In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.
In the latest installment of From a Different Point of View, where Eileen Gonzalez and I examine Avengers issues from the beginning, I mentioned that I should do a bit about how they just totally dropped Captain America's obsession with getting a job with Nick Fury and, well, this is that bit!
It all began in Avengers #15 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck and Mike Esposito), when Captain America writes a letter to Nick Fury...
You have to love "you won't remember me" bit. No, Fury likely forgot you. It's not like you were Captain freakin' America! How would Nick Fury possibly remember Captain America?
(Stan Lee does have a point about how Cap's early adventures were almost entirely him working in counter-espionage, so a nice little bit of continuity there by Lee)
So after mailing it, Cap does not hear any word back.
The next couple of issues Cap is too busy forming the new Avengers team with Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
We next see him dwelling over his lot in life in Avengers #18, by Lee, Heck and Dick Ayers...
And it begins to have an effect on him, like doing missions with the goal of impressing Nick Fury (even daydreaming about Fury)...
The idea of Cap doing a mission just because it'll impress Nick Fury is hilarious.
The following issue (also by Lee, Heck and Ayers), we see Fury's lack of response has begin to piss Cap off, as it is affecting his training sessions...
As it turns out, Cap's letter went to Fury's old office at the CIA, so that's why he didn't hear back from him. Hydra, meanwhile, got a hold of the letter...
After discarding it, a crook finds it and gives it to the Swordsman to help him spring a trap on the good Captain...
Check out Cap's reaction when he gets a reply from Fury (actually Swordsman pretending to be Fury to get Cap to come to a warehouse alone)...
Cap really, REALLY wanted to be in SHIELD, huh?
Obviously, he later learns it wasn't Fury and then, well, he just stops caring about it.
A year later, he finally DOES meet up with Nick Fury in the present day and while the cover hypes it up...
the actual meeting was a bit, well, you know, subdued...
Obviously, Kirby (who was plotting the Cap feature at the time) just wasn't feeling the whole "obsessing about Fury" plot and so just didn't follow it.
Lee uses the dialogue to at least address the letter, but goes along with Kirby's whole "Cap is no longer into it" bit...
What a funny 180 degree character turn, huh?
If anyone wants me to write about an interesting plot point that was introduced and then almost instantaneously ignored, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!