Art by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott.
The last issue of Captain America we discussed in this space, was, as I’m sure you’ll remember, a highly significant one for the series, featuring as it did not only the tragic death of Roscoe, the young man who’d attempted to replace Steve Rogers in the titular role, but also Steve’s inevitable response to that tragedy: the abandonment of his briefly-held “Nomad” identity to once again take up the shield of Captain America, as he prepared to deal with the return of his greatest arch-enemy (and the man who’d brutally murdered Roscoe) — the Red Skull.
Interestingly, however, issue #183’s letters column devoted at least as much attention to the hero who shared the series’ title logo with Cap (even if the book’s “official” title, per the indicia, had been, and would remain, simply Captain America) — namely, the Falcon. In response to a missive from reader Bob Stenson that included a brief, vaguely critical remark about the Falcon’s decision not to come to the aid of his erstwhile partner Steve Rogers against the Golden Archer back in CA #179, the book’s anonymous letters-page answerer (identified by the Grand Comics Database as series scribe Steve Englehart) took the opportunity to preview some upcoming — and ominous-sounding — developments in regards to Marvel Comics’ first Black American superhero:
The Falcon “has a less-than-exciting character”? Ouch. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the hero who’d been created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan back in 1969 — and whose fortunes in the intervening years had been shepherded by such writers as Gary Friedrich, Gerry Conway, and — from June, 1972 to date (i.e., November, 1974) — Steve Englehart. But we readers of the time would have to wait a couple of months to see what Englehart had in mind here, as the next issue of the series, #184, found the focus firmly on the senior partner of the Cap-Falc team,
Behind a cover by Gil Kane and John Romita that will turn out to be just a tad misleading (we’ll explain that comment later), “Cap’s Back!” finds the Living Legend of World War II hot on the trail of the Red Skull, courtesy of Englehart and guest artist Herb Trimpe (with Frank Giacoia and Mike Esposito on inks). Having gone to the warehouse where the Skull had been holding the Falcon and Roscoe captive, Captain America finds it deserted — save for a large raven, who reacts to Cap’s intrusion by flying to a wall and pressing a button with its beak. The wall then opens to reveal a large viewscreen…
Cap returns to the location in Harlem where the Falcon, under the care of his long-time love interest Leila, is recuperating from the injuries he suffered at the Skull’s hands. While it hasn’t been entirely clear before now (at least, not to your humble blogger) just how much Leila has guessed (or been told) about Falc’s double life, this scene makes it plain that if Leila didn’t already know for sure before this that the Falcon is actually Sam Wilson, social worker, she definitely knows now. And she’s not happy when her lover insists on accompanying his partner to meet the Skull at the place and time the villain had told Falc he could next be found: “Washington — the Capitol building — tomorrow at noon!”
Once Cap has left, Sam tries to explain…
Meanwhile, out on the street, Cap ruminates over recent events (allowing our storytellers the chance for a quick recap of such, for anyone coming in late) — and then the story jumps forward to, where else? Washington, in front of the Capitol, a little before noon…
Is there a small note of irony in Englehart’s declaration of “this is democracy in action!“? Maybe, but the overall tone in this scene is one of optimism; an optimism that, fifty years later, is beginning to feel more than a little naive, I’m sorry to say.
The Red Skull’s use of Frederic Chopin’s “Funeral March” — or, if you prefer, the third movement of his Piano Sonata No. 2 — is indeed a callback to the villain’s earliest days, the bit’s having been first introduced by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in Captain America Comics #7 (Oct., 1941) — as shown in the splash panel shown at left.
(For those of you who might not be 100% sure you remember exactly how this famous piece of classical music goes, here’s a handy link for listening to it. My apologies for not being able to turn up a whistled version by posting time.)
Not interested in fighting Cap at this time, the Red Skull quickly takes to the air using the jetpack strapped to his back… though before he goes, he has a message to deliver…
That the Red Skull’s plan involved disrupting the United States economy could have been inferred from his activities in the past couple of issues, which saw him and his underlings breaking into banks to replace genuine currency with counterfeit. But this is the first we’ve heard about his scheme involving the Federal Open Market Committee — a committee within the Federal Reserve System that, in the words of Wikipedia, “makes key decisions about interest rates and the growth of the United States money supply”. Would the murder of one or more members of the FOMC really wreak havoc on the U.S. economy? My younger self of 1975 accepted the notion on face value; my older (and marginally wiser) self of 2025 is more skeptical, though I’m admittedly still not knowledgeable enough about the ins and outs of the Fed to say whether the Skull’s plan is even remotely plausible.
