Captain America (vol. 4) #12
Ice: Part 1
In Brooklyn, New York, Captain America helps a local boy named Martin take down the American flag that hangs outside their building for the night. He shows him how to do it properly and impresses the importance of treating the flag with respect at all times. Steve then goes up to his apartment and changes into Captain America and goes through a training session. This is interrupted when a delivery man buzzes from downstairs and informs Steve that a package has been delivered. It’s from the United States Army and the delivery person notes that it is pretty banged up, but insists that the damage didn’t happen while he was transporting it.
Meanwhile, in the undersea kingdom of Lemuria, a local woman visits her father, an enigmatic surface dweller known as the Interrogator. She wonders why he seeks to interrogate Captain America. Looking at the alien hand attached to his body, he explains that the American hero once stopped someone from killing him. However, this didn’t save his life, in fact, depending on how one looks at it, his life ended that day. Still, his daughter thinks that what he is planning is wrong. The Interrogator tells her that right and wrong are all a matter of perspective in this world. This only confuses her further. As he reaches out with his alien hand, the Interrogator promises his daughter that she will never see the world in black and white ever again, but always in shades of grey. At a touch, she is shown the past…[1]
Her father was an ordinary man who worked at an American of an Arctic scientific expedition. He shows a coworker a photo of his woman back home and brags about how he is not only dating her, but has slept with her sister as well. Then while his co-worker laments over how lucky he is, the man who would become the Interrogator stabs him in the back of the head with a strange device attached the the palm of his hand. As his coworker dies, the man tells him that he is not just killing him, but stealing his discoveries as well. As he orders his men to dispose of the body there is an explosion outside as something steps on one of the landmines they planted outside. At first, they dismiss it as a false alarm, probably a polar bear, but then another goes off and they realize that there is someone outside.
Whatever it is, it is getting closer to the facility with each explosion, but they can’t see what it is because the heavy snowfall outside is obscuring the video cameras. It turns out to be the Sub-Mariner who is on a mission of vengeance. This is because this facility was built on a ground of religious importance to the people Atlantis. Moreover, Namor knows that the former Nazi scientists who work here have also been experimenting on his people and he has come to avenge them. He announces as much once he gets close enough to the cameras to be seen. Namor then pauses to pray in front of a religious statue. As he turns to do his work he is shocked to see his old wartime ally Captain America frozen in a block of ice who has been missing since the end of World War II.[2] Believing his old ally to be dead, Namor shatters the ice to free his body before rushing off to clash with the people desecrating this holy land. Moments later, Captain America wakes up and, after decades under ice, begins to scream uncontrollably.
By the time Steve Rogers stopped screaming and wandered into the ice station, Namor has killed everyone by the lone scientist who cradles the strange alien in his arms. When the Atlantean prince tried to kill the man, something in Captain America’s addled mind stopped him. Realizing that the time spent frozen has addled Cap’s mind, the Sub-Mariner is able to wrest his shield away then uses it to sever the scientist’s hand. Enraged by this, Rogers tackles Namor, sending them both outside the station. As the scientist began bleeding out, the alien hand in his possession begins growing tendrils from where its wrist was cut. These tendrils attach themselves to the stump on the dying man’s hand. Saving his life, and turning him into something more than human. Now speaking and controlling his body through his hand, the scientist set the base to self destruct. Moments later the island explodes, removing all evidence of everything that went on there….
… With that, the Interrogator severs the mental connection with his daughter. He concludes the tale by saying his new hand led him to Lemuria, where he has lived among the enemies of Namor for years. He hopes this explains why he is seeking out Captain America and why she must bring him to her.
Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn, Captain America opens the old crate. Inside is an old film reel that he plays via a projector. What he sees deeply troubles him as it is footage of American scientists transporting his already frozen body and planting it in the Arctic.
Recurring Characters
Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Interrogator
Continuity Notes
By Captain America (vol. 4) #16 we will have learned that this whole story about Steve Rogers being frozen and kept in the custody of the government before he was thawed out in the present is a falsehood fabricated by the Red Skull. Thus the story that the Interrogator is telling — or at least the parts involving the Sub-Mariner and Captain America — are false. As of this writing (February, 2023) the true identity of the Interrogator and the origins of his alien hand and the true story to how they were bonded has yet to be told.
Again, this story is not true but it is based on a sliver of truth, like most conspiracy theories. Per Avengers #4, Captain America went missing in 1945 after he fell into the Atlantic trying to stop a drone loaded with explosives. He was placed in suspended animation for decades. Namor found his body frozen in a block of ice being worshiped by a tribe of Inuit people and tossed the frozen body into the ocean. There it thawed and was recovered by the Avengers. This story seeks to replace the Inuit part of the story with some kind of government cover up.
