Falcon spies the presumably-dead
Nighthawk soaring through the skies and pursues; Nighthawk notices
this unwelcome companion and fires a beam which sets a building on
fire, forcing Falcon to stop and tend to the problem....
At the Brooklyn Heights HQ of Captain
America, Cap is planning a campaign with the aid of SHIELD's Contessa
Valentina, who will provide him with ordnance but not manpower. Cap
gets a call....
Elsewhere, Bernie Rosenthal is a
prisoner of the new Super-Patriot who is her old pal Mike Farrel;
Mike explains that after his involvement with the Watchdogs vigilante
group, he was persuaded by Cap to turn himself in and cooperate with
the authorities. The result was a prison term that ruined his life;
now he wants revenge. All of a sudden, his partner Lou a/k/a/ Dead
Ringer arrives as Nighthawk and demands an explanation for Bernie's
presence. He detects that Mike is weakening in his resolve to take
vengeance against Captain America....
Responding to his earlier phone call,
Cap meets with Falcon who tells him that he saw a dead hero; Cap
responds by telling his old friend about his health troubles,
staggering Sam....
Meanwhile, Superia tells her unwilling
servitor Diamondback that she has discovered a cure for Cap's
condition if Diamond is willing to risk her life as a Guinea pig to
test it....
Cap gets a call from Bernie calling for
help. He heads to the scene, unaware that it is a trap....
The gravely-ill Arnie Roth collapses
and Free Spirit and Jack Flag rush him to the hospital....
Dead Ringer bullies Mike into preparing
to spring the trap on Cap; he ends up relating his origin to Bernie:
When he found his father dead from a heart attack, he touched the
body and was instantly transformed into his father, down to the
clothes. After a while, he decided to use his (mutant?) ability to
mimic the life of someone powerful. He started robbing the graves of
dead supervillains, and by taking a finger from the bodies he has the
ability to impersonate them again and again. Cap bursts in and the
surprised Dead Ringer takes on the form of Daredevil foe
Death-Stalker. Cap's new weapons prove useless against a foe who can
turn intangible. In the melee DR reveals his ultimate plan—to kill
and add Captain America to his repertoire of identities. Shocked,
Mike stops DR from killing Bernie by grabbing his deadly hand,
allowing Cap to clobber the villain but also sacrificing his own
life. Bernie informs Cap that Super-Patriot was their old friend Mike
Farrel...
The final page shows us in parallel,
Mike on the floor, Arnie Roth on a hospital bed, and Diamondback in
the lab, as Superia proclaims that her antidote works....
Story continues in AVENGERS 386.