Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Captain America (Vol. 3), Issue #7 – “Hoaxed”! This marks the end of both the sub-storyline and the overall storyline, and I thought I was going to be happy to finally be at the end, but I started taking a liking to this series! I’ll have to return sooner rather than later.

In the previous installment, the Skrull imposter, disguised as Captain America, told the whole country on a live broadcast that aliens are real and have invaded. And he proves it! And now that he’s left destruction in his wake, his work is done. Now the real Captain America has to clean up the mess that has been proliferated by the dumbass population of his dumbass country. And I’m very curious to see how this blue spandex pinhead is going to pull this miracle off.

Fightin’ Skrulls while America Burns. You love to see it!

Captain America (Vol. 3), Issue #7 [July, 1998]
Written by: Mark Waid
“Hoaxed”

“Three hours ago, the nation exploded.” LITERALLY?! No. Damn. Not literally.

In Los Angeles, a man with a baseball bat is beating upon a car with a Hindu family inside. In Denver, a black teacher shields his students from flying bricks and stones crashing through his classroom windows. In Alabama, a frightened mother is about to hit her punk-hairdo son with a frying pan.

The American people have turned against one another! And guess what, you don’t need a fucking alien invasion to do that anyway! Just tell them that vaccines help diseases, that’ll really stir the pot up nice and frothy.

We begin our story in Manhattan, the start of all the ruckus. An angry mob is chasing down a young, blonde woman in the streets. A guy hurls a brick at her. “Call ME a Skrull, huh? Maybe YOU’RE the Skrull! Die! Die! DIE!”

Someone stops the brick in mid-air with a trash can lid. “Don’t worry, miss. They won’t hurt you.” claims this unknown silhouetted figure, kicking some punk butts right in their punk butts! He smacks them around and punches and uppercuts and suplexes and piledrives! “They just need to be calmed down a little. It’s all right.”

He’s takin’ a shit!

The woman is in hysterics, yelling about Captain America needing to be around to lead them all and save them from the Skrulls! “Where is he? For the love of God — Where is Captain America?”

And this shrewd Captain America son of a gun. He’s just Steve Rogers. He’s just a normal guy.

The news reports are going nuts. Our favorite Rear Admiral USA is absolutely nowhere to be found ever since he made that shocking announcement! It seems that some skepticism is surfacing among the population that Captain’s claims may have been CRAZY CUCKOO BANANAS?! But the riots have been picking up momentum, regardless. Hospitals are filling up. Blah blah. Just another day in the Land of the Free, I always say.

Meanwhile, the fake-Hydra-turned-fake-Captain-America thinks about 6,000 sentences worth of exposition dialogue that we ALREADY KNOW. WE ALREADY KNOW ALL THIS SHIT, MARK WAID. Let me Google a picture of you … … Gross! Nerd!

Groooaaann. Anyway, this Skrull Guy goes over how he infiltrated Hydra, exponentially increased Captain America’s reputation, and impersonated him in order to send out a nation-crippling message! All as revenge against humans. Ha! It’s great! Good stuff man!

Except…it’s not as sweet as it should be. Most of the fun, apparently, was supposed to be the look on Captain America’s big dumb face as he struggles and fails completely and horribly forever. But he’s nowhere to be found. And that sucks. It’s not fun unless I can see this one boring human suffer!

Steve Rogers walkie-talkies Tony Stark using some ultra-futuristic 3D Windows 98 high-polygon-count metal rectangle Tupac hologram widget. Rogers is simply stunned at how out-of-control and widespread the rioting is across the country. Stark assures him that they’re working on “what he asked for”, but the plan is going slowly. Even with the combined forces of Smarty Man Tony Stark and Smarty Man Reed Richards, the plan is going slowly! And they have a combined IQ of, like, 600! That’s how much of a bitch this is, Steve!

I’d be ashamed too if I had dubbed myself the captain of this sinking ship called America.

Even though Stark insists that he could be better help as Iron Man, Rogers says he has the superhero side covered with Thor aka Mr. Thunderpants (who is currently in Los Angeles scaring the bejesus out of some rioters) and Scarlet Witch aka Ms. Scarletpants (who is at some undisclosed location shooting spells in the air and screaming “THERE ARE NO SKRULLS!!” at sad-looking hillbillies).

Hawkeye’s with the Scarlet Witch and they share an inane conversation. “Can-ya believe wha’ theys be doin’ in the good name of da Captain of Americans?” That’s about the level of dialogue we’re dealing with here. Even Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch, trusted friends, faithful fellow Avengers, are like “what’s the fucking Captain’s problem?” with this whole situation.

Stay the course! Trust the plan! MAGA!

Anyway, Tony Stark asks if he can at least try to build a device that will track the Skrull, and Rogers tells him “NO!”. Stark gets huffy and asks him, then, why he isn’t making an appearance as Captain America. “Gotta go! I’m going through a tunnel! Bszzsxzz! Skrrchcsh! Woopwooooop! Blub!” and Rogers hangs up on him.

There’s a dipshit wearing flak gear and shooting a couple of semi-automatics in the air. “Cap never steered me wrong! He needs my help — I’m here for him! Cap — I’m doing this for you!” he keeps yelling this kind of claptrap to no one in particular. Steve Rogers does a couple of backflips before knocking this dick to the ground.

