Skull — Captain America’s greatest foe — was shown not only to have returned, but also to have gotten the drop on Cap’s longtime partner, the Falcon, as well as his would-be replacement, a Brooklyn youth named Roscoe — both of whom now lay helpless at the Skull’s feet. Clearly, the return of Steve Rogers to the role of Star-Spangled Avenger wasn’t going to be purely an occasion for celebratory fireworks and parades — a message that would be visually underscored when CA #183 showed up on stands in December, 1974, featuring a brutally dramatic cover by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott.
As did the cover, the opening splash page of the issue showed Steve still committed to his new superheroic identity of Nomad…
This is of course the second issue of Captain America to be pencilled by Frank Robbins, who’d come onto the title on the heels of a long run by Sal Buscema — and also, of course, at an especially critical juncture in the series’ ongoing continuity.
On the various occasions over the years when he’s been asked to comment on the transition from Buscema to Robbins that occurred late in his run, Steve Englehart has been pretty consistent in stating that though he wishes Buscema could have remained on the book at least until the end of the “Nomad” story sequence, his opinion on that score shouldn’t be taken as a knock against Robbins’ talents. In his 2016 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Captain America, Vol. 9, the author calls the artist “one of the good guys”, affirming that “I had loved Frank’s work, as both writer and artist, on Man-Bat and other DC stories”, and describing his Milton Caniff-influenced style as “very evocative”; the problem, he says, was simply “that he was very different from Sal,” making the transition too jarring to be completely comfortable, either for himself or for the book’s readers.
However, later in the same Masterworks intro, Englehart allows that in regards to the issue presently under discussion, the problem was a little more serious than a simple difference in style:
…here, frankly, is where Frank and I were not at all in sync. Throughout the book you’ll probably notice places where someone other than Frank has been at work, and that’s because he didn’t yet have a feel for Marvel pacing, or mine if you prefer. This story needed beats where Steve Rogers could go inside himself, and Frank glossed them over in favor of action, so the art had to be reworked. The new pages are less interesting visually, but more interesting character-wise, and this story lived or died with the character of Steve Rogers.
Englehart doesn’t say which pages were reworked, or who was responsible; but the Grand Comics Database offers the following speculative note: “The faces and figures of Nomad on pages 16-17 were apparently revised, possibly by Frank Giacoia. Info per Nick Caputo.”
Frank Giacoia is certainly a logical candidate for Englehart’s “someone other”, given that he’s already credited with having inked the entire issue. Based on the visual evidence, the specific page numbers indicated by the GCD seem to refer to the next-to-last two pages of the 18-page story, rather than the pages that were actually numbered “16” and “17” in the published comic. (Marvel had a very annoying practice during this era of including advertising pages in their comics’ pagination, evidently in an attempt to disguise the fact that it was routinely offering two less pages of new art and story than its main rival DC Comics was for the same 25-cent price.) I’m not personally convinced that those were the only two pages where Giacoia might have toned down his fellow Frank’s frenetic expressionism a bit, but they, at least, certainly do seem to match up with Englehart’s commentary.
We’ll take note when we come to these pages, later in the post; but for now, on with our story…
Considering that it’s supposed to make him look like a literal chicken, the Gamecock’s costume isn’t all that bad. On the other hand, those green caps worn by his henchmen look just plain goofy.
It seems fair to assume that Englehart was setting up a new plotline here involving the mysterious bazooka-wielder… but what this odd incident might have eventually led to, we’ll likely never know, as the writer wouldn’t return to the matter for the remaining three issues of his run — and none of his successors on the title ever picked up on it, as best as I’ve been able to determine. (On a related note, while devoted Captain America readers would ultimately see the Gamecock return, it would take almost two hundred issues for that to happen.)
