And Justice For All

*Cover for* ***“Captain America #10”*** (published April 29th, 2026) written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Valerio Schiti and colors by Ramulo Fajardo Jr.
Cover art by Valerio Schiti and Ramulo Fajardo Jr.

Salvation has arrived and with him…DOOM! In our previous issue, Captain America rallied the free people of Latverian against the forces of Salvation. But with the shocking presumed death of Alina Von Doom, things have gone from bad to worse. Can the Sentinel of Liberty possibly topple another Latverian armored despot? Let’s find out!

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for “Captain America #10”.

Doom’s Shadow, Part 5

Captain Americ tries to defend his allies against Salvation in his Doom-esque armor.

Our issue picks up in pretty intense fashion as Marius Wolf, aka Salvation, stands before Captain America in armor eerily similar to that of Doctor Doom’s. The despot points out Mara and Melor Sandu, two of the most persistent thorns in his side, and immediately lashes out with a powerful energy blast that Captain America barely blocks with his shield. The resulting explosion sends everyone else flying, causing Mara to lie unresponsive in her brother’s arms as he cries out her name. Steve immediately goes on the offense, aided by Charles from the S.H.I.E.L.D team, but the two are dismissed almost casually by Salvation in the process. In a rage, Melor unloads his pistols upon Salvation, but his bullets are ineffective as Salvation closes the distance between the two and, in a horrifying display, uses his energy gauntlets to literally disintegrate Melor’s head at point-blank range. Steve watches on in horror as he gets back to his feet, but Salvation has no more time for him: the location of Doom’s weapon cache has been found thanks to Steve’s fellow insurgents selling them out. The tyrant blasts off towards them, leaving Steve behind to try and pick up the pieces of the carnage on the battlefield.

Elsewhere, Red Widow and Trevor stand before a statue of Doom, having it on good authority that this is where the weapons would be located. They destroy the statue, revealing a storage unit of some kind. Just as Trevor is about to call it a wrap on their mission, Widow suddenly produces a pistol and shoots him in the back of the head in a shocking act of betrayal. Charles’ voice can be heard on her commlink as he warns her of Salvation incoming, but she merely turns off her comms before looking down at the corpse of her former teammate.

Cap gets on horseback to take the fight to Marius.

Back at the battlefield, Charles can barely stand as Steve gently leaves him in the care of Joe. The battlefield is filled with injured people as Steve decides to go after Salvation himself. There are no operational vehicles but a villager offers Cap a horse to ride providing he can ride one. Steve offers a wry smile and confirms he can before taking off. He reminds Joe that they’re here to help people, and his attending to Charles and the others is doing just that. The two men salute one another as the Sentinel of Liberty races off. Steve quickly contacts Fury, demanding the last known location of Widow and Trevor. Fury informs him that he has Ross on another channel, and they now have a situation. As Ross joins the call, he tells both Steve and Fury he now has everything he needs to officially get involved in the Latverian situation, citing the mass grave and the fact a card-carrying Avenger is aligned with rebel forces. In a clever twist on an iconic line, Ross dramatically tells Steve that he made America angry…and that he wouldn’t like America when it’s angry.

Red Widow is confirmed to be the traitor and the source of Salvation’s intel on S.H.I.E.L.D’s whereabouts.

Salvation touches down before Red Widow, confirming our suspicions that she had betrayed the team long before she executed Trevor. He tells her that Latveria-Russian relations will be unassailable due to her actions today. He rips open the storage unit, unimpressed at first but confident that the superweapon will be well worth it…only to find that it’s empty? As he questions the meaning of this, the sound of galloping hooves heralds the arrival of Captain America as he smashes his mighty shield into Salvation’s helmet, cracking it. Steve leaps off the horse, ready to put boots to fascist ass as Red Widow intercepts him, lashing out with her knives. He tells her that she doesn’t need to do this, but she retaliates by telling him she’s a true patriot. Steve disagrees, telling her that she allowed her patriotism to be cheaply bought as he ends the fight with a single elbow strike.

