U.S. Agent #3 - Marvel Comics

U.S. AGENT No. 3, October 2001

For those within this comic’s 20,718 strong audience who were expecting Issue Three of “U.S. Agent” to replicate the incredible excitement generated by John Walker and Steve Rogers’ first ever encounter during Mark Gruenwald’s run writing “Captain America” in the late Eighties, Jerry Ordway’s script for “A Matter Of Trust” probably left them bitterly disappointed. Sure, the Inkpot Award-winner’s narrative depicts the two combatants briefly battering one another in a desperate attempt to ‘save’ Senator Warkovsky from a mind-controlling extra-terrestrial, but the impact of their tête-à-tête is debatably lost amidst all the twists and turns of this twenty-two page periodical’s convoluted plot.

To begin with, it never seems particularly clear why the Republican Senator from North Carolina is so interested in speaking at the latest international trade conference nor what his partner-in-crime, the Power Broker, is actually trying to achieve with his ‘inter-galactic bugs’. The corrupt politician’s ‘reworked’ speech in front of the media certainly seems to put the American system concerning “free trade with no tariffs and no borders” in a bad light. However, Leon’s unsuccessful re-election, courtesy of the subsequent bad press his sermon generates, hardly seems to be something “an intelligent alien being” who has physically bonded with Curtiss Jackson would be interested in..?

Likewise, the implication that the green insect-like creature attached to the Power Broker’s back is in reality an escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. experiment seems to come completely out of the blue, and appears to have been ‘crowbarred’ into the comic simply to provide the traitorous Agent Kali Vries with a reason as to why she has been behaving so despicably towards her S.T.A.R.S. team-mates. Unfortunately though, it still doesn’t convincingly explain how a supposed crack sharpshooter like U.S. Agent’s former lover would accidentally shoot Machete dead during the trussed-up criminal’s arrest; “You want to know why I’m ashamed to admit it? Alive he could have led us to Jackson, and I wouldn’t have had to use you like I did Walker. I apologise for that. Then again, you know me -- I’ll do anything to win.”

Perhaps therefore this book’s only saving grace is Ordway’s dynamic pencilling during Captain America’s all-too short battle with this comic’s titular character. The two opponents clearly don’t like one another, and this animosity quickly reveals itself to the reader as the pair engage in a distinctly scrappy altercation as opposed to a bout of fisticuffs following the Marquess of Queensberry rules.

Writer/Penciler: Jerry Ordway, Inker: Karl Kesel, and Letterer: John Workman