Skrull Leader is playing with little Cap and Skrull puppets (seriously) while ruminating about his failure to make Captain America show up and cry in front of him. So now it’s time to be assertive! Another public appearance by Captain America is in order. Quite. Yes yes.

While Stone Cold Steve Rogers is cleaning up the streets, a speedy silver fox in black and white spandex zooms up to him! Why, it’s Quicksilver! (???) And he didn’t recognize Stevie at first out of uniform. Nice to meet you, Quicksilver. How many goddamn superheroes are there out there? Like, 15?? Man!

Plus, I’ve been looking for an excuse to walk around in my spiffy new button-down with the extra-crispy collar fold!

The Quicksilver Messenger Service is here to tell Steve that the Avengers are doing a good job so far keeping the riots at bay…although, heh heh, a nice chipper message from CAPTAIN AMERICA would sure lift everyone’s spirits. Heh heh. Whattaya say, pal?

And then Steve goes full-Kirk Douglas on him. “WHAT EEEEES IT, MAN? YOU THINK I DON’T WANT TO? YOU THINK I LIKE JUST STANDING HERE IN THE STREET HOLDING MY DICK? DO YOU?!” He starts shaking Quicksilver like a baby in the hands of a tweeking heroin dad. “YOU THINK THIS IS FUN FOR ME? DO YOU? DO YOU?!” He’s just rattling him like a little can of spray paint. No, what Steve needs to do is expose the Skrull for the fraud that he is (isn’t?). And that means lying low and waiting for him to make another appearance… Quite. Yes yes.

And he doesn’t even have to wait that long! As he and Quicksilver speak, “Captain America” appears on a giant TV screen in the desolate ruin of Times Square waiting to make another live announcement. Eek! Steve yells into his Apple Watch for Stark to get “the pickup” ready, and Tony Stark freaks out because it’s NOT ready. It’s NOT FUCKING READY, STEVE. Why are they even friends? Steve’s just gonna come early anyway. Shaking my damn head.

Here’s Skrull-Cap’s new shocking announcement:

Yawn! Old news. Being a Skrull is a prerequisite for Congress.

Now THIS? Who cares? Bill Clinton was a Skrull? That would’ve explained a lot, huh? Boooring.

“I urge all good Americans to arm and assemble in Washington immediately so I may lead them to victory against these imposters before-” and he doesn’t get to finish that sentence before a mysterious SSSKOW! sound effect signals an unexpected change back into a Skrull before everyone’s very eyes!

NONPLUSSED, this guy. And before he really even has a chance to say something, in soars CAPTAIN FUCKIN’ WHO CARES, who starts just punching the Skrull around the stage while telling the Skrull how much of a Skrull he is. Cap’n tells the Skrull he was hit with a ray that reverted him back to true form.

And within, like, fourteen nanoseconds, all the press watching are like “oh man, he was a Skrull this whole time? I guess we can tell everyone it was a hoax!” And Mr. Fantastic pops into the room to say “yeah, you should, good idea!”. And a guy says “Wait, what if this is all part of the Skrull Conspiracy?!” And Mr. Fantastic says “There is no conspiracy. Just do it.” And the press collectively goes “yeah, ok, good idea!”

And then, one by one, members of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four show up to go “yeah!” and take a whack at the Skrull.

And the Skrull is like “NO! NOOO! NOOOO!”

And then he’s defeated!

(??????)

Ha! You’re forgetting about the Covid PLANdemic there, Sparky! And chemtrails. And Rob Schneider.

Now, in a frustrating fit of anticlimactic blue balls, I slog through the rest of this big glowing toilet. Captain America takes the stage and tells all his dumb American fans that there was never a Skrull threat. The only enemy was PARANOIA! Even though he just exposed a threatening Skrull in front of many people. But we’re going to conveniently forget that very quickly! Or else!

I mean, Cap’n literally talks about how a Skrull was able to be a threat by exploiting overblown American patriotism. When a member of the press asks him if he, then, blames the American people, Cap’n stutters and says this: “No. Yes. Sir, I am the American people. What happened, happened thanks to all of us.”

So which is it, dumbfuck?

“Even I became seduced by Capmania. It’s hard not to believe your own press when there’s so much of it.”

And then he blames himself for the American people being so willing to take Captain America at his word without questioning crazy calls for violence. So then he hangs his head in shame.

Thor especially looks quite sad. Haha.

“This country doesn’t know what it is anymore. We’re all what our role will be in the dawning of a new millennium…so let me lay down my role once and for all.”

He says a lot of boring words. I make myself a sandwich. Cap’n ends that thought with “As of today, I am not a ‘super hero.’ Now and forevermore…I am a man of the people. Together, you and I will confront America’s problems. Together, we will figure out what we are…and what we can be. Together, we will define the American dream…and make it an American reality.”

Then the scene pans out to show Captain America standing in the torch of the Statue of Liberty with the Twin Towers in the background.

NOT SHOWN: 9/11. Trump presidency. Other stuff that makes some of these last few pages a little rough in general. Yeesh.

Final Thoughts

Yeah, I don’t know. I think I’m done on 1998 Captain America for a while! Besides, Issue #8 is part of a crossover storyline and I’m not prepared right now to dip into the late ’90s Iron Man or Quicksilver comics. So, sorry Cap, you’re getting shelved for now!

What lies ahead for me in the vast Marvel wasteland? I’m aquiver with anticipation.