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Captain America #330: Review

Jun 1987
Mark Gruenwald, Tom Morgan

Story Name:

Night Shift

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Captain America #330 Review by (October 4, 2015)
Comments: Part three of four parts. First meeting of Cap and the Power Broker. First appearance of Night Shift, a team of former villains recruited for the light side by the Shroud; many of these characters had previously appeared in SPIDER-WOMAN #50 where presumably they met the Shroud; the team would largely appear with the West Coast Avengers in their book. The line-up is the Brothers Grimm, Needle, Gypsy Moth, Digger, Misfit, Tatterdemalion, Tick-Tock, Dansen Macabre, Hangman, and Werewolf. The Werewolf is Jack Russell, star of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, one of Marvel’s early 70s monster comics. Digger was “host” of the anthology horror comics TOWER OF SHADOWS and CHAMBER OF SECRETS.

Review: Better art raises this installment above the last one as the proceedings have a slightly grittier feel, appropriate for a story set in a sewer. With a large increase in the number of characters the action becomes quite chaotic but there’s no trouble following anything and each of the colorful gang of misfit heroes gets something to do—though it seems to be mostly Tick-Tock, whose power is the ability to see a few seconds into the future. He’s quite amusing. In the climax the battle between Cap and the mad D-Man has a nice claustrophobic feel and is quite thrilling. One good thing to come is that guest penciler Tom Morgan will soon get the chance to do more on the title pretty soon. In addition to the art the writing is suddenly a lot more creative with this chapter of the four-issue arc, and it’s always cool when a hero has to fight a temporarily bad friend. Cool all around.




 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #330 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

In the sewer, Captain America is fighting a cadre of gruesome creatures—failed results of the Power Broker’s augmentation experiments. Meanwhile, Cap’s companion, the villainous Dr Karl Malus panics and flees only to run into the arms of a werewolf. Cap hears Malus’ scream and takes off after him, escaping the monsters only to face another band of them; he seems trapped—suddenly, an unfamiliar band of heroes called the Night Shift arrive and do battle with the mutants. Cap seizes the opportunity to continue his search for Malus and he runs into the same werewolf. But the Shroud, leader of the Night Shift, and the rest of the team appear, with Malus their prisoner. Shroud surrounds Cap with his cloak of darkness while he explains something he doesn’t want the others to hear: the rest of the Night Shift thinks they are villains unaware that Shroud is employing them for the greater good. Shroud has Malus hypnotized by Dansen Macabre to reveal the location of the Power Broker’s home….

Soon Cap and the Shroud are leading the Night Shift in an assault on the mastermind’s estate, dodging traps and taking out henchmen as they penetrate the mansion. They discover the Power Broker in bed; as he lowers the bed though the floor only Cap can jump aboard as the passage closes above him. Cap recognizes his foe as Curtiss Jackson, member of the sinister Corporation (last seen in issue #230) and they ride a secret underground car to the labs where Cap finds his partner D-Man and an unknown woman (actually the new Ms. Marvel Sharon Ventura) hooked up to various machines. Cap tries to release D-Man but a) Jackson locks him in and b) Dennis has been driven out of his mind by further attempts at augmentation. Cap spends a grim half hour dodging his berserk friend in the small room until the treatment wears off and Dennis is back to normal—immediately suffering a heart attack….



Tom Morgan
Sam Delarosa
Ken Feduniewicz
Mike Zeck (Cover Penciler)
Bob McLeod (Cover Inker)
? (Cover Colorist)


Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Captain America
Captain America

(Steve Rogers)



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