Figuring that both the Gamecock and Bazooka Guy are out of his reach, at least for now, Nomad decides to resume his search for Sam Wilson, the Falcon; but before he can even leave the rooftop where he’s presently perched, he’s accosted by Sam’s girlfriend, Leila. Leila doesn’t know that Nomad is the same guy who used to be Sam’s partner, so she’s wondering what this brand new “Great White Hero” wants with her man, who’s been missing for three whole days…
Steve Rogers being Steve Rogers, he’s confident that he can reason together with the protesters; unfortunately, they’re in no mood to listen…
Ah, those last two panels, with their weird, contorted poses and (especially in the last panel) bizarre foreshortening. They’re pretty much emblematic of a stylistic approach to superheroic action that a number of comics fans — myself included — have never been able to get past, regardless of Frank Robbins’ other merits as a graphic storyteller. It’s not simply that his figure drawing is unrealistic; after all, in your humble blogger’s opinion, Jack Kirby is the greatest superhero artist ever, and his stuff could hardly be described as “realistic”. But where Kirby’s exaggerations and distortions convey an appealing sense of power and dynamism, Robbins’ just look awkward and ungainly… at least, they do to me.
The scene above is the latest of several that have, over the last few issues, implied that Gabe Jones and Peggy Carter have been spending more time together than what’s simply required of them as fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents…
Nomad knocks Morgan’s thugs around for a couple of panels before barging into the Harlem crime boss’ office — where he finds the Falcon’s longtime nemesis somewhat harder to intimidate than he’d expected…
Nomad manages to reassure the panicking bank customers by reminding them that “all accounts are insured up to $20,000 by the government“* — though, even as he makes his exit, he worries that if such events start taking place on a larger scale, matters “might get nasty” fairly quickly…
Luke Cage’s absence from his office due to his having departed for a trip to Los Angeles is consistent with what’s been going on in his own book; the “Hero for Hire” had boarded a bus bound for California a couple of months earlier, in Power Man #22 (Dec., 1974), and wouldn’t return to his home base in the Big Apple until issue #26 (Aug., 1975).
Wandering away from the deserted office, Nomad reflects how, regardless of his decision to no longer wear the red, white, and blue of Captain America, he still considers himself an idealist, who’d never pursue the life of a costumed adventurer for the sake of a buck, the way he believes Cage does: “After all these years, I still just want to do something for people!” But his ruminations are interrupted when obviously agitated people begin running past him on the street…
As you may recall, Charles Xavier’s speculation regarding the Falcon’s possible mutanthood — spurred by the X-Men’s leader’s observation of Sam Wilson’s unusually strong bond with his pet bird Redwing — had first been aired back in CA #174, near the end of the “Secret Empire” story arc.
Fandom.com’s Marvel Database Project suggests that the reason no one’s home at the X-Mansion save for the visiting Henry McCoy is that all the other X-Men are off on the mission soon to be chronicled in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May, 1975). That fits in well enough with Marvel’s in-universe chronology, I suppose; and it’s even possible that Steve Englehart knew enough about that upcoming release to reference it in his plot for this issue… though it seems just as likely to me that he contrived the absence of all the regular X-Men at this moment just to give him an excuse to feature the Beast, whose short-lived solo series in Amazing Adventures he’d written for five issues, and whom he’d also be adding to the roster of the Avengers in just a few months.
Near the beginning of this post, I referred to the cover for this issue as “brutally dramatic”; however, Robbins’ framing of what’s essentially the same scene suggests that Kane and Sinnott’s rendering has been considerably toned down from the “real” visual.
Back in 1975, newer readers of Captain America (or simply more casual ones) might have wondered wonder how Nomad even knew Roscoe. After all, Englehart and his collaborators had depicted them together only twice, with the two men’s most recent meeting having been back in issue #179, when the young Brooklynite was still no more than a friendly employee at Steve Rogers’ gym. That said, for those fans who’d been faithfully following the “Captain America No More” story arc since its inception (your humble blogger among them), this was a starkly powerful moment, if not an entirely unexpected one.
The two pages that follow — the 16th and 17th of the story — are those tagged by the GCD as having had the faces and figures of Nomad “revised”, either by inker Frank Giacoia or by another, uncredited artist. I feel pretty sure that Frank Robbins’ layouts, if nothing else, have been retained in at least couple of these panels (such as the last one on page 17), but I also have no problem believing that the majority of closeups, as well as a few of the middle and long-range shots, have been completely redrawn.
Whoever else might have contributed to the last couple of pages (or, for that matter, to earlier ones in the issue) I’d be very surprised to learn that the story’s final full page splash — Frank Robbins’ first go at the “real” Captain America — wasn’t fully pencilled by him.
