Secret Warriors #17-19 (2010): The Last Ride of the Howling Commandos; Gabe Jones, Eric Koenig die

Dum Dum Dugan has revived his World War II gang The Howling Commandos, and now they’re a private strikeforce team. Dugan is being interviewed by the United Nations’ Security Council, and recounts a recent mission where his team took out a Hydra Base located in China. The representative from China gets angry that Dugan was not sanctioned by the Chinese government, and Dugan’s response is that it needed to be done, just as he had worked with Nick Fury to take down Leviathan on Russian soil. Dugan’s point is that terrorists know no national boundaries, so a true war on terrorists must be the same. The mission Dugan relates to the U.N. investigators has his team fighting Gorgon and his Hydra troops, during which Eric Koenig is shot and killed… … and Gabe Jones is beheaded by Gorgon. After telling his story, Dugan and Jasper Sitwell are held in some kind of international prison run by the U.N. Dugan’s debriefing to the U.N. is paralleled with a flashback story to the team’s last mission during World War II. That’s a fine story, and features Captain America, but isn’t really necessary to the larger narrative.