The Red Skull’s “Dust of Death” is, unlike his use of the “Funeral March”, a new innovation; still, it probably seemed familiar to many comics fans of 1975, if only because of its striking similarity to the “Joker Venom” employed by the most famous of Batman’s enemies, over at DC Comics. That lethal concoction, first introduced in the Joker’s premiere appearance way back in Batman #1 (Mar., 1940), hadn’t been seen much in recent decades, but had recently been brought back in a big way by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams in Batman #251 (Sep., 1973); it seems Steve Englehart may have been taking notes at that time, as his adaptation of this highly visual mode of murder for this storyline might be considered a dry run for his very own Joker sequence in Detective Comics, which he’d write just a couple of years after this.*
Returning to our story, the first order of business for our heroes is to call in for a tight security detail for the next FOMC member on the Skull’s hit list, G. Lawton Sargent. But as soon as that’s done, Steve Rogers departs D.C. for the nearby Virginia mansion of the Carter family; there, he hopes to talk to his girlfriend Sharon, with whom he hasn’t spoken since well before deciding to return to the role of Captain America. Sharon’s not at home when he first arrives, but shows up moments later, accompanied by a figure Cap wasn’t expecting to see — the pacifist, one-armed Vietnam veteran Dave Cox. Understanding that Sharon and Cap want to speak alone, Dave politely makes a quick exit…
Joining Captain America and the Falcon in providing security for Admiral Sargent are S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Gabe Jones and Peggy Carter — the latter of course being Sharon’s older sister, and Cap’s “lost love” of WWII. As with Sharon, a private conversation between Cap and Peggy is long overdue (thankfully, this one goes better)…
There’s also a contingent of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents patrolling the perimeter, so things seem to be in good shape. Still, Cap wants to scout around, so he and Peggy go out into the night, which has turned stormy, leaving Falc and Gabe inside with Sargent. Cap and Peggy decide to go in different directions — and in no time at all, Peggy is attacked by the Red Skull…
And here we see how issue #184’s cover is indeed misleading, if not completely so; after all, the Red Skull does menace a Carter within the comic’s pages. It’s just that it’s Peggy who’s the object of the villain’s violent intentions, rather than Sharon.
Wow, a classic “locked-room” mystery! And we’ve been promised its solution in the very next issue! Be sure and keep that in mind as we move through Captain America #185, would you?
We begin with another cover pencilled by Gil Kane (though Frank Giacoia inked this one… a duty he continues with the book’s interiors); inside, however, we find new regular artist Frank Robbins back on the job (though not until after an opening two-page “dream sequence” drawn by previous regular artist Sal Buscema — something which must have raised the hopes of at least a few fans who then had them dashed back down to earth by page 3… oh, well.)
As we pick up the thread of our narrative, we find the Red Skull gloating over his successful murder of Adm. Sargent…
These last two pages showcase what may have been Steve Englehart’s last major achievement in his historic run on Captain America: making the Red Skull not simply scarier than he’d been in years, but also making him unequivocally Nazi again. Not that the character’s past associations with Hitler’s Third Reich had ever ceased to be part of his official back-story; but since his reintroduction into present-day continuity in 1966, his would-be world-conquering villainy had become more difficult to distinguish from that of similarly ambitious, but less ideologically-oriented, peers such as Doctor Doom or the Leader. By focusing in on the Skull’s virulent racism, Englehart made it more clear than it had been in decades why this character was the particular arch-enemy of Captain America, representing the opposite of everything Cap stood for.
Cap tries to explain to the next man in line for the Red Skull’s extra-special “facial” just how much danger he’s in, becoming somewhat agitated in the process. But the discussion becomes moot when a troop of armed, uniformed men come smashing through Oscar Brenner’s door…
Unfortunately, Cap and Falc don’t realize that the Skull’s goons are more interested in their two comrades than they are in them…
…until it’s too late. All the raiders activate their jetpacks (where were they keeping those, I wonder? Robbins’ drawings offer no clue) and fly away, taking Peggy and Gabe with them. The Falcon attempts to pursue, but his wings don’t have the power to allow him to match the bad guys’ speed, and he’s forced to return to Brenner’s place. There, the shaken FDOC member attempts to settle his nerves with a smoke; but when he lights up…
The scene now shifts briefly to the cottage of Dave Cox, who’s being visited by Sharon Carter. The whole thing seems perfectly platonic on the surface; but even as Sharon unloads all her romantic troubles on her “friend”, Dave’s interior monologue lets us know that he has “gone and fallen” for her. Uh oh.
