Post by jordan on Feb 15, 2014 16:46:43 GMT -5
All Star Marvel Presents
Captain America
Issue #5
War Games
Ghost Stories, Conclusion
By Jordan
*
Last Time in Captain America:
As Steve Rogers, Colonel Stars and Stripes, and his commander Captain America lead a team into the heart of Germany to do away with the murderous Red Skull, aka Johan Schmidt, they are taken by surprise as Nazi Soldiers are killed off left and right by an unknown force. As they travel deeper into the marshlands of Germany, Steve Rodgers and Captain America decide a full evacuation of their teams is the most reasonable thing to do. But when they are ambushed, thanks to the traitor Jemmings, Red Skull has the hand. But all that is thwarted as a hulking monster called the Man-Thing in legends arises!
*
Steve Rodgers stands still, the fear pouring onto his face, as he turns to stare at the hulking green Man-Thing. The roars from the monster shake the house and everyone in it to the bone. Steve Rodgers' jaw hangs wide open, his eyes dilated, his breathing thinner and thinner by the moment. "Holy--"
"Well shoot it goddamnit! What are you waiting for, a fucking invitation?!" The Red Skull shouts, his evil voices pouring throughout the small, enclosed space. The nine guns fire, just narrowly missing Colonel Stars and Stripes. He has just enough time as they reload their clips to barrel role out of the way, picking up his gun and getting to cover next to Schmidt before the hulking monster brings his fist down annihilating the ground where the Colonel once stood. The Man-Thing releases a roar that shatters the windows and splinters the support beams.
"Johan, we need to move now."
"We? We are not allies, Steve Rodgers, we are enemies." Steve Rodgers takes aim and fires off several rounds into the chest of the Man-Thing, to no avail.
"Neither of us can take this beast on our own." He fires several more rounds into the monster's forehead, once again to no effect.
"Damnit, Johan, even bitter enemies unite in the face of a greater evil."
"You think this is evil?" Johan releases a laugh that chills Rodgers to the bone, forcing him to lose aim and send several rounds straight past the Man-Thing. "You wouldn't know evil if it crawled up your spine and whispered in your ear, New Yorker. You wouldn't know evil if it confronted you with a statement of what it was. Fore if you did, you'd know that I am evil."
"Well then can't you stop this Man-Thing if you're so evil? Can't you do something about it?"
"Oh, you don't even know yet!" Another breathtaking, spine-chilling cackle from the master of evil himself.
"What the hell does--" With one hard slam, Johan Schmidt throws Steve Rodgers into the monster.
"Retreat, Hydra! Retreat!" And with that order, the men of Hydra make a mad dash out the back entrance of the shack, leaving Steve Rodgers to face the vile Man-Thing alone. His jaw dropped once again, Steve watches as his enemies retreat, leaving him to die alone where he offered his hand in alliance to defeat this thing.
"Oh no...no, no, no, no, no..." His eyes fix on the monsters mouth as the roars keep coming. He makes a mad scramble to pick a grenade from the dead body of Montana, pulling the pin and throwing it into the Man-Thing mouth cavity. Nothing. No explosion. No phasing the Man-Thing. Unable to regain his feet as the Man-Thing lumbers towards him, Steve Rodgers attempts to reason with it. "Listen, buddy, if the stories I've heard are true, then we've got a lot in common. We both want to kill the Nazis, right? Especially Johan Schmidt, that man who just ran away? Mr. Red Face over there? You remember him ri--" Steve Rodgers is cut off by the massive roar from the monster, the monster's eyes growing wider and wider, his roars becoming deeper and more shattering to the foundation of the house. "I don't think this is going to work." Pulling cutting edge sticky explosives from his satchel, Steve sticks one to a support beam, and throws another one to attach to another support beam. Steve regains his feet and dashes for the back entrance, far away from the monster. Just as Steve steps out of the building:
"I--am not a--monster."
"Wait, wh--" A harrowing explosion brings the shack down on top of the Man-Thing and tosses Steve back twenty yards, landing on a rock and passing out. "What--" Everything goes black.
*
Everything is black, everything shakes. His legs feel like rubber and his arms feel worse. His eyes refuse to open, but his ears still listen, and they hear far off noises. Those of a woman, a woman in distress. "Colonel? Colonel are you near?!" Her voices carries loud and clear, like the voice of a leader, but shaking with fear, like the voice of a soldier in first combat. "Colonel?!" He tries to yell back, but he fails. No one answers and she probably assumes he's dead.
