For Victory… Again!

Now

Baron Zemo has returned to the Amazon jungle where his father had a base of operations to dig up one of his old inventions.[1] Zemo has had resistance from the locals who do not wish to be enslaved by another Zemo, but all opposition is met with violent reprisal. Joining the Baron is Techno, who tagged along after their falling out with the Thunderbolts and their being pursued by a new Citizen V, but is growing bored without any technology to tinker with.[2] Getting impatient with the slave labor, Techno uses his mechanical body to finish digging up what they have been searching for. It is a container of Particle X, an invention that Heinrich Zemo created during the war. With his father’s greatest invention in hand, Helmut believes that — with the proper upgrades — it can also be used to bring the modern world to its knees.

As Zemo and Techno leave to do their work, one of the slaves manages to slip away unseen. They are a plant to the resistance movement trying to force Zemo out of the area. The spy returns to their cave hideout where he reports his findings to Citizen V, who is in the area assisting the local resistance. Hearing how Particle X has been found, Citizen V is then informed that there is an intruder approaching the cave. Going out to see who it is, V is ambushed by Captain America who doesn’t know that this is someone else and not Baron Zemo in disguise again. However, in fighting Citizen V and seeing that they have a different fighting style than Zemo, Captain America realizes that they are telling the truth and stops fighting. Invited inside, Citizen V tells Captain America about how Baron Zemo has just uncovered Particle X. Cap knows exactly what this is because he stopped the original Zemo from using it during World War II, a mission that just so happened to involve the original Citizen V….

World War II

Captain America and Bucky were dispatched to Baron Zemo’s castle to stop him from using Particle X, a secret weapon which would allow the Nazis to jam Allied radio transmissions, rendering them unable to communicate. However, the castle was heavily fortified and Zemo was being assisted by a female Nazi operative known as the She-Wolf.

Pulling back, Captain America and Bucky meet up with their back up, Citizen V who helps them breach the castle. To do so, they dive into the moat and uses a drain pipe to gain access to the lower levels of the structure. There they are greeted by She-Wolf, who turns out to be a spy working for Citizen V’s V-Battalion.

Storming the castle, Captain America and his allies kept Zemo and his soldiers busy while the rest of the reinforcements arrived. While stopping Zemo from launching Particle X, Citizen V was shot in the shoulder. Luckily, Cap and the others were able to save him and escape the castle just as Particle X exploded. At the time they were unsure if Zemo was killed or not, but at least they were able to stop his mad scheme…

Now

The present day Citizen V takes particular interest hearing this story and explains that they are the grandson of the original Citizen V. Citizen V explains that the wartime hero does have a grandson. He reveals the while while the original Citizen V was killed by Baron Zemo during the war, his love — the woman who posed as the She-Wolf — was also his lover and was pregnant with his child. She fled to England where she gave birth and later went on to have a career with the OSS. She later fell in love with an American soldier. However, the son of Citizen V had a son of his own and has been carrying on the Citizen V legacy ever since.[3]

However, Captain America sees right through this, the fact that Citizen V calls himself the original’s grandson when it’s obvious that “he” is actually a woman wearing a padded costume. Cap then lectures Citizen V about the dangers of being motivated by revenge, as he is no stranger losing someone to the original Baron Zemo, who was responsible for the death of his wartime partner, Bucky.[4] He warns that there will always be someone to take a madman’s place, leading to a never ending cycle of trying to get revenge. Citizen V promises Cap that she’ll think about what he said.

48 hours later as planning for the coming assault on Zemo’s fortress are complete, Citizen V is front and center. This time she has stripped off the padding that disguises her true gender as she decides to be true to herself in the battle ahead.

By this time, Baron Zemo has finished retrofitting Particle X so he can use to to shut down all electronic communications all over the world. The doomsday weapon has been loaded onto a rocket to be launched into the atmosphere.

That’s when Captain America leads the rebels on an attack on Zemo’s hideout. While the villain is busy leading the counter-attack, Citizen V sneaks in through the back to try and shut down the rocket. She is caught and overpowered by Techno. By this time, Cap and the rebels have pulled back, making Zemo realize that they were merely a distraction. Racing back inside, he finds Techno has caught Citizen V and has her tied to the rocket. That’s when Captain America arrives and frees his ally. As the two fight their foes, the countdown reaches zero and the rocket begins to launch. Citizen V leaps onto the rocket and rips open one of the side panels and works to disable it. While this is going on, both Techno and Baron Zemo decide to cut their losses and retreat.