Then, it’s back to the “A”-plot, as the Red Skull entertains two “guests” of his own…
Meanwhile, back at the Brenner home, the police have arrived. They’d like Cap and Falc to come down to the station to make a statement; but while the Falcon is game, Cap tersely rebuffs the request, saying that the heroes have other things to do right now…
Here, as well as elsewhere in these issues, we see Englehart stressing how Steve Rogers has been changed — ultimately, it would seem, for the better — by his conflict with the Secret Empire and by its aftermath.
Throughout the night, Cap and Falc search through Washington’s suburbs for any clue as to where the Skull might be hiding, but without success. Then, as dawn breaks, a big fancy car rolls up on them…
Steve Englehart is plainly setting things up for a new storyline involving Roxxon Oil and its president, Hugh Jones — but despite what’s written in the very next caption, that storyline would ultimately play out in the pages of Avengers, rather than in Captain America.
And with that shocking revelation, Captain America #185 reaches its end. Wait, weren’t we supposed to get the solution to the locked-room murder of Admiral Sargent in this issue? Assuming that Englehart didn’t slip up, there must be something here to let us know how the Skull managed to apply his Dust of Death in the few moments that Sargent was alone in the dark with Gabe, Peggy, Cap, and… the Falcon…
Uh oh.**
We come now to the ostensible main subject of this post, namely, Captain America #186. Turning past the cover (by Gil Kane, John Romita, and Joe Sinnott according to the Grand Comics Database, but attributed to Kane and Mike Esposito by Mike’s Amazing World of Comics), we find Englehart and Robbins still on the job, joined this go-round by Esposito on inks, as well as by John Warner on… scripting?
Of course, Steve Englehart had been assisted by other writers at various times during his nearly three-year tenure on Captain America; Steve Gerber had helped out with the scripting for CA #157, while Roy Thomas and Tony Isabella had filled in together to author #168. More recently, Mike Friedrich had contributed to both the scripting and plotting of a short run of issues (#169-172) in the middle of the “Secret Empire” saga. But there seemed to be something different going on with John Warner’s arrival, as a note on the letters page of CA #185 had explained:
That message implied that issue #185 would be the last we’d see of Steve Englehart on Captain America for “three or four months”. But here’s his name on #186’s opening splash page, credited not only with plotting “Mind Cage!”, but also with scripting its 3rd through 17th pages — with Warner’s contribution limited to scripting those pages that fell on either side of Englehart’s.
The letters page of #186 offered this explanation of what had happened in the month since the last lettercol had been prepared:
The reader will please take note that the reference here to “pages 3 through 17” is, like the page number writing credits given on the story’s first page, based on Marvel’s then-current practice of numbering all the pages of a comic — ads included — in a single sequence; a practice that served mostly to obfuscate the fact that we buyers of the time were only getting eighteen pages of art and story per standard-size issue, whereas we’d been getting 20 just a couple of years before. The actual page number breakdown of this story’s scripting goes like this: John Warner, 1-2 and 12-18; Steve Englehart, 3-11… though, naturally, since we’re not going to feature full scans of the complete story in this post, a heads-up will be given when one scripter gives up the typewriter to the other.
And now, back to the book…
We now turn from page 2 to page 3, and from the words of John Warner to those of Steve Englehart…
The story arc being recapped here originally ran in Captain America #115-119, back in 1969. Somehow, my younger self had only managed to score two of those five issues at the time; still, that was enough for most of what the Skull recounts on these pages to already be familiar to me (the parts that had been shown before, anyway). And so, if you could use a handy reference to the OG version of these momentous events as first chronicled by Stan Lee, Gene Colan, and company, feel free to check out my posts on CA #116 and #118, which in addition to going into those two issues in depth, also recap the most important stuff in the storyline that I missed the first time around (including the finale). You’re welcome.
When this story is discussed, one occasionally hears or reads statements along the line of “Steve Englehart turned the Falcon into a pimp.” But while Englehart unquestionably provided both the plot and script for “the Falcon’s true origin” (to quote from this issue’s lettercol), there’s no mention of prostitution or related activities in the script; the “pimp” identity seems to have arisen almost entirely from the accompanying imagery. And since I see no reason to presume that the author gave Frank Robbins detailed notes on how “Snap” Wilson should be dressed, it seems at least as fair for us to assign responsibility for the character’s highly flamboyant — some might say pimped-out — mode of attire to Robbins, as it does to Englehart.
