Avengers / Invaders #12

Bucky's diary reveals that he arranged for Toro's future resurrection while he had the Cosmic Cube in his grasp. It also reveals that he decided to meet his fate on Zemo's drone plane in order to preserve the future, despite mistakenly believing this would mean his death (not his reconstruction as Winter Soldier). Does this mean that all the Invaders remember their adventure in the future, because Dr Strange never got the chance to wipe their memories.

The resurrection of Toro isn't as pointless as Peter thinks. Since then he's been in the Torch and Invaders Now limited series, and All-New Invaders where he turns out to be an Inhuman rather than a mutant.

Union Jack doesn't die here so they must get him to medical help. He'll appear in many other stories set later in WWII, including Marvel Universe #1, a story in Captain America #616 (70th Anniversary), Midnight Sons Unlimited #9, Twelve: Spearhead and #1, and many flashbacks. He'll be part of the evolution of the Invaders into the All-Winners Squad in What If #4. Citizen V and the V-Battalion vol 1 #1 which tell us how he helped found the V-Battalion, and vol 2 #1 will say how he died in a car crash in 1953.

The Marvel Chronology Project puts the Vision's appearances in this series within his WWII history. But it seems to me that the dialogue implies that he started off in #8 in the present day and followed the Cube back to WWII. I'm guessing that part of the Cube's restoring the universe to rights includes taking itself and AArkus (and the Avengers) back to the present. Vision will then accompany Toro into the Torch, Invaders Now and All-New Invaders series. In between the last 2 gigs he will get involved with Legion in X-Men: Legacy #8-10 and #19-23.

Review: Battle, battle, chaos while Bucky summarizes the story thus far, though seriously, if you’re just tuning in now why are you bothering?...Bunch of heroes die—they were cannon fodder anyway, none of them stood out and some seem to have vanished altogether between issues…the Cosmic Cube has chosen Captain America as a role model and wants to be a good guy yet a bunch more heroes die and everything gets wrapped up in the wink of an eye—as one would expect when the heroes have a magic item…Paul’s friends die again—and presumably so does Union Jack, from the bullet wounds sustained in issue #1…Everybody goes to Cap’s grave, where they can observe a moment of silence before going back to the status quo…And everybody seems to have made it their mission to convince Tony Stark that he shouldn’t feel guilty over Cap’s death for no reason that makes sense. And Toro is raised from the dead but hasn’t appeared in a comic since (as of 12/13)…Bucky’s timeline does not change and his diary brings us the final pretentious lesson—but no one bothered to read it, too busy rejoicing that they made it through this pointless miniseries.

Comments: The title comes from Abraham’s Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, referring to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield. No inkers are credited for the series. The Golden Age heroes summoned by Paul Anselm include Whizzer, Black Marvel, Destroyer, Blue Diamond, Dynaman, Jack Frost, Citizen V, Defender, Human Top, Captain Wings, Angel, Patriot, Fiery Mask, Miss America, Red Raven, Dyna-Mite, Purple Mask, Marvex the Super-Robot, Spirit of '76, Young Avenger, Thunderer, Golden Girl. Appearing in cameos at Captain America’s tomb are Sentry, Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Wonder Man, Ares, She-Hulk, and Black Panther (T’Challa); the latter two make their only appearance in the mini-series here.

Presumably when Paul Anselm calls on the host of WWII heroes he brings them back to life from Red Skull's trophy wall before the universe gets put right. Which is why they're all here ready to attack the Nazis rather in whatever scattered places they will be returned to in the big reset.

Some of the heroes Paul conjures up were seen in #10, but many weren't.
Some of these others aren't actually Timely characters, but were invented by Roy Thomas in the Invaders:-
Golden Girl and Human Top formed the Kid Commandos with Bucky and Toro, and GG went on to help found the V-Battalion.
Captain Wings, Dyna-Mite and Spirit of '76 were members of the Crusaders. DM took over the role of Destroyer when Brian Falsworth changed to Union Jack, and he too was part of the V-Battalion. Spirit became the 2nd Captain America.
All the other extras are actual Timely characters. All have appeared in other modern Marvel comics:-
Blue Diamond, Miss America and Patriot were in Liberty Legion. MissA also joined the Invaders, and then All-Winners Squad along with Patriot as the 3rd CA.
BD was in All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes, and with Defender and Fiery Mask in Twelve #1. FM went on to be 1 of the Twelve who went into suspended animation and the rest of the Twelve mini-series.
Meanwhile Dynaman crops up in Marvel Zombies Destroy.