Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Captain America (Vol. 3), Issue #2 – “To Serve and Protect”! In the previous installment, the adventure begins with Captain America plopped in the middle of Tokyo out of nowhere for no reason and he doesn’t remember anything! It’s revealed that he disappeared after a fight with Onslaught while he was with his fellow Avengers, and that was about a year prior. Iron Man and Thor are also missing, but their whereabouts are currently unknown.

To make matters worse, Captain America was plopped in the middle of Tokyo during anti-westernization-related public unrest on the night of the Captain America movie premier! GUHH!! Not good! He fights members of Strikeforce Ukiyoe, a nationalist group, as well as a villain named Deathstrike, a woman with Wolverine claws who was possessed by an ancient spirit?? Don’t ask. I didn’t.

And now some other costume-clad villain motherfucker is going to start messing with Captain America’s shit. Kang the Conqueror! America has a lot of enemies. Makes sense.

Ready to see what happens next? Are ya? Are ya?!

Captain America (Vol. 3), Issue #2 [February, 1998]
Written by: Mark Waid
“To Serve and Protect”

Captain America is on the deck of a naval ship. Some dipshit in a green suit is holding a knife against the throat of some nerd four-eyes scientist. “Let me pass or the hostage dies!” says the Green Suit Dipshit. “You may have won the battle against Team Alpha…but you lost when Team Beta escaped with its spoils!” Before this exchange even started, Captain America threw his shield up in the air. Remember that, now!

I don’t know who the Hydra Organization is, but I guess Captain America is fighting a group that’s associated with the Hydra Organization. He’s fighting a bunch of green-suited dipshits. This is the last one standing.

The Hydra Organization is only half an hour away from commencing a nuclear strike on the United States! BA HAW HAW HAW HAWWW!! This particular dipshit in a green suit, the one holding four-eyes hostage, he finally notices that Captain America doesn’t have his shield. He’s taken aback for a split second when Captain America doesn’t seem concerned, but presses on with his tough-guy schtick. And just when Mr. Green Suit gets ready to pull the trigger on the gun he has aimed at the Good Captain, “SP’TANG!”!

“SP’TANG!” is the sound of the shield coming back down to Earth and knocking that fucker to the ground. Four-Eyes is unharmed. Sp’tang, indeed.

This is where I learn that the shield is made of an adamantium/vibranium alloy! Wow! Cool metals.

Captain America strains to understand the Admiral’s jargon; words such as “infiltrated” and “computer”.

With the green dipshits deposed, the admiral of the ship arrives on the deck. He looks kind of like the T-1000 from Terminator 2. “Admiral, please tell me the Hydra didn’t get the virus!” whines Mr. Four-Eyes Scientist. The admiral is like “Of course they have the virus, nerd.” Captain America is confused, so Admiral T-1000 launches into a long, boring explanation!

So this submarine, the U.S.S. McNugget, once the next satellite picks up on the submarine’s location, the submarine’s computers will automatically upload the virus to the satellite and then transmit the virus to every single other navigational computer in the fleet! Oh no! What does this have to do with Japan?! I thought we were supposed to be in Japan! This isn’t Japan goddamnit!

Anyway, once this stupid virus corrupts the fleet’s computers there will be no way to anticipate Hydra’s attacks. The admiral’s only idea is to destroy the submarine before it can transmit the computer virus. Millions of innocent civilian lives vs. the lives of the submarine crew. This truly is the trolley problem, ain’t it? What a conundrum! Bzzt! Wrong! It’s NOT a conundrum! Nuke the submarine to smithereens, no brainer right there. Those dumbasses signed up for the military, it comes with the job! Bing bang boom.

But nooooo, Captain America is going to HEROICALLY attempt to save ALL lives like some sort of ALL LIVES MATTER kind of guy. “How much time before the uplink?” he asks. When told 22 minutes, he says “Give me 21!”. Yeah, ok, Chris Evans. Slow your roll.

Meanwhile, on the doomed submarine, another group of green-suited dipshits are holding the crew hostage and preparing for their unceremonious executions. “We will honor last requests…provided they are for a quick death!” says Dipshit Prime. There’s a racketous clanging sound coming from the torpedo tube, which distracts our Mean Green Gang. When one of them investigates the tube and opens the chamber, OUT BURSTS CAPTAIN AMERICA! “Knock, knock” he says as a full-page spread of his crotch entrances his faithful readers.

Yeehaw! Get’m Cap’n! You shore gave thems whatfer. Gon’ need m’jug o’ wine t’ cel’brate.

The submarine crew of fucking yokels cheers on the Good Captain as he makes short work of these interchangeable green men. Sound effects like “SP’TANG!” and “THWAM!” and “CHUD!” and “FWOK!” fill the pages as Captain America fights the good fight!

“Hey! Howcum we’re lettin’ him have all th’ fun?” asks some drooling hick. Pretty soon, the crew starts beating up these Hydra blowjobs along with the Cap’n. Too little too late, though, there’s more of these guys on the submarine than the Cap’n thought and there’s not much time before the vessel gets blown to smithereens! Smithereens, I say! Drastic times call for drastic measures, I always say! It’s the *glances at notecards* American way!

