Captain America: Hail Hydra #1(of 5)

Review: This is yet another Captain America flashback mini-series in a long line of them. Not that I'm complaining, because the more Cap I can read about, the better! We begin in 1944 as we head towards the end of the War in Europe. Captain America and Bucky have been contacted by a woman from the German Freedom League(the homegrown Nazi opposition force)and told of some bizarre experiments that were taking place in a castle in the middle of Germany. Cap and Bucky head inside to investigate and discover a mad scientist along with some German soldiers preforming some sort of weird experiments on dead bodies. The heroes manage to plow through the cannon fodder, until Bucky is knocked out by some hulking, bullet ridden man. Cap engages the man in battle, and finds that most of his best shots have no effect. Eventually, Cap is able to defeat the man, but turns around to discover several more bullet ridden men and women approaching him. The zombies knock Cap and Bucky out cold, and strap them to an operating table, where the mad scientist explains that he wasn't working for Hitler, and that he expected Hitler to fall within the coming months. Instead he was working for another organization(the Thule Society)and that he had mastered a way to reanimate dead German soldiers to work under him. After revealing all of this to Cap and Bucky, he informs them that they would soon die and be reanimated to join his undead army. The mad scientist goes to inject Cap with some sort of drug, but is shot in the back by the woman from earlier with the German Freedom League. The woman frees Cap and Bucky and shoots up the zombies while the injured mad scientist slowly begins to make his escape. The woman nearly catches the mad scientist, but he is saved by the arrival of who looks to be Baron Strucker, who carries the mad scientist away, leaving a live grenade behind to cover his escape. From there, the German Freedom League arrive on the scene and tell Cap they'll burn all of the zombie's bodies, as well as search for the mad scientist. Cap leaves, and this issue ends with the members of the GFL revealing they were actually agents of Hydra, and that although Cap's raid had set them back several years, they had all the time in the world for their plans to bear fruit.

Thoughts: For the most part, I enjoyed this issue. What's more fun then mad scientists, creepy castles and zombie soldiers?! However, there were some things that left me scratching my head... Was the Thule Society a branch or predecessor of Hydra, and if they were, why did Hydra, in the guise of the GFL send Cap in to attack the mad scientist? Or did Hydra send Cap in to take down the mad scientist so that they could use him and his creations? The ending made it seem like Hydra was upset that Cap had located the castle and set them back several years, but then why would they have sent Cap into the castle in the first place? Yeah, maybe I'm over thinking it a bit, but that's what I do! Anyway, this was a solid start to what will hopefully be a great mini-series.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Cap and Bucky versus zombie Nazis? Yes please!