Even In Death...

Just as the Avengers/Invaders series was winding down in 2009, a compelling story was taking place in the pages of Captain America which also revisited the members of the super-team from the 1940s--or, in this case, what was left of them. Written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Steve Epting, Butch Guice, and Luke Ross, the story covers events from three time periods, which are briefly broken down as follows:

• Shanghai, 1942--Captain America, Bucky, the Human Torch, and the Sub-Mariner were part of a secret operation to rescue Professor Zhang Chin, a top Chinese scientist who, at age 12, was already something of a super-genius.
• Beijing, 1968--as the Winter Soldier, Barnes is sent by his Russian handlers to eliminate Chin, now a grown man. Barnes fails when he runs into Chin's bodyguard/agent, the Man With No Face, and is forced to withdraw.
• New York, present day--Barnes, now in the role of Captain America following the assassination of Steve Rogers, is following leads on the activities of Batroc, who's been commissioned to steal something currently in the custody of the United Nations. The mystery deepens when Batroc attacks a U.N. convoy transporting the "package," and Barnes finds himself again facing the Man With No Face.

If you're getting the impression that connecting the dots in this story is going to take some time, welcome to a textbook Brubaker tale--yet it's one of this writer's strengths, since his way of pacing a story places the reader practically in the midst of its characters where they virtually become part of the chain of events, putting the pieces together along with those who are directly involved. True, things tend to fall into place piecemeal, and slowly--but the characters don't suffer for it, while the reader becomes more deeply involved in the overall plot and finds their attention almost riveted. It's a consistent style that served Brubaker well on his very acclaimed run on the book.

The trigger for Barnes realizing that there's much more to Batroc's endgame appears to be the sudden presence of the Man With No Face in the convoy attack, who already knows that it's Barnes in the Captain America uniform and whose taunting words to Barnes indicate not only their prior meeting but also a much deeper plot in play here. A "failed" experiment of Chin's from the 1950s, the Man With No Face (consistently named "The Man Without A Face" in the book's introductory recaps, for whatever reason) had been China's attempt at their own super-soldier gone wrong, ending up being more spy than soldier, though no less effective--no longer human, unable to eat or sleep, but an agent who could fade in and out of shadows and whose abilities include becoming intangible and bringing down his enemies much like the Vision can. It was during the attack by the Man With No Face in the Winter Soldier's mission to kill Chin in '68 that Barnes was able to get a good look at Chin's experiments on human subjects before aborting his mission, which makes Barnes wonder if and why Chin has an interest in this particular operation.

It's a question that isn't unanswered for long, as the U.N. "package" is successfully extracted by Batroc's crew--and to his utter shock, Barnes recognizes its contents.

Though having Barnes at his mercy, the Man With No Face is forced to leave the scene due to the intervention of the Black Widow, Barnes' lover--and as the two compare notes later, at least some of the pieces begin to fall into place, given Barnes' memories of Chin's lab.

It doesn't take long for Barnes to realize that Chin--fascinated by the Torch when the Invaders rescued him in '42--wants to make the Torch into some kind of weapon. And so Barnes enlists the help of the Sub-Mariner in traveling to Taiwan to prevent Chin's plans with the Torch from reaching fruition. But in doing so, is he playing into the hands of the man who seeks revenge against the Winter Soldier for the loss he suffered? And is it possible that, on some level, Barnes is willingly walking into a trap?

Since Chin's whereabouts in Taipei City are unknown, Barnes begins a series of attacks meant to make himself as visible as possible and draw Chin's attention to himself as a target for capture, while the Sub-Mariner stands ready to infiltrate Chin's lab once its location is discovered. It's a strange circle that closes in respect to Chin, since we're never told how or why he began working with/was conscripted by the Chinese in the '40s, why he was "rescued," or, most strangely of all, why he returned to China in the '60s and resumed his work with the government. We'll perhaps learn part of those answers when we discover why he's now on the outs with the Chinese and based on an independent island nation regarded by China as a "rebel" region; suffice to say, his relationship with China in terms of his scientific endeavors seems to have been in flux for decades.

In the present, however, Chin appears to have his own private army, his own laboratories, and certainly his own agenda, independent of any governmental oversight--and of course his very loyal agent, the Man With No Face, whom Chin has worked to keep alive through it all. Currently, both are confident that Barnes will follow the trail of the Man With No Face to Taiwan, now that he realizes that Chin has his old friend and ally, the Torch. As for why Chin wants Barnes to find him, we can probably make a fair guess based on the intelligence that the Black Widow has gathered on the Winter Soldier's mission from '68--that among those he killed on his way to Chin was Chin's new bride, Li.

Yet it will turn out that Chin's revenge on Barnes (a desire he calmly denies, at least at first) is unrelated to his plans for the Torch--as Barnes discovers when he's captured and brought to Chin's lab, and sees for himself how Chin's new "weapon" is deployed against some of Chin's men who pay the price for having failed him.

But though Chin has assured Barnes that he won't be the next text subject for the Torch "combustion virus," Barnes is nevertheless forced to watch in horror as his contingency plan is revealed to be both captured and helpless to prevent his fate.

And while the virus does its grisly work, we at last learn the truth of Chin's goals--the details of which make him no less the madman, but from which we can assume that his relationship with his Chinese benefactors has been a rocky one, finally reaching the point where he's had to flee in order to proceed with a gruesome plan to invoke mass murder.

Yet Chin is due to receive two surprises this day--one involving Namor, while the other comes in the form of the Black Widow's arrival, who frees the Sub-Mariner from his tank and does the same for Barnes. Even the normally unperturbed Chin sees the writing on the wall, and races to activate a 30-second timer to release the virus on the masses; but the battle follows him, and both he and his deadly agent at last reach the end of their long dark path through the years.

A fitting final scene to the battle, since it leaves us with the loose end which has tied this entire story together, even though he's been confined to the background--the Human Torch, who even in death has managed to hold our attention and make us wonder as to what circumstances have brought him to this point. We never learn (at least to my knowledge) why the U.N. looked the other way in regard to his time as one of America's greatest heroes, and instead kept him in storage for study in complete secrecy--but Barnes sets things right with his friend, and the Torch receives the honors to which he was due. It's a fine ending to this saga, which later sees Barnes (as Captain America) visit the grave site and offer a respectful salute.

But the Torch isn't destined to rest in peace--for even as Barnes pays tribute to his fallen ally, events are taking shape which will again lead to the Torch being seized and used as a weapon of murder and destruction.  And this time, it will be his former partner who inadvertently becomes the catalyst.