Her feet march closer and closer, several soldiers behind her. How many survived Red Skull's attacks? How many? He tries to open his eyes again but can't quit get them all the way. Soft strands of light seep in. The darkness is not ever lasting.
Suddenly a hand lands on his shoulder. "Colonel! Colonel!" She shouts, her voice in distress. "Colonel, wake up! Steve, wake up!" He tries again, harder and harder, but his eyes refuse to open. She shakes him with all of her might. She screams and slaps and kicks. "Colonel?" Finally, her voice dies down. His eyes won't open. He can't move. He's dead, at least to her he is. "Don't die on me Steve--don't die."
"Never think of it." He uses everything he has to get those words out, straining the muscles in his throat, straining to give her hope.
"Steve!" She falls down onto him in a tight embrace. "You're alive."
"Ma'am, we need to move. Quick. Our transport has eyes on several enemy units moving towards us, fast." She grabs a hold of Steve Rodger's hands and, with the help of another soldier in her crew, pull him to his feet.
"Let's go Steve."
*
Hours Later
His eyes finally snap open, he regains his legs, his arms are working, everything is working again at the sound of the explosion. Steve Rodgers takes a moment to take in the sights of everything around him. The fire and the explosions and the bullets flying overhead. "Get down, Colonel!" A soldier cries, pulling Colonel Stars and Stripes onto the dirty ground under his feet.
"What the hell is going on here, Snyder?!" Snyder, a young soldier, no older than nineteen, sits still behind a log, his eyes stricken with fear.
"We were ambushed sir. We almost made it to the transport when we were ambushed. The Nazis found us. There are at least three times as many of them as there are us!"
"Where is Captain America?!"
"She's holding down not far from here, maybe a hundred yards to the East. Here's a gun, sir." Snyder throws Steve Rodgers a fully loaded gun and packs three magazines into his belt. "Find her, I'll cover you." Steve Rodgers looks into Snyder's eyes. The fear in Snyder's eyes mixes with the loyalty not only to his nation, but to the symbol of Colonel Stars and Stripes and Captain America. Steve places a hand on Snyder's should.
"You're a good man."
"Go, sir, go!" Bullets whiz by Steve's head as Snyder comes up over his log to return fire on the Nazi soldiers. "Go!" Without another word, Steve Rodgers darts from behind the log, narrowly avoiding bullets and bombshells. He doesn't look back, but he hears a grenade go off and his knows that Snyder has died for his country.
Steve keeps running, never stopping, never looking back. He crashes through the trees, he can't find his fellow soldiers and he can't find a way out. He's going to die here. It's all over. It feels like he's been running for hours on end, the bullets and the explosions never stop. Does that mean Americans survive? Does that mean Captain America has survived?
Steve's train of thought is interrupted when he collides with a hulking beast of green and grey, sledge and death. He falls to the ground, staring up at the massive monster. His eyes are wide and his jaw goes slack. "No..." He sees the Man-Thing and knows that it's all over now. "No, no, no--not again!"
"Ker-nal. Star and stripe." What did the monster just say? Colonel Stars and Stripes? How does he know that? "I-am not-a monster."
"What are you then?"
"A...victum." So are the legends true? Is this the Man-Thing that died running from the Nazis? He died in these swamps running from the Nazis? Steve looks closer at the monster and sees hunger in its eyes. But, even more disturbingly so, he notices for the first time a hand sticking from the monster's chest. A skeletal hand. And he looks around the Man-Thing and sees skulls and legs and bones of all sorts. He sees Swastikas and dead soldiers. A victim and a killer.
"A victim of what?"
"Of the Nassis. Of...Hitler."
"How do you know my name?"
"Capton...America. She told me."
"Captain America told you?!" Steve regains his feet in a hurried frenzy. "Do you know where she is?"
"I...will take you too...her." The fear is replaced by excitement. Peggy isn't dead. Captain America isn't dead. The Man-Thing turns and begins to trudge across a heavily beaten path towards the horizon.
"But wait." The Man-Thing stops in his tracks, but does not turn around. "What's your name, pal?" A period of silence follows as Steve Rodgers waits for an answer. Nothing comes as the Man-Thing keeps trudging along.
*
"Steve!" Captain America hollers as she darts forward to embrace Steve Rodgers in her arms for the second time that day. "I thought you were dead...again."
