Nomad (Jack Monroe) is a prisoner in
the Florida asylum of Dr Faustus, being subjected to drugs and
hypnosis designed to brainwash him. A vision of a gruesome parody of
Captain America calling him a coward fails to do it. Jack recalls how
he got into this predicament: he was staggering drunkenly down a
street in Tampa Bay when the Wanderers, Faustus' mercenary gang, came
upon him in a car and roped him, dragging him through the streets by
the neck before they tranquilized him and delivered him to their
boss....
Interlude 1: Senator Bart Ingrid has a
secret late night meeting with Zaran, the Weapons Master, delivering
him a powerful gun with which to kill Jack Monroe....
Interlude 2: Giscard Epurer has Jack's
sister, farm wife Jill Coltrain a captive while demanding to know
Jack's whereabouts to prevent him from killing Senator Ingrid....
With Jack fighting off all of Faustus'
attempts to control him, the villain decides to use Program 130D
which will either break him or kill him. Jack relives his childhood
when at the age of three, he was brutally beaten by his father for
going down into the cellar where the Monroes had a secret Nazi base,
to keep Jack and his sister from ever revealing the secret to the
outside world. This finally breaks through Jack's will and spirit,
leaving him a pliable agent of Faustus....
Jack is sent on his mission, leading
the Wanderers in an effort to assassinate gang boss Ulysses Lugman,
a/k/a/ the Slug. That night, Jack and his team arrive at Slug's
mansion only to be confronted by the mobster's own gang of
mercenaries, Cannibal Catch. As the two teams of soldiers mix it up,
Nomad enters the building and locates the morbidly obese Slug and
squeezes off a shot at him. The shot is deflected by a
red-white-and-blue shield and Captain America appears promising to
take down Jack for good....
Story continues in CAPTAIN AMERICA #421.