All Diamondback wants is a nice evening on the town with Captain America. Standing in her way is an army of the worst villains the Marvel Universe has to offer. Can she prevent Cap from going after them for one night?
An easy issue to write about this time as I’m still poorly. This is one of my favourite Captain America issues, a done in one story that’s quintessentially Gruenwald even though it’s nothing like anything else he ever wrote for Cap. Ever since issue 358 Cap and Diamondback had been going through one adventure after another and this issue starts as they’re finally home. Cap wants to leave but Diamondback isn’t having it. After a brief discussion about what they are too each other, settling on friends and having established that Cap has no social life whatsoever, she sweets talks him into a friendly date that night.
Now you have to remember that at this stage of Gruenwald’s run on Captain America, he’s Cap nearly 24/7, his civilian Steve Rogers identity nearly abandoned. The man lives in Avengers headquarters, has no other job than being a superhero and no time for a social life. He doesn’t even have clothes fit for a date anymore and has to ask Jarvis for advice on what to wear. Diamondback meanwhile gets her best friend, a certain Black Mamba, to help her get in top shape for the date. The most important thing being a new hair colour as Cap wouldn’t “look right going out with a girl with magenta hair”…
Both spruced up nicely and revealing their civilian identities to each other for the first time, they set out for a night on the town: dinner at a nice Mexican place, followed by a magic show and a nice stroll through the neighbourhood where Cap grew up, not too far from where Diamondback spent her childhood. Sounds idyllic, but this wouldn’t be a superhero story without supervillains…
As they take a taxi to the restaurant, there’s a traffic jam because the Gamecock is holding a woman hostage nearby. The show at the magic club is interrupted by the arrival of Trump (no, not him) trying to rob the place. Their nice stroll afterwards is interrupted by a lovers spat between Poundcakes and Jackhammer. Yes, the very worst villains the Marvel Universe has to offer and there are reasons you never heard from them. That Scourge never got to any of them is a miracle. Luckily for Diamondback, though it comes close, Cap never has to interfere as they have a trio of guardian angels watching over their date: Black Mamba, the Asp and Anaconda. Diamondback’s friends from the Serpent Society took it on their selves to make sure her date was a success, not knowning who she was dating…
The art in this story is by Ron Lim, inked by Danny Bulanadi. Lim had taken over from Kieron Dwyer with issue 336 and would remain until 386, with Bulanadi having been the inker already and staying on after he left. Gruenwald’s Cap would sadly never look as good as it did after Lim left. The artwork was decidedly inferior under Levins and his successors. But this issue not only has Lim on the main story; the backup art is by Mark Bagley. In it we have Diamondback struggling with what her attraction to Cap means. If she wants to get serious, it means giving up her career as a supervillain and going straight. Can she do it and give up her lifestyle and easy money?
This what I mean by a quintessentially Gruenwald Captain America story. You have the dredging up of deservedly obscure villains on one hand and the socio-economical consequences of wanting to date a superhero on the other. If you want a grasp of what his writing is like, this is the issue to try.
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