"I'm getting good at that, aren't I?" Steve looks around the small clearing, staring into the fear-stricken eyes of the four remaining American soldiers. Steve can still hear the bullets and explosions in the background. "If we're all right here, then who are the Nazis shooting at?" Captain America doesn't say a word, instead pointing behind Steve. Steve turns to look into the desperate eyes of the Man-Thing. "But he's right here?"
"He does this really cool thing where he can split his mind up and control like fifty bodies at once. He's done more damage to the Nazis than we ever have. And he said he'd help us get to our transport. It's about five clicks NorthWest. And we need to move fast before the Nazis find it."
"Well then what are we waiting for?"
"Well, we've been waiting for you, actually."
"Oh...right." And then, without another word, the camp falls silent as a bomb strikes the center. "They're here!" As one combined body, the two officers and the four soldiers stand, their guns at the ready.
"Go...I will...fight them." The Man-Thing says, his voice the closest thing to panicked that Steve has heard yet.
"Let's go, Steve!" And as Captain America and the four soldiers dart from the camp in the direction of their transport, Steve Rodgers stands still and unmoving.
"Why are...you still here?"
"You've been listening to us, haven't you? Your English has gotten better in the past hour. Your words are right now. Why are you doing this?"
"Because I...was chased through these...same swamps. Because I...was caught." Steve looks at the monsters eyes as he hears not only the marching feet of the Nazis coming closer and closer, but the swarming sounds of the Man-Things other bodies closing in on them. "Go, now...Steve Rodgers."
"If you've been listening to us, then you know they could've escaped long ago. But they waited for me, because we don't leave anyone behind. I don't want to leave you behind either."
"Listen...to me. I was caught...I'm dead...this body...and all...the others...are not me...but my legacy...and I will always be here."
"I never got your name."
"I...used to be Theodore...but call me...Man-Thing."
"Steve, hurry!" Captain America shouts, the Nazis getting closer and closer. Colonel looks behind him to the frantic Captain America, beaconing him to hurry. Steve looks back at the Man-Thing, who has done everything to defend them.
"Thank you, Teddy." And with that, Steve darts off towards Captain America. Towards the transport. Towards Freedom and Safety.
END
Captain America
Issue #5
War Games
Ghost Stories, Conclusion
By Jordan
*
Last Time in Captain America:
As Steve Rogers, Colonel Stars and Stripes, and his commander Captain America lead a team into the heart of Germany to do away with the murderous Red Skull, aka Johan Schmidt, they are taken by surprise as Nazi Soldiers are killed off left and right by an unknown force. As they travel deeper into the marshlands of Germany, Steve Rodgers and Captain America decide a full evacuation of their teams is the most reasonable thing to do. But when they are ambushed, thanks to the traitor Jemmings, Red Skull has the hand. But all that is thwarted as a hulking monster called the Man-Thing in legends arises!
*
Steve Rodgers stands still, the fear pouring onto his face, as he turns to stare at the hulking green Man-Thing. The roars from the monster shake the house and everyone in it to the bone. Steve Rodgers' jaw hangs wide open, his eyes dilated, his breathing thinner and thinner by the moment. "Holy--"
"Well shoot it goddamnit! What are you waiting for, a fucking invitation?!" The Red Skull shouts, his evil voices pouring throughout the small, enclosed space. The nine guns fire, just narrowly missing Colonel Stars and Stripes. He has just enough time as they reload their clips to barrel role out of the way, picking up his gun and getting to cover next to Schmidt before the hulking monster brings his fist down annihilating the ground where the Colonel once stood. The Man-Thing releases a roar that shatters the windows and splinters the support beams.
"Johan, we need to move now."
"We? We are not allies, Steve Rodgers, we are enemies." Steve Rodgers takes aim and fires off several rounds into the chest of the Man-Thing, to no avail.
"Neither of us can take this beast on our own." He fires several more rounds into the monster's forehead, once again to no effect.
"Damnit, Johan, even bitter enemies unite in the face of a greater evil."
"You think this is evil?" Johan releases a laugh that chills Rodgers to the bone, forcing him to lose aim and send several rounds straight past the Man-Thing. "You wouldn't know evil if it crawled up your spine and whispered in your ear, New Yorker. You wouldn't know evil if it confronted you with a statement of what it was. Fore if you did, you'd know that I am evil."
