America the Cursed

Captain America has been captured by the Viper. While she prepares to infest a small town with a deadlier version of the plague, she has kept the Avenger sedated with opium. Captain America has been having vivid hallucinations that he is a child under the care of his parents. As his father Joseph chastises the boy for having his head in the cloud, his mother encourages the boy to dream big.[1] This conversation is interrupted by a hallucination of Steve Rogers’ girlfriend, Bernie Rosenthal. After commending how well Steve was raised and how wonderful their future will be together, Bernie suddenly begins to decay until all that’s left is a skeleton squirming with snakes.

In the waking world, Captain America thrashes around because of this nightmare and the Constrictor — hired by Viper for this mission — tries to keep him contained. They have just recently re-captured Captain America, the new Nomad, and a SHIELD spy named Gail Runciter. He tells her that Nomad is actually a not the man who defeated Viper in the past.[2] Learning that Captain America was the original Nomad angers Viper, who sends her operatives out to find any SHIELD agents outside of town that they have been in contact with. As Viper and her nihilist minions go about the final preparations of their plans, the Constrictor has decided that Viper is totally insane and in order to save his own hide he’ll have to help Captain America. To this end, he stops injecting Cap with the drugs that have kept him incapacitated in the hopes he will be able to shake off their effects in time to stop Viper’s mad scheme. Unaware of this betrayal, Viper changes her clothes to assume her disguise as a local in the town Hartsdale, Illinois. The locals are excited for an upcoming parade, little knowing that the Viper is going to use that event to spread a plague across America.

Not far away, SHIELD agent Dum Dum Dugan is struggling with chest pains due to a weak heart.[3] This has prevented him from calling in reinforcements when Nomad and the others were captured. Not wanting to flub this mission, he quickly swallows a heart pill to stabilize his condition. Unfortunately, before he can use his radio it is blasted to pieces by one of Viper’s men and he is taken prisoner. Moments later, Nick Fury is informed that they have lost contact with Dugan. With very little options due to funding cuts to the spy agency, Fury orders a call put in to the President so he can figure out his next move.

Back at Viper’s hideout, Constrictor tries to wake Captain America up but fails. That’s when Viper enters the room with Dum Dum Dugan, prompting Constrictor to pretend to still be loyal. However, Dugan — even in his weakened state — can tell the mercenary-for-hire is scared to death of Viper’s plans. Still, unless something changes, Dugan believes that they’re going to need a miracle to get out of this. This comes in the form of a phony news report about a radioactive waste spill near Heartsdale and how the National Guard is being deployed to evacuate the town. Seeing the news, the Viper decides to step up the time frame of her final plan.

She starts the parade hours early and even though it is nearly midnight, the commotion brings out the locals in droves, particularly since Captain America (along with Nomad and Gail) are made the centerpiece on one of the floats. As Captain America waves to the crowd in a drugged up haze he suddenly starts seeing the people in the street as his friends and neighbors back home in New York. The hallucinations of his parents and Bernie echo in Steve’s head telling him that if he doesn’t act, America will die. Snapping out of it, Cap tries to rouse Nomad and Gail, but they are still under the drugs influence.

Seeing the Viper and her minions in the air with hot air balloons loaded with plague infected snakes, Captain America leaps into action to stop them. Climbing onto a balloon piloted by Dum Dum Dugan, Cap learns that the snakes will be dropped at midnight. While Captain America struggles to figure out what to do, the Constrictor turns on Viper and is knocked out of one of the balloons in the struggle. At that same moment, as the clock tower begins to chime, Nomad snaps out of it. Spotting Viper’s discarded gun on the ground, he leaps for it and uses it to blast all the hot air balloons. Although Captain America and Dum Dum Dugan bail out in time, the Viper refuses to retreat and is seemingly killed in the explosion.[4]

In the aftermath of the battle, Nick Fury and the agents of SHIELD come to take Viper’s minions into custody. Fury remarks that this was a close call, but Captain America was determined to win no matter what and is relieved that America still stands.

Recurring Characters

Captain America, Nomad, Viper, Constrictor, SHIELD (Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, Gail Runciter),

Continuity Notes

1. Joe Rogers is depicted as a respectable looking man in glasses who resembles the adult Steve Rogers. This is in stark contrast to his appearances in Captain America (vol. 7) #1-2 which depict him as an abusive alcoholic who died during the Great Depression. Marvel has yet to provide an explanation for this, I have theorized that it has to do with the drugs. I go into more detail about this theory in my summary of last issue.

2. Viper was defeated by Nomad back in Captain America #182. This was during a period when Steve Rogers was disenchanted with America that he quit being Captain America for a time. See Captain America #175-183.

3. The idea that Dugan has a heart problem here seems impossible. Years later it is revealed that this isn’t Dugan’s physical body. Nick Fury put his seriously wounded body in suspended animation for years and Dugan has been operating sophisticated a Life Model Decoy. This truth has been kept a secret from everyone, including Dugan himself. See Original Sins #5 and New Avengers (vol. 4) #17. I posit a theory that his “heart problems” here are an illusion to sell the lie that Dugan is a normal person. I go into this in more detail in my summary of last issue.

4. The Viper doesn’t die here. She will resurface alive and well again in New Mutants #5-6.