Retro Comic Read Through: Team America #4

Team America #4
Cover date September 1982

'This issue: Wolf, alone dares to confront The Arcade Assassins!' Screams the cover blurb of the fourth issue accompanied by an illustration of Wolf sitting very uncomfortably on his bike as his own spectral head looks down in anger.

This is another solo story like last issue, brought to us by Mantlo, McDonnell and Colletta. Which is a weird way to handle a team book so early on in it's run. With the cover blurb of 'Arcade Assassins' you might fear that this series has taken an even steeper turn for the worse an brought in that cheapest of all Marvel villains, Arcade, but instead they've gone even more low-rent than that!

The story 'Dark Machine' opens on the immensely popular Magic Light Video Arcade. Children happily playing the games. All except the poor Hispanic boy, Carlos, who goes to the arcade to watch, then tries to sleep there overnight after it closes. And if you think just because Wolf is meant to be Hispanic, that his solo story will be about the plight of other stereotyped Hispanics... then you're absolutely correct. Why waste the effort in writing a character when so many narrow racial stereotypes are on hand?

While hiding amongst the machines he witnesses the two owners closing up shop. And discovers the secret of their wildly popular machines. The games are given their extra something special by runaway children the fiends stuff into the back of them! Cheaper than silicon micro computer transistors, I guess... As the two owners go about checking on each machine they find one that's 'burnt out'. The kid inside is dead. Which is quite a departure for a Comics Code approved book and actually a little shocking. They weren't really too big on the corpses of kids dragged about comic book pages.

The video arcade owners aren't just heartless one dimensional monsters however. Finding the dead kid they wonder if maybe they're working their kids too hard, and decide to close up a half hour earlier the next day to give 'em a rest. That's kinda sweet!

Carlos is soon discovered and jammed protesting into one of the machines. Well that's the end of that story I guess. But no! The very next day Team America is out breaking speed records on their scoots on the outskirts of town. Which town? No idea, they never say. When along comes another kid whose a friend of Wolf's ex-lover, Reina Montoya, whose kid brother Carlos has gone missing and she wants Wolf to find him. Wolf spurns the offered help of his friends and heads off alone. You know, because Wolf is a loner.

Going back to his old stomping ground of El Barrio, Wolf beats up a local motorcycle gang who make fun of his outfit (not realising it was design by Frank Miller) and he makes the gang leader join him in looking for Carlos. You know, because Wolf is a loner. They choose to stakeout their only possible lead, the Magic Light video arcade. And Wolf and the biker kill sometime by playing video games, presumably causing untold brain damage to whatever kid is locked inside it.

Soon mob bosses turn-up to organise financing a chain of these murderous video arcades across the nation. Wolf, suspecting he may be out of his depth, makes a telephone call for help to his team-mates You know, because Wolf is a loner. Then not waiting for them to turn-up, Wolf barges his way into the arcade with his tag along hoodlum, saying he's looking for lost kids. They suggest he go look around the back door. Now despite the previous page making a feature out of Wolf noticing the steel re-enforced rear door, he whispers to his companion that there is no back door and it's a trap to get them to turn their backs. Which is exactly what they do anyway... so really not much use figuring out it's a trap if all you're going to do is fall into it willingly. Wolf and friend are quickly knocked unconscious And there follows the best bit of dialogue from the whole issue.

Wondering what to do with the loner Wolf and his new buddy, the arcade owner says, “They're too big to stuff inside the machines, though I suppose we could cut their legs off...” And it's at this point the true classic EC nature of Mantlo's story becomes obvious. Kids whose brains are destroyed by video machines, heroes who are dismembered and suffer the same fate. It a tale worthy of the Crypt Keeper!

But this is still a Marvel book, so instead the criminals, fearing discovery, decide to clean-up after themselves by putting all their victims, the kids, the local biker but strangely no Wolf himself who has just vanished from the story at this point, on a roller-coaster. And on the front of the roller coater car they put a giant clowns head whose comical cigar is filled with plastique explosive! No, really, this is the most sensible way to cover their tracks. Why the explosive has to look like a clown's head is anyone's guess. Just another nightmarish element in this story.

Unsurprisingly, it's at this point the Marauder makes his dynamic appearance. Whizzing up the roller coaster tracks, he disposes of the explosive clown head by using it to blow up the arcade, then vanishes into the smoke and the night. And who comes barrelling out of the smoke to finish the job? None other than Wolf. He makes short work of them and even sticks around while the police take them off to jail. Only then does his team-mate Reddy show up. And in knowing remark Wolf suggest that maybe Reddy is secretly the Marauder. But only reading further will uncover the truth! And that's the end of the story. Not even one sly mention of Honcho's homosexuality... what a disappointment!

The letter column has two readers suggesting that the Marauder could be everyone in Team America. That they somehow get possessed by the Marauder entity when needed. But the editors poo-poo the idea saying that the Marauder isn't giving up his secrets just yet. Yeah, sure. Right.
There's also two more Marvel Masterworks Pin-Ups containing 'Hydra Classified File' character factoids. The two featured here are Honcho and Cowboy.

Cowboy it turns out, is an ex-rodeo champ who after winning every rodeo award traded his horse for a bike. Could that be more clichéd?

Honcho, however, breaks the Marvel cliché mould by being the company's first (almost) openly gay character. His factoid file reveals Honcho quit the CIA “because he was unable to cope with the agency's bureaucracy and politics”. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to read that as Honcho coming up against a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy. Hey! They did manage to squeeze in a 'Honcho is gay' reference into this issue after all!

They also make reference to Honcho's ongoing one man counter-espionage battle to protect the USA. But I'm not sure if riding around getting shot at by Hydra really counts as a 'counter-espionage battle'. I think ol' Honcho has really lost his focus since teaming up with his leather clad pals.