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You see, you were my boyhood idol, Cap. I even saw you in action in person once, with your partner the Falcon...

Major Vance Astro

Appearing in "Seven Against the Empire!"

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Synopsis for "Seven Against the Empire!"

On planet Earth in the year 3014 A.D., the Thing, Captain America, and Sharon Carter are captives of the Brotherhood of Badoon. Lordsire Drang has Captain America's mind probed to learn how these beings came to be on Earth. Drang and the other Badoon are horrified to learn that they are heroes from Old Earth, and Ebor urgently suggests that they be put to death at once because they represent the first real threat to the Badoon's rule of Sol-III. However, the Thing regains consciousness and punches the Monster of Badoon into the mind probe's power source, electrocuting it. Since this leaves the heroes facing only Zoms and Badoon, they are able to fight their way to freedom, and escape from the palace to hide in the city. Meanwhile, meeting up with the human resistance, Tarin tries to convince Zakkor, the leader of the resistance, to contact the Guardians of the Galaxy. Zakkor is unconvinced until Qarl comes running in to tell them about a battle between the Badoon guards and Captain America on the steps of the palace, a battle of which he had made a visi-recording. After watching that recording, Zakkor and the others are convinced to call together all of their forces and summon the Guardians of the Galaxy back to Earth.

Aboard the Captain America in orbit around the Martian moon Phobos, the Guardians of the Galaxy receive the call from the human resistance and are convinced to come to Earth to help when Vance Astro sees footage of Captain America fighting the Badoon. Arriving on Earth, the Guardians of the Galaxy help turn the battle in favor of the visitors from the past. Once the immediate threat is over, Major Vance Astro tells Captain America of his origins, and how he was from their own era but had spent most of the intervening years asleep in suspended animation as part of a space mission that launched from Earth in 1988 on a journey to Earth's nearest stellar neighbor. However, two hundred years after he left Earth, a man named Harkov had developed a new theory of physics that made faster-than-light space travel a reality, so that, when Astro finally arrived at Centauri-IV in the 31st century, he was greeted by some of the Earthmen who had already colonized the planet. The heroes are soon joined by Tarin, Zakkor and the rest of the Terran Underground from the New York Sector.

With the help of the Thing, Captain America, Sharon Carter and the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Terrans storm the Badoon palace. Although some of the humans die, the Monster of Badoon and the Badoon forces are defeated, the Terran rebels take control of the palace and New York City, and Drang is captured. Although the Badoon still control the rest of the planet, and Drang brags that they control control the rest of the Solar System and that entire sector of the galaxy, the humans are willing to fight to make sure that the Badoon empire will fall.

Later, 24 hours after they arrived in the future, Captain America, the Thing, and Sharon Carter allow Dr. Doom's time machine to return them to their own era.

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Continuity Notes[]

  • Vance Astro states that he was born on July 3rd, 1962, and once saw Cap and his former partner the Falcon in action in 1972. Both of these dates have been considered topical references per the Sliding Timescale which governs Earth-616 and connected universes. Earth-691, while an alternate future, is subject to the Sliding Timescale as it is a reality that branches off from Earth-616.
    • While some writers (like Jim Valentino) have treated Earth-691 as if the Sliding Timescale was in effect in the reality, others have written stories based around the idea that the Martian invasion of 2001 A.D. was a fixed event, something that is totally impossible to reconcile with the Sliding Timescale. So far, nobody at Marvel has made any attempt to resolve this contradiction.
  • It's established in this story, for the first time, that Yondu's planet is named "Centauri-IV" and is part of the star system that is "Earth's nearest stellar neighbor," things that were not mentioned in Marvel Super-Heroes #18. However, the fact that the nearest star system is Alpha Centauri is not actually mentioned in this issue. Furthermore, while Alpha Centauri will be identified as Yondu's home star system in the letters/text pages of Defenders #29 and Marvel Presents #3, that fact will not appear in any story until 1992's Guardians of the Galaxy #25. Unfortunately, during that 16-year gap, the Alien Race profile for the Centaurians in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #2 will state that Centauri-IV was part of the Beta Centauri star system, apparently in the mistaken belief that the three stars in the Alpha Centauri trinary system were named Alpha Centauri, Beta Centauri and Proxima Centauri. While most stories have avoided using this faulty data, Avengers: Forever #1 did not, and that issue begins by showing the Centaurians living on the fourth-closest planet to the star Beta Centauri. This is a continuity error because, in the real world, Beta Centauri is located over 350 light-years away from Earth, meaning that there are hundreds of thousands of stars that are closer to Earth than it, while only Alpha Centauri is the nearest to Earth.
  • It is specified here that Captain America spent two decades in suspended animation after World War II until he was revived in the modern age. This occurred in Avengers #4. However, thanks again to the Sliding Timescale, current stories that recap his origin have him spending more than five decades frozen in that iceberg, and that time interval will only increase.

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