Polite Dissent

It all starts when Captain America receives a note from Keith, a member of his Teen Brigade. Keith plays on his high school baseball team and is concerned about the team’s star pitcher Mitch. Recently, Mitch has started performing poorly, wheezing, and acting very anxious. Keith also tells Cap that he saw a strange man on a street corner giving something to Mitch, but Mitch wouldn’t tell him what it was. Keith is worried about Mitch and asks Captain America to check it out, especially with the big state championship game coming up.

After getting the note, Captain America decides to head down to the championship game. Mitch is pitching, but he’s not doing well. The opponents are getting hit after hit. Shaken up, Mitch loses control and beans the next batter, knocking him out. This nearly starts a riot, but Captain America is there to sort things out. After it becomes evident that Mitch has been using illegal drugs, Captain America decides that he needs to talk to him. Scared, Mitch flees from the scene, and while running through town encounters the dealer who sold him the drugs in the first place. The dealer offers him more, but Mitch slugs him. Of course, he then runs into a bunch of guys from the other team and the obligatory fight-scene-that-needs-to-be-broken-up-by-the-starring-hero occurs. In the end, Mitch learns his lesson and swears never to do drugs again.

All in all, a decent PSA comics, not even counting the aliens. Didn’t I mention the aliens? See, the whole thing was actually a plot by aliens who want to overthrow the Earth. These aliens have been watching us for some time and are concerned that humans have too much spirit and determination and would put up too much of a resistance to invasion. The alien leader thinks drug addiction might be a good way to subdue the humans, and to test his theory he chooses four random people and tries to get them addicted to drugs. Mitch was the first of these four. And Mitch’s drug dealer — an alien in disguise. So you see that Mitch’s rejection of drugs not only saved his own life, but the lives of everyone else on Earth as well (though the other three experimental subjects are never mentioned — I guess they were saving them for the sequels).

Captain America Goes to War Against Drugs was published by Marvel Comics in 1990, with cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was written by Peter David, with interior pencils by Sal Velluto and cover pencils by Jazzy John himself.