During a regular physical from Avengers physician Dr.
Kincaid, Captain America
learns that the Super-Soldier Serum has regenerated in his body since having it
removed in issue #378. Cap and the Doc wonder whether it could be the exposure
to extreme cold, first when he spent years on ice, and recently when he tried
to rescue D-Man in #349. By some coincidence, Peggy Carter informs Cap that a tabloid
is reporting that a man frozen in ice in the Arctic is
being worshipped by Eskimos. On the possibility that D-Man has been found, Cap
has John Jameson fly him to the Arctic where they show
him the outline of a man in a frozen mound. Cap hammers at it with his shield
as the Eskimos warn in their language that the man keeps the ice demon at bay.
The mound cracks—and reveals that it is a portion of a gigantic ice-worm, newly
wakened and very angry. Cap radios for help from Thor and battles the monster;
he ends up riding it like a bull until it sucks him into its gullet. In the icy
interior Cap finds the other man before blacking out….
Cap awakens to find he has been rescued from the ice-worm by
a former colleague of his: Jack Frost of the Liberty Legion. After the war he
was searching for his identity when he tricked the worm into swallowing him
then freezing the monster’s heart, thus sacrificing himself to defeat the worm.
Now Cap’s arrival has allowed him to escape—but the Ice-Worm is free too. Cap
and Jack Frost battle the giant creature in vain—until Jack Frost again gives
his life to trap the worm all over again. Thor arrives to find he is too late
to the rescue; Cap relates the story and it all seems familiar to the God of
Thunder. Cap bears tribute to the heroic Jack Frost, unaware that D-Man is
frozen not too far away….