When his symbolic shield becomes a surgical tool and the star and stripes conceal a hidden agenda, Captain America clearly isn’t himself in the latest Avengers of the Wastelands. Earth’s lost heroes, the Wastelands’ new Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man and Cap are waging an insurgency against Doctor Doom’s roving forces, as fringe settlements and expatriate outposts come under increased attack. As a former super-solider of Doom, can the rogue Captain America be trust to do the right thing? Or will the Wastelands continue to bring out the worst in the star-spangled Avenger?
The bleak landscapes and desperate conditions rampant across the Wastelands create a grim tone for writer Ed Brisson’s dystopian Jessica Jones, the Hulk and hammer-bearer Thor have ed forces with Dwight, the latest to wear the Ant-Man tech, and are on the warpath to take out Doctor Doom. And a New Latverian super-solider draped in colors of Captain America has hitched in a race to the death across the Wastelands.
Where the Captain America of legend is a paragon of righteousness, the Captain America in Avengers of the Wastelands is grim anti-hero with a chequered past. A candidate for the last super-solider program in New Latveria, the desperate Grant was the sole survivor of Doctor Doom’s experimentations — once he dispatched his late partner in the Lieutenants of Latveria. After an epiphany about Doom’s true intentions, Grant goes AWOL to takes up the mantle of the First Avenger. The rogue super-solider “felt a kinship to Captain America, like I needed to prove myself worthy to him, to his memory.” Since then, Grant/Captain America has waged a one-man war of attrition against Doom and his armies with his Latverian-made replica shield.
One hundred miles outside of Reno, the Doom-hunters encountered a hostile frontier enclave, and, while the other Avengers subdued their opponents with as little bloodshed as possible, Grant used his shield as a make-shift machete, cutting his opponent down in cold blood. His companions question his methods, and even his loyalties, yet Danielle Cage, the woman who inherited the uru mallet, Mjolnir contends, “The Wastelands have a habit of making people mean.” In the latest Avenger in the Wastelands, Doctor Doom and his shock-troops traverse the badlands, razing settlements and snuffing out the competition, as Baron Blood and a brood of vampires broadcast a distress beacon to lure the Avengers into their clutches. The stakes are high for heroes-that-might-have-been and they’ll have to work in tandem to escape Baron Blood’s nest of vampires. But is the iconic shield truly a northern star for the new Captain America? Or merely a weapon of war in the hands of an imposter? Legitimate or not, the Avengers need their Captain America to be the hero the war-weary Wastelands deserve.
Marvel Comics’ Avengers of the Wasteland is available now at a comic shop near you.
- Avengers of the Wastelands #3 (of 5)
- Writer: Ed Brisson
- Artist: Jonas Scharf
- Cover Artists: Juan José Ryp and Jesus Aburtov
- A FULL MOON RISES ON THE WASTELANDS!
- • The AVENGERS have assembled!
- • But so has BARON BLOOD and his legion of vampires!
- • The saga continues with more revelations and a SURPRISE reappearance of a hero of the Wastelands to guide the new team!
Source: Marvel
