Just Steve and Tony Things

Finally making my Fall of X/Duggan-/MacKay-/Straczynski-era (2022-2024) summary post now that I've read everything that could conceivably relate to Steve or Tony for this event. To be quite clear, this is NOT a comprehensive Fall of X guide - outside of crossovers, I'm not an X-Men reader and there were a bunch of other titles for this event that I didn't read, and I've also been behind on comics in general which means I've lacked a lot of context. This guide is specifically for people who want to understand what Steve and Tony were up to during this time period (which may just be me, but hopefully will help other people too).

This guide contains the following (again, note that all of the below is from the perspective of someone reading this event for Steve and Tony):

A high-level summary of Fall of X, plus Avengers-, Steve-, and Tony-related events that happened around this time (link to section)

An issue-by-issue synopsis in rough chronological order (link to section)

An issue-by-issue synopsis for Steve and Tony specifically (this is a subset of the above bullet point) (link to section)

Steve-related trivia (link to section)

Tony-related trivia (link to section)

Unfortunately, I found out while trying to post this that it seems that Tumblr has length limitations now, and I don't want to split this into multiple posts, so you'll have to make do with this being hosted on Dreamwidth instead. Warning! It is super long!!

Cap #16: the last issue of this run, and our last two instances of "copy that". So: Steve, Peter, Thor, and Bill (the restore point) fight their way out of Dark Asgard and make it back to the real world. Ghostly Kelda comes through as well and is able to bring Broxton back and also stop being ghostly, so she and Bill get their happy ending. I have no idea how comics work, but I assume that the author learned that the Cap run would be ending soon and took the chance to wrap up some loose ends from his Thor run, since this definitely felt like a Thor story. (I am going to assume this is also why the last arc ended so abruptly.)

We do end with a nice Steve speech where he says that it's starting to feel like these United States again, and not the United States, but shared humanity doesn't stop at state lines. The world is just one great big neighborhood!

Aaand that's the end of JMS' Cap run. I will be putting together a massive Fall of X compilation post next because agonizing over ordering a bunch of issues written by different authors brings me joy, and then I'll read... well, who knows! I might also just disappear for a few years, since apparently I've done that before. We'll see!

Cap #15. The trio take the Bifrost over to Broxton. Steve says he always has a spoon with him. Peter always has his phone. "Copy that," they say to each other. Also, Peter's trying to play it cool in front of Steve. It isn't working.

They also have a conversation about the multiverse and how it may not actually exist, which is kind of weird because in the Marvel universe, it... definitely does? But okay. Anyway. They find out that an Asgardian named Kelda created the "restore point" but for reasons, they have to go to "Dark Asgard" to retrieve it. So they do, and they have to fight "Dark Asgardians" along the way (you can tell I have no idea what is going on, since I don't read Thor). Fortunately, they find the restore point... but it's a person! A guy named Bill, who is also Kelda's lover, to be exact.

Cap #14. Sparrows at the park, but also, Steve and Peter being anxious about calling each other to hang out? Peter's still embarrassed from when he wasted Steve's time in CA #2, and Steve inexplicably believes he has no real friends beyond the people at the Front Door Cabaret, who, as far as I can tell, he only ever really watched perform and rarely actually talked to. Like... Steve's neighbor checks in on him and Steve goes on a long ramble about how his relationships have felt very surface-level and he just talks to a feral cat about his problems and also bonding with superheroes just doesn't work because of issues with secret identities. What??????? This very run itself shows Steve and Sam hanging out in an earlier issue!! Steve and Sharon are dating! All the core Avengers know each other's identities - and we know this run acknowledges the existence of the Avengers because Steve is wearing an Avengers tracksuit for some reason!! Argh!!

Anyway, have some assorted panels that drop bits of canon that you are free to use or ignore.

Steve loves Rhapsody in Blue.

Steve likes everything bagels. This is something to ignore, because if you read New Avengers Vol 1 #3, you'll know that Steve actually loves sesame seed bagels the most, and Tony knows that too.

Steve did group therapy for a while. (Ignore the rest, where he implies he never felt like he was part of the Avengers, because that's just bizarre.)

Ahem. Back to the plot. Steve is lonely and feels like he has no friends for some reason, so he calls up Peter and asks for dinner. Peter, who had been thinking about calling up Steve, happily agrees. Then Thor comes!