With the rocket destroyed, Citizen V then uses the glider built into her cape to safely return to the ground. In the aftermath of the battle, the locals celebrate their victory and cheer for both Captain America and Citizen V.

Not far away, Baron Zemo watches this from his true hideout. As it turns out, he had a back-up plan for Particle X and is using it to cloak the position of his brand new hideout. The villain then gets to work on his next scheme to take over the world. Techno tells Zemo that he’s going to pursue some fun on his own and tells the Baron that he’s only a phone call away when he’s ready for his next strike.

Recurring Characters

Captain America, Citizen V (Riordan), Baron Helmut Zemo, Techno, (in flashback) Citizen V (Watkins), Bucky, She-Wolf, Baron Heinrich Zemo

Continuity Notes

1. After the Nazis lost World War II, Heinrich Zemo fled to the Amazon jungle where he lived for years, as seen in Avengers #6. Eventually, Heinrich died in battle against Captain America in issue #15 of that series. His son Helmut took on the Baron Zemo identity in Captain America #275.

2. When the Avengers and Fantastic Four seemingly perished in Onslaught: Marvel Universe #1, Baron Zemo hatched a scheme where he and the Masters of Evil would pose as heroes in order to gain the public trust and then take over the world. This scheme was exposed and most of the Thunderbolts — deciding they like being heroes better — turn against him. See Thunderbolts #1-12 and Annual 1997. Zemo posed as a modern incarnation of Citizen V. He encountered Citizen V’s true successor in Thunderbolts #17.

3. The Watkins family line and the people who held the Citizen V identity is a lot more complicated than what is presented here.

   • The original Citizen V was John Watkins who first appeared in Daring Mystery Comics #8. He was killed in action in 1944 during another clash with Baron Zemo as seen in Thunderbolts #-1.

   • His lover, Paulette Brazee took over the Citizen V identity during the war after his death, at least for a little while, as seen in Citizen V and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting #1. Her current fate as of August, 2022 is unknown

   • Their son was John Watkins, Jr. took over the mantle of Citizen V in for a brief period in the later half of the 20th Century, as detailed in Citizen V and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting #2. His current fate is unknown as of this writing as well.

   • The grandson of Citizen V, John Watkins III is actually in a coma at the time of this story. How this happened has yet to be explained as of this writing. He won’t come out of it until Thunderbolts #45. He’ll take up the mantle of Citizen V again in issue #47 of that series.

   • The Citizen V here is actually Dallas Riordan who took on the role starting in Thunderbolts #16. Issue #42 of that series explains that Dallas was offered the role due to a descendants involvement in the V-Battalion during World War II. For more explanations about all of this see below.

4. At the time of this story, Captain America believes that Bucky died in a drone plane explosion in 1945, as seen in Avengers #4. In reality, Bucky survived and was transformed by the Russians into an assassin called the Winter Soldier. Cap won’t learn the truth until many years later as we’ll see in Captain America (vol. 5) #14.

Family Trees and the Sliding Timescale

The Watkins and Riordan family trees are kind of of a mess because of how the Sliding Timescale of the Marvel Universe works. It bumps the events of the Modern Age forward in time so that the characters are not prematurely aged. For every four years of publications one year passes in universe. As such, the number of years between the end of World War II and the start of the Modern Age continues to grow. This has made it increasingly impossible for someone who was alive during World War II to still be alive in the Modern Age without some kind of means of extending a natural human lifespan.

Typically, this means that characters who were born in the Pre or Post-Modern Age have relations to wartime individuals will have their relationship constantly changed so as not to prematurely age them. The exception being in cases where a wartime character has had their life extended by other means.

In the case of the Watkins family, the heirs to the Citizen V name were involved with the V-Battalion after they gained access to alien technology. Although it’s not outright stated anywhere, it seems likely that some of this technology allowed members of the Battalion to slow their aging process. In that regard, I think it’s safe to say that the Watkins family tree would remain unchanged due to their association with the Battalion.

In the case of Dallas Riordan: The family member stated as being a member of the V-Battalion was originally identified as her grandfather. However he died during World War II before the group got access to the alien technology they would benefit from in later years. As such, I believe Dallas’ relationship to this family member should be considered topical as her family would not get involved with the V-Battalion again until the Modern Age. As such, modern readers should view the Riordan of World War II as an ancestor of Dallas as opposed to a directly associated family member.