In Captain America: Steve Rogers #3, Steve gets a telling off from his lord and master the Red Skull, and takes Hydra business into his own hands.

Super-Soldier. Avenger. Agent of Hydra. Nick Spencer and Jesus Saiz are creating the most controversial Marvel story in years with Captain America: Steve Rogers, in which the Sentinel of Liberty is secretly in the service of Hydra. But not all is as it seems…

Previously, in ‘Captain America: Steve Rogers’…

A new regime of Hydra is on the rise – in contrast to their blatant, delusional attempts at grabbing power in the past, they’re taking advantage of the current Trump-tastic sociopolitical climate and appealing to extremists who are already driven by hate to see their own goals met. No-one is more concerned about this new wave of Hydra more than newly-re-serumed Captain America.

Steve’s worries are increased when he attempts to disarm a Hydra suicide bomber on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D – the kid just seemed dead behind the eyes, not burning with a firey sense of purpose – I guess it just ain’t like the good old days anymore, huh Stevie? Of course, everybody knows by now the big twist of this series – that Steve is a lifelong follower of Hydra, and a series of flashbacks showed us the circumstances that lead to his induction.

The Red Skull, because he’d be right at home in a Bond film, tells us exactly how this abhorrent change in Steve occurred – that the supernatural four-year-old Kobik was once the cosmic cube he possessed, and by conditioning disguised as friendship, he’s taught her that Hydra equals everything good and right in the world. Since she became corporeal, he’s been raising her and influencing her – even when she appeared to be working with S.H.I.E.L.D. in Pleasant Hill.

When the Skull discovered that Kobik can alter someone’s whole reality – she makes the good Dr. Selvig believe in Hydra when he starts becoming suspicious – he laid out a plan to use this power to topple his ultimate enemy: Captain America. The Skull used Selvig to plant the ideas for the Pleasant Hill prison, and orchestrated the entire situation to make S.H.I.E.L.D. basically shoot themselves in the foot. He also hand-delivered the elderly Steve to a deadly scenario where Kobik, out of the goodness of her heart, “saved” him, restoring him to youth, vigor and perfection. And her idea of “making people all better” includes making them Hydra.

On another good-guy mission – going to the lawless city of Bagalia after Baron Zemo, who hasn’t been seen since Kobik vanished him from Pleasant Hill and whom Steve secretly believes has also strayed from the real Hydra ideals – Steve betrays himself to the reader when his sidekick, Jack Flag, comes to rescue him on Zemo’s plane. For some reason, even though Selvig still appears, for all intents and purposes, to be Zemo’s hostage rather than a bad guy himself, Steve regretfully pushes Jack out of the hatch, presumably to his death, just because he caught a glimpse of them.

Meanwhile Steve’s girlfriend Sharon Carter has been butting heads with Maria Hill: Hill faces a secret tribunal thanks to her morally questionable Pleasant Hill prison project, but in order to keep S.H.I.E.L.D.’s illicit activity under wraps, she remains the public head of S.H.I.E.L.D. while Sharon actually calls the shots, set to replace her as director.

You are too soft, Herr Rogers.

The biggest question – the one that might just be the clincher of this entire plot, and probably the lead to the downfall of the Red Skull, is this: what does Kobik herself think that Hydra is? In her mind, what do they do or stand for – what values and beliefs has she passed on to Steve? Because despite his Skype dates with the Red Skull and his utterances of “Hail Hydra,” Captain America: Steve Rogers #3 raises more doubts about whether the Hydra Steve is loyal to is the one we’re imagining.

First off, the Hydra of his childhood does not seem… all that sinister. The group of women that his mother gets involved seem to be doing genuine good – clothing the homeless, lobbying for a playground – with no obvious undercurrent of malice, prejudice or world domination. Of course, there’s also the fact that Elisa Sinclair, the stylish lady that brought Sarah Rogers into the fold, had Steve’s father killed and made it look like suicide, but, you know. Nobody’s perfect. In seriousness, I suspect we’ll learn a lot more about Elisa, because her scenes are not all from the mind of Steve himself.

It’s also still unclear if what Kobik does to people changes just their memories, or all of reality outside of that person’s mind – for example, the Skull is aware Steve’s past is falsified. His own memories didn’t magically alter to have always known Steve as an ally – he knows that Steve has been messed with. Same goes for the work Kobik did on the criminals in Pleasant Hill – S.H.I.E.L.D. was aware of all their real identities, and presumably, the crimes they committed still had real-world effects. History wasn’t changed.

Steve paints his chest with the Hydra symbol – a rather confronting image, to say the least – in order to look pretty for his video call with the Red Skull, and they rehash the events of Bagalia. We learn that after Steve pushed Jack Flag out of Zemo’s plane, he rigged the plane itself to crash with Selvig and Zemo in it, jumping to safety. Steve has definitely done bad things in the name of Hydra since being “fixed,” but he seems to still be wired with the same sense of right and wrong – he’s submissive and loyal to a fault, doing what needs to be done for what he believes is the greater good, but he expresses consternation and regret over these actions, particularly the death of Selvig.

He also has to admit to his supreme leader that Jack actually survived the fall – that Sharon, their resident hacker Rick Jones and Cap himself all participate in a rescue to get the superhero squad and their ship out of Bagalia. Jack hasn’t regained conciousness, but needless to say the Red Skull is not stoked about this turn of events and neither is Steve – when Jack wakes up, his cover is blown. Skull believes that Steve should have let Jack get killed in the plane crash he set up, and uses the situation of an example why Steve is too soft, too weak, too full of mercy. He compares the situation to issue #1’s suicide bomber – a Hydra agent that Steve tried to save. “He was weak, and you took pity on him,” Steve hears from his boss. “In doing so, you betrayed everything that Hydra stands for.”

Steve promises that he won’t fail again – but the Skull’s harshness may have pushed him too far, once again making me question what it is that our boy believes Hydra is all about. After the Skull reminds Steve how everything is falling into place – and declares that Jack Flag must still die – Steve gives himself a little pep talk about doing what must be done, despite the risks and dangers. He then destroys his Red Skull comm device and turns to ask Dr. Selvig – who’s alive and hiding out in the bunker – if he’ll lend a hand to the true cause.

Kobik also hasn’t been to see the Red Skull in a while – he seems under the assumption that she’s gone back into the cosmos, whereas we know perfectly well she’s hanging out with Bucky. We also know that she can place her conciousness in different places – she was with the Skull and in Pleasant Hill at the same time – it isn’t like she’s two-timing Metal Arm Dad with Red Face Dad. Under Bucky’s influence, she’s probably going to realize how evil Hydra is pretty soon – what effect will this have on those she’s changed?

So. The plot thickens. Selvig and Steve both got their Hydra ideals from Kobik, and seem to be forming an alliance against the Red Skull. Steve’s moral compass appears to be working just fine, so it’s really making me wonder – what values will Selvig and Steve band together to defy the Red Skull in order to uphold? Down with white supremacy and terrorism, up with government-funded ice cream vans and mandatory bowling on Saturday afternoons? And what’s to become of poor Jack?

Next time, Steve steps into Marvel’s Civil War II. With war on the horizon, Steve attempts to broker a truce between Iron Man and Captain Marvel. Is this peacekeeping position merely Steve learning from his past mistakes as a Civil War faction leader, or does his neutral stance serve Hydra goals in some way?

Captain America: Steve Rogers #4 will be released on Wednesday, August 24.