Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Captain America (Vol. 3), Issue #3 – “Museum Piece”! In the previous installment, forget everything you read in Issue #1 because Captain America went from battling the Strikeforce Ukiyoe after being dropped in the middle of Tokyo to blowing up a submarine full of Hydra Organization goons and losing his shield in the ocean!

I can only hope that Issue #3 at least continues some threads from either of the first two stories, because if I read about Captain America plugging his dick into the Hoover Dam after space aliens threaten to turn the flooding waters into acidic space piss, then I’m mentally checking out of this non-continuity monkey business!

And if I mentally check out then I get funnier, so the jury’s still out on which the better option actually is.

All right, let’s get to it then. “Museum Piece”. Hooo boy.

Captain America (Vol. 3), Issue #3 [March, 1998]
Written by: Mark Waid
“Museum Piece”

OK, at least the cover art suggests that he doesn’t have his real shield! That’s promising.

WASHINGTON D.C. “Let me get this straight,” says some four-eyes crisis negotiator named Agent McElroy, “we have to evacuate the Smithsonian since Hydra claims to have turned its museums into a gigantic deathtrap because they’re spoiling for a fight with Captain America?”

Ugh. Let’s try this again. “Let me get this straight,” says Tom from TomWritesAboutStuff.com, “I have to read another shitty issue of Captain America written shittily by shitty Mark Waid, who the Internet says is a legendary comic book writer but I’d rather read a butt tattoo over and over again instead of this?” Boo!

This isn’t Agent McElroy’s first rodeo. The footnote tells me to check out Issue #444! No thanks!

The evacuation of the Smithsonian wasn’t completely successful. A couple of RUDE BOYS were hiding out in an old horse-drawn wagon. “Looks like we got th’ place to ourselves!” says one rude boy who appears to be wearing a Donald Duck sailor hat. These rude boys ditched their school field trip, but one of them already has regrets. “Maybe we shoulda popped up when we heard ‘em clearin’ the place,” he says, but his rude boy buddy calls him a chunkhead and then they both start freely exploring the exhibits.

Bzaak, motherfuckers! Beavis and Butt-Head are here to wreak havoc!

The blonde kid hops into the moon-landing exhibit and pretends to blast the astronauts with a photon bazooka! Yeah man yeah! What these kids don’t know though, oh man here it comes, is that a Hydra guy is hiding in one of the astronaut suits! He reaches out to grab these kids menacingly! Looks like we’re gonna have a good old-fashioned child abduction! Huzzah!

Meanwhile, at the AVENGERS MANSION, some super-fast entity that just looks like a beam of light is ricocheting all over the, uh, Avengers Library Room. All the Avengers are in a tizzy! I see Thor, Metal-Headband, Red Eyes, Purple Helmet, Bug Lady, Tiger Legs, all your favorites! Captain America is there too, and man this really pisses me off, the thing is Captain America’s new shield. Thor stops it from bouncing around the room with his big Thor Hammer! “Tony, I want to thank you for making me a new shield…” he says gratefully to who I assume is Tony Stark, who looks like an Elvis impersonator. And here I was thinking that he was going to have to find a way to travel to the bottom of the ocean to recover his original, trusty Big Circle With a Star In The Middle. But no.

Captain America doesn’t like this shield though. It doesn’t have the right feel. “It was one-of-a-kind,” says Tony Stark of his old shield, “nothing new will be balanced quite the way it was. Still, hang on to that one. Maybe you can get used to it…in time…”

Oh yeah, get used to THIS!: *makes a penis entering vagina motion with fingers* Ha!

Hey Namor, get your junk a little closer to our faces, why don’t you?

It’s funny seeing this house of superheroes griping openly about Captain Fuckface. Finding his dumb shield in the ocean could take months. Some guy with a fishscale speedo called Namor has been looking for it, but he’s been fucking busy with other things. See that double asterisk? That means he’s been doing shit in Marvel Team-Up! This is according to another footnote? Perhaps his “team-up” involves a very aggressive 69-ing with Aquaman and he’s not to be disturbed with shield-related matters. Aquaman isn’t even a Marvel hero! That’s how taboo it is!

