Captain America #389
The Superia Stratagem Part Three of Six: Pageant of Power
Lost at sea while trying to answer Diamondback’s distress signal, Captain America and his allies Paladin and John Jameson are ambushed by Moonstone and Blackbird. In the ensuing clash, Cap tries to help free Paladin from one of Blackbird’s snares when he is struck and knocked out by one of Moonstone’s beams. With the Avengers at risk of drowning, Paladin swims the hero up to his overturned shield, allowing him to push Cap up to the surface for air without making him a sitting target. He then blasts Moondstone with his stun gun. While Blackbird tries to figure out her next move, a revived Captain America grabs her leg and grabs on tight as she tries to shake him loose. As he struggles to hang on, he hopes that Diamondback isn’t in any serious trouble.
Cap would be concerned if he knew that Rachel — after an encounter with her old enemy Snapdragon aboard the S.S. Superia — was beat into unconsciousness and thrown overboard.[1] As she sinks into the waters below her lungs begin to fill up with water. Her situation doesn’t go unnoticed as one of the crew informs Nightshade of what just happened, prompting her to order Diamondback recovered and given immediate medical attention. One of the crew goes topside where the gathered female super-villains are watching the tail end of a brawl between Anaconda and Quicksand. She pulls Ion aside and asks her to recover Rachel from the ocean. As Rachel is pulled from the water and rushed to the infirmary her friends Asp and Black Mamba have noticed she has gone missing. They ask their new friend Impala to help them search for her, gaining the attention of Snapdragon who decides to keep a close eye on the trio.
Back out at sea, Captain America manages to choke Blackbird into submission when the Vision arrives in an Avengers Quinjet. As they board and secure their prisoners, Captain America wants to press forward with Paladin, ordering John Jameson to help the Vision recover his Flagship from the ocean floor. While John complies with this order he is secretly upset that Cap is sidelining him. Cap and Paladin then continue following Diamondback’s distress beacon aboard his sky-cycle.
Aboard the S.S. Superia, the medics manage to revived Diamondback just as her friends come to the infirmary to look for her. They learn about how she fell overboard and nearly drowned and ask her what happened. Traumatized by her near death experience, Rachel keeps the fact that she was attacked by Snapdragon a secret and tells her friends that she feels out of her depth as Diamondback and has decided to retire her costumed identity so her life is no longer put at risk. As Rachel tries to get some rest, Asp is convinced that something happened to Rachel that she’s not telling them. Meanwhile, Nightshade is informed that they are no longer being followed. This eases some of the pressure Nightshade is under as she still has the herculean task of indoctrinating all of the gathered female super-villains to their cause.[2]
However, Captain America and Paladin have actually found the cruise ship. Suspecting that it might be scanning the air with radar, Cap has intentionally flown his sky cycle as close to the water as possible to avoid detection. As the two men sneak aboard, the female super-villains onboard have all gathered for the “Power Pageant” where they are encourage to show off their abilities to others. First up is Impala who shows off her javelin tossing skills and receives a standing ovation for her demonstration. Next up is Screaming Mimi who shows off her sonic scream. That’s when the wolf-woman Ferocia detects the scene of two men boarding the ship and alerts everyone to the intruders.
As Captain America and Paladin poke their heads up from the guard rail they see an army of female super-villains charging towards them and realize that they are in big trouble.
Recurring Characters
Captain America, Paladin, BAD Girls Inc (Diamondback, Asp, Black Mamba), John Jameson, Femizons (Superia, Anaconda, Battleaxe, Blackbird, Black Lotus, Bloodlust, Bombshell, Dansen Macabre, Dragonfly, Ferocia, Frenzy, Gladiatrix, Gypsy Moth, Ice Princess, Impala, Ion, Iron Maiden, Knockout, Mindblast, Moonstone, Nightshade, Quicksand, Pink Pearl, Princess Python, Poundcakes, Screaming Mimi, Snapdragon, Vapor, Water Witch, Whiteout, Whiplash, Wrangler, Yellowjacket), Vision
Continuity Notes
Diamondback and Snapdragon both underwent training at the Taskmaster’s school, as revealed in Captain America #403. However, as of this writing in July 2022, it’s never really explained why Snapdragon became her enemy.
It will be revealed in Captain America #391 that Superia is gathering the worlds strongest female super-humans together to protect them from a global sterilization plot. She is doing so in an effort to create the female dominant future that Thundra hales from. (Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four identifies this possible future as Reality-715)
Topical References
Princess Python compares Screaming Mimi’s singing voice to Madonna, claiming that the popular pop-singer sounds like a set of bagpipes by comparison. This story was published during the height of Madonna’s popularity in the early 90s. References to the singer should be considered topical, while still performing as of this writing, Madonna is in her 60s, she’s not going to be around forever and all that.
Kidnapped
The Red Skull was kidnapped in the middle of a training session by one of the men he hired to pose as Captain America. Waking up in an unknown location and tied up, the Red Skull is confronted by his kidnapper. The costumed individual introduces himself as Hauptman Deutschland, Germany’s new national hero. He tells the Skull that he has been tasked with capturing the notorious Nazi and extradite him back to Germany to be put on trial for his past crimes.
Deutschland explains how he easily infiltrated the Red Skull’s hideout in the Smith Building by getting a job as a waiter at his Masque Club. From there it was a simple matter of sabotaging Arnim Zola’s cloning technology that allowed the Skull to cheat death and then facilitate the Nazi’s capture.[1] He explains that the German government wanted the Skull brought in to atone for their Nazi past. When the Red Skull explains that he has abandoned the Nazi ideology in favor of nihilism, Deutschland scoffs at him saying that this is a moot point and he will ensure his execution at the end of his trail. He then leaves the Skull to stew in the cargo hold of the plane transporting them back to Germany, joining his fellow German super-hero Blitzkrieg in the cockpit.
Although it looks like the Red Skull is helpless, he has activated a secret transmitter hidden in a hollowed out tooth and his Skeleton Crew have mobilized a rescue mission to save their leader. Aboard a pursuing plane are Crossbones, the Machinesmith, Mother Night and the Fourth Sleeper who are following the signal as planned. Crossbones figures they have the element of surprise and can’t wait to trash the people who kidnapped their boss. However, back aboard the German plane, Blitzkrieg has detected the radio signals coming from the Skull’s transmitter. This pleases Hauptman Deutschland as he anticipated such a move and looks forward to capturing the Red Skull’s subordinates and making them strand trial as well.
Recurring Characters
Red Skull, Skeleton Crew (Crossbones, Mother Night, Machinesmith, Fourth Sleeper), Hauptman Deutschland, Blitzkrieg
Continuity Notes
When his original body died of old age in Captain America #300, the Red Skull downloaded his mind in a cloned body created by Zola using Captain America’s DNA, as seen in Captain America #350. Hauptman Deutschland sabotaged this technology and destroyed the spare clones in issue #387 and captured the Skull last issue.
Topical References
Here, Hauptman Deutschland refers to his home land as “United Germany”. At the time of this story. Following the end of World War II, Germany was split up into two countries, the communist east and the democratic west. With the nations in the Eastern Bloc undergoing much turmoil during the end of the Cold War, Germany reunified as a single democratic country in 1990, around the time this comic was published, hence why Deutschland makes this distinction. References to Germany being recently unified in this story should be considered topical.
