The Sentinel of Liberty.

I think I’ll start first by introducing each character (without spoilers) as they are introduced in the story.  One post will be a story summary, the following post will be a review.

 

Introductions

Aleksander Lukin – Head of the Kronas Corporation, which deals in oil.  Extremely wealthy, and powerful in that he inherited many Soviet secrets.  Also has a grudge against everyone who helped the USSR fall.

Red Skull – A creation of Hitler, a Nazi bogeyman to instill fear to the world.  Outliving Hitler, the Skull moved away from Nazi ideas to pure anarchism, hoping to destroy the world.

Red Guardian – Soviet super soldier, a copy or knockoff of Captain America.

Steve Rogers – The first and original Captain America.  Created as a symbol of hope in hopes to give Allied soldiers a positive symbol, as opposed to the Red Skull.  Towards the end of WWII, he fell into the arctic and was preserved, the cold and super-soldier serum kept him alive in a suspended state.  After being found decades later, he resumed the mantle and fights alongside the Avengers as the sentinel of liberty, Captain America.

Sharon Carter – S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Agent 13, and Steve’s ex girlfriend.  A top ranking agent, she is well trained in combat and espionage.  She grew up around her Aunt Peggy Carter, who fought alongside Steve during WWII.

Bucky – James Buchanan Barnes, Steve’s partner in WWII.  Where Captain America was the face of US operations in WWII, Bucky was his shadow, performing covert ops.  Bucky died toward the end of WWII, and his death has haunted Steve.

Nick Fury – A soldier who fought alongside Captain America during WWII and is now the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Completely incorruptible, and stubborn, Fury will do whatever needs done. Not shy of espionage or getting his hands dirty, he’s a jerk, but he’s the damn best jerk there is.  He has not aged due to taking a different serum (Infinity Serum), which slows/stops aging.

Crossbones – Brock Rumlow, a crazed and deranged killer, trained by a few of the world’s best hit men.  A loyal servant to the Red Skull, there is nothing more he enjoys than causing chaos.

Union Jack – A title possessed by many men, and a precursor to Captain America.  The first Union Jack was a WWI figure, and is currently the UK’s top soldier.  A WWII version fought alongside Captain America in the Invaders.

Jack Monroe – The third man to pose as Bucky, and took an unfinished super soldier serum.  The serum was not stable, and caused him to go crazy, but he later on turned to a more normal life, and ran around as Nomad after being granted that identity from Steve Rogers.

William Naslund – After Steve was considered dead, William Naslund was approached by the President to take on the mantle of Captain America, so the world does not know Captain America died.  He fought till the end of the war, and continued until his death in battle.

Jeffery Mace – The third man to take on the mantle of Captain America.  Originally the Patriot, he came across Naslund’s body and took on the outfit to finish Naslund’s last mission, and then kept it to carry on as Captain America.  As it came to the 50’s, he retired and passed away of old age.

Fred Davis – The second Bucky, who served alongside both Naslund and Mace while they were Captain America.

The Invaders – A WWII team of super powered individuals that fought alongside of the Allied forces.  Comprising of Namor (of Atlantis), Union Jack and Spitfire (from the UK), the Torch, Toro, Captain America and Bucky, and some other individuals that fought alongside them.

Winter Soldier – The top Soviet assassin, kept in cryostorage.  Used only for top priority assignments, his identity is known only by a few, and even Nick Fury is not too sure on who he is.

S.H.I.E.L.D. – Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.  UN sanctioned task-force to keep the world safe, headed by Nick Fury.

Cosmic Cube – Cube shaped device that can alter reality.  Immensely powerful, and has a tendency to be abused.  All it needs to activate is contact by any living thing.  Can be used once when charged, but then requires energy to be recharged.  Energy, such as the life force of people.

Helicarrier – S.H.I.E.L.D.’s base of operations, a flying fortress.

 

 

On to the story!

Captain America:   Out of Time

The book begins with a flashback, to the fall of the USSR.  Soviet secrets are up for trade, and a man by the name of Alexander Lukin selling some tech.  This interests one particular villain, Nazi war criminal and now anarchist, Johann Schmidt, better known as the Red Skull.  The Soviets however had a countermeasure, as this vault was guarded by the Red Guardian (a Soviet version of Captain America).   Unfortunately, the Red Guardian is dispatched with a bullet to the head.  The Skull enjoys it, while Lukin remarks he took no pleasure in what he did.  As the Skull browses the collection, he is impressed by a man in a cryostasis tank, and wonders if that is for sale, but it is not.  Lukin has other plans, and is only interested in a Cosmic Cube which the Skull has, but the Skull is not interested in trading.  The Skull does however; take a look at some exceptional weaponry, including a gun that can displace its victim.

In the present day, Steve Rogers is being drilled on how he is doing by his ex-girlfriend, Sharon Carter (Agent 13).  Rogers has not been doing well, and has become slightly more aggressive since the Red Skull escaped from prison.  She questions if he is ok, but he tells her that his nightmares are back, all the people he could not save during the war still haunt him to this day.  And of course, Bucky.  The past of Steve Rogers is the one thing he cannot put behind him.  He can’t shake the feeling something bad is going to happen.

As the Red Skull prepares to make his move, with the Cube in hand, he receives a call from Lukin, and they taunt each other.  The Skull is ready to shake the world, but is suddenly unable to do so.  He falls, and there is a gaping wound through his chest.  A man picks up the phone, and tells Lukin that he accomplished his mission, the Red Skull is dead.

