Old Friends and Enemies Part 2 of 3

The remains of the original Human Torch (Jim Hammond) have been stolen by Professor Zhang Chen. This has prompted the new Captain America (James Barnes) to travel to Taipei City, Taiwan to get them back.[1] As he last faced Chen as the Winter Soldier back in 1968 — an incident that claimed the life of Chen’s wife — James has struck government facilities in that identity.[2]

Eventually, word gets back to Professor Chen and his bodyguard, the enigmatic Man With No Face. Zheng is unimpressed with the Winter Soldier’s attempts to intimidate and orders the Man to send heavy troops out to find him and eliminate him.

Despite the heavy military presence, James Barnes continues his attacks on government facilities as the Winter Soldier. He has chosen to do so in this identity since Zhang Chen made a point of showing that he had stolen the Human Torch’s remain to send him a message. Now, James is sending his own by appearing as the Winter Soldier and not Captain America. He wants to remind Zheng who he is dealing with and what he is capable of. However, Chen isn’t the only one getting a reminder, as James is forced to take lives something that he can do with sickening ease thanks to the training he underwent as the Winter Soldier.

Its during a clash with the military that James gets an angry call from his girlfriend, Natasha Romanov, aka the Black Widow. She is furious that he didn’t tell her the whole story about his incident with Professor Zhen back in 1968, namely that it ended with the Chinese government labeling the Winter Soldier a criminal. She is on her way now and is dealing with military forces on her own. She tells James to give her his location, but he tries to pretend that the radio signal is breaking up. Natasha isn’t buying this transparent ploy and tries to tell her to keep away as she doesn’t know what Zheng is truly capable of. The argument comes to an abrupt end when Chen’s heavy artillary arrives. He is ambushed by a man in a cybernetic suit who knocks him out with a single punch and is quickly taken into custody.

The entire scene was witnessed by the Sub-Mariner who has been watching from above. He is annoyed that the ruler of Atlantis has to skulk around in the shadows. Still, he follows after the convoy once it removes Winter Soldier from the area.

When Natasha gets nothing but radio silence from here on, she figures out pretty quickly what James has done. He allowed himself to get captured so he would be taken directly to Zheng Chen and the remains of the Human Torch. Hoping to save him, Natasha continues her trek to Taiwan.

When Winter Soldier wakes up he finds himself chained to a chair. Usually, this would be a simple escape thanks to his cybernetic arm. However, Chen has wisely attached some kind of scrambler device that has left it as nothing more than dead weight. Luckily, he has Namor as back-up, who is making his way to James’ location, although he is unhappy to be sneaking around like a common thief. Eventually, Professor Zheng Chen comes down to torture his prisoner. After giving him a jolt with a cattle prod, Chen asks James why he came as Winter Soldier and not Captain America.[3] James remembers what he did, but didn’t want to come back as Captain America and tarnish the legacy of the costume. Chen muses that his sympathy and guilt come far too late, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, the Black Widow is able to find the Sub-Mariner’s Imperial Ship parked below the surface of Taiwan’s shores. Inside, she finds a GPS locator and a note. She is unimpressed that James has selected her as his back-up plan on this suicide mission. While looking through the storage compartments, she finds James’ Captain America costume and shield still hanging inside. She realizes that he went in as the Winter Soldier and wonders just how stupid James could be.

Before he kills the Winter Soldier, Professor Zhang Chen wants to show what he has been able to create with the Human Torch’s DNA and cellular structure. Pointing to holding tanks containing some of Chen’s own soldiers, James is helpless to watch as Chen infects them with a new airborne virus he has created. Once the men are infected they suddenly burst into flame and are burned to a crisp. While James finds this horrifying, Chen sees this as the only solution to solve the issue of an out of control human population that threatens to destroy the planet. James tries to appeal to Chen’s humanity, asking what his wife would have thought about this. However, the Professor cares little about what she might have thought, pointing out that she has been dead for more years than she was alive.

However, he assures the Winter Soldier that he isn’t going to be the next victim of this virus. First, Zheng wants to make James suffer for everything that he has done. That’s when he and the Man With No Face reveal that they have captured the Sub-Mariner. Contained in a suspension tank filled with water, Zheng then unleashes the virus on Namor in order to see how it affects someone with Atlantean physiology.

Recurring Characters

Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Sub-Mariner, Man With No Face, Zhang Chen

Continuity Notes

1. The OG Human Torch has been dead since New Invaders #9. His remains were stolen by the Man With No Face on behalf of Professor Chen in Captain America (vol. 5) #43-45.

2. After being caught in an explosion over the English Channel in 1945, Bucky was recovered by the Russians who transformed him into their assassin, the Winter Soldier. He was brainwashed into forgetting his past and claimed many lives over the years. It wasn’t until recent times that the brainwashing was broken and he was able to take back control of his life. See Captain America (vol. 5) #8, 11, and 14. The revelation that Winter Soldier murdered Zheng’s wife was made last issue.

3. Mention is made of how James recently became Captain America. That happened in Captain America (vol. 5) #33. At the time of this story, the original Captain America is believed to have died in issue #25. In reality, he has merely been unmoored from time, as we’ll learn in Captain America: Reborn #1-5.