Anyway, the original shield is fucking gone, ok? Cap’n is sadface.

He walks through town getting gawked at by fans. Thanks for saving us from Onslaught! Thanks for saving us from nuclear missiles! Cap’n wants none of it. He finds this level of attention grating. Maybe he should work at Target instead of being a superhero. Comes with a territory, ingrate. As he moves down the street, he catches a news report on a TV in a shop window that declares Hydra’s intention to blow up Washington D.C. as retaliation for the Good Cap’n thwarting their cute nuclear strike in the previous issue. They want to face Captain America alone, and immediately, so he fucks off to Washington. Alone. And immediately.

We cut to Hydra headquarters! A bunch of Green Fucks are talking about Modam being dead! And I’m like “who the fuck is Modam”? That’s a dumb name! What was her dog’s name? Routar? ANYWAY, there’s a new chief in town. A new Supreme Hydra, if you will, and it’s some pink-haired mess and he wants to be called the “Sensational Hydra” instead. Then he chops one of the Lesser Hydra’s arms off while the Lesser Hydras whisper plots to each other about overthrowing this douchebag.

Expect disproportional responses ONLY when I’m in charge! Heil Hyrdra! *goosestep*

He wipes his bloody sword off on another Hydra’s sleeve and asks the shaken crew of Lesser Hydras if everything is prepared at the Smithsonian. They quiver and mumble. The Sensational Hydra is satisfied.

Captain America is leaping down the street like some super-serious no-personality dipshit. When asked what his plan is, his only response is “Stop Hydra.” OK, Captain No-Charisma.

Please, mister, we’re scared and lost and alone and we’ve pooped our respective flared OshKosh B’Gosh jeans!

He enters the Smithsonian, which is eerily quiet. Warily, he makes his way through a large room, eyes darting every which way. A bomb is suddenly dropped from an airplane hanging on the ceiling, which he dodges by MERE INCHES! “I can see this is going to be a long day.” he grumbles. That’s when he spots those Rude Boys from earlier.

The Rude Boys are scared and are pissing their pants and they want their pacifiers and their mommies and their binkies and their bottoms powdered! They are right next to an exhibit of Captain America and Fishscale Speedo beating up enemies in a trench during some sort of war. World War II? Did they use trenches in World War II? Wasn’t that more of a World War I thing? “Dude, how old are you?” asks one of the rapscallions, to which Cap’n replies “Old enough to know better.” Snap! Captain America snap! He tells the kids to follow him and stay close; Hydra is using history as a weapon. “Good one…’cause history bores me to death.” answers one of the kids in yet another example of Mark Waid’s side-splitting comic relief.

They pass by a Great Chicago Fire exhibit, which was rigged to blast a ton of heat in their direction. Next, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake exhibit, which was rigged to quake and explode under their feet. Cap’n gives props to Hydra, who “are more clever than I thought”. If “clever” means “setting up explosives everywhere” then I guess it doesn’t take much to impress Captain Numbskull.

…or literally ANYONE else! Timothy McVeigh! The Unabomber! Is Jeffrey Dahmer still alive in 1998? How about him, I LIKE him!

Next, they enter a room of Hydra Dudes and Captain America hesitates. He’s thinking of the children, you see, even though they don’t deserve to be thought of at all! Hell, they’re disappointed in Captain America too, and they name-drop a couple of other Marvel heroes that I can consider as possible recommended reading to cleanse the palate after this load of horsefuck!

With the Hydra Butts circling the three of them and aiming their guns to kill. Cap’n has no choice but to throw his shield to disarm all of them in one boomerang motion. He succeeds in knocking out a few guns out of a few hands, but he misses the shield upon re-entry because that Tony Stark shitface can’t make a proper goddamn adamantium/vibranium shield to save his Robert Downey Shitface Jr. life! Now he’s defenseless, and one Hydra Guy prepares his automatic rifle!

