Captain America #300
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCaptain America #300 serves as the dramatic capstone of J.M. DeMatteis's roughly three-year run on the series, delivering what was intended as the permanent death of the Red Skull — Cap's oldest and most ideologically charged nemesis — at the milestone centenary issue. The story crystallizes the moral core of the DeMatteis era: even at the height of grief and rage, Steve Rogers refuses to become a killer, letting the Skull die on his own terms in Cap's arms rather than by Cap's hand. That moral argument — that America's symbolic hero distinguishes himself precisely by not descending to the level of his enemies — gave the issue a thematic weight that elevated it well beyond a standard anniversary spectacular. The letters page's own editorial, titled 'The End of an Era,' acknowledged that something genuinely significant was closing.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 22 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
DeMatteis had been building toward this confrontation since issue #290, constructing a sustained, personal campaign by the Red Skull against every facet of Steve Rogers's life — his friends, his fiancée, his health, and his Super-Soldier physiology. The scripting credit carries an unusual wrinkle: DeMatteis provided the plot but was unwilling to take the final script credit after editorial intervention by editor Mark Gruenwald and/or editor-in-chief Jim Shooter substantially rewrote his script; the 'Michael Ellis' byline on the finished issue is a pseudonym that Gruenwald himself suggested to DeMatteis. This behind-the-scenes friction made #300 DeMatteis's farewell after 34 consecutive issues on the title, a departure confirmed in the next issue's letters column. Mike Zeck, DeMatteis's primary artistic collaborator for most of the run, had already departed to draw Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, leaving Paul Neary — with inker Dennis Janke — to handle the milestone.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated December 1984; on-sale date September 4, 1984 (newsstand) / August 14, 1984 (direct market).
- Story title: 'Das Ende!' — German for 'The End' — written as the concluding chapter of the extended 'Death of the Red Skull' arc that ran from approximately Captain America #290 onward.
- Plot by J.M. DeMatteis; script credited to 'Michael Ellis' (a pseudonym suggested by editor Mark Gruenwald after significant editorial rewrites); pencils by Paul Neary; inks by Dennis Janke; colors by Bob Sharen; letters by Diana Albers; edited by Mark Gruenwald; editor-in-chief Jim Shooter; assistant editor Howard Mackie.
- Cover art by Mike Zeck and Paul Neary — Zeck contributed the cover even though Neary penciled the interior.
- The Red Skull (Johann Schmidt) dies in this issue, poisoned by the same toxin he administered to both himself and Captain America, after Cap refuses to deliver the killing blow; the Skull appears next as a spirit in Captain America #326 and is restored to life in Captain America #350.
- Black Crow (Jesse Black Crow), the Navajo mystic introduced in Captain America #292, plays a pivotal role: he uses his supernatural abilities to reverse the poison's aging effects on Cap, saving Steve Rogers's life at the story's conclusion.
- This is the final issue written by DeMatteis in his roughly 34-issue run; his departure is formally announced in the letters column of the following issue.
- The issue has been collected in two trade editions: Captain America: Death of the Red Skull (Marvel, 2012 — recolored with new trade dress) and Captain America Epic Collection Vol. 11: Sturm und Drang (Marvel, 2022); a Spanish-language edition was published by Panini España in August 2014.
Key issues in Captain America
Other variants of Captain America #300 (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.