Tag Archives: Captain America & the Falcon

Somewhat belatedly, here are links to each installment of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at 1970s classics for Captain America and the Falcon.

ONE: This four-part story dealt with Cap and Falc taking on the revived 1950s substitutes for Cap and Bucky. The worldviews of two Captain Americas from different decades came into conflict. Click HERE.

TWO: A three-part tale pitting our heroes against the Viper and the supervillain team called Crime Wave. Plus Captain America gains Spider-Man level strength. (That higher strength level lasted from 1973-1978.) Click HERE.

THREE: These three issues saw Captain America and the Falcon go up against the new supervillain Solarr as well as Captain America’s old foe Doctor Faustus. All this and the return of Peggy Carter! Click HERE. Continue reading →

For Part One of this series click HERE.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #183 (March 1975)

Title: Nomad No More (A play on Captain America No More, the title of the story when Steve Rogers gave up being Cap.)

Villains: The Red Skull, Viper’s hoped-for disciples and Gamecock (First Appearance)

Note: The previous issue’s cliffhanger presented the Falcon and the “newest” would-be Captain America – Roscoe Simons – caught by surprise and at the mercy of the returned Red Skull, back after a several year absence. 

Synopsis: This issue picks up three days later as Nomad (Steve Rogers) has returned from Seattle and is currently battling the brand new costumed supervillain called Gamecock and his two sidekicks. The fight is taking place on a rooftop in Harlem during the day.

Dialogue from the four combatants lets us know that Nomad came to Harlem looking for the Falcon and hasn’t been able to find him. Gamecock and his two underlings make it clear they were looking for Falcon, too, to kill him. Continue reading →

For Part One of this series click HERE.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #180 (December 1974)

Title: The Coming of the Nomad

Villains: The New Serpent Squad

NOTE: This week’s look at 3 issues and next week’s look at 4 issues will wrap up my look at Captain America & the Falcon’s 1970s classics, as the various storylines reach their finale.

Synopsis: We pick up shortly after the end of the previous issue. It is nighttime and Steve Rogers (Captain America) has just parted company with his former fellow Avenger Hawkeye (Clint Barton). Hawkeye had posed as a villain called the Golden Archer and waged a vendetta against Steve Rogers to rekindle his interest in superheroing.

After revealing his true identity, Hawkeye convinced Steve to go back to being a superhero, just NOT Captain America, since he was so disillusioned now. He could just become a new hero with an all-new pseudonym.

Thrilled with the idea, Steve hurriedly walks back to the New York City apartment he shares with former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter. He starts making plans for how to go about creating his new superhero “brand.” Continue reading →

For Part One of this series click HERE. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #174 (June 1974)

Title: It’s Always Darkest …

Villains: The Secret Empire

Synopsis: This story picks up right where the previous issue left off. The disguised Captain America and the Falcon, posing as drifting, mutant-hating goons for hire have been recruited into the Secret Empire. That villainous organization has been plotting to take over the United States and has also been hunting down and capturing mutants in furtherance of that goal.

The Empire’s operative Number 13 is escorting the disguised Cap and Falc via elevator into their secret headquarters far beneath the New Mexico desert. (Where the group has been lurking ever since their first battles with the Hulk in the 1960s.)

As our undercover heroes are led by Number 13 throughout the high-tech and armament-loaded lair, Captain America reflects to himself how this whole convoluted saga began with the public campaign against him by the Viper and his crooked colleagues on Madison Avenue. Continue reading →

For Part One of this series click HERE.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #171 (March 1974)

Title: Bust-Out!

Villains: Stone-Face and Moonstone

NOTE: This is the first story with the Falcon using his new wings in action.

Synopsis: We pick up right where we left off last time. The country is heatedly divided regarding the jailed Captain America’s guilt or innocence on the murder charge. We readers know that Cap was framed by Moonstone and Quentin Harderman (a former colleague of the supervillain the Viper) as the capstone of their smear campaign against our hero.

A gang of armed men have blasted their way into Captain America’s jail cell, claiming to be on his side and offering to help him escape. Cap is torn, apprehensive that people will conclude he’s guilty if he escapes but fearful that if he stays nobody will be able to prove his innocence.

Our hero ultimately decides to stay in his cell to let the legal process play out. It is then that the supposedly “pro-Cap” armed men reveal that they are really part of Harderman’s organization and tell him he has no choice: come with them or they’ll kill him. Continue reading →

For Part One of this series click HERE.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #168 (December 1973)

Title: And A Phoenix Shall Arise

Villain: Phoenix (The son of the original Baron Zemo) FIRST APPEARANCE

Synopsis: We pick up an unknown number of weeks or months after the end of the Yellow Claw storyline. In the intervening time period Captain America was in action with the Avengers saving the universe from Dormammu and Loki alongside the Defenders. 

Captain America and the Falcon are out on their nightly patrol looking for crime. At length they pause on a rooftop to discuss how much guilt that Steve (Cap) still feels about the way that the long-lost Peggy Carter is still adjusting to the years she lost in the mental hospital.

And, sadly, has been relying on Cap more and more to cope with the modern world since he went through a similar experience when the Avengers found him frozen in suspended animation years ago. Worst of all is the way that Peggy thinks that she and Steve/ Cap are still an item even though in the years that she was gone he and Sharon Carter, Peggy’s much younger sister, have fallen in love.

NOTE: Over the decades, as the World War Two era was left further and further behind, Marvel retconned it so that Sharon was really Peggy’s niece, then grand-niece, etc instead of her younger sister.

Without warning, Steve and Sam (Falcon) are attacked by a new supervillain calling himself the Phoenix and using a high-tech rifle that shoots deadly energy rays. Phoenix taunts Cap that he has a grievance to settle with him, puzzling our hero, who doesn’t recognize him. Continue reading →

For Part One of this series click HERE.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #165 (September 1973)

Title: The Yellow Claw Strikes

Villain: The Yellow Claw (later called the Golden Claw)

Synopsis: We pick up right where we left off last time around, on top of the walls around Grimrock Prison in Maryland, where Captain America and the Falcon defeated the supervillainess Nightshade. 

Nick Fury, who arrived recently with several armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in helicopters, is still explaining to Cap and Falc that Nightshade was being financed by the Yellow Claw. Fury and his agents arrived hoping to capture the Claw but that villain had already escaped.   

Things are still a bit tense between Cap and Nick because this is only their second face to face meeting since Contessa Valentina went back to Nick after making him think she was leaving him for Cap. (She did that to get back at Nick for the way he temporarily dumped HER for Laura Brown. What a Soap Opera.)

Fury, in a ridiculously irrational dispay of anger, tries accusing Steve and Sam (Cap & Falc) of screwing up S.H.I.E.L.D.’s attempt to arrest the Yellow Claw, even though our two heroes were lured to Grimrock Prison by Nightshade as part of her plan.
Continue reading →

For Part One of this series click HERE.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #163 (July 1973)

Title: Beware of Serpents

Villains: The Serpent Squad

Synopsis: We pick up long after the end of our previous installment. Peggy Carter’s psychological recovery has been proceeding apace as Captain America alternates between the Carter Family’s Connecticut home and New York City where he and the Avengers have had a few recent missions. Cap’s secret identity – Steve Rogers – has officially resigned from the New York City Police Department.

NOTE: The writers apparently felt they had milked as much as they could out of Cap/ Steve’s double life as a cop and decided to put that chapter of his tales behind them. 

Nightshade

At the Paranormal Criminal Detention Wing of Sing Sing Prison, Thor’s old foe the Cobra has paid off corrupt prison guards to sneak their costumes and weaponry into the cells of the imprisoned Eel and his brother the Viper. Donning their gear, Eel and Viper, old foes of Cap and Falc, break out, killing at least four guards as they do. Cobra picks them up in a waiting vehicle and christens their new gang of three the Serpent Squad as they drive off to Cobra’s hideout.   

A few days later, Captain America, the Falcon, Sharon Carter, her much older sister Peggy Carter and their parents arrive at the mansion estate of the Carter Family in northern Virginia. Peggy’s new psychiatrists have declared her to have made sufficient progress that she can move to that home and try reestablishing her life.

Peggy is still fairly vulnerable, however, so Cap and Sharon have still not told her about their romance, which started during the years she was gone. Not helping the situation is the way that news reporters have smoked out enough of the facts of Cap and Peggy’s reunion to make a big story about the “miracle reunion of two lovers separated for decades” angle. Continue reading →