Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Steve Rogers uses his shield to protect himself as the government building, site of a bombing, collapses around him. Donning his Captain America costume, he cuts his way out of the rubble to confront the terrorist responsible. He fights with the mastermind behind the Centerville attack, a man with a burned face, subduing him to turn over to the police. Cap questions him about the CATtags, which he led his followers to believe could transfer their consciousness to a new body at death. The arriving police, however, turn out to be the terrorist’s gang, and they overpower Cap. The leader orders his men away, claiming for himself the right to kill Captain America. He explains to Cap that only his CATtag has to ability to keep its wearer immortal, and that selling the tags to the US Military was easy, so that his scheme to commit mass murder of service personnel will go forward. As the two fight, they drop through the rubble into the bowels of the building. The villain offers a challenge to Cap: he will surrender with all his men, if Cap can tell where he is from. His parents were simple farmers, killed with American-supplied weapons, his own face burned—which of America’s many conflicts was this part of? Cap defends his nation, blaming the leaders, not the people, insisting that his nation has changed and will change. As the hero beats his foe, he insists that if the terrorist truly felt the suffering of the innocent, he would die rather than inflict it on anyone else: all he is capable of feeling is his own hatred. Cap, seeing from the villain’s CATtag that he is still alive, rededicates himself, with his people, to the cause of freedom and peace.