The story’s last non-blurb line, referring to “risings and advancings of the spirit”, is of course a slight paraphrase of the supposed English translation of Shang-Chi, the name of the Chinese-American protagonist of Master of Kung Fu. The phrase’s appearance here might be considered a tad self-indulgent on the part of Steve Englehart, who co-created that character with Jim Starlin; nevertheless, taking the sentiment on its own terms, I’d say it still fits. Steve Rogers truly has been on a journey of self-discovery ever since the final scene of issue #175 (and arguably, ever since Englehart began writing about him, almost two years before that). It’s a tribute to the groundwork that the author has laid over the past eight months that our hero’s epiphany in the final scene feels organic and earned, rather than arbitrary; and, indeed, that the entire storyline feels that way, despite the fact that its ultimate resolution was preordained from the very moment that Steve Rogers announced his fateful decision at the end of CA #176. Fifty years later, the complete arc remains a remarkable achievement, and a testament to Steve Englehart’s considerable skills as a writer.
Of course, this isn’t quite the end of Englehart’s Captain America run, which at this point still has three issues to go (more or less)… though, in some ways, your humble blogger kind of wishes it was. That’s because, in spite of some really good stuff in those issues — most notably in relation to the writer’s take on the Red Skull, who hadn’t been portrayed as so thoroughly Nazi since perhaps the 1940s — there’s also some of the most problematic characterization that Englehart would ever be responsible for, vis-à-vis the Falcon.
That — along with the simple fact that we’ve spent a lot of time with Captain America over the past year — is why the blog will be taking a break from Steve Rogers’ adventures for the next couple of months… although, never fear, we’ll be back in March, just in time for the advent of “Snap” Wilson — for better or worse.
*Ironically, the federal deposit insurance limit had been officially raised from $20,000 to $40,000 as of November 27, 1974, just a few weeks ahead of CA #183’s Dec. 10th publication date.
I read this issue at seven years of age and it was one of the comics that turned me off on Marvel Comics for years thereafter: https://tombrevoort.com/2016/09/18/as-i-wrote-about-last-time-it-was-getting-a-pair/
Yes, it’s like hitting a brick wall art-wise. I’d built up the entire run, clean and pressed them all and was reading a few issues each night, a lovely little hobby…and then this issue with its graphic cover (which isn’t great, but I do like a fade on a cover, don’t mind Marvel yellow either, let’s give it a 7.5 out of 10)…and then you open up the book and get those lower legs just jutting out everywhere, were painful to look at after 30 issues of Sal! You expressed it perfectly Alan!
A lot of us silver and bronze-age fans have a tendency to look down upon the copper age and it’s ‘superstars’ Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld (I’m certainly guilty of it); but our preferred era also had some examples of awful anatomically-impossible poses and unattractive faces….it wasn’t all Neal Adams & John Buscema on every page of every book (unfortunately) for us fans of the 60’s and 70’s.
And not all the writing was Englehart and Starlin level: https://atomicjunkshop.com/no-comics-did-not-suddenly-decline-in-quality-as-i-got-older/
As I’ve mentioned previously, I didn’t even see this at my comics source, the Treasure Island Navy Exhange, when it was new and had to wait until I was in my 20s and able to find it at a comics shop to finally peruse it for myself. I was, by then, well over the shock of Frank Robbins having taken over as artist, although I can’t say I liked it any better. Funny thing about those two pages reworked by Giacoia — aside from that last panel, which is clearly by Robbins, those depictions of Nomad musing outloud were about the only parts of the story that didn’t leave me feeling queasy about the art as they looked the most “normal”! And even taking it as yet another example of funnybook symbolism with a sequence readers shouldn’t be expected to accept as occurring as depicted, Nomad taking off on that bottom panel and then showing up on the last page splash all dressed up again as Captain America, all while continuing his soliloquy didn’t quite come off all that well, IMO. Still, that was a reasonably powerful final page, with the real Captain America back in uniform and ready to get back in action as such. I also can easily understand why Englehart felt strongly enough about those previous two pages to insist on revisions to more accurately portray his intent, even if I can only guess as to what Robbins might have actually drawn.
