Civil War: Front Line #4

Sally Floyd and Ben Urich meet over coffee to discuss the status of the war. She's seeing some patterns and believes there's a bigger picture behind the registration act - but the more experienced journalist encourages her to stay objective. He finds a mysterious note on his car, however.

Sally again visits the secret location of the underground heroes - now discussing whether they should attempt to contact Captain America and get organized. S.H.I.E.L.D. attacks the location. The heroes get Sally to safety, but behind them Typeface causes an explosion that injures the rest. They run for it.

While they hide out, Sally calls up Urich, she's worried the agents tracked her to the hideout and tells him to watch out. The Green Goblin ambushes Urich in an alley...

Robert Baldwin is in the prison gym, boxing Toomey while they taunt each other. Robert seems to be enjoying the pain now, and bounces back increasingly, soon defeating the much larger Toomey. An onlooker slices Robert's calf to fix the fight, and Toomey stomps on his leg, breaking it. Robert suddenly bursts with power from the pain, knocking down people in a circle around him before he passes out.

His mother visits, begging him to show remorse and cooperate with the authorities - Robert still does not feel that the blame is his. His speech is getting noticeably more sarcastic, his bitterness is evident. His mother loves him, but calls him stubborn, saying she won't be coming back.

At Joe's Marine Mania crime scene, detectives Keith Dixon and Donna Altieri have discovered that the missing owner, Joe Atlantis, has no records. They begin to wonder if he's an illegal immigrant, a mutant who spontaneously blew up, or perhaps a sleeper agent.

Unbeknownst to them, Joe is indeed an Atlantean sleeper agent, recently awakened by the whale song from the TV news report he watched before. Donna however, dismisses this, saying it's probably a case of infidelity or insurance fraud. As they head out the building, the firemen leave the scene. One of them is Joe, his face hidden behind the gas mask.

The story uses images to reflect over the Vietnam war, while drawing comparison to the current super hero civil war. The Vietnam death tolls are listed, and the images are accompanied by words adapted from the song Goodnight Saigon by Billy Joel. Half the scenes show S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers attacking the hideout where Sally was interviewing the underground heroes, Typeface flinging exploding letters around him. The other image series shows wounded American soldiers, and Vietnamese soldiers fleeing from grenades. Casualties, captives, fire and despair shown on both sides, though the underground heroes are clearly shown as the victims.