Again, thinking of the children, Captain America leaps in front of the two little punks and catches a back full of bullets! He crashes to the floor and remains still.

THE END!

Wait, there’s more.

In New York City, a blonde woman named Sharon Carter, known as Agent 13, enters a barbershop that has a special secret barbershop chair that takes her to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters! When she gets there, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are less than happy to see her. “You’re sniffin’ around for somethin’, Carter, admit it.” She doesn’t admit it. Then there’s a big fat editor’s note in the corner that says “MORE ON THIS NEXT ISSUE!”. Ok, well, fuck me then.

We’re back at the Smithsonian where Captain America is lying facedown on the floor with his big blue buttcheeks in the air. The Hydra Goons are in awe of the Famous Shield that is now in their possession! Wait’ll the Boss gets a load of this! It’s all shiny and round. Beautiful.

While Hydra Putz #2 waxes poetic about the big shiny shield, the Rude Boys attempt to run away unsuccessfully. “Captain America can’t help you now!” says Hydra Putz #4 or whatever, but Hydra Putz #9 points to a spot of blood on the floor where Crap-Ton America used to lie. He’s not there anymore, you see. He gone.

He gone.

Hydra is MAD! They take it out on the blonde kid. Hydra Putz #41 gets all up in his face and yells at him, tells him that Captain America sucks because he doesn’t kill bad guys. Only bad guys do the killing! And he’s a bad guy pointing a gun at the kid’s forehead about to do some real gangster shit. The kid’s pants start to fill with poop. Just brimming with poop. The other kid gets a gun to his head too. Poop ensues.

“Captain you better get the FUCK out here before we blast these kids’ brains out with our big shooty guns, you blue piece of shit!” says Hydra, and I’m paraphrasing here. Captain America takes the bait, and comes back into the room with a non-round but still America-colored shield. It does the trick.

Action Shot! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na

A montage of badassery fills the next page as Cap’n makes short work of these Hydra Dunces with his new museum-exhibit shield that I guess is actually made of material that can be deemed shield-like. Once they’re all taken care of, Cap’n leads the little bitch kids out of the museum.

Later, Cap’n talks to the Smithsonian bigwig. He lets me, the audience, know that the new shield is actually a replica of Cap’n’s original shield, and that he “can’t get over how familiar it felt”. As comfy and snug as his own dick, I’m sure. The Smithsonian bigwig tells him that, by all means, keep the stupid thing!

Remember the crisis negotiator from the beginning of the issue? Agent McElroy? The guy who did literally nothing to negotiate a crisis whatsoever for the duration of this situation? He and Cap’n have a quick heart-to-heart, and McElroy is floored that Cap’n knows who he is. “We should work together sometime.” says the Captain. “Wow.” says McElroy.

What a joy.

Darrr…. uhhhh… buuuuhhh…

The press surrounds Captain America and bombard him with the really tough questions. Questions like “shouldn’t Hydra be stopped?” The Captain rubs two brain cells together and realizes for the first time that, yeah, maybe they should be stopped. Captain declares WAR ON HYDRA, and will not rest until the organization is eradicated from the planet.

Back in Hydra HQ, this message is being broadcast. The Sensational Hydra isn’t paying attention; he’s too busy practice-swinging with a severed arm. That old chestnut! The Hydra lackeys are concerned, but the Sensational One has a plan:

“Bring me…Batroc.”

Final Thoughts

I have too many enemies to keep track of already. From the first issue, there’s the Strikeforce Ukiyoe, Deathstrike, Renny the woman in Istanbul, and Kang the Conqueror. In the second issue, there’s the Hydra Organization. In this issue, there’s the Sensational Hydra, Batroc, and, arguably, the rest of the Avengers because, let’s face it, Captain America is a nuisance.

I don’t have much to say yet. I’m bewildered right now as to how this might come together into a real cohesive story anytime soon. Until next time, LIVE LONG AND PROSPER nerds.