As to all that came before in this issue, I’d have to guess that Englehart came up with Gamecock as a purely ridiculous, throwaway bad guy as he and his henchmen look preposterously ridiculous. And more silly funnybook shenanigans when Nomad speaks with Peggy and Gabe and Peggy doesn’t instantly recognize Nomad’s voice as that of the real Captain America, but, hey, Bruce Wayne and Batman have been getting away with that for nearly a century now and best as I can tell, Commissioner Gordon still hasn’t figured out why he’s never seen Bruce and Batman together, or how it is that they’ve all stayed about the same age since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 2nd term in office!
But, finally, poor old, too young naive Roscoe. Even though the cover shows “Cap” clearly not looking well, with several rips in his costume, Robbins did well to keep the body mostly hidden from the readers eyes, to let us guess at how gruesomely the Red Skull’s beating must have left him. Even though the Red Skull doesn’t appear at all in this issue, this is one of the few instances that I’ve read giving a strong gist of his brutal nature despite the rather aristocratic airs Kirby, among others, tended to give him at times, as when he turned away and sniffed the flower on his lapel as he had his two hypnotized henchmen shoot each other. Englehart’s take on the Red Skull has some echoes of O’Neill and Adams’ famed Batman story wherein the Joker goes on a murder spree against his own former henchmen, returning Batman’s prime baddy to his homicidal roots after decades of coming off as not much more than a silly prankster.
Overall, despite my misgivings about Robbins’ art herein, I still regard this as a milestone among Captain America stories and a dramatic closeout to the Nomad saga. Despite all his legendary experience, Steve Rogers, as depicted throughout, came off as very human, capable of error but also capable of learning hard lessons and striving to improve. Making him far more relatable to me as a hero than if he was always perfect, never had any doubts, never thought twice about anything. If Captain America had been written as that sort of hero, I would have found him insufferably boring.
Enjoyed reading your own insights on this pivotal mag, Alan, and looking forward to whatever comes next!
Funny, I was absolutely convinced in my head canon that Englehart wrote this book through the Falcon’s trial six issues or so from now but I checked Mike’s Amazing World … memory is a fallible thing.
i can understand why young Tom Brevoort didn’t love this issue, particularly the art. Much as I hated Robbins’ art on this series (and almost everywhere else), it didn’t stop me enjoying the story. A very satisfying finish to Cap’s character arc.
As I’m currently rereading the Falcon’s debut storyline for my Rereading the Silver Age blog posts at Atomic Junk Shop, I’ll mention now (rather than waiting for Snap Wilson’s debut) that Englehart’s retcon makes no sense. He’s quite right that the Exiles putting ads in the paper for a falconer etc. is absurd but there’s no way the Red Skull’s actions are consistent with Falcon being a sleeper agent. The Skull is absolutely convinced he’s won (he has the Cosmic Cube! He can toy with Cap instead of killing him outright — there’s no way that can possibly backfire!) so laying long-term boobytraps for his foe just ain’t in the cards.
I hadn’t yet read that earlier Red Skull story, but yeah, Englehart’s retcon of Sam Wilson’s origin is as silly as Gerber’s later retcon of Steve Rogers’ back story. Best to my recall, both retcons were themselves later retconned away. The Steves were my two favorite comics writers of the mid-70s but not everything they wrote was golden. Up to the point of that revelation, this last CA&TF story by Englehart was going pretty well, restoring the Skull as genuinely evil in action as well as in intent, but then it seemed to go off the rails and it’s hard to tell how Englehart would have resolved the story if he had brought it to a conclusion before leaving the mag.
I vented about the Red Skull plotline at Atomic Junk Shop about a week ago:https://atomicjunkshop.com/captains-in-transition/
It’s a reminder that Thanos has a point about nobody before him having any idea what to do with the Cosmic Cube.
I would just like to balance out the anti-Robbins tone of the comments thus far with a quick…
I love the eccentric dynamism of his work here and even back then preferred it to the institutionalised blandness of the visuals of many of Marvel’s top tier books of the time.
There. Got it off my chest.
Also, Englehart gathered together Marvel’s snake themed villains as the Serpent Squad. If he’d stuck around, would he have brought together Gamecock, Black Talon and any other poultry themed villains as… Fowl Play?
You’re welcome, Marvel.
