If the Past Be Not Dead--

Book: Marvel Super Action

Issue No.: 9

Published: May 2, 1978

Title: “If the Past Be Not Dead--” (reprint of Captain America no. 107 from 1968)

Cover Price: 35¢

This story kicks off with an awesome Jack “King” Kirby splash page. Just look at it!

Would you go to a psychiatrist named “Dr. Faustus”? I guess I am unfairly biased against people with names like “Faustus,” because I would not. Captain America is apparently more open-minded than me, or at least he was in 1968 (Marvel Super Action is a Captain America reprint book, so this story is older than my usual Marvel Time Warp ones).

But it turns out that my suspicions about Faustus, though unfair, were correct. Faustus is a bad guy, and he is scheming to drive Captain America crazy by prescribing “nightmare tablets” for his alter ego, Steve Rogers. I am not sure at this point in Marvel history if everybody knows that Steve is Captain America or if Faustus has somehow figured it out, but it really doesn’t matter either way for the purposes of this story. The pills are indeed giving Cap terrible nightmares, and Faustus has goons who are showing up in the real world dressed as Nazis and whatnot, and Steve starts to worry he can’t differentiate between dreams and reality.

Faustus’ big finale, the stunt he is sure will drive Captain America totally insane, involves recreating the incident that killed Bucky, Cap’s kid partner from his World War II days. The recreation goes perfectly, but then Captain America reveals he is very much not crazy and begins putting the beatdown on Faustus and his goons. Cap explains that he grew suspicious of the “medicine” he was being prescribed and had his pals at S.H.I.E.L.D. analyze it for him. After he figured out Faustus’ scheme, he just played along so that... well, I’m not really sure why Cap played along for as long as he did. But his S.H.I.E.L.D. buddies show up at the end to help arrest Faustus and his goons.

Comparing this story to the original version, it is (as expected) shorter by a couple of pages. Those two pages are one scene of Captain America getting some exercise by sparring in his hotel room with a “plastoid” robot. It’s a pretty brutal, and I assume loud, sparring match — I imagine the hotel management would prefer Cap just go work out in the gym like normal people.

Next time — Godzilla vs. Mega-Monster!