The following day, both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America arrive after a tip off, to find the Red Skull dead.  Steve thinks it’s a trick, but DNA samples confirm that it is the Red Skull, minus a big hole in the chest.  The Cube is also missing.

Cap and Agent 13 check in the sewers, and find a terrorist group known as AID (Advanced Ideas in Destruction) working for the Skull.  They were waiting for a signal from him, one that never came.  Cap and Agent 13 defuse the firebomb that was set, but are observed from the shadows by Crossbones.  As Crossbones finds out the Red Skull is dead, he begins a plan that he hopes will cause the world to burn in the Red Skull’s memory.

Across the pond in London, Union Jack scours the underground for the Skull’s agents, and finds them all slaughtered.  Whoever went after the Skull, is not content with killing him and ending it there, and wants everything the Skull planned to fail.

The nightmares are getting worse, Steve beings to remember the last memories he had of Bucky, and how they were captured towards the end of the war.

Back in the US, in a small town bar, Jack Monroe watches the news of Captain America.  Though drunk, no one believes that he was Captain America’s partner, being the third person to take on the role of Bucky.  As he gives up trying to convince the bartender, he leaves, only to be met by a shadowy figure asking if he is Jack Monroe.  As he says yes, he is shot and killed.

Lukin prepares to expand his empire, and is revealed to be the one behind the assassinations of both Jack Monroe and the Red Skull.  His first stop, energy conglomerate, and goes off to a stockholder meeting.  Lukin desires power in a social stance, and not physical.  Though Captain America can beat him in a fight, how will he stand up against a corporation?

At S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent 13 and Fury discuss the weapon that killed the Red Skull, as it turned up with the prints of Jack Monroe.  He was crazy, but a good man in the end.  This doesn’t make any sense.  But Monroe would have the motivation to kill the Skull, and so Sharon is off to investigate Monroe.

Steve is en route to Arlington National cemetery, where the tombstones of William Naslund and Jeffery Mace have been defaced.  These two men followed in Steve’s footsteps, and whoever did this, was calling him out.  Cap talks with a worker there, how he would have liked to have seen the civil rights movement, and the moon landing.

Steve has another flashback, again of Bucky.  But while his mind is elsewhere, he’s ambushed by Crossbones, thinking Steve killed the Red Skull.  The flashbacks however, hinder Steve as he is unable to fight back, though Steve quips at him about destroying tombstones, to which Crossbones denies, he was told by a Russian that Steve killed the Skull.  Steve denies killing the Skull, and even Crossbones knows that Captain America is not a liar.  Crossbones abandons the fight, saying he’s not the Russian’s pawn.  Now Steve realizes it has to be someone Russian who took down the Skull.

In Philadelphia, Sharon investigates the area S.H.I.E.L.D. got a tip off about, regarding Jack Monroe.  As she wanders the premises, she meets up with a somewhat familiar face, that causes her to hesitate, and gets knocked out.

On board the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, Steve and Fury discuss the Russian, and come to realize it is Aleksander Lukin who is behind this.  But he is a rich corporate man, not a villain, so why would he do all this?  Fury says Lukin has been under wraps as he was KGB, a protégé of a high ranking official by the name of Karpov.  Steve has met Karpov… at the village of Kronas.  Fury hasn’t heard of that place, and Steve explains it was wiped off the map by the Nazis during WWII.

Steve explains that the city was under attack by the Nazis in WWII, and he led the Invaders there.  Karpov was a Soviet soldier fighting alongside Cap, but did not share his views.  Torture and execution were fine in his eyes, to which both Cap and Bucky did not agree with.  In the battle for the village, Karpov noted both the Invaders and Nazis had their own super soldiers, but the USSR had nothing but loss.  What Steve did not know, is that among the ruins of that village, Karpov met a small boy just orphaned by the fighting.  His name was Aleksander Lukin.  As Steve leaves Fury, it is revealed that Fury is holding back on some classified Intel.  A dossier, labeled ‘Winter Soldier’.

Back in Philadelphia, the shadowy figure that killed both the Skull and Monroe is setting up a bomb.  One that will cause enough chaos to fuel the Cosmic Cube, which somehow ran out of power after being fully charged by the Skull.  Also with him is Sharon Carter, tied up and locked in a car, and Jack Monroe’s body, as a scapegoat.

Fury sends an agent off to investigate where Sharon is, as she has gone missing.  Meanwhile Steve visits an area in Europe where he last saw Bucky alive, to provide some clues and fill in the gaps in his memory.  As he explores the island, he comes to a runway, and recalls the last moments of Bucky.  The two of them chase down a drone, and try to defuse it before it reaches its target.  Bucky being smaller, grabs hold of it first, while Steve catches only the tail end of it.  Steve loses his grip and yells to Bucky to let go, but Bucky yells that he’s stuck to it by his left arm.  It wasn’t aiming for a city; it was a trap for Steve, one that Bucky fell into.  The drone explodes, and Steve falls into the arctic.  In the present, he realizes now that Bucky could not let go, he was stuck.

Steve gets a premonition, that Sharon is in trouble (sent from the Cube, or whoever has it), and rushes off to Philadelphia.  Like a knight in armor, he drops down and saves Sharon, but then is told by Sharon it’s a trap.  She has seen the guy who killed the Skull, and the killer is none other than Bucky.  And it’s a trap set for Steve, as he would be off saving Sharon, while Bucky (revealed to be the Winter Soldier) detonates a device that causes Philadelphia to go up in flames.  And from afar, Lukin smiles as the Cube is now charged…