Marius Wolf condems Captain America and what he perceives to be his detachment from reality.

Salvation gets to his feet, his helmet destroyed as he condemns Captain America as someone who solely lives in a capitalist cocoon, unable to understand struggle or to see pain. He lashes out with his gauntlets, sending Steve for a tumble. Cap isn’t listening to any of what he has to say, calling him out as a murderer of his own people, to which Salvation merely brushes off by declaring them traitors. Salvation hurls Steve through a wall, reminding him that power is always obtained by violence and also that it was his American “peacefully elected” leaders who put Doom in power in the first place. Steve’s ribs are cracked as Salvation moves to end their battle when a stray bullet strikes his armored shoulder. Mara, having survived her injuries, tells him to step away as she brandishes a rifle towards him. Salvation bitterly remarks that even native Latverians aren’t immune to American propaganda as he turns his attention towards her. But right as he’s about to deliver the killing blow, the shield of Captain America blazes by, disrupting his gauntlet as Steve unloads righteous fury onto the tyrant. The citizens of Latveria begin hurling bricks at Salvation as Steve reminds him he’s just another tyrant and that the people will always rise up and remind him that they’re in charge. He smashes his shield into his armor, rendering him powerless in a powerful scene. The crowd begins swarming Salvation, stripping him of his shattered armor as Steve watches on.

Steve lets the people of Latveria get their justice on the man whom tormented and killed them.

We begin to reach the conclusion of our comic as Steve surveys the wreckage of the toppled Doom statue. There’s something about it that grabs his attention, namely the fact that Doom wouldn’t bother to bury something so important. He looks at the plaque that lies at the base of the statue, which reads “King Victor Von Doom, the first. From humble beginnings to eternity.” Slowly, Steve begins to put things together, noticing that the statue originally pointed towards Crisan Square, named so after his mother’s maiden name. Not willing to believe it’s a mere coincidence, Steve moves past the rioting crowd as he approaches an unassuming home. Upon entering the home, an older Latverian brandishes a rifle at home and tells him to leave or die. Shockingly, standing next to her is none other than Nick Fury, brandishing a sidearm at her and at someone else.

We quickly alternate between the events happening inside the home and wherever Ross is currently at as he’s bathed in red gamma energy, undergoing his transformation into the Red Hulk as he’s joined by his fellow soldiers, all of whom have also been similarly transformed. We draw our issue to a bombshell of an ending as we discover that the other person inside the home - and the presumed superweapon - is none other than a young Victor Von Doom himself! Cap is shocked as the young Doom acknowledges him and is prepared to lead Latveria no matter what comes their way.

Red Hulk has returned to Latveria…and he’s not alone.

The War for Latveria

This comic is setting Ross up to be the major antagonist of the Marvel Universe going forward.

Wow. What an issue! Chip Zdarsky is, as the kids are fond to say, “cooking” with Captain America. This issue specifically is a prime example of why I love not just this series but Captain America as a character. It is a perfect blend of traditional superhero storytelling with some relevant themes that resonate with the reader. It has a lot to say beyond superheroes fighting supervillains and I loved that about it.

Marius Wolf, aka Salvation, is a premium example of the dangers of power left unchecked. It is a terrible and tragic sense of irony that this man, who was once fighting against the horrors that Doom inflicted upon his country, would follow in his footsteps. I know some folks have balked at his suit design and have called him a Doom rip-off, but that’s the whole point. He was, in my opinion, never designed to be an enduring villain but rather a sad shadow of the very same evil he once fought. And make no mistake, Marius was evil. Killing everyone who offered dissenting views and branding everyone who didn’t fall in line with him is evil. And as a civilian once said a few issues ago, Doom was at least a fine razor with precision. Marius as Salvation was a brute hammer, even more unfit for the throne. And yet, his claims of America supporting and propping up Doctor Doom are valid. It’s well documented in the ever-expansive lore of the Marvel Universe that America was all too willing to benefit from Doom’s genius when he was a student in ESU and certainly had no qualms about his taking over his country initially. But once Doom started going full supervillain, America had second thoughts about supporting him. The rest is history.

