Captain America #243

Nov 5

Nov 5 Captain America #243

The Lazarus Conspiracy

A Grand Jury has been called to the Federal Courthouse in New York to investigate misappropriation of SHIELD funding regarding their Life Model Decoy technology. As evidence, a Master Matrix has been brought to the courthouse. The trial is then attacked by a gang of armed mercenaries that have come to steal the Master Matrix. Luckily, Captain America is on site to stop them as he was on a freelance art assignment nearby. In the ensuing battle, the Master Matrix is damaged by a bullet. Regardless, the armed men manage to abscond with the device when their leader takes a woman hostage, forcing Captain America to allow them to escape with the Matrix in a helicopter.

Once the assailants have escaped, Captain America leaps up to the rooftops and intercepts their flight path. When they try to ram him off the roof, Cap ducks and then grabs onto the landing skids. He is then brought to their hideout at Cameron Electronics. They inform their boss, Brady Cameron that their mission is a success. Brady takes the information to his father, Eric, who has been keeping himself alive by turning his entire factory into a life support system. As it turns out, the elder Cameron sought to steal the Master Matrix to cheat death by creating a new android body for himself. Brady, who has always been afraid of his father, find himself struggling with his desire to take over the family company and complying with his father’s commands.

That’s when Captain America trips a silent alarm, prompting Eric to activate his factory’s defenses to keep the hero busy while his brain is transplanted into his new LMD body. A team of surgeons quickly complete the transplant and are sent out of the room by Brady, who begins powering up the Master Matrix. He contemplates killing his father then and there when Captain America rushes in to stop him from activating the device because it had been damaged. Unfortunately, Cap is too late to stop the process which overloads the Master Matrix. When Eric Camera emerges from the Matrix he is not the Adonis he hoped to become, but a horrific mishappen monster as the damaged Matrix severely deformed his new body.