So apparently in a previous Thor story (and it's probs not coincidental that the author of that story, JMS, is bringing it up here), Broxton, Oklahoma, was destroyed and Thor blames himself. But he followed a lead and now sees a chance to restore the town because there's a sort of "system restore point" (or like, a save point) that was made and if they can trigger it, they can bring Broxton back. So with that, they depart.

Cap #13. As the other change agents attempt to handle/avoid the people being possessed by Death (there is another "copy that" from Steve in one of their exchanges), Steve fights Death itself, now in human form! He has a chance because he's wearing rings that Lyra gave him (though this is never actually explained in any detail) and also because he figures Death is weaker because he's expending energy possessing people. Then Carlos tells him they made it through, so Steve can leave too - but Steve realizes that if he leaves, the people Death is possessing are probably going to all actually die, and he doesn't want that to happen. So he stays and fights, even though this means he will miss out on his chance at a real "home". This gives the other change agents enough time to actually make it to the Front Door, which Death then senses. He is upset and leaves, telling Steve that he'll see him again (when he dies in the vision that an earlier issue showed).

Steve goes back to the Front Door, but it's gone. He never hears from Lyra, Carlos, Becca, Malik, Julie, or the Guardian again (though the very last panel at least implies that Lyra is okay). He has no idea what happened to any of them. The vision Malik shared with Carlos? Didn't matter. The arc with Becca working with Death to betray them? Didn't matter. The implication that Malik was supposed to die in order to bring about something? Didn't matter. Like I said earlier, this was a weird arc. But we got Steve with a penguin out of it, so that's... something. Onward to the final arc of this run!

Cap #12. Steve talks about why sometimes you have to fight even when the odds are against you. "Sometimes you fight the battle because you think you can win. Other times - you fight the battle even thought you know you can't win. Because the job ends with making sure the other guys don't win either."

There's also some more annoying (to me, anyway) stuff from Lyra about how Steve doesn't have a home and has been looking for one, 'cause, you know, Tony, Sharon, Sam, Carol, Thor, Bucky, Fury, Logan, Natasha, etc. don't exist. And like... Bucky, Fury, and Logan are all from his original time, too. Keeping three friends for that long is a really great feat, Steve. What more do you want?? (Okay, I don't actually know what's up with Bucky or Fury at this moment in canon, but Steve did have an adventure with Wolverine recently.) Anyway, basically she's saying that he also needs to be there when the others arrive at the Front Door in order to be given this home he apparently doesn't have.

So. Steve and his gang of change agents (Carlos, Becca, Malik, Julie, and the Guardian) head toward NYC, but they encounter a hoard of people that Death is more or less possessing in order to block them from proceeding.

(Timeline note: the solicit for the next issue, #13, starts with "As the Krakoan era ends, mutants need allies more than ever"... so yeah, this is meant to be around Fall of X despite never being referenced in the comic itself ahaha.)

Cap #11. Steve calls up Sharon to vent a little about looking for change agents, because it's usually a pretty convoluted process to find them. Sharon roasts him bad. Steve calls her "sweetie". I am not up to date on the terms of endearment Steve uses so I can't tell if this is the usual for him or not, but it did stand out to me, lol.

They find a lead and follow it. Steve says "welp" and "copy that". Anyway, they find three people of interest: Julie, the Guardian, and Malik, the latter two of which are mutants. Malik tells Carlos his future and is implied to have an extremely meaningful death upcoming (Malik I mean, not Carlos). The party grows.

There's also a weirdly charged scene with Lyra where she says that she's offering him a home, which apparently he feels he has lacked for some time. I am obviously biased and think the quote "You gave me a home" that he says to Tony is one of the greatest things ever, but even ignoring that, what the heck? Steve has a full life in the present by this point. But whatever, it's inconsequential so we'll set it aside. The point is that if he does the needful, she says that he can become the guardian of the Front Door, and that will be his home.

Cap #10. Steve and Carlos go to London to find the next change agent. He thinks about a lot of London quotes from assorted people: Samuel Johnson, Paul Theroux, Oscar Wilde. He also gets defensive over his sense of humor.

Also I guess he solves a grammar puzzle? Who knows what to call it. Anyway, they do find the second change agent, a mutant named Becca, and recruit her (though another fight happens and she uses her mutant power to kill the baddies, which Steve is unhappy about). All is not well, though: Becca has apparently made some sort of deal with Death, and things are going swimmingly for her now that she has Cap's trust. Oh no!