While the Falcon seems to have committed the murder of Adm. Sargent at the end of issue #184 under the remote control of the Red Skull, and thus can’t truly be held guilty of the crime, that’s not the case with the unfortunate aircraft pilot in this flashback; “Snap” Wilson may have only intended to knock the man out, but his actions unquestionably result in his death.
Back in 1975, my seventeen-year-old self was shocked to discover that Sam Wilson evidently wasn’t whom we’d always thought he was — that he was, in fact, a ruthless criminal (or at least had been, before having his mind overwritten by the Red Skull). But just as disquieting, at least to me, was the implication made in the panel above: that Sam’s false persona wasn’t just any old fabrication; rather, it had been cynically devised by the racist Skull to play on certain well-meaning, but perhaps naive, notions of integration and equality held by white liberals like Captain America — and, by extension, by many of the Falcon’s fans, not to mention the comics professionals who’d originally conceived Sam Wilson as comics’ first Black costumed superhero, as well as those who’d been writing and drawing his adventures since 1969. In the context of Captain America’s ongoing continuity, the message seemed to be that the series’ more militant Black characters (such as Leila) who’d regularly called Sam/Falc a “Tom” had been right all along.
Interviewed almost thirty years later for an article published in Back Issue #8 (Jan., 2005), Englehart reflected on his decision to reveal “that Sam really was a streetwise guy who’d been molded into the perfect Negro by the Red Skull… I know that a guy like Sam Wilson was, in some circles, too good to be true — and in others, a legitimate good guy. I bought the legitimate good guy. But I was a storyteller, and I was always exploring new avenues…”
Re-reading these stories half a century later, it seems to me that the issues Englehart was raising back then were legitimate; that there were questions about the expectations Black heroes (or even Black people in general) had to meet to be fully embraced by a white-dominated society, that could and should be asked by comic-book storytellers. That said, I remain very dubious as to whether blowing up a well-established character who’d already been around for six years was the best way to go about it… especially since, as Englehart acknowledged elsewhere in the Back Issue article, he really had no idea where he was going with this “new” Falcon: “I was leaving that for the next writer to play with — was it true or was it a mindf#ck? — so I have no idea what I’d have done with it.”***
As pointed out by reader frasersherman in a recent comment on our aforementioned Captain America #118 post, the Red Skull’s scheming to implant “Snap” Wilson as a “sleeper agent” against Cap makes no sense; he has the Cosmic Cube, fer cryin’ out loud, and anticipates that his complete victory is imminent. Why in the world would he worry about playing a long game? On the other hand (and as also noted by fraser), a lot of the Skull’s behavior in the earlier storyline seems rather less than well thought out, given that while he holds the Cube, he has the power to instantly reshape all of reality to his will. Honestly, fraser has probably nailed the matter with this observation: “Bless his heart, the Red Skull doesn’t have the sense god gave a goose.”
For all of the logical fallacies that I can see today in “the Falcon’s true origin”, back in ’75 I found the whole sequence riveting, as well as disturbing. Part of its effect is definitely down to how more and more beaten-down Captain America looks as the thing progresses; the poor guy has gone through so much in the past year already, and now this? As regular readers know, your humble blogger is hardly the world’s biggest Frank Robbins fan; but I’d be remiss not to credit his exaggerated, highly emotional renderings of Cap’s facial expressions and body language for a lot of the feeling of dread that permeates these pages.
At this point, we’re pretty much done with the origin sequence, but Steve Englehart’s not ready to return the typewriter to John Warner just yet. First, we have a quick change of scene back to the Carter family estate, where a horseback-riding Sharon Carter comes upon Dave Cox — who surprises her with the unwelcome news that he’s going away for a while. “But, Dave — why?” Sharon asks…
I’m not sure if Englehart intended to write Dave Cox out permanently here, or whether he simply wanted to discourage Warner from doing anything with the character (whom Englehart personally identified with to some extent) during the “three or four months” the latter would be writing Captain America in his place. As it turned out, Dave’s departure was in fact for good, more or less (the character wouldn’t show up again until issue #293 [May, 1984], and even then, he wouldn’t hang around for long). But, more surprisingly, this scene was also the last we’d see of Sharon Carter for a while, as the former Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D. — a staple of Steve Rogers’ supporting cast since 1965 — wouldn’t be seen again until issue #202 (Oct., 1976).