Obviously, the issue had no shortage of shocking moments. The death of Melor. Trevor Tambling’s murder by Red Widow’s hand. And of course, the shocking reveal of you-know-who. None of these felt cheap or unearned, which is a testament to Zdarsky’s writing. Each reveal or plot twist was a natural progression of the story, and it makes the whole thing come together perfectly. Melor’s death was pretty gruesome and sudden, a stark reminder of what an ordinary human amounts to in the face of even “bootleg” Doom armor. Trevor’s death was less predictable but equally jarring, given the lack of hesitation from Widow’s end. She was the one most likely to betray the team, given her history, which in turn makes her least likely to do it…which in turn makes for a great twist! Sometimes the obvious answer is the correct one. And that brings us to the big reveal at the end.

Whether he’s imprisoned, banished, depowered, or even killed….DOOM will always return.

I’m unsure if it’s a clone, a time-displaced version of himself, a magical simulacrum or what, but a young Victor Von Doom being Doom’s secret superweapon is so….on brand. I feel stupid not guessing it in hindsight because *of course* Doom’s ultimate backup weapon is himself in some way, shape, or form. Obviously, the details are up in the air for now, but I need answers! Doom, as you may know, met his untimely end at the end of the One World Under Doom event in which he bargained his life for Valeria Richards. Since he petitioned the Living Tribunal itself, it stands to reason that his death was just about as permanent as one could get. But yet, a young Doom stands before us. I’m extremely curious as to the specifics behind Doom in the here and now and what role he plays in Latveria’s future. I can’t imagine the country would so willingly follow him, but stranger things have happened.

While Doom’s return was the big, shocking reveal, it’s by no means the end of the story. The imminent threat of Red Hulk leading a strike force of other Hulks is a disaster waiting to happen and something that I presume will certainly lead directly into the highly anticipated Armageddon event Marvel has been hyping for months now. I don’t see how Captain America can possibly hope to repel one Hulk, let alone an entire military commando team of them. Godspeed, Steve Rogers.

I never knew how much I needed to see Captain America charging on horse back until I read this issue.

The art in this issue is brought to us by Valerio Schiti with colors by Romula Fajardo Jr., and boy, do they deliver. Every panel here is wonderfully done, but the fight sequence between Captain America and Salvation is peak. The battle is very reminiscent of Cap’s battle with Doom himself all the way back in issue #4 of the series, which I feel is a deliberate callback given the similarities here. The ferocity of Salvation, coupled with the tenacity of Cap, delivers a dramatic confrontation that essentially dilutes these two men to the very core concepts they represent. The citizens rejecting Salvation by hurling bricks at him is a wonderful reference to how the populace did the same to Doom, and I loved it. Leading up to the fight, the scene of Captain America charging in horseback was also phenomenally done and captures the larger-than-life status of Cap as a living legend.

Final Thoughts and Review

This was probably my favorite issue of Chip Zdarsky’s Captain America run yet. It not only captures what Captain America means but also who Steve Rogers is as a person beyond just being a symbol. That, coupled with the very real critique of how smaller, less privileged nations have historically been merely expendable theaters of war for America, in addition to just some good old-fashioned superhero adventures, basically makes the issue perfect from front to back.

This was one of the most satisfying images I’ve seen in a long while.

Final Review: 10/10

Captain America #10 is a book that fires on all cylinders, and the end result is a perfect issue that can be enjoyed on its own, a thrilling chapter in the ongoing saga of one of Marvel’s oldest heroes, and as an important stepping stone to Marvel’s next crossover event, which promises to redefine the Marvel Universe and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes going forward. Do yourself a favor and pick this book up, as well as all the issues leading up to it.