Captain America #120
Crack-Up on Campus!
Captain America and the Falcon have returned to the United States following their battle with the Red Skull. The pair part company in Harlem, where the Falcon intends to continue his crime-fighting career.
Finally, back in the city, Captain America makes his way to SHIELD headquarters in the hopes he can get a chance to talk to Sharon Carter as they have not talked since she refused his request to quit working for the spy agency.[1] Along the way, he overhears children fighting over a comic book. When the older child says nobody will miss one super-hero, Captain America once more considers retiring from his costumed identity. Soon he arrives at the barbershop that operates as a front for SHIELD. Taking the secret elevator down into the basement, Cap meets with Nick Fury.
While Cap brings up Sharon Carter, Fury manipulates him into sitting in a specially made slumber seat that makes him doze off. Fury then plants an idea into Steve Roges’ mind making him forget Sharon Carter and instead become interested in applying for a job as a gym teacher Manning College in New Jersey. Under the alias of Roger Stevens, Captain America arrives at Manning College to apply for the position. There he witnesses a student protest get violent and breaks it up before one of the teaching staff gets hurt. This man turns out to be Professor Paul Fosgrave a famous mathematician. Steve quickly learns that the rabble-rousing student is named Mart Baker and until recently, the activist mostly staged peaceful protests around campus. It’s only been recently that he had started restoring to violence.
After passing the interview, Steve is on campus when another one of Mart Baker’s protests. This time, opposing groups of students get into a massive brawl. Steve slips away and changes into Captain America so he can try and stop the fighting. What nobody knows is that MODOK, the leader of Advanced Idea Mechanics, has had some of his men pose as students in order to embolden Mart’s violent protests. This is because AIM is seeking to kidnap Professor Fosgrave since he holds a number of atomic secrets.
As the battle on campus rages on, the two AIM plants attempt to kidnap the professor. However, when Fosgrove calls for help, Mart realizes that he was being manipulated and assists Captain America in rescuing the professor. Defeating the AIM operatives, Captain America then turns them over to the police. In the aftermath of the battle, Mart meets with the dean and promises that all of his protests will be peaceful from now on. When Captain America returns to SHIELD headquarters, Nick Fury congratulates him. However, when Fury learns that Cap didn’t take the job, Steve quips that the job was too tough for an old man such as himself.
Recurring Characters
Captain America, AIM (MODOK), SHIELD (Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan), Falcon, Redwing
Continuity Notes
Captain America tried to convince Sharon to quit SHIELD because apparently being a spy is too dangerous for a dainty woman. Rightly, Sharon told Captain America that she wouldn’t quit just because he wanted to play the part of a married couple. See Captain America #114.