According to this usually reliable site (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/gamecockcap.htm) the bazooka shooter was later retconned to be a rogue scourge working for the Red Skull (the usual I Get To Kill Him approach, I’m guessing). And writer James Fry planned to reveal him and the Black Talon were estranged brothers (this would not have been a serious story).
fraser, I went back and reviewed the Appendix entry (and its sources) and it looks to me like Bazooka Joe and the new Scourge were two different guys, whose attempts on Gamecock’s life were years apart (the Scourge business was referred to, though not shown, in CA #391 — quite a long time after #183).
I agree that James Fry’s notion of making Black Talon and the Gamecock brothers was a funny one, though. 😉
Yes, you’re right about Scourge being another attempt.
I borrowed the whole Cap Quits arc from a friend a couple of years after it came out and read it in a single sitting.
At the time I hated Robbins’ artwork – except in this final issue. His distortions and stylistic oddities seemed to heighten the sense that things everywhere were falling apart, and the climactic reveal of Roscoe’s body, and Steve’s reaction to it, were genuinely horrific.
I didn’t read the following few issues until some years later but what you describe as Sam’s “problematic characterisation” seems to be somewhat foreshadowed in the way African American people are portrayed throughout this issue. The Nomad seeking out Luke Cage because, y’know, they all know one another, is particularly jarring.
My younger brother bought this when it was new. Cover is okay, but the interior art is not. I could never bother to read a comic if the drawing is substandard, then or now. I’m glad Steve Englehart survived the ordeal.
Joe Simon, like Frank Robbins, fared better many decades earlier. Over at DC he was creating such bizarre fare as Bwana Beast, Brother Power the Geek, and Prez. Maybe Robbins would have been a good fit on this sort of madcap material.
I don’t know why Frank Robbins decided to leave behind a fairly successful career as a comic writer to try to be an artist. Comparisons to Milt Caniff aside, his poses were clunky and unnatural and his facial expressions made everyone look like they had an upset stomach. His writing was actually pretty decent and doesn’t conjure anywhere near the bile and negativity his artwork does. You guys can talk about his work on The Invaders or Man-Bat all you want, but I have never seen an example of Frank Robbins art that was worth looking at.
Speaking of which, I can understand the belief that someone else drew page “16” of this story, but if someone else drew page “17,” they did it over pencils Robbins had already done, because the art styles between the two pages are markedly different and the second page looks much more like Robbins than the first page does.
I read this one back in the day, despite the Robbins artwork, because it was obviously a seminal issue that I’d want to be able to discuss with friends (hi, friends!) for years to come. My major complaint then is the same one I have today; it all happened too fast. Nomads’ transition back to Cap should have been a trilogy, not a one-issue story, and it should have included a conversation with the various Avengers he’s friends with, Sam, of course, and most importantly, Sharon! Instead, Steve makes the same impulsive decision to return to the Cap identity as he did in giving up the role in the first place. From starting a riot by foolishly trying to have a respectful dialogue with a mob, to Peggy and Gabe treating Nomad as a stranger and not recognizing him at all (comics!) to Steve running around New York to talk to every black person he knows to see if they’ve seen Sam (Englehart should be ashamed of that one), says to me that Englehart was in too big a hurry; that maybe he knew his time on the book was short and he wanted to get this storyline finished so he wouldn’t have to hand it off to someone else. I hate to say this about Englehart, who’s one of my favorite writers from this period, but maybe handing it off wouldn’t have been the worst thing, especially, if this was the best he could do. It was too much, too fast, and I agree with the seven-year-old Mr. Brevoort that those two pages of Steve just standing there monologuing, while Sam lies there bleeding and poor Roscoe lies there dying, were boring and should have been spread out over the story better.
Finally, on the first page of the story after the opening splash, the first words out of Steve’s mouth, he calls Gamecock “Black Hook.” Who the hell is Black Hook?
Also, not looking forward to the Coming of Snap Wilson. Dark days, man. Dark days indeed.
Thanks, Alan!
Clearly, Englehart wanted to get Steve Rogers back in his Cap costume by the end of this story but also clearly those last few pages leave a lot to be desired. Maybe it would’ve worked better if the issue had been enlarged to a Giant-Size special size as would be done every so often for other stories in later years. Nomad should have been shown being professional in ensuring Falcon got the medical attention he needed and that the authorities were contacted to take care of Roscoe’s body and do their part in investigating his murder (for Nomad to tamper with the murder scene would have been irresponsible, even if he knew full well who did it based on the Falcon’s information). After all that would have been the proper time for Nomad’s soliloquy and changing into his Cap costume, even if he had no one to speak to but the readers. As it was, the switch was still dramatic but also very awkward. Of course, a better comics artist/co-plotter likely could have helped it work much better
I do enjoy the scenes where Steve discovers Nomad doesn’t get the instant respect and trust he’s used to. Though yes, spreading it out could have improved things.
