No Rest For The Weary at Greymoor Castle

 

In 1941, Greymoor Castle, located in (at that point in time) the most desolate part of northern Britain, became the site of "one of Captain America and Bucky's greatest battles," as Cap himself would put it forty years later. And though this particular castle doesn't technically meet the definition of having a storied past, it may fit Cap's description given that the 1965 story of that conflict by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers offered a plot that a reader of Cap's wartime adventures would find appealing: a German officer who receives his orders directly from the Red Skull... a plot to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill... a scientific breakthrough from the castle's lord, himself a German collaborator... Captain America's young partner, Bucky, captured and used to lure Cap into a trap (if I had a nickel...) ... and the likely charge of treason awaiting Steve Rogers, suspected of deserting his unit when it's caught in a Nazi pincer movement on the battlefield.

Yet it's also a story which bears a second look, as Cap decides over fifteen years later (our time), courtesy of writer Bill Mantlo and artist Gene Colan, as a figure from the castle's past roams its ruined halls wary of the ghosts which haunt him--and wary as well of the costumed intruder who arrives to find more than memories awaiting him in this ancient edifice.

First, though, let's step back to Greymoor's occupation in World War II by the troops of Major Uberhart, an officer under orders by the Red Skull to cooperate with this castle's lord, Cedric Rawlings, a scientist who is providing to Uberhart the means through which the Skull's enemy, Captain America, will be neutralized. Yet as pleased as he obviously is by the successful test of the Z-Rays he's harnessed, Rawlings finds that his sister, Celia, bemoans how her brother has embraced the role of traitor.

With Bucky's capture, the stage is set for luring Captain America to Greymoor, a destination he indeed heads for after discovering a German dispatch regarding Bucky during his unit's raid on the Gestapo's headquarters in a coastal French town--an in-and-out mission that Rogers exits in haste after its completion in order to commandeer a German plane and race to Bucky's rescue. Yet on approach, it becomes clear that he's been expected--and though Celia's warning to him saves Cap from a bullet from Uberhart's pistol, the trap using Rawlings' sleep gas is eventually triggered.

At this point, we would expect Cap and Bucky to be taken to the Z-Rays pit, as planned by Rawlings; but it turns out Uberhart has another fate in mind for the pair, as unwilling passengers on a V-2 missile which will target Churchill's residence on Downing Street (and a good deal of London, as well). Uberhart himself gives voice to the strange direction this story now takes, as the threat of the Z-Rays which received splash-page treatment is effectively jettisoned: "[Y]our experiments mean nothing to me! You were only tolerated because we needed you in order to trap Captain America!" Im gegenteil, Major--it was the Red Skull who arranged to send a team of saboteurs to Cap's army base to lure Bucky into their clutches, an operation which had nothing to do with Rawlings or his work. Afterward, the Z-Rays receive only token use when Rawlings prepares Bucky with brief exposure to them--but that scene would be the last we would see or hear about them for the duration of the story.

To make matters worse for Rawlings, whose value to Uberhart plummets now that both Cap and Bucky are prisoners, an additional passenger on the missile will be Celia, who in Uberhart's eyes has become a clear security risk.

Fortunately, both Cap and Bucky escape and deal with their captors--but not before Celia gives her life to save Cap from a soldier's gun shot. Before her death, she tells Cap of a radio message indicating the danger to the Rangers (Cap's unit) from German reinforcements--excellent targets for a V-2 rocket strike, providing that Rawlings, racked with grief and remorse over his sister's death, can be persuaded to help.

Which finally brings us to 1981 and the remains of Greymoor Castle, where Cap, preoccupied with his memories of his earlier time in this place, fails to hear an armored figure stalking him until it's almost too late.

Yes, it's the return of the Z-Rays--but seen to fruition this time, as we'll discover in a moment. And through Mantlo, who apparently also realized the rays received short shrift in the prior story, we learn that Rawlings was working with them as a means to condense rocket fuel to give greater range and striking power to Germany's V-2 missiles. (Which doesn't sound like something Uberhart would risk alienating Rawlings for, but what do I know.)

As for our armored attacker, he's decided to be more cordial this time around when Cap regains consciousness--even as his identity comes as something of a shock.

The sudden noise is a reminder that there is still the matter of Rawlings' "ghosts" to be dealt with--and though one assumption to make is that the castle is simply manifesting further signs of its deteriorating condition, Cap soon realizes that there's something, someone else at work here, an attacker that he pursues and confronts as only he can.

Good grief, the Demon Druid, a poor man's Diablo whom Cap obviously has a low opinion of as a credible threat but who nevertheless makes a good show of it with not only his own alchemy-based arsenal but also the tools at hand. And while it's entertaining in a way to see Cap taunting his foe with stinging insults, it's unsettling to see his overconfidence get the better of him, especially considering that the Druid has come to know Greymoor better than his foe and know where and when to strike to his advantage. Fortunately for Cap, a former foe has his back and acts in the nick of time (though Cap would have us think otherwise about just how helpless he was).

As to what brought the Druid to Greymoor in the first place, it turns out that the castle does have a storied history, after all--one which apparently didn't give Rawlings pause when he took possession of it, but can't help but remind one of the 1982 film Poltergeist in its implications.

(I don't imagine a V-2 missile blasting off over their graves made those Druids beneath Greymoor rest any easier.)

BONUS!
The splash pages from these two stories' respective beginnings.