Captain runs up to the submarine…control center…cockpit…thing, and tells the guy at the controls to start diving, This enrages a Green Guy. “We cannot link to the satellite unless we are surfaced!” he snarls. “Think again!” bellows Captain America as he flings his big, stupid shield at the guy, which ricochets off of him and busts up the controls. “We’re on a suicide run!” he declares, which doesn’t sound very comforting!

As the Green Dudes plan their attack against Cap’n Crunch, the Cap’n heads back down to the other part of the submarine where the other guys were and tells the other guys that they’re close enough to the surface to escape. Once he notices that the commander is hurt, he asks who the ranking officer is. And it’s some WOMAN! WOMEN IN THE NAVY?! IN 1998?! HA HAH HAHHHAH HAHHAHA! HAHA! HAHAAHA!

Excellent! You’ll do just fine! Listen: we need to bomb this fucker with us still in it.

It’s Lieutenant Commander Rebecca Houston at your service, sir! “Good. I’ll need your expertise. We’ve got to destroy this sub.” Captain America says, alarmingly. Lieutenant Commander Rebecca Houston is blindsided!

Houston follows America as they run…somewhere. Meanwhile, two more Green Punks are hiding out trying to get a good aim on the Fearless USA Costumed Guy. “His shield is a magnificent weapon…but he cannot possibly use it in quarters so close.” says one, confident that the tiny little submarine corridors will render America positively NEUTERED. We’re talking BALLS CUT OFF here.

However, naturally, they underestimated the superhero’s ability to be super in times when superness is of the essence, and America launches the goddamned thing through the narrow passage. It knocks out both Green Guys. “Don’t knock the shield.” Cap’n triumphantly declares, as I groan quite audibly.

America and Houston reach a room with some suspiciously dead Greenies. “Blast. They’ve swallowed poison to avoid capture.” America says, and here I am thinking the same exact thing. Here I am thinking “Blast.”

Houston compliments America’s prowess with the shield, and America starts talking about it like he fucks it every night before bed. “That absolute connection is what makes us a formidable team. I depend on it like nothing else in this world.” Yeah, he fucks that thing.

The submerging submarine bangs off some rocks and everyone falls. Another fucking wack ass Green Guy shows up and says something stupid like “your location was a DEAD giveaway” or “oh Captain America it looks like you’ve DIED your hair” or “wow, Slappin’ Cappin’, looks like I’m gonna kill you DEAD courtesy of gun bullets sent special delivery from Shoot Town”. These gun bullets are coated in adamantium which could blast a hole through the Great Wall of China! He’s really gonna be finished now! HAR HAR!

But no, the bullet bounces off his shield and around the room about a hundred times, goes through the Green Dude’s body about four times, and now he’s donezo.

“We still have to destroy the sub so that no one ever retrieves the infecting virus…and I know the only way to do it! Let’s go!” orders the Captain heroically. And all the while, Lt. Commander Houston is showing a lot of patience with the blue-suited man whose plans involved tasks like “arm all 30 torpedoes at once” and “let’s jettison ourselves through a torpedo tube using the ensuing explosions as propulsion and my shield as the buffer!” It’s like, entirely go fuck yourself, dude.

You first, lady.

At this point Houston is clearly terrified, but when she projects her anxieties at Captain America about being “blown to bits”, Captain America reassures her with a hearty “Maybe not!” Hokay, Captain Submarine Explosion Man, but maybe your precious fuck-shield isn’t SO good that it can-

All right, they’re fine.

As the Captain and the Lt. Commander hang helplessly suspended under hundreds of feet of water, Captain looks between his sinking shield and the sinking Lt. Commander and decides to save…the woman first. He…nope…no, nevermind, he grabs her and then dives even deeper to go after the shield. Great. Thanks.

Both of their makeshift facemasks (which don’t look like they’re helping one bit anyway) begin to crack under the water pressure as he dives deeper. Her face is turning red as a beet. He finally says “screw this” and kicks his way back to the surface, leaving his shield behind.

When they break the water’s surface they find the rest of the submarine crew on a life raft. Captain America tries to cover himself from the sun with his shield, but how quick we forget…

He looks glum.

I guess 30 pages of shield-related jerkoffery should’ve been foreshadowing I had picked up on earlier!

Anyway, the end!

Final Thoughts

What the holy hell is this terrible writing? Did Mark Waid just watch a bunch of ‘80s G.I. Joe and write a comic book?

Wasn’t this guy just in Japan? Where did this submarine story come from out of nowhere? Wasn’t there, like, some stuff starting to happen at the end of Issue #1? Or is this losing-the-shield sidebar an important component of the story now?

I quite literally had zero interest in any of this navy tale until Captain America’s shield sank to the bottom of the ocean. Now I’m all in again, because that is hilarious! I hope the ocean wins!