(Also yes, this is a very short summary. This arc is really weird and ends underwhelmingly so there isn't much point in going into detail lol. You will see.)

Cap #9, or: the penguin comic. Steve is in Chile looking for one of the change agents, who is a mutant. (Also, everyone at the Front Door Cabaret does explicitly seem to be a mutant, which is awkward given the current events with Fall of X, which, again, this run makes no effort to acknowledge. My best attempt to reconcile this with canon is that because the Front Door is a magical place, it was shielded from Orchis and Xavier's summons to go through the Krakoan gates.) Anyway, along the way, he runs into a penguin in the desert. Because he is a good boy, he does not let the penguin die out there, and so he puts it in his bag. Also, based on its size and location, this is likely a king penguin, which is obviously not a usual visitor to the Atacama Desert, but has at least been (rarely) spotted around Santiago, so... it's something. (This will be explained soon.)

EVIL PENGUIN. Ahem. So Steve finds the change agent, a mutant named Carlos, but even though the place is deserted, they still get attacked by soldiers. They get away, but Steve realizes it's because Death is out in the real world and possessed the penguin (and presumably made it waddle to the desert) so that it could spy on him. Steve makes Death let go of the penguin. The freed penguin then leaps into the water and lives happily ever after. There is a shark fin, but it is totally coincidental!! Let the penguin be happy!!

Cap #8. Steve is a Star Wars fan! Though he also mentions having seen "an awful [movie] with Brad Pitt that [he] can never remember because we forget that which brings us pain". Lol. I think this is Meet Joe Black, but I haven't seen it myself, so who knows.

Plot-wise, Steve and Lyra face down Lyra's brother, aka Death. Death wants to destroy the change agents so that he can bring about the end of the human race. Death also shows Steve a vision of his dying moment, which involves him being old and holding his crystal shield, so he's presumably in the Pale City. (Spoiler alert: Steve doesn't actually die in this run, so this future vision is not actually going to happen, though as I mentioned it did also get shown in Cap #3.) Death also tricks him into lowering his guard and injures his arm before bouncing. Lyra and Steve then head back to the Front Door, where she heals his arm and tells him she'll point him toward the other change agents so that they can be found and protected. Also, it's implied that Steve makes more visits to see the Front Door Cabaret, 'cause he likes it.

Cap #7. We enter the second arc of JMS' run, which is... weird. But first, enjoy Sam and Steve hanging out in Steve's apartment and watching a movie! Steve has a flag framed on his wall! Sam has a shirt with an Avengers logo on it! They talk about CGI and stuff, but then Sam has to go. He later tells Steve that a cat got into his apartment and had kittens.

There's also this panel, which seems to retcon Steve's birthday into being September 28, 1922. I swear it used to be July 4th. And a different year. But whatever I guess.

Plot-wise, the short of it is that the embodiment of life, Lyra, approaches Steve once he's finally finished renovating his old childhood building to his satisfaction. She asks him to come to a place called the Front Door, which seems to be like, kind of a magical cabaret that mostly has a bunch of mutants in it. They perform, and Steve is moved. Then Lyra appears and takes him to what seems to be another realm connected to the Front Door called the Pale City, where his shield looks like crystal because it absorbed stuff when Asmoday died. She asks him for help finding the other "change agents" and bringing them to the Front Door so that they can be protected.

Cap #6. Steve and the Emissary/Asmoday fight. Steve is losing the battle, until the Stephen doll head comes in clutch with the Eye of Agamotto, which he uses to take Asmoday out. A little awkward symbolically, but hey, it gets the job done. That ends the active threat to present-day Steve, though there's a little coda about how one of the buildings near the one he recently bought is covered with Nazi graffiti. He paints over it and thinks: "We didn't end the war with Germany because we decided to stop fighting Nazis. We stopped because we ran out of Nazis to fight. They ditched their uniforms and ran from the field of battle. So if anyone else ever wants to put those uniforms on again, and step back onto the battlefield, well - I'll be waiting for them."

In February 1939, they find the bomb in a locked vehicle, but then the timer goes off. There isn't enough time to break in, but Steve is small enough to crawl through the windshield, so he does and manages to drive it into the river - fully expecting to die once he does. 😭 (Also, he knows how to drive, it seems.) Anyway, obviously he actually finds the will to escape and does so before the bomb blows up in his face.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean he's in the clear. He wakes up in the hospital and is told that he's been unconscious for three days and that between his existing ailments, the cold, and the toxicity of the river, he doesn't have a lot of time left - and he's only like, 16 right now. Asmoday, meanwhile, is watching contentedly, happy to just let him die in misery instead of sending an assassin after him. Obviously, with Project Rebirth on the horizon, he'll end up regretting that big time. The end (of this arc)!

