American Vengeance
Crossbones and Red Skull's henchmen (aka the Skeleton Crew) launch an attack on the Hellfire Club in an attempt to liberate their master who they mistakenly believe Magneto is holding prisoner there. As the villains battle the Black Queen and her soldiers, Captain America and Diamondback find themselves caught in the middle. And what of the Red Skull's fate? The Skeleton Crew is written by Mark Gruenwald and pencilled by Ron Lim and Mark Bagley.
This is just a very good issue. We have a lot of action in the fight between the Skeleton Crew and the Hellfire Club and a nice display of powers from most the members. As a fight issue this is just good and another interesting pairing by pitting Captain America enemies against X-Men enemies. We also see a lot of Diamondback this issue as she attempts to keep Cap's attention which continues to be entertaining and sweet. It's always great to see Diamondback go into action with Captain America as the two genuinely have more chemistry in one panel than Cap and Sharon Carter have ever had. The issue has a lot going on (and I'm still not done with all that yet), and is definitely a good story in terms of character and action. The only real problem with all of this is the Black Queen unfortunately doesn't really have much interaction with Captain America (unlike the sexiness on the cover). It definitely feels like Captain America has taken a backseat in this issue so Gruenwald can instead focus on the continuing stories and strands involving Diamondback and the various villains.
Which is only amplified by the sub-plot which more or less outshines the already good main plot. The sub-plot is told entirely from the Red Skull's perspective while he is buried alive in the dark underground prison Magneto left him in. Visually all we have for page after page is the Red Skull surrounded by pitch blackness and nothing else. As we go on and read inner monologue after inner monologue from the Skull, he begins hallucinating people from his past and starts to consider suicide. As a story, this is just absolutely ridiculous in how innovative it actually is. While John Byrne certainly did the whole minimalist art thing with the "white-out" Snowbird issue of Alpha Flight, this is a story similar to that in that is mostly entirely black but also features a deplorable villain convincing himself to commit suicide. In 1999, Mark Waid wrote a mediocre story from the Red Skull's perspective which was hastily rewritten because it was too controversial to see print (the original has since been released, alongside the rewritten version, in a trade called Captain America: Red Glare). That story was absolutely nothing compared to this. This is by far a more impressive and "shocking" story, and the fact it got to print 10 years earlier is just surprising.
Yes, this is a really good issue. We have a good Acts of Vengeance battle with the Skeleton Crew battling Selene and her soldiers, some nice progression of the Captain America/Diamondback relationship and a really out-there sub-plot, that like most of Gruenwald's Captain America, was years ahead of it's time but overlooked nowadays because Ed Brubaker says all this Captain America run is shit.