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Al Ewing is sharing what is going to happen when Captain America decides that taking over the ‘U.S. Avengers‘ is part of his new jurisdiction as the new leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. With his “Secret Empire” on the verge of being unleashed upon the world, Rogers will have to finish consolidating his power and Roberto de Costa isn’t too happy about this plan.

This issue sounds more like it will be a quick burn of a cold war situation where the side of Captain America’s S.H.I.E.L.D. is technically in charge of A.I.M. these days, and Sunspot is doing everything he can to keep it out of Roger’s range of influence, and this is even before he learned that Cap is also running Hydra!

According to Ewing when we see Rogers take on A.I.M.:

“It’s more of a standoff than a battle. Steve, as the new big man on campus at S.H.I.E.L.D., is essentially Roberto’s boss now that A.I.M. have been absorbed by everyone’s favorite global super spy organization. Since Steve Rogers is also an agent of HYDRA after some meddling from a Cosmic Cube, and Roberto doesn’t know that…well, the situation’s a little tricky.

Steve’s goal here is to see if Roberto can be persuaded as to the rightness of his cause, and if not—and let’s face it, it’s going to be “not”—he’s going to find whatever weaknesses he can in A.I.M.’s defenses and generally get Roberto rattled enough to make an error.

Roberto’s goal, meanwhile, is to get through a particularly rough, and increasingly strange, performance evaluation.”

Rogers wants to make changes here, but he also knows that he can’t just push de Costa out. With the changes, he’s made, and how intelligent he is that would be a mistake so he has to take things slowly:

“Roberto doesn’t know what’s going on with Steve. That’s a biggie—that’s everything. This is the first time Roberto’s been in a situation where he hasn’t been two steps ahead.

But from Steve’s point of view, Roberto is clever enough to figure it all out—if Steve pushes too hard. So there are a lot of subtle tactics, a lot of gentle probing, pushing and the occasional naked micro-aggression. HYDRA-fied Steve Rogers might think he’s the hero of his own story, but he’s a very nasty character, and he doesn’t mind if people don’t like him, either. He’s going to put all that to work.”

One might wonder how strong of a grip that de Costa has on an organization which has historically been evil and that raises a good case but:

“At this point, Roberto’s pruned the organization pretty effectively; anyone with a hankering for the bad old days of evil science and world takeover has been pretty much kicked out. But there are always one or two who are nostalgic for the good old days of bad against good, and Roberto might find traitors in the ranks where he least expects them.”

I think that A.I.M. will firmly be in de Costa’s hand at the end of this issue, but that just means Rogers’ “Secret Empire” is going to have something else entirely in store for them to keep the organization too busy to stop what is about to happen.

Are you interested in checking out what happens when Captain America goes up against Sunspot in a battle of wits? Share your thoughts below True Believers!

‘U.S. Avengers’ #5 goes on sale on April 19th, 2017!

Source: Marvel

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Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!