Cap #5. Doll-slash-figurine Stephen Strange helps Steve ID the demon possessing the Emissary as Asmoday. He tells Steve to carry his head around so that he can help him once he has a solution to defeating said demon, but as things currently stand, Steve has no chance against him. Steve puts him in a pouch. Strange notes that the pouch has granola bars and a mint. Meanwhile, Misty learns that Asmoday's next target is a peace conference, which she tries to get cancelled due to the danger to everyone, but they insist on standing their ground and holding it anyway.

With the peace conference happening, they have to protect it. Steve asks Sharon for help after being pestered by Strange's head - she'll need to get everyone to safety as he fights the Emissary. Then they kiss as Strange's head awkwardly exists next to them. "Copy that," he says. Later, the conference happens, with Sharon showing up as the Destroyer (a mantle she took up in the previous Cap run). She, Misty, and Steve get ready for a potential attack, which then happens in the form of Steve getting lured into the building and the doors magically disappearing afterward, trapping Steve and the other attendees inside with... the Emissary!

In the pre-serum Steve flashback, it's the eve of the real 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. Steve gets a tip from Mr. Mueller, his old landlord, about the destruction the baddies are planning - when one of the particular Nazis give a speech, some other Nazis will trigger a bomb that will then go off in five minutes and then explode the entire venue. (The idea is to pretend that anti-Nazi forces killed a bunch of "innocent" people, which will then make others more sympathetic or at least neutral to the Nazi cause and lessen the chance of U.S. involvement.) Steve rushes to call Lansky, the mobster, but Baron Strucker nearly kills him. He ends up going into the sewers and delivering the news in person. From there, Lansky, his goons, and Steve all head to Madison Square Garden to stop what's coming.

Cap #4. We open with a fun bit of Steve characterization: the ham sandwich! It's his way of assessing an unknown enemy. According to what JMS wrote in an author's note later, it's named as such because a "ham" is like, an overly showy person - usually the villain trying to attack Steve. And then the ham gets sandwiched between him and his shield. Hence, ham sandwich. There's also some neat strategizing he does where he analyzes the way the Emissary holds himself and how he moves. So they fight, but Steve eventually realizes the dude is a demon and that he can't beat him in hand-to-hand combat, so he retreats and gets blown into the river.

He wakes up in the hospital later, where Sharon is watching over him. She chides him for being a silly goose. (Also, "copy that".) Later, he and Sharon call Misty to discuss the case more. Steve does the same thing he did in an earlier issue where he asks someone a question in the hopes of being validated, though this time he doesn't get the answer he wants: Misty, like Sharon, DOES take pictures of food, thank you very much. Anyway, he reluctantly asks if he can have access to the Stephen Strange doll. This is something that brings him great shame.

Back in 1939, Steve passes out while he's working. His neighbors bring him back to his apartment, where he's seen by a nurse. He rattles off a long list of ailments that he has: asthma, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, heart palpitations, nervous trouble, bone deformity, scoliosis, high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia, partial deafness, and astigmatism. Good lord, Steve. That aside, we also find out that Asmoday is involved in these past events too, because he has a part in the upcoming Madison Square Garden plan that the Baron Strucker and Baron Zemo are cooking up.

Cap #3. Steve has some thoughts about time. But mostly I'm including these panels because it's always fun to see another take on being found in the ice + Rebirth. Also, the panel where he is old and has a silvery shield is actually foreshadowing for the second arc of this run, which is kind of cool, although it doesn't actually go anywhere haha.

Anyway, Misty Knight calls Steve in for some help investigating a grisly mystical murder, since A.I.M. was involved and they're his wheelhouse. She also pulls out a little Stephen Strange doll - sorry, I mean figurine - to help investigate the weird symbols on the walls. He can astral project into them when he's busy in his astral form. Apparently there are 47 of these, and Misty Knight has one. Anyway, he realizes there's a demon behind this who is trapping human spirits (the change agents) so that they can't go out and, you know, enact change. They also show Steve a shield symbol, implying that he's next - and indeed, when he finally takes his leave, Asmoday and his human vessel - called the Emissary - are there, waiting for him. (And look, since I noted possum counts with Duggan, I have to say: JMS uses "copy that" a fair few times. The Emissary says it to Asmoday when they pair up.)

