Captain America and the Falcon #3
Two Americas, Part 3
Nine Years Ago
A pair of teenagers are having a private discussion in a farmer’s field. The young man slips a silver bracelet with little harts on the girl’s wrist and asks if she will be his girlfriend. She accepts and the two kisses. The girl soon leaves because she is going to see where her father works for the day. Tragically, this is the same day of a deadly terrorist attack on that same building. The following day, the young man goes to the ruined building and weeps for his dead girlfriend.
Five Years Later
The young man is old enough to enlist in the military. Unfortunately, he is rejected for being too frail for service. Later that day, while out in the family field, the young man is approached by two government spooks who have come to talk about his future. This young man eventually went on to become the operative we now know as the Anti-Cap.[1]
Now
Anti-Cap was lost at sea while trying to capture the Falcon (Sam Wilson) and Leila Taylor. Through sheer luck he has washed up on the shores of Florida. There he is found by a police patrol. At first, they think its the real Captain America, until they get a closer look and remove his cowl, revealing a much younger man with black hair. That’s when Anti-Cap wakes up and shoots both of the cops in the head.
Meanwhile, the real Captain America and SHIELD agent Alisande Morales are in Cuba. Cap has come looking for the Falcon and Leila and figure out what it was they found at the hideout of the Rivas Cartel that made them targets of Anti-Cap. At the compound, they discover that the cartel had been wiped out. They also discover Sam’s pet falcon, Redwing, trapped in one of the closets.[2] Agent Morales does a scan of the room and while she detects trace evidence of drugs and alcohol, there is no trace of any bio-weapons and they still don’t know exactly what Sam and Leila found out while here. They deduce that Anti-Cap is keeping Sam and Leila alive because whatever he was sent to retrieve isn’t with them. Thankfully, Redwing knows where it is hidden. The bird takes them to one of the bathrooms on the Rivas compound and lands on top of the toilet, signaling that there is something hidden in the tank. Inside, they find Falcon’s Avengers ID card with something taped on the backside.
Back in Miami, the Falcon and Leila Taylor pay a visit to Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes, an old drug connection from back in Sam’s day as “Snap” Wilson.[4][5] They have come to ask Stokes to help smuggle them out of Florida. Unfortunately, with a hurricane still pounding the coast, they can’t move anyone. This forces Falcon to consider another plan.
By this time, Captain America and Agent Morales are taking a submersible back to the United States. On the trip, Steve contacts Avengers Mansion and speaks with Iron Man (Tony Stark) and Yellowjacket (Hank Pym). They have confirmed that the substance that was hidden on Falcon’s ID card is not a bio-weapon but something else all together. However, they are not at liberty to discuss what it is on this channel for fear they might be spied upon. Hank will say that the team is divided between destroying it or trying to figure out how it works. They ultimately decided to wait, trusting in Captain America to make the right decision on the matter.[6]
In Miami, Leila and the Falcon go to the local children’s hospital, a doctor named Deke. They meet with a friend that Taylor knows from back when he ran a free clinic in Harlem. He looks over the chemical composition of the material she stole. Unfortunately, it is too complex a compound for him to figure out what it is supposed to be used for. She then calls Joe Robertson, her boss, at the Daily Bugle to give him an update on what she has uncovered so far. Joe says that they don’t have enough to run the story and until they do, she will still be a target and to be careful. As they are having this discussion, Anti-Cap tries to sneak into the room and gun them all down with a machine gun. Luckily he is spotted by the Falcon who shoots twelve times in the chest. He then tells Deke to take Leila and run and call 911. Deke, staying true to his Hippocratic Oath, wants to stabilize Anti-Cap first. Unfortunately, Anti-Cap isn’t as seriously wounded as he seems and grabs Deke by the throat and tosses him across the room.
The Falcon then begins a brawl with the Anti-Cap, and while he gets a few good punches in, the maniac eventually overpowers him. Beaten bloody, Sam tells Leila to run for it and tell her story so his death isn’t in vain. However, Anti-Cap doesn’t get a chance to finish the Falcon off because the real Captain America has arrived. Throwing his trademark indestructible shield, it hits the Anti-Cap in the back with enough force break his own shield in half and make him drop Sam. Confronting his impostor, Cap tell him to get ready for round two!
Recurring Characters
Captain America, Falcon, Anti-Cap, Leila Taylor, Alisande Morales, Jimmy Westbrook, Cornell Cottonmouth, Avengers (Iron Man, Yellowjacket, Scarlet Witch), Joe Robertson, Redwing
Continuity Notes
Anti-Cap’s origins mirrors that of Steve Rogers, who tried to enlist in the military during World War II. He was also rejected for being too frail, only to be selected for Protect: Rebirth, the secret program that turned him into Captain America. This tale was originally told in Captain America Comics #1.
Redwing was shoved in the closet back in issue #1, weren’t you paying attention?
Here, Captain America mentions that Sam has an empathic link with Redwing. This was a power given to him when the Red Skull altered his mind with the Cosmic Cube, as explained in Captain America #186.
If you’re unfamiliar with who Cornell Stokes is, check out Power Man #18-20.
It was once revealed in Captain America #186 that Sam was once a street hustler nicknamed “Snap” and that the Red Skull used the Cosmic Cube to alter his mind and make him an ideal partner to Captain America as a sleeper agent just prior to their first meeting in Captain America #117. However, after that story and this one (All-New Captain America #3) it was revealed that “Snap” Wilson was the fabrication created by the Red Skull to mess with Sam’s sense of identity. If this was all a fabrication, there has yet to be an explanation as to how Cornell “remembers” working with “Snap” in the past. There are a few possible explanations for this:
It is entirely possible that when the Red Skull created the false Snap Wilson identity it also affected the minds of others as well so they “remembered” working with Snap back in the day.
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4, which includes a profile of the Falcon, suggests that Sam’s apparent reversion back to his Snap persona during this series was due to the Scarlet Witch going mad and lashing out at her fellow Avengers leading up to and during the Avengers Disassembled storyline (which primarily took place in Avengers #500-503). Perhaps she was altering the minds of more than just Sam during this period.
This “bio-weapon” isn’t a weapon at all, but a DNA sample taken from MODOK, as we’ll learn in Captain America and the Falcon #8.
Topical References
The terrorist attack that Anti-Cap’s girlfriend was killed in is depicted as the Oklahoma City bombing. On April 19, 1995, a radicalized American citizen named Timothy McVeigh parked a vehicle full of explosives and detonated it out front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was eventually captured and was sentenced to death. He was executed in 2001.
Falcon’s Avengers ID is depicted as being signed by George W. Bush, who was President of the United States at the time this story was published in 2004. Obviously, this is no longer the case as he finished serving two terms in 2009.
A number of TV screens and computer monitors are depicted as CRT models in this story. This is now an obsolete technology.