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Captain America #324

Dec 1986
Mark Gruenwald, Paul Neary

Captain America #324 cover

Story Name:

Speed Trap


Synopsis

Captain America #324 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 3 stars

Late one night, Captain America crashes through the skylight of a warehouse to stop a weapons heist. To his surprise they are only a bunch of kids and the “weapons” are water guns—Cap’s tip was a prank. The kids are afraid of him, having heard that Cap shot the terrorist in issue #322; again he tries to explain but the kids walk away….

Some miles away, the villain known as Whirlwind visits the lab of the Terrible Tinkerer; he is tired of being a loser and wants upgraded weaponry. The Tinkerer provides him with stronger armor and deadly buzz saws on his wrists. The Trapster arrives to show Tink his new invention Lubricant Z. The two baddies decide to team up….

In yet another place, a mustachioed Nomad is beating up crooks demanding to know how to find the Slug. He is directed to the Milky Way nightclub in Miami….

While Cap broods over this blow to his reputation, Whirlwind and Trapster (a/k/a Dave and Pete) want one big victory to show that they aren’t losers and settle on taking down Captain America. Jack (Nomad) Monroe takes a job at the nightclub owned by his quarry….

So Steve Rogers is driving through Tennessee on his way to New York to meet with a publicity agent when he receives a call for help from Nomad in North Carolina. We are shown that it is a trap set by Trapster and Whirlwind. Steve arrives at the diner “Nomad” directed him to and hears about sudden twisters in the area. One occurs while he sits there and he quickly dons his Cap outfit and investigates. Recognizing Whirlwind, Cap challenges him and after a brief scuffle, the bad guy leads Cap on a chase. Cap on his cycle soon hits the trap—a patch of highway coated with Trapster’s new lubricant. Sliding out of control, Cap hits a patch of glue and his boots and shield are stuck as Whirlwind and Trapster take him on. Cap lassoes Whirlwind and tosses him onto the glue, then jumps out of his boots to beat up Trapster. No problem but it gives Cap an idea of how to break free from his current predicament….

In Miami, Jack Monroe is sent to work on the big boss’s private yacht. Heading to the boat that evening, Jack is introduced to his boss—and quarry—the grotesquely fat crimelord called the Slug….


 

Review / Commentaries


Captain America #324 Review by (August 29, 2015)
Comments: Part one of two parts. First (brief) appearance of the Slug. It isn’t mentioned where Cap is in the opening scene that he would be driving through Tennessee to return to New York or how the two villains would know roughly where he was to set a trap. One of the letters on the letters page is from David Goyer, future comics writer and author of the screenplays for BATMAN BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT, and the BLADE trilogy, plus much more.

Review: Nicely done tale is less than thrilling because of the second-rate villains Cap fights. Whirlwind and Trapster are hardly formidable foes and worse, the reader knows this going in. A great story can be told featuring a lame villain, as with Porcupine in #315 and Armadillo in #308 and 316 but then the emphasis is not on the action per se but rather on the character of the bad guy. Here, we just have Cap escaping from a trap with no particular insights into the two bad guys other than that they are tired of being laughed at. And then there’s that ghastly moral as Cap realizes that he was stuck to his public image just like glue—and as he freed himself from the glue he can unstuck himself from his predicament. Yikes, that’s a long way to go for a heavy-handed metaphor!


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Main/1st Story Full Credits

Paul Neary
Vince Colletta
Ken Feduniewicz
Mike Zeck (Cover Penciler)
John Beatty (Cover Inker)
Unknown (Cover Colorist)


Characters

All stories. Listed in alphabetical order.

Captain America
Captain America

(Steven Rogers)
Whirlwind
Whirlwind

(David Cannon)


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