Though he was generally one of Marvel’s stronger writers of this era when it came to writing independent, capable women, Steve Englehart had never quite seemed to know what to do with Sharon Carter. Things had seemed to go well, at first; though Englehart had Sharon resign from S.H.I.E.L.D. at the very beginning of his run, she’d immediately gone on to play a major, active role in his first major storyline, serving as virtually a third member of the Cap/Falcon team as they faced off against the Captain America and Bucky of the 1950s. Not long after that, however, Sharon seemed to become a more passive presence, briefly becoming the third side of an awkward romantic triangle with her boyfriend and her older sister, and later showing up mostly to give Steve Rogers grief about his career choices (though in the latter case, you could make a credible argument that Steve had it coming, given the way he’d previously griped and moaned about Sharon’s working for S.H.I.E.L.D.). If nothing else, it feels like a missed opportunity on Englehart’s part.
Returning to our narrative, we find Englehart finishing off his last scripted page for Captain America with a scene where the Red Skull locks the still-bound Cap in a vault with the mind-controlled Falcon, intending for the two men to fight to the death… and then it’s back over to John Warner for the story’s last seven pages…
Using the sickle-blade concealed in his shoe (every secret agent should have one!), Gabe manages to cut through his bonds, then does the same for Peggy’s…
Your humble blogger believes that the scene above depicts the first interracial kiss involving white and Black characters in mainstream color American comic books. Others have granted the distinction of that milestone to the “Killraven” story in Amazing Adventures #33 — but with all due respect to creators Don McGregor and P. Craig Russell, that particular comic came out in April, 1975… more than a month after the release of Captain America #186. (I suppose you could argue that since we can see part of Peggy’s mouth in the critical panel, she and Gabe aren’t “really” kissing; but that seems like splitting hairs to me.) (UPDATE, 3/14/25: See Joseph Holmes’ comment below for information regarding an earlier example than either of the above, which appeared in DC Comics’ Young Romance #194 [Jul.-Aug., 1973].)
Meanwhile, back in the vault, Cap has become even more convinced that he can’t afford to pull his punches with the Falcon if he wants to survive — and so…
We’ve mentioned in previous posts how the enhanced super-strength Cap had inadvertently gained after being poisoned by the original Viper in CA #158-159 gradually fell into obscurity in the latter part of Steve Englehart’s run; still, it seems not to have been completely forgotten about yet, at least not by John Warner (though the reference to “the adrenal strength of grim determination” leaves the whole business rather vague).
Pencils by Gil Kane; inks by John Romita and/or Al Milgrom.
And that was it for Steve Englehart’s Captain America… even if no one knew that quite yet. With the next issue, John Warner took over the plotting as well as the scripting, and immediately took the storyline in a wildly different direction. In CA #187, Cap is almost immediately captured by minions of an old D-list S.H.I.E.L.D. villain, the Druid (who appears to also be the party responsibility for intercepting Peggy and Gabe’s call to S.H.I.E.L.D. in #186, although I don’t believe Warner ever explicitly connects those dots). (UPDATE, 3/8/25, 1:25 pm: As pointed out by Mike Teague over in the Facebook “Why I Love Comics” group, Englehart would eventually reveal in Avengers #141 that the message’s interception, and the subsequent armed storming of the Skull’s base, had been the work of Hugh Jones and Roxxon Oil.) Following the first 1 1/3 pages, we see nothing more of the Falcon, Gabe, or Peggy, suggesting (to me, at least) that Warner was doing his best to avoid doing much, if anything, with that plotline until Englehart returned from catching up on his other projects. As for the still-at-large Red Skull… well, we’ll just have to assume that after losing his base and his men in the climax of #186, he gives up completely on his grand plan to destroy the U.S. economy by the 30th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s suicide, since we never hear anything else about it. (For the record, the Skull’s next chronological appearance comes in Super-Villain Team-Up #10 [Feb., 1977], by which time he’s clearly moved on to other things.)
Art by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito.
Cap’s struggle against the Druid and his equally uninteresting minion, the Alchemoid, continues through the following issue, #188 — though at least this time we get some incremental movement on the Falcon subplot, as we learn he’s been moved to a hospital; there, he comes out of his coma just long enough to have some wild hallucinations…
(No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you — those panels are the work of Sal Buscema, returning long enough to pencil a whole issue this time; the inks are by Vince Colletta.)
