Captain America: Hail Hydra! (2011 series) #2

Prologue: Mesopotamia, 2761 B.C.: the sorcerer-priest Lord Gidim (who resembles the Hydra scientist Dr. Geist) is summoned to a tomb and shown what appear to be the bones of the mighty king Gilgamesh. When he sees the glow of power they give off he is convinced they are genuine and takes them for his work….

At the grave of Bucky Barnes in Arlington National Cemetery, Steve Rogers meets with a now middle-aged Trude Lohn (issue #1) who places flowers on Bucky’s grave and fills in Cap on her activities since the War, mainly fighting Communists. Each then discovers they thought the meeting was called by the other…suddenly the trap is sprung as a grim figure bursts out of Bucky’s grave; it is Erlking, one of the immortal monsters created by Dr. Geist and Hydra. As Steve changes into his Captain America costume and fights the resurrected foe, he discovers that the rest of Geist’s Auferstehungs Corps of undead Nazis has them surrounded….

Interlude: At the temple of Athena in Phaselis, Lycia, 323 B.C.:, Lord Mormo (also resembling the grinning Geist) invades the tomb and makes off with a spear stained by the blood of the warrior-hero Achilles, ordering his men to slay the priests who object….

Back at Arlington, the other Avengers (Thor, Iron Man, Wasp, Giant-Man) suddenly appear as Cap had suspected a trap and asked them to wait out of sight. A full-out battle takes place as Geist and his superior Baron Strucker observe from a nearby hill. Their plan is proceeding well so they order their forces to withdraw. In the confusion, Trude Lohn is shot with a poisoned bullet. Later at Avengers Mansion, the heroes examine the body of a foe gunned down in the melee; the subject appears to have been dead for years, leading the heroes to speculate on the nature of the Hydra’s immortality. Cap gets an emergency summons to the hospital. He rushes to Trude’s bedside where the dying agent warns him of a secret society, bent on not merely conquering death but achieving godlike powers. Back at the Mansion, the dead enemy rises from the lab table and overpowers Giant-Man. When the others return they are met by Geist, in a high-tech battle-suit, and his undead henchmen. The villain tells Cap that he was injected with the Lazarus Pathogen many years earlier (issue #1) which is what enabled him to survive his apparent death in the War. Cap is now one of them….

Interlude: Ribe, Jutland, A.D. 710: Draugr (Geist again) unearths the bones of a giant and opens a sealed chest to recover a dart, the Arrow of Hoder who slew Balder, a weapon capable of killing a god. His goal: immortality….

In the ensuing battle, Iron Man is disabled with an E.M.P. from Geist and Thor is shot in the back with the Arrow of Hoder. The villains then inexplicably withdraw, leaving Cap with the feeling that they just lost….

Epilogue: At Hydra Headquarters, Baron Strucker berates Geist for revealing their presence and risking their Auferstehungs Corps in a sortie against the Avengers. Geist is unconcerned: he has achieved his goal. With the Arrow of Hoder they have obtained the blood of a god, along with that of Captain America. It is safely stored away, until the science of genetics has matured. Hydra has waited millennia for its project, it can wait a little longer….