Rambo won. There isn't anything more to say, is there? Rambo won. Single handed, he symbolized the fall of the communist bloc and the end of history. But, if this is so (and it is), what follows? Does it follow that Rambo is also the spectre that skewered the New Deal order? That Rambo crept into the administrations of Bill Clinton and Dubyah? That Rambo was the force pushing social services away from a 'kremlin mentality' towards the so-called free market? Yes.

Rambo won and we all lost.

"I wish to take you back alive! This is your last warning! The choice is yours!"

The teef be lookin' to steal somethin' sweet, mon cher. A soft kiss or golden portrait. Nothin' compare to your beauty 'do. You be the sweetest 'ting Gambit ever see.

Perhaps you discuss with Gambit over candle light?

And silk sheets...

Next week: Rambo III

Doom resurrects the fallen herald of an alien god, setting him loose upon his enemies, the Curious Quartet!

Wait, that isn't right... Let's try that again.

...his enemies, the Heroic Household!

Wait, that isn't it either...

Hold on, it'll come to me in a minute....

"How else can I plead but... guilty!"

Before the fantastic arrives like a bird on our shoulder, the world is all matter and atoms and coincidence. But then the little bird sings to us in that space between the uncanny and the marvelous, a sweet song of 'what if?' and 'just maybe'. And we doubt.

Anna learned this one day, years after the death of her beloved Sean, when a copy of him emerged from the dead, seemingly intact, tantalizingly incomplete. She says that she was not responsible for what then occurred.

Couple audio glitches in the episode. What fools these mortals be.

"It's just sea sickness, sir."

These atomic powers and super suits are like guns, maaaan. And those super science types, they're, like, working for the government, dude. So we gotta stop them from taking our powers and make sure that we're free to save lives and serve justice, you know what I mean? They take our powers from us and we're lookin' down the barrel of a freakin' police state! I mean, whose side are you even on?!

"Somebody said we should go on strike if they mess with us like this. Does anybody else think that's a good idea?"

History is the nightmare from which we cannot awake. That's what they say, anyway. For Captain America, these words are twice as true. He is a dream born of nightmare. Living in the world of here, he remains there, serving the kingdom as a paladin in a world of dark illusions. History is a long told lie in which truth struggles to be born. Luckily there is a soldier out there guiding us to freedom.

"Keep your satisfaction to yourself, sadist."

Cut free from the oppressive straps of hypocrisy and cowardice. Technology will not keep you safe. Not in the jungle. You can't trust anyone out there in the jungle. To survive the jungle you must become the jungle, become the creeping vines and the mud walls and swallow up your enemies. Ideology is the enemy of truth. And truth can only be found in the mind.

"You may scream. There is no shame."

Come on in, we have no tea. You are in the house of an evil mind now, a theatre of misery, cruelty, and violence. The sword style of this house is empty. Nothing can defeat it because it isn't really there. We stand among the unfurnished interiors, all design, no content. Remember that this is the point. The emptiness is the depth. Remember and disappear.

"Don't think about winning or surviving. Be prepared to die. Risk everything, and you might have a chance."

The man in the wheelchair is shot by a pervert kidnapper. He lay poisoned by the future. Later, when the threads of then and now entwine and leave the present seemingly tied, the student will show that the open hand can injure just as well as the closed fist. Is this why the big guy up there won't cut him some slack?

All we can say with certainty is that a baleful song haunts the valley of death. We'd better look after that cough.

"Why has Apocalypse been awakened in an unfinished state of organic coherence?"

Born of destitution and sickness, he arises from the cold womb, from ice as hard as the grave of his long lost mother. This is Captain America. Living between two worlds - worlds of war and inequality; for him, every period is an ever present now. He's seen it all. He's seen it all and continues to stand, a sentinel of liberty, fighting so that no one else need ever be born from ice.

"Got your master race right here, pal!"