The imagined figure of Nomad morphs into a wizened Captain America, followed by a mocking Red Skull… and then Falc slips back into his coma. But what’s really interesting about this sequence is that for the few brief moments that he is awake, he appears to be the Sam Wilson we’ve known for the past six years, with no sign of the “Snap” persona; you get the idea that John Warner, at least, wasn’t quite ready to give up on good ol’ Sam in favor of whatever Steve Englehart might ultimately have in mind for the hero.
But whatever Warner was thinking, it quickly became a moot point, as #188 turned out to be his last issue. Still, that didn’t mean we were getting Englehart back; instead, #189’s “Arena for a Fallen Hero!” found a returning Frank Robbins (and new inker Frank Chiaramonte) joined by a brand new writer, Tony Isabella. Once again, we readers turned to the issue’s letters page for an explanation; there, we found the following:
Oh, well. At least we got that black-and-white, Asgard-centric “Thor” series, right? (Longtime readers of this blog can probably imagine how excited this mythology-loving Thor superfan was about that prospect at the time it was announced.) Not to mention that “Fu Manchu” series, with its “Dracula vs. Hitler” crossover lead-in. And what about… ah… wait a sec (checks notes)… err, never mind. As things turned out, not a single one of those projects ever saw the light of day. (Yes, there was a single black-and-white issue of Marvel Preview starring Thor, #10, but it was written by Len Wein rather than by Steve Englehart; and yes, I was disappointed.) On the other hand, the unnamed B&W “space opera” feature turned out to be the Englehart-scripted premiere of “Star-Lord” (aka Starlord, aka Peter Quill), which did indeed make it to print (in Marvel Preview #4) so at least there was that.
Art by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito.
In any event, Captain America would obviously continue, with or without Englehart. And, just as obviously, something had to be done about the Falcon… with or without Englehart. Isabella immediately responded to the latter imperative by bringing the issue back into the foreground; as his first issue begins, we find S.H.I.E.L.D. preparing to subject the Falcon (whom they’ve somehow managed to get upright and ambulatory, albeit in a zombie-like state) to a kind of “shock therapy” that apparently is to consist entirely of Cap fighting his partner “to the death” in an arena — essentially, the same routine the two men had so-very-recently gone through at the hands of the Red Skull:
As dodgy as this setup seems already, things go even further sideways when Cap begins to hallucinate that Falc is actually the Red Skull, or various other villains he’s fought in the past. Then, against all reasonable expectations, Falc becomes to come out of his stupor… and he’s “Snap” Wilson, rather than Sam:
“Snap” decides he’ll just ask Cap what’s going on — but Cap, believing him to be the late Baron Zemo, promptly decks him. Responding in kind, the furious nu-Falcon quickly discovers that he can fly… and that’s not all:
Falc instinctively employs his mental link with Redwing to sic the bird on Cap. But Cap, whose mind has somehow cleared enough to perceive what’s actually happening, stands his ground — and his erstwhile partner calls off the avian attack right before Redwing shreds Steve Rogers’ face…
Art by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott.
The two men’s tentative reconciliation is hardly underway, however, when the person who’s been pulling the strings through the whole issue is finally revealed — it’s the deadly Nightshade, making a return appearance from Captain America #164, where, as you may recall, she’d turned the Falcon (and a lot of other guys, besides) into werewolves. This time out, she’s set aside the lycanthropic angle, and has simply been using her super-pheromone powers to control the male agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and to make Cap hallucinate). As the story continues into the next issue, #190 (for which Isabella and Robbins are joined by Vince Colletta on inks), Nightshade sends not just the very well-trained and heavily-armed dudes of S.H.I.E.L.D. against Cap and the Falcon, but also the Tony Stark-designed “Wild Bill” Robot (resurrected from Strange Tales #142). Along the way, Falc takes out a major piece of weaponry (the “Flying Wedge”), though not without consequences:
Yep — somehow, the Falcon now has the memories of both “Snap” and Sam Wilson — or, at least, the Sam Wilson who’s been hanging out with Captain America (and doing social work for a day job) for the last six years.
We’ll skip past the ultimate defeat of Nightshade (accomplished with the help of the only female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent present during these events, the Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine), picking things up with the story’s last two panels:
Art by Sal Buscema and Frank Giacoia.
