Super Soldier Soiree

This story is continued from Captain America #420…

Jack Monroe, aka Nomad, has been institutionalized. Restrained in a straight jacket and hooked up to machines, a group of mental health professionals run him through a battery of drugs and electroshocks. The force him to have a hallucination of his former mentor, Captain America.[1] Cap accuses Jack of giving up on the American Dream, his hope for the future, and lastly Bucky, the little girl he had been raising until just recently.[2] The hallucination then pulls out a gun and shoots Jack, causing him to slightly snap back to reality. Knowing none of this is real, Monroe fights back against the illusions.

The team of doctors trying to brainwash him are annoyed because they are now back at square one again. Their leader, criminal psychologist Doctor Faustus, encourages his people to keep working. He reminds them how he was once able to crack Jack’s former partner — the Captain America of the 1950s — and they will surely be able to crack Monroe as well.[3]

Inside the observation room, Jack realizes that he’s in a really bad situation and thinks back to how he got in this mess to begin with…

It wasn’t long after Nomad had given up Bucky that he decided to go out and get absolutely shit faced. Trying to convince himself that he did the right thing Jack stumbled the streets when he was almost run down by a passing truck. The truck turns around and its occupants introduce themselves as the Wanderers. A man calling himself Outback manages to get a noose around Jack’s neck and they drag him down the street a ways until the rope gets caught on a stop sign. Not wanting to break Jack’s neck, a man named Billy cuts the rope with his crossbow. The female of the group — Flintlock — explains that they have been hired by an “old friend” to take him back alive before shooting him. Everything went black after that…

Meanwhile, in Tacoma Park, Washington, DC, Senator Bart Ingrid meets with the assassin named Zaran. He has come to deliver the government built Super Soldier Gun as he wants Zaran to use it to eliminate Jack Monroe.[4]

While at a farm in Clutier, Iowa, Jill Coltrain — Nomad’s long lost sister — gets another visit from Giscard Epurer. He explains that he still needs to know everything about her brother. Epurer says he can see the future, likening his abilities to the main protagonist in the Stephen King novel The Dead Zone. He explains that in the story, the main character was able to see a grass roots politician would rise to power and cause nuclear Armageddon and how the character struggled with the idea of trying to stop him before that could happen. He says that his mission is very similar as he is attempting to prevent Jack Monroe from murdering Senator Bart Ingrid.[5]

Back at the institution where Jack is being held, the mental conditioning continues. The doctors have made Jack hallucinate his old enemy the Slug prompting Jack to vow to kill the drug dealer next time they cross paths.[6] Getting impatient, Doctor Faustus orders them to initiate program 13-D, despite the fact that it has a huge chance of killing Monroe. Faustus says that it is worth the risk, if they cannot break Nomad’s mind then he doesn’t deserve to live anyway.

When program 13-D is run, it causes Jack to have a flashback to his childhood, circa the year 1944. His father was giving him a beating for disobeying the most important rule in the Monroe house: the children are not allowed in the basement. This is because his father is secretly a Nazi sympathized at a time when America was in the middle of World War II. The basement is where Jack’s father, Ed, keeps all of his Nazi paraphernalia. Jack’s mom, Mary Ellen, eventually gets between father and son and tells her husband to stop beating their son as he learned his lesson. Ed reminds his wife that it is important that nobody find out that he supports the Nazis as it would be very bad for them all. This flashback is all it takes to break Nomad down and making him loyal to Doctor Faustus. Pleased, Faustus says that Jack’s first target wil l be Ulysses Lugman, aka the Slug.

Three hours later, Jack is now leading the Wanderers to Miami to kill the Slug. At Lugman’s mansion they are confronted by the Slug’s own bodyguards who call themselves the Cannibal Catch consisting of Transom, Fastback, Hardhat, Folio. While the rest of the Wanderers deal with the Cannibal Catch, Nomad presses ahead to deal with the Slug. When Jack confronts his old nemesis, the Slug tries to deal for his life. Jack isn’t interested and tries to shoot the Slug. Luckily, Captain America arrives in time and uses his shield to deflect the shot. Captain America has come to stop Jack from killing in cold blood and vows that this time he’ll take Nomad down for good.

… This story is continued in Captain America #421.

Recurring Characters

Nomad, Doctor Faustus, the Slug, Bucky, Jill Coltrain, Giscard Epurer, Bart Ingrid, Zaran, Captain America, Wanderers (Chisel, Billy, Flintlock, Outback)

Continuity Notes

1. Captain America and Nomad were partners from Captain America #281 to 305. They paired up again from issues #336 until issue #345.

2. Jack Monroe took Bucky away from her drug addicted mother in Nomad #3 because he saw her as unfit to raise a child. Jack looked after the baby until her mother cleaned up her act and came to take her back last issue. Seeing how Bucky’s mom turned her life around, Jack gave up Bucky without protest.

3. Jack’s relationship with the Captain America of the 1950s and that connection with Doctor Faustus is somewhat complicated. Here are the details:

   • As explained in Captain America #155, William Burnside had rediscovered the Super Soldier Formula that created the original Captain America. He gave the treatment to himself and Jack so they could take on the mantle of Cap and Bucky in the 1950s. However, the process was imperfect and they grew increasingly paranoid and dangerous. The government decided to reign them in and they were put in cryogenic suspension for decades. They were thawed out in the present day and ran amok until they were defeated by the original Captain America, Steve Rogers. See Captain America #153-156.

   • After this, the pair were put in psychiatric care by the government who unwittingly put them in the hands of Doctor Faustus. He used his psychology skills to condition Burnside into becoming the Grand Director of the National Front, a Neo-Nazi organization. Part of this was done by tricking Burnside into thinking he had killed Jack. The Grand Director was later taken down by Steve Rogers once again. See Captain America #231-236.

4. Bart Ingrid grew up with Monroe in the 1940s. Both of their families were secretly Nazi sympathizers. Jack’s blabbing about his father’s bigoty side hustle led to the feds busting all of their families and put their kinds in a foster home. Bullied back Jack, Ingrid never gave up his family’s fascist leanings and soon got into politics for the purpose of amassing political power and to get revenge against Jack Monroe. See Nomad (vol. 2) #23-24 for the details.

5. Giscard first came to visit Jill Coltrain in Nomad (vol. 2) #15. While Jack had the benefit of suspended animation to slow his aging, no such explanation (as of this writing in October, 2022) has officially been given by Marvel for Jill or Bart Ingrid. Their being alive in the Modern Age of the Marvel Universe becomes increasingly difficult as the Sliding Timescale pushes time forward. I posit a theory on this issue in my summary for issue #15.

6. Jack has attempted to kill the Slug on two different occasions: The first was in Captain America #324-325, but he was stopped by Captain America. He attempted to kill the Slug again during the Dead Man’s Hand event in Daredevil #307-309, Punisher War Journal #45-47, and Nomad (vol. 2) #4-6. Having renounced killing at the time, Jack couldn’t bring himself to do it, even though SHIELD was offering to erase his criminal status if he did it.

Topical References

• As you read above, Giscard Epurer references the Stephen King novel titled The Dead Zone. This wouldn’t necessarily be considered a topical reference since Giscard isn’t calling it a new book and he is explaining the plot to the novel to explain how his alleged powers work.