Reprints:
Captain America is wandering around the city when he hears a loud explosion from the sky. He looks up to see a high-altitude plane, which has apparently just exploded, although fortunately the pilot has managed to evacuate. The capsule the pilot is in lands in the river, and Captain America dives in and saves him. He finds out that the pilot is an agent of A.I.M., who tells him that the keeper of the Cosmic Cube is taking the Cosmic Cube to the Red Skull, who has betrayed A.I.M. after they thought he was working for them. The Red Skull is meanwhile watching footage of the keeper of the Cosmic Cube in a plane, heading towards him. As one of the Red Skull's men asks him how he convinced the keeper to bring him the Cosmic Cube, the Skull shakes the man's hand, then reveals that he's placed a small device in the man's hand, which enables him to control him. He explains that he did the same thing to the Cosmic Cube's keeper when he recently met him.
With the A-1 priority which Nick Fury gave Captain America several issues ago, Captain America is able to request an experimental rocket from SHIELD, which he uses to catch up to the keeper of the Cosmic Cube, and board his plane. Captain America manages to hit the eject button, so that the keeper and him are launched from the plane, and land near an island which is apparently the Red Skull's base. The Red Skull is waiting for the keeper, and so when Cap and the keeper reach the island, he starts fighting his nemesis. Although Captain America taunts the Skull about how weak Hitler was by killing himself, the Red Skull tells Captain America that it is because of him that Bucky is dead, as Baron Zemo was following his orders when the plot to kill Cap and Bucky was executed. In his rage at the Skull, Cap is careless and taken out by a knockout gas emitter which the Skull has hidden in his clothes. The Red Skull is then given the Cosmic Cube by the keeper, and tests its power. Captain America wakes up and sees this, and realises that the Red Skull is invincible.
At the start of this issue, Tony Stark is performing some test in his laboratory, and orders Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan out, warning them that if he makes a mistake he could blow the whole factory sky-high. Once they're gone, it's revealed that Tony is working on a device which can bore through earth better than anything that's been invented before, but which is powered by atomic energy, which is why he wants everyone out. For extra protection, he dons his Iron Man armour, then starts powering up the Earth-Borer.
Just as the Earth-Borer finishes charging, several houses and buildings nearby fall into the ground, disappearing mysteriously. The people who view this blame Tony Stark's new device, and so a group of thugs agree to sneak into Tony's factory and kidnap Tony, since people will then consider them heroes. However, all they find inside is Iron Man, who takes them out. As he does, Tony's factory starts to sink into the ground just like the other buildings. Iron Man steps out of the building, and finds the Mole Man, pointing a cannon at him. He says that since the Earth-Borer is his, he has no need for survivors, and so activates the cannon, causing a rockslide to collapse over Iron Man.
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