STRONGER THAN EVER!!!!

 
The Inferior Four weren't really stronger than ever. 

Cap, however, was.

One of Englehart's earliest efforts at Marvel, that showcased his tendency to incorporate pulp fiction/superhero cliches into his storylines without really reflecting on their reality all that much. Fortuately, Steve E grew out of this (Marv Wolfman, for example, never did). But in this issue, when Cap and Falc manage to track down the Ass-Kicked Quartet in the abandoned warehouse where they're hiding out, somehow or other, Plantman manages to get the best of both of them (I know - I can't believe it, either), having a mutated vine crush both into unconsciousness. At this point, instead of just jumping up and down on the heroes' heads until they go squish, the Braindead Barbershop calls up their fearless leader, the Cowled Commander (right hand to God, that's what he called himself) and at that point, I imagine the dialogue went something like this:

CC: What? Are you drunk? Why didn't you just kill the fuckers?
PLANTMAN: Uh, hey. I'll rob jewelry stores and shit and block streets with big plants and what not but killing an Avenger is over my paygrade, dude.
PORCUPINE: Yeah plus Cap saved my dad's whole division in the Big One and...
CC: Oh fucking please. Hands up everyone whose dad was saved by Cap in WWII.
(All four villains grudgingly put their hands up.)
CC: Yeah, okay, me too, but he's still got to GO. Okay. So stick him in the steel lined room with the poison gas jet inside it. You know, the one with the big two way television screen in it, so I can taunt him and that bird guy while they're choking to death.
SCARECROW: Boss, we're in an abandoned warehouse. There isn't any steel lined vault with...
EEL: Found it.
PLANTMAN: Goddamn, there really is one.
CC: Standard feature of all abandoned warehouses used for supervillain quarters. Okay. Stick 'em in there and I'll give 'em the gas and you won't have to worry about killing 'em.
PORCUPINE: (scrutinizing comic book) Fine, but... flipping ahead here, it seems you're actually Patrol Sergeant Brian Muldoon and you organized this whole crime wave thing to 'weed out the weak sisters in the force' and 'give the good cops something to battle against, a cause to rally around'.
CC: So?
PORCUPINE: It seems out of character for you to cold bloodedly murder two guys with poison gas, is all. If you're really a cop. I mean, sorry, I don't mean to question you, it just seems strange.
CC: Goddamit, you read the comic. Cap's got super strength now. He's just gonna rip the vault door off its hinges and pummel you guys into unconsciousness. Okay?
PLANTMAN: Well, I admit, I'm relieved.
EEL: Insh'allah.
SCARECROW: The Lord moves in mysterious ways. Okay, boss, we'll toss 'em in the vault.

Englehart would become a more thoughtful plotter over the coming years, although, really, even in what was perhaps his finest arc ever, the universe conquering scheme of Kang the Conqueror always seemed rather hallucinatory to me. Grabbing the Celestial Madonna, raping her into submission, fathering 'The One', and through him, RULING THE HEAVENS... I don't know. There's a lot that could go wrong there. Even if whoever the Madonna actually is doesn't kick your dick up out your left ear (and given that it was apparently either Mantis, Wanda, or Agatha Harkness, I'm thinking it's probably a bad idea getting naked with ANY of those chicks if they don't like you), well, if "The One" is going to 'rule the heavens', what the fuck makes you think he's going to listen to ol' Dad, the rapist in the blue bozo mask? Why wouldn't he just boot you into Jupiter's gravity well without your forcefield and chuckle as you steadily get flatter and flatter? Honestly, this whole idea seems very sketchy. Personally I'd stick with an orbital array of mind control satellites. That seems much more workable.