"Well then can't you stop this Man-Thing if you're so evil? Can't you do something about it?"
"Oh, you don't even know yet!" Another breathtaking, spine-chilling cackle from the master of evil himself.
"What the hell does--" With one hard slam, Johan Schmidt throws Steve Rodgers into the monster.
"Retreat, Hydra! Retreat!" And with that order, the men of Hydra make a mad dash out the back entrance of the shack, leaving Steve Rodgers to face the vile Man-Thing alone. His jaw dropped once again, Steve watches as his enemies retreat, leaving him to die alone where he offered his hand in alliance to defeat this thing.
"Oh no...no, no, no, no, no..." His eyes fix on the monsters mouth as the roars keep coming. He makes a mad scramble to pick a grenade from the dead body of Montana, pulling the pin and throwing it into the Man-Thing mouth cavity. Nothing. No explosion. No phasing the Man-Thing. Unable to regain his feet as the Man-Thing lumbers towards him, Steve Rodgers attempts to reason with it. "Listen, buddy, if the stories I've heard are true, then we've got a lot in common. We both want to kill the Nazis, right? Especially Johan Schmidt, that man who just ran away? Mr. Red Face over there? You remember him ri--" Steve Rodgers is cut off by the massive roar from the monster, the monster's eyes growing wider and wider, his roars becoming deeper and more shattering to the foundation of the house. "I don't think this is going to work." Pulling cutting edge sticky explosives from his satchel, Steve sticks one to a support beam, and throws another one to attach to another support beam. Steve regains his feet and dashes for the back entrance, far away from the monster. Just as Steve steps out of the building:
"I--am not a--monster."
"Wait, wh--" A harrowing explosion brings the shack down on top of the Man-Thing and tosses Steve back twenty yards, landing on a rock and passing out. "What--" Everything goes black.
*
Everything is black, everything shakes. His legs feel like rubber and his arms feel worse. His eyes refuse to open, but his ears still listen, and they hear far off noises. Those of a woman, a woman in distress. "Colonel? Colonel are you near?!" Her voices carries loud and clear, like the voice of a leader, but shaking with fear, like the voice of a soldier in first combat. "Colonel?!" He tries to yell back, but he fails. No one answers and she probably assumes he's dead.
Her feet march closer and closer, several soldiers behind her. How many survived Red Skull's attacks? How many? He tries to open his eyes again but can't quit get them all the way. Soft strands of light seep in. The darkness is not ever lasting.
Suddenly a hand lands on his shoulder. "Colonel! Colonel!" She shouts, her voice in distress. "Colonel, wake up! Steve, wake up!" He tries again, harder and harder, but his eyes refuse to open. She shakes him with all of her might. She screams and slaps and kicks. "Colonel?" Finally, her voice dies down. His eyes won't open. He can't move. He's dead, at least to her he is. "Don't die on me Steve--don't die."
"Never think of it." He uses everything he has to get those words out, straining the muscles in his throat, straining to give her hope.
"Steve!" She falls down onto him in a tight embrace. "You're alive."
"Ma'am, we need to move. Quick. Our transport has eyes on several enemy units moving towards us, fast." She grabs a hold of Steve Rodger's hands and, with the help of another soldier in her crew, pull him to his feet.
"Let's go Steve."
*
Hours Later
His eyes finally snap open, he regains his legs, his arms are working, everything is working again at the sound of the explosion. Steve Rodgers takes a moment to take in the sights of everything around him. The fire and the explosions and the bullets flying overhead. "Get down, Colonel!" A soldier cries, pulling Colonel Stars and Stripes onto the dirty ground under his feet.
"What the hell is going on here, Snyder?!" Snyder, a young soldier, no older than nineteen, sits still behind a log, his eyes stricken with fear.
"We were ambushed sir. We almost made it to the transport when we were ambushed. The Nazis found us. There are at least three times as many of them as there are us!"
"Where is Captain America?!"
"She's holding down not far from here, maybe a hundred yards to the East. Here's a gun, sir." Snyder throws Steve Rodgers a fully loaded gun and packs three magazines into his belt. "Find her, I'll cover you." Steve Rodgers looks into Snyder's eyes. The fear in Snyder's eyes mixes with the loyalty not only to his nation, but to the symbol of Colonel Stars and Stripes and Captain America. Steve places a hand on Snyder's should.
"You're a good man."