Steve's pre-serum story also continues. He still hits up Nazi rallies to heckle them, though he gets junk thrown at him in retaliation. Still, this ends up catching Meyer Lansky's attention - Lansky apparently being a real-life Jewish gangster back in the day. Lansky asks Steve why he's doing this, and Steve gives the above speech. Lansky tells him, "For a young kid, you're pretty old," and also that he's gotta stop with the speeches, which is hilarious. Steve says he'll do what he can. Sure, Steve. Anyway, Lansky asks Steve to find out more about what the Nazis are planning, because he wants to disrupt them, and no one will be able to tell Lansky and Steve are working together.

Cap #2. Steve (at 16, in 1938) obviously speaks up at the rally and gets beat up for his troubles, but he's not deterred.

But at least he moves in to his new apartment. It's actually just a former supply closet with no running water, but it has a window. He makes friends with one of his neighbors and says he knows how to do stuff like plumbing and how to fix a car, since he taught himself these things. Then his old landlord (who had to kick him out since he couldn't pay) comes and returns his father's war medals to him. Steve is touched and hangs them up in his room. Later, outside his apartment, some Nazis harass some Orthodox Jews, so Steve goes to defend them. The woman he befriended and her friends help out by dumping a bunch of waste on them, since the toilet wasn't working. Sucks to be a Nazi.

In the present day, we get an extended cameo from Spider-Man where he needs Cap's help because he thinks he's in danger, but then the danger doesn't happen. Steve ends up leaving in exasperation and Peter is embarrassed. Steve is also busy renovating the building he bought, and I guess he's dating Sharon.

In plot-related news, Asmoday enlists a serial killer's help, saying he needs to kill people called "change agents", who have the power to enact significant good in the world. Steve is, of course, one of them. And in the past, we see Baron Zemo and Baron Strucker plotting something sinister to happen at Madison Square Garden.

Cap #1 by J. Michael Straczynski. This is a 16-issue series that was running around the same time as Fall of X, but having now read through it, I see current comic events basically aren't even referenced, and the run itself doesn't change Steve's status quo much or have anything that's particularly dramatic, so I suspect there isn't going to be a lot of fic that takes place during this run. As such, I'll breeze through the plot and mostly focus on the fun (and sometimes not-so-fun) characterization and canon tidbits the run gives us. But first, here's the one thing that does change about Steve's status quo: Steve buys a building in his first issue! It's apparently the building his parents lived in (located in the Lower East Side), but everyone got an eviction notice, so Steve decides to call Tony up so he can get the money to buy the building himself and become the landlord. What follows is a very MCU-ish exchange that totally contradicts current canon (Tony is dirt poor right now, and while Steve has the Unity Squad, I am not convinced that that's what he's talking about when he refers to his Avengers salary). Wrangling this into the timeline will be a problem for future me. Anyway: thanks to Tony, he owns a building now. Cool!

Steve's dad died shortly after World War I. Steve and his mom visited his grave twice a year to talk to him. Then his mom passed in 1936 when he was 14, and he visited both their graves. Arnie Roth was his main friend. He became Captain America on June 22, 1940, at the age of 18 (so young!!). Also, sometimes his mom would look at him on the street from her apartment when she thought he wasn't looking, but he was aware, and sometimes he would look up at her when he thought she wasn't looking.

Then we get a pre-serum Steve flashback, which turns out to be its own arc for the next few issues. Basically, after his mom dies, he can't pay rent anymore. He lives in a condemned building and works a ton of odd jobs to earn money - construction, washing cars, walking dogs, bagging groceries, selling newspapers. Eventually, Arnie tells him he has a lead for a less janky place to live in, so he starts saving for that. Then one day at the park (now 1938, so he apparently lived there for... a while...), he's eyeing food real longingly because he is soooo hungry, but he resists. A stranger then tells him there's a rally giving out free food, so he goes and gets a ham sandwich. He's about to chow down, when - oh no! It turns out that the rally is being held by the German American Bund (so, you know, Nazis).

Meanwhile, in the present day, Steve helps out the Fantastic Four (a cameo appearance) while Asmoday, a demon, finds a body to possess and meets up with an A.I.M. person.