The Marvel Reimagined series will continue, but I'd like to take today to do another exercise in cinematic what if?
1979 saw the debut of Captain America, staring Reb Brown. It wasn't very good. So, assuming I had some pull in the late 70's with NBC, what would I do?
We open in the late 1940's. Through newsreel footage, we learn the origin of Captain America, basically a skinny 4-F named Steve Rogers is picked for Project: Rebirth and transformed into the peak of human perfection (Reb Brown). Along with his plucky best friend Bucky Barnes (Jackie Earle Haley) they lead the assault against the Axis.
That is until 1945. Assaulting the castle stronghold of Baron Henirich Zemo gets Bucky blown up and Cap MIA. Frozen in the deep waters, we open proper (and it color) with a sheet covered body being wheeled into a secret lab.
Dr. Simon Mills (Len Birman) and Dr. Wendy Day (Heather Menzies) oversee the process. Seems a group of first nation folk found the frozen body in Greenland and had it turned into a shrine. Mills and Day take the body back to their lab in LA. Mills hopes to extract the Super Solider serum that hopefully still rests in the body. Both are shocked when the presumed corpse sits up. Despite their efforts to calm the situation, Cap thinks he's being held prisoner.
Fighting his way out of the lab, he steals a motorcycle and races out of the complex. A massive hunt is undertaken, but Cap outfights them all and makes his way to the beach. He's having some culture shock when he's taken in by Lou Bracket (Steve Forrest), who claims he owes Captain America a great debt.
That's when Cap runs into Jeff Haden, an old war buddy turned private investigator. Haden is shocked to see his supposedly dead comrade alive and unchanged but when Cap mentions how Mr. Bracket is helping him adjust, Haden tells him that Bracket can't be trusted. He has evidence too, just come to his old place tonight. Unseen by the pair, two men (Haley and Rudy) watch and listen.
Cap slips away from Bracket's house and hoofs it to Haden's home just in time to see it blow up. He rushes in and pulls the dying man out. He manages to utter the word 'Helmut' before dying. Cap spots Rudy and Haley leaving. He heads back to Mills and Day, wanting answers on Bracket.
Bracket's background is a mystery. He's an orphan and made his fortune on oil and pharmaceuticals. Lately he's been getting into energy, nuclear and the like. Mills has a gift for Cap though, a new bike. Cap takes it out for a spin when a copter flown by Haley shows up and tries to kill him.
With a lot of fancy tricks, Cap turns the tables and causes Haley to crash. He pulls the dying man out of the wreck, but he spits on Cap and curses him out in German. He remembers that Haden talked about a daughter, so he has Mills check her out.
He finds her but so does Rudy. Seems Tina's a scientist too, with a field of study in neutron bombs. Rudy tries to kidnap her, but Cap beats him up. Bracket appears and abducts her though. From there we get his idea.
Seems he's been fibbing on a few things. He's really an orphan though...after his father died fighting the good captain. Yup, Lou Bracket's real name is really Helmut Zemo and he's looking for some overdue payback.
Oh, he was originally going to blackmail the US with a neutron bomb (that he had Tina work on) but if he can kill Cap too? Well, that's just a bonus. Plus he has the bomb set to a dead man's switch inside his chest, so if Cap kills him, LA goes too. He challenges Cap to fight, winner take all.
They fight. Cap gets the upper hand but refuses to finish Zemo off. When Zemo tries to kill himself, Day saves his life while Tina and Mills defuse the bomb.
Cap decides to stay with Mills and Day. He's got some catching up to do but he still wants to fight for the American Dream.
At the end, a black clad hand picks up a phone. "He's returned". The man (Christopher Lee) is surprised but pleased. "So my old enemy, you've returned..." he chuckles as the credits role.
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