It's the conclusion of the hardest-hitting Steve Rogers story in years! With the Super Soldier Serum about to be sold on the black market, Steve Rogers must risk all to stop every terrorist nation on earth from creating armies of their own supermen.
In an airfield hangar, Myron Smith (Machinesmith in duisguise) starts the bidding for his Super-Serum at $100 million per vial. On the way to the hangar, Steve Rogers consults Beast on how to defeat Machinesmith. Beasts says it will be difficult because if you destroy his machine body, his consciousness will leap to the closest machine. Beast asks the robot Anita Erskine for help and she agrees, but her programming prevents her from harming Machinesmith. Beast has an idea and uploads it to Anita.
Back at the hangar, Anita gains entrance and smuggles Rogers in the trunk while a suspicious guard calls Machinesmith. He is alerted to Rogers’ presence and sheds the Myron Smith disguise. Rogers and Machinesmith battle as Machinesmith jumps from machine to machine and Rogers destroys devices as quickly as he can. Machinesmith transports back to his now decapitated robot head and realizes that Rogers and Anita have blocked satellite reception, cell towers, and destroyed every machine on the compound. Machinesmith jumps to Anita’s body, but falls into their trap – Anita was willing to sacrifice herself by reconfiguring her system to allow wireless traffic in, but not out. Anita/Machinesmith then explodes.
Back at the Secret Avengers’ Roving HQ, Beast informs Rogers that the serum Machinesmith was trying to sell wasn’t the Super-Soldier serum but instead a worthless liquid. Rogers wonders what the whole mission was really about. In Detroit, Aloysius Thorndrake and an alive and well Jacob Erskine (thought to be murdered in issue #1) reveal that Machinesmith was simply a sacrifice to get what they wanted – a sample of Rogers’ blood “for comparison”. They drive past a 17 year-old boy and Erskine says that the boy has the exact same history as Rogers. They say “if the serum only works on Steve Rogers . . . then create more Steve Rogerses”. Their ultimate plan is to create an army of Super-Soldiers . . . for the Shadow Council!
Log in to comment