2025: with the fall of the Rampart
America headed by King Babbington, Captain America finds himself king
of a struggling nation in all but name. His most pressing job is to
hold off foreign armies invading to take advantage of the power
vacuum and he doesn't know how he can.
His aide Liang has a surprise
for him: Bruce Banner has created a device which can send him back to
his own time so he can stop the rocket launch that led to Rampart's
conquest of the USA. Cap refuses, seeing all this as theoretical
while the people he has to protect now are real. For nearly a year,
Cap coordinates military activity with rebuilding the country,
reviving agriculture, erecting buildings, recreating utilities, and
more. ...and then New York is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.
Cap
then decides he does not belong there, they are winning battles and
losing the war because he is a soldier and doesn't know how to quit.
So he accepts Banner's offer to send him back; Liane asks him to look
her up when he gets home....
Cap arrives back in his own time just
as Rampart is freezing “him” in the ice. He assaults the enemy
ship, tearing his way through guards and soldiers until he reaches
the control room where Babbington is ready to launch the fateful
missile. Cap leaps on the missile, ripping it open with his bare
hands until it detonates, killing himself and stopping Rampart once
and for all....
The “other” Cap, breaks out of the ice and
wonders at what just happened.
Later, Steve writes to Sharon Carter,
updating her on his travels throughout the USA and assuring her that
he will be back when he is needed and he puts the letter in the hands
of a postal clerk—Liang.
Story #2: “THE GANTLET!”
Writer: Mark Waid. Pencils: Jack Kirby.
Inks: Frank Giacoia. Colors: Matthew Wilson.
Synopsis: Leaving Tony Stark's lab,
Captain America races to get the cure for a deadly disease to Nick
Fury; he runs into armored gunmen working for the Red Skull and
easily defeats them. A tough guy with a huge energy weapon starts
shooting at him; Cap stops him while trying to warn him that the
stolen weapon is unstable but it explodes in the thug's hands,
killing him. Cap then encounters Batroc the Leaper and they engage in
a duel that ends with the Frenchman's defeat. Cap reaches Fury with
the cure—and it's a cure for a virus infecting the Life Model
Decoys as part of the Red Skull's latest scheme.