As promised, the next issue, #191, does indeed give us “The Trial of the Falcon!” — as well as still more changes in the series’ creative line-up. While Tony Isabella remains as plotter, the script is by Bill Mantlo; and while Frank Robbins continues to pencil the book (for now), the inks are now by D. Bruce Berry… a veteran artist, but one who’d only recently entered the pro comics field as an inker/letterer for Jack Kirby’s stuff over at DC Comics. Hmm…
Any doubt about whether or not the Red Skull had been lying about “Snap” Wilson being “real” is put to bed in this story, where we learn that investigations recently conducted off-panel by Gabe Jones and Peggy Carter have confirmed the truth of “Snap”‘s extensive criminal record. There being little other choice, Sam is eventually persuaded to turn himself in and face the music in Los Angeles (which is where he committed the bulk of his felonies), with hopes that his exemplary, heroic behavior over the past six years — plus turning state’s evidence on his former employers and confederates — will earn him a lighter sentence, if not outright clemency. First, though, there’s some unfinished business to take care of at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, where Sam’s girlfriend Leila has been held against her will “for questioning” since issue #188; fortunately, while the agency’s director Nick Fury has been absent for all the recent shenanigans, he’s back now, and he’s not having any of that crap. He orders Leila freed immediately…
So, when does Sam tell his beloved that the man she thought she knew these past several years isn’t that man — at least, not entirely? And what in the world does she make of it all? We’ll never know, because Isabella and Mantlo neither show nor tell us… nor, to the best of my knowledge, will any of their successors.
As you might imagine (or could tell from the cover), the courtroom proceedings are ultimately enlivened by the unwelcome arrival of Stilt-Man, who’s been hired by a consortium of concerned underworld figures to squash Sam flat before he can incriminate him. Naturally, Cap and the Falcon put the villain in his place quite handily, and the wheels of justice are allowed to turn once more…
And that’s that for the whole “‘Snap’ or Sam?” saga, at least for this decade. Perhaps Isabella (or Mantlo, or someone else entirely) would have used the opportunity this storyline had provided to do some really interesting character work with Sam Wilson, as he tried to reconcile the different sides of his personality (and even competing sets of childhood memories, maybe?)… if they’d only had the time. But with the clock running out, the best they could do was get Sam out of the legal jeopardy Englehart’s retcon had left him facing, and reset his status as the heroic partner of Captain America back to… well, to just about exactly where it was when Englehart (or whoever) had cracked wise about the Falcon having “a less-than-exciting character” back in the lettercol of CA #183.
Art by John Romita and Frank Giacoia.
And the clock was ticking; as had been first announced by Stan Lee in the “Soapbox” column printed in CA #190 (as well as the rest of Marvel’s comics shipping in July, 1975), but wouldn’t be acknowledged in the title’s lettercol for another month — Jack Kirby was returning to Marvel, and to Captain America, which he would both write and draw henceforth. With just one month left until the return of the King, Marv Wolfman (who, incidentally, had taken over as the editor-in-chief of Marvel’s color comics a couple of months earlier) stepped in to write a bridging yarn that brought Cap back from Los Angeles to Manhattan, though not without a mid-air battle with Doctor Faustus and a plane full of lowlifes along the way.
The issue ends with Cap, having saved the day once more, strolling through Times Square as he ruminates on the last year or so’s worth of continuity… and it’s hard not to read his words without seeing them as a subtle message from editor Wolfman to us readers of September, 1975, telling us how we should adjust our expectations for what was coming next:
“…let everything ride… forget everything that has happened… take whatever is going to happen as something new.”
That would all turn out to be excellent advice, as Jack Kirby would quickly let us all know that while he had no interest in blowing up Captain America‘s recent continuity, he wasn’t particularly jazzed about following up on it, either. But, as you might expect, that’s a topic we’ll need to reserve for further discussion until this October.
This has been one of our longer posts, and if you’ve managed to read this far, I thank you; still, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t at least touch on the latter-day history of “Snap” Wilson… especially since the first theatrical motion picture to feature Sam Wilson in the central starring role is playing in cinemas at this time of writing. You all know the one I’m talking about…
Art by Stuart Immonen and Wade von Grawbadger.