"Go, sir, go!" Bullets whiz by Steve's head as Snyder comes up over his log to return fire on the Nazi soldiers. "Go!" Without another word, Steve Rodgers darts from behind the log, narrowly avoiding bullets and bombshells. He doesn't look back, but he hears a grenade go off and his knows that Snyder has died for his country.
Steve keeps running, never stopping, never looking back. He crashes through the trees, he can't find his fellow soldiers and he can't find a way out. He's going to die here. It's all over. It feels like he's been running for hours on end, the bullets and the explosions never stop. Does that mean Americans survive? Does that mean Captain America has survived?
Steve's train of thought is interrupted when he collides with a hulking beast of green and grey, sledge and death. He falls to the ground, staring up at the massive monster. His eyes are wide and his jaw goes slack. "No..." He sees the Man-Thing and knows that it's all over now. "No, no, no--not again!"
"Ker-nal. Star and stripe." What did the monster just say? Colonel Stars and Stripes? How does he know that? "I-am not-a monster."
"What are you then?"
"A...victum." So are the legends true? Is this the Man-Thing that died running from the Nazis? He died in these swamps running from the Nazis? Steve looks closer at the monster and sees hunger in its eyes. But, even more disturbingly so, he notices for the first time a hand sticking from the monster's chest. A skeletal hand. And he looks around the Man-Thing and sees skulls and legs and bones of all sorts. He sees Swastikas and dead soldiers. A victim and a killer.
"A victim of what?"
"Of the Nassis. Of...Hitler."
"How do you know my name?"
"Capton...America. She told me."
"Captain America told you?!" Steve regains his feet in a hurried frenzy. "Do you know where she is?"
"I...will take you too...her." The fear is replaced by excitement. Peggy isn't dead. Captain America isn't dead. The Man-Thing turns and begins to trudge across a heavily beaten path towards the horizon.
"But wait." The Man-Thing stops in his tracks, but does not turn around. "What's your name, pal?" A period of silence follows as Steve Rodgers waits for an answer. Nothing comes as the Man-Thing keeps trudging along.
*
"Steve!" Captain America hollers as she darts forward to embrace Steve Rodgers in her arms for the second time that day. "I thought you were dead...again."
"I'm getting good at that, aren't I?" Steve looks around the small clearing, staring into the fear-stricken eyes of the four remaining American soldiers. Steve can still hear the bullets and explosions in the background. "If we're all right here, then who are the Nazis shooting at?" Captain America doesn't say a word, instead pointing behind Steve. Steve turns to look into the desperate eyes of the Man-Thing. "But he's right here?"
"He does this really cool thing where he can split his mind up and control like fifty bodies at once. He's done more damage to the Nazis than we ever have. And he said he'd help us get to our transport. It's about five clicks NorthWest. And we need to move fast before the Nazis find it."
"Well then what are we waiting for?"
"Well, we've been waiting for you, actually."
"Oh...right." And then, without another word, the camp falls silent as a bomb strikes the center. "They're here!" As one combined body, the two officers and the four soldiers stand, their guns at the ready.
"Go...I will...fight them." The Man-Thing says, his voice the closest thing to panicked that Steve has heard yet.
"Let's go, Steve!" And as Captain America and the four soldiers dart from the camp in the direction of their transport, Steve Rodgers stands still and unmoving.
"Why are...you still here?"
"You've been listening to us, haven't you? Your English has gotten better in the past hour. Your words are right now. Why are you doing this?"
"Because I...was chased through these...same swamps. Because I...was caught." Steve looks at the monsters eyes as he hears not only the marching feet of the Nazis coming closer and closer, but the swarming sounds of the Man-Things other bodies closing in on them. "Go, now...Steve Rodgers."
"If you've been listening to us, then you know they could've escaped long ago. But they waited for me, because we don't leave anyone behind. I don't want to leave you behind either."
"Listen...to me. I was caught...I'm dead...this body...and all...the others...are not me...but my legacy...and I will always be here."
"I never got your name."
"I...used to be Theodore...but call me...Man-Thing."
"Steve, hurry!" Captain America shouts, the Nazis getting closer and closer. Colonel looks behind him to the frantic Captain America, beaconing him to hurry. Steve looks back at the Man-Thing, who has done everything to defend them.
"Thank you, Teddy." And with that, Steve darts off towards Captain America. Towards the transport. Towards Freedom and Safety.
END