Captain America #17: Review

Nov 2003

Dave Gibbons, Lee Weeks

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Story Name:

(No title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:

Captain America #17 Review by Peter Silvestro (August 10, 2010)

Review: A new creative team takes over for this fine epic. “What if the Nazis won World War 2?” is an overused science fiction trope but by having it center on Captain America, living legend of that war, makes it seem fresh and creative. Our (at least “my”) emotional investment in Cap is what gives the tale its impact. The art is especially good with several standout sequences, notably Cap’s slugging the Red Skull and that final panel, as Cap leaps to freedom. Can’t wait to see where this goes.

Comments: “Cap Lives:” Part 1 of 4. First of two issues published in November. The angry American seen at the bottom of page 13 resembles Cap’s creator Jack Kirby. Cap is said to have disappeared in 1944 unlike normal continuity. The outline of a dead Sub-Mariner is seen in the panel depicting the fall of Atlantis.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Captain America #17 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

The North Atlantic, March 1964: a Nazi submarine recovers a man frozen in a block of ice, floating in the water. Taken aboard the sub, Captain America is revived and sees he is surrounded by Nazis and with his last thought being of Bucky’s death, starts fighting them. A doctor manages to inject him with a sedative and the prisoner is delivered to New Berlin. Arriving at that destination, Cap is awoken and discovers that city is the former New York, now a Nazi showcase, with a giant image of Hitler replacing the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. The chained hero is delivered into the custody of an SS officer who explains that America lost World War 2 twenty years earler and transports him to the Empire State Building, now the headquarters of the Reichstag. There Cap is brought face-to-face with the Nazi ruler—the Red Skull. The Skull brags of the glories of the Nazi regime and gives Cap a history lesson: after Cap vanished, the tide of war turned against the allies, and advances in Nazi technology allowed them to develop greater weapons, including the atom bomb, leading to the invasion and conquest of North America. They then proceeded to purge the land of those deemed inferior and destroyed Atlantis. The Skull then offer Captain America a choice: join the Reich as a symbol of the Nazi victory and be treated as a hero, or refuse and be dissected for his biological secrets. Cap’s response: "Go to Hell!" and he slugs the Red Skull. Under hail of gunfire, Cap runs and crashes through a window, to freedom….

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