Fortunately, my friend Brian Cronin did the heavy lifting on this one some years back, in one of his “Abandoned An’ Forsaked” columns for CBR.com. So I’ll encourage you to click over there for all the details (including lots of scans), while I limit myself to briefly noting that, in All-New Captain America #3 (March, 2015), writer Rick Remender clarified that the Red Skull had in fact created the “Snap” Wison persona using the Cosmic Cube, rather than Sam’s; in other words, things had actually happened the other way around from what the Skull told Steve Rogers way back in Captain America #186.
We’ll let Sam himself have the last word on the topic:
…”Snap Wilson” was nothing but a tired stereotype the Red Skull concocted to discredit me — to take away the honor I spent a lifetime earning.
‘Nuff said, I think.
*Decades later, in 1996, writer/artist John Byrne would get some amusing mileage out of the similarities between the Joker’s Venom and the Skull’s Dust in his Batman/Captain America, a one-shot crossover story set in the World War II era. This scene comes mid-story, when the two villains (who’ve been working together against their mutual foes, naturally) have a falling out after the Joker learns the Skull is a Nazi (“I may be a criminal lunatic, but I’m an American criminal lunatic!“):
(OK, so the Red Skull’s not supposed to have invented his Dust of Death until 1975… on Marvel Earth. Who’s to say how things went down on Earth-Crossover?)
**The Marvel Database Wiki page for Captain America #184 states: “The mystery of who killed G. Lawton Sargent is never revealed. Through email correspondence, writer Steve Englehart has indicated that he intended to show that Falcon (Sam Wilson) killed Sargent while under the influence of the Red Skull (Johann Schmidt).” It’s good to know that Englehart has clarified the matter (though it would also be nice to know when, and to whom, he offered this info); but even without that confirmation, I don’t see that any other solution to the mystery is possible, based on the information the writer did include in his scripts for these issues.
***Englehart’s assertion that he was setting up the whole “Snap” Wilson business as a conundrum for the “next writer” to resolve doesn’t completely jibe with the contemporary record offered by the Captain America letters columns, which quite clearly indicate that the idea to change things up drastically re: the Falcon came well ahead of his decision to leave the book permanently. That said, there’s no real reason to doubt that Englehart was mostly flying by the seat of his pants here (or, as the writer himself puts it in his 2016 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — Captain America, Vol. 9, following his “habit of ‘throwing plates in the air,’ not knowing where or how they’d come down but excited to find out.” It was a regular part of his working method, after all — and one that may justifiably be said to have had good results elsewhere (the introduction of Mantis in Avengers, for example).
Wow. A great summation of a rather strange period in the history of our favorite red, white & blue clad super-hero and his high-flying companion. Issue 185 happened to my introduction to the, ahem, unique artistic stylings of Frank Robbins. As best as I can recall, the immediate response of my then 12-year old self to that style was something along the lines of, “what the {bleep}!???” And then the bizarro story in 186. At that point, I was entirely unfamiliar with that earlier multi-issue Red Skull yarn wherein the Falcon made his debut and in which Lee trotted his oft-repeated plot in which the big bad switches minds with the hero (Gerber had the most twisted fun with that trope in his Defenders/ Headmen/Nebulon epic). Still, overall, much as I generally loved most of the comics I’d read thus far written by Englehart, this particular “everything you thought you knew about this character is wrong” plot just didn’t come off all that well, and it certainly didn’t help that pretty much as soon as Englehart laid this particular egg, he flew off, and apparently without any real ideas as to how this would be played out. Alan Moore famously did this sort of reworking of characters several times in his career but always with definite plans for how it would all play out and genuinely improving on the character. Maybe if Englehart had stuck around at least another several months he might have figured out a way to make his changes to the Falcon’s history work to make Falc a more interesting character. As things stood, however, even about 30 years later, I think Remender came up with the best solution having it turn out that the Red Skull had lied about it all (well, of course, Johann Schmidt is a Nazi, after all, and telling lies is more natural to Nazis than breathing air or walking. It’s just what they do, aside from breaking treaties, committing genocide and starting wars, among other atrocities). At any rate, it’s perfectly understandable that Kirby would entirely ignore the changes Englehart had wrought on the Falcon and essentially stick with the basic status quo, one in which Cap himself wasn’t all that different from the character as last drawn by Kirby in a full comicbook a little over six years earlier, before the introduction of the Falcon. And as with Cap, Kirby would write the Falcon as a standard good guy.
Still, I did appreciate that Englehart distinguished the Red Skull in the particularness of his brand of villainy as a genuine racist, sexist, white supremacist idealogue. A lot to try to digest and make sense of in this series of issues, Alan!
As Red