He should have expected that, going from Living Legend of World War II and idol of millions to the Nomad nobody knew or was familiar with and didn’t seem to have any remarkable superpowers.
Just another thing Steve didn’t think about when he abandoned his Cap persona so impulsively to become Nomad. Never occurred to him that, outside of the hero community who would know/learn who he had been previously, that he’d have to prove himself all over again.
It occurs to me that one bit Englehart might have included in the Nomad issues was having him respond to a deadly situation like he may have when he had his shield and realizing he didn’t have that magic defensive/offensive weapon on him and that was so unique to his fighting style. Of course, Englehart did include a scene wherein Rogers was in his civvies and responded to a situation by using a trash can lid as an impromptu shield.
And that seems to be true of a lot of famous people who discover how quickly they fade from the spotlight.
Note that in the credits Englehart lists all contributors in fairly desultory ways except the great Tom Orzechowski who gets “calligraphy”.
Accurate.
As much as I was a complete Englehart fanatic I never really found the plot of this one convincing. The soliloquy and re-suiting up is a great riff that leads into the last moment of glory in this run, Englehart/Trimpe’s Cap’s Back issue.
Sometimes a great riff is all we get. The suit up is a callback to Amazing Spidey #18 and it’s thrilling.
The whole book, and arc, is a fascinating mess.
Another fine review. Yes I remember this story….Excellently written but not well drawn unfortunately. I’ve often wondered what this would’ve looked like if Sal had drawn it, but sadly this is what it is… The Gamecock (terrible name) was a ridiculous character and looked terrible as drawn by Robbins and his henchman looked worse. I don’t recall ever seeing him again but if you say he turned up many years later, I guess I missed that (thankfully). So we’ll never know who shot at Gamecock? Oh well… The scene with Nomad, Gabe and Peggy was, in retrospect ridiculous… Nomad won’t tell Gabe and Peggy he was Cap because….why? Because he’s being stubborn and stupid? Sorry but at the time I didn’t think about it but now it just doesn’t make sense. And as others have pointed out, wouldn’t at least Peggy realize that Cap and Nomad are one and the same (same voice, same jaw)? Ah comics… Also in retrospect the appearance of the Beast appears to be a bit of foreshadowing by Englehart but who would have guessed what he was up to there?
The death of Roscoe was an occurrence that I found extremely shocking and upsetting at the time. Most readers today may not realize that death in a comic (especially superhero comics) was not a common occurrence back in 1974. It may have been common in horror comics of the time like Tomb of Dracula (where it seems there was at least one death every issue). Yes there was the suicide in Cap 175 and the murder of Viper I in Cap 180, but even those were not typical events. This really affected me and more surprising was the fact that Roscoe was a character that had only appeared a handful of times in the series and we really didn’t even know very much about him. This was a tribute to Englehart’s skills as a writer. And even though he did not appear in this issue, the Red Skull’s presence was felt in the last few pages of the story. It’s just a shame that the art for such an excellent story was so very disappointing.
The comments from Tom Brevoort are very interesting. If you were a young reader at the time, and you picked up this issue as your first (which Tom did), this story would be completely incomprehensible! There is no summary and you are expected to have read at least the last 8 months of stories. Tom’s reaction to this story is completely understandable. I never would have thought about this as I was a regular reader of Cap at the time. I think I understand now when people talk about stories “written for a trade.”
Regarding the Red Skull…in interviews, Steve Englehart explained that he had deliberately held back from using the Red Skull for several years since he was Cap’s greatest foe and when he used him he wanted it to be a BIG DEAL. Apparently he wanted to “resurrect him” the way O’Neil and Adams had
revived the Joker in Batman 251. After his humiliating defeat in Cap 148 (which is referred to in Cap 185) the Red Skull really needed to be reworked. He had appeared too often in Captain America stories….he had appeared every year from 1965 to 1972..yes, it’s true…eight consecutive years..whether in Tales of Suspense or Captain America..1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972. And Cap did not have a very deep bench of enemies at the time..the only other Lee-Kirby Cap foes to appear with any regularity were Batroc, Modok and Dr. Faustus. Englehart did not use Batroc or Modok in Cap’s series (although Modok did turn up against the Hulk). Englehart deserves all due credit for finding other antagonists for Cap. But when the Red Skull fully returned in Cap 184, it was his first full appearance in 3 full years, and Englehart was ready to make him more dangerous and more merciless and more ruthless than we had ever seen. Unfortunately, while Cap 184 was acceptably drawn by Herb Trimpe, the last two chapters (185-186) would be drawn by Robbins and my memories of those issues are painful for many reasons which I am sure you will be discussing in detail. Thanks Alan!
I think Mark Gruenwald had a good idea in constantly introducing new villains rather than going to the established well. Some of them sucked, but even so.
There are very few adjectives to describe how bad these Robbins pencils were:
awful, horrible and appalling come to mind.
Wonderful, idiosyncratic, eccentric, dynamic, and exciting do it for me.
Isn’t that the great thing about art, we’re all moved by different things…some like a dutch impressionist painting a bowl of fruit…others like a banana duct taped to a museum wall. To each their own!
I put off reading this because even to this day what happened to Roscoe profoundly affects me. It was the most final and gruesome death I had read up to that point. I even teared up a little seeing Those Pages again.
And to Robbins? I accept that he’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I’ll never fully understand it. I loved it from the first page I ever saw of it. I still think he drew some of the sexiest men ever in comics without overtly trying to be sexy. Their contortions also heightened things for me. People who do extra-normal things should look less than normal on panel and Robbins excelled at that. Yes, Sal Buscema was a favorite as well, especially on Cap and the Hulk except when inked by Colletta or Liealoha(sp?), but Robbins here and on Invaders excited me like few others back then.
Can anyone think of any other comics artist who divides opinion quite as drastically as Robbins?
He’s well after my time and I only actually know of him quite recently but from what i’ve read, Rob Liefeld comes to mind. Same licence with human anatomy – some people love it many hate it.
I like Rob’s passion for comics, his blog is wonderful whenever he stops talking about himself for a moment – his love for the books really comes across!
Perhaps, Todd McFarlane? Fans are huge fans and just adore his ASM work…I’ve owned & read most of his ASM/HULk/Spawn run and just don’t like his proportioning and his faces all look like their elderly, bordering on ancient! His intense line work combined with the lesser quality paper stock of the era means that it’s all bleeding together in a some copies I pick up. Whenever I get any of his issues in my hand they sell incredibly quickly, but yeah he received a lot of pushback when he was big in the 90’s…you either thought he was cool and hip or untalented and severely over-rated.
I never read this period of CA . The Nomad costume is about as bland and generic as you can get . As mentioned by others, Robbins “expressionist” work sorta worked better in a retro scrappy way in the Invaders. But here there’s a manic sense to it all – to the pacing – and he seems to be always swiping himself with the contorted figures. What’s that bank vault in the window facing the street? Was that ever a thing? As for the “Oh my God, it’s Roscoe” panel, that looks like it belongs in Not Brand Ecch!
The amended art looks like Sal B and Frank G, rather than just Frank G. I normally am not against Robbina art, but this is not a good example of what Robbins could do. And I am not against Englehart either, but his weak point was coming up with new villans, the ;Gamecock’..really?
I re-read this issue last night. It is a fine issue, which should have been a classic issue, but was not, for the all matters already commented on. I am not sure whether one big inconsistency was picked up on, or whether was explained later in a subsequent issue, was how the Falcon knew that the Nomad was Cap? In a related vein, how did Redwing know to collect the Nomad ( although this could be explained if the Falcon did know that Cap was the Nomad).
Spirit, I’m willing to accept Redwing seeking out and locating Steve by some weird kind of comic-book avian ESP 🙂 , but I see your point about Sam. Of course, in the real world, we’d expect someone to recognize one of their closest friends even if that person *was* wearing an unfamiliar costume (and, yes, even a partial face mask) — but if we go by the generally accepted conventions of superhero comics, Sam shouldn’t be able to tell at first sight that Nomad is Steve the way he does here.