Captain America #245: Review

May 1980

Roger McKenzie, Joe Rubinstein

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Story Name:

The Calypso Connection!

Review & Comments

Rating:

Captain America #245 Review by Peter Silvestro (April 27, 2014)

Review: Carmine Infantino’s art is the saving grace of this weak issue. While attempting to raise awareness of the Holocaust among the young is commendable, this story, with its one-dimensional characters and lame ending, fails to be anything other than some cheap dramatics. The plot begins well enough with Anna’s memories of the concentration camp but the rest of the plot is nearly nonexistent—the underdeveloped Nazis and the Hellers are mere plot devices not people. Worst of all, the story raises the issue of repentance and forgiveness but fails to address it, opting instead to just shoot the remorseful former Nazi commander. Cheap melodrama all around. Sadly the best part turns out to be Cap’s visit to the diner in the opening pages, surely not what the writer intended. The Holocaust was handled much better in issue #237.

Comments: The Diebenwald camp is fictitious but Anna’s experiences were typical of the Holocaust. This comic is the only appearance of Aaron and Marie Heller.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #245 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

After helping the police clean up the after effects of his encounter with Adonis (last issue), Captain America stops by a late-night diner for a slice of apple pie. His appearance causes a sensation and soon the diner owner is mounting a huge sign that reads "Captain America ate here."

The next day, Anna Kappelbaum is chatting with the butcher on her shopping trip and her minds goes back to her days in the concentration camp Diebenwald where she was forced to play in a band and to be the sex slave of a visiting Nazi officer…. Suddenly she spies a familiar face in the store and faints; the mystery man beats a hasty retreat. Later in the hospital, she is visited by Nazi hunter Aaron Heller and his daughter Marie; they know she has spotted Klaus Mendelhaus, the sadistic Butcher of Diebenwald, and vow to bring him to justice….

That evening, Steve’s pals throw a surprise party for his birthday—but Anna, who had been released from the hospital, is not there. Steve goes to her apartment and finds it ransacked. He is met by the Hellers who tell him she has been kidnapped by the neo-Nazi group Calypso. Captain America races to their lair in an abandoned church where the captive Anna discovers that Mendelhaus is also a prisoner of the neo-Nazis who want him to lead their new Reich. Cap bursts in and takes on the Nazis. The Hellers arrive and Aaron intends to execute Mendelhaus, despite the ex-Nazis having repented of his evil deeds. Heller suffers a heart attack and Anna scoops up his gun intending to shoot her childhood tormentor. Mendelhaus pleads for forgiveness and Anna lowers the gun—but Marie Heller shoots him as a memorial to her now-dead father. Cap says something about tempering justice with mercy.

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