In
the days after the July 4th attack in New York City, Captain America
can’t locate his partner Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier….
Cap
is contacted by his elderly allies in the Radio Company, including Roger Aubrey,
the former Destroyer. More coded messages are being exchanged, sounding
like moves in a board game but on a much greater scale and for much higher
stakes….
As
Steve, he talks over his concerns with his friends from art school, mainly the
bad guy’s claim (last issue) that the shield is not Cap’s symbol but “theirs.”
Steve realizes he doesn’t even know the name of the man who created his shield.
A quick phone search by one of the guys yields the name David Agboje….
While
Steve is teaching the neighbor kid Amari how to fight back against bullies, the
boy casually refers to the Forge, which Steve recognizes as something mentioned
in one of the coded messages. It’s a green-energy power plant in Germany…
…so
Cap heads there to find the Forge has been captured by a band of bad guys in
black armor. Cap dives into action, freeing hostages and fighting the baddies,
whom he recognizes as agents of Hydra, A.I.M. and the Hand. Then he spots SHIELD
Agent Ortiz among the attackers and he says he is merely following orders. Then
a huge airship resembling Cap’s shield hovers over the plant. Aboard, five mystery
people, identified as The Machine, The Money, The Power, Love, and The
Revolution, vote to “redact,” Love abstaining, and a missile is shot out of the
ship towards Cap and in midair it opens up into a silver-armored warrior who
connects with the shield….
In
Madripoor, Bucky Barnes enters an elite casino and sits down to play Baccarat;
he reveals that this is just a pretext for a meeting with the game’s organizer,
one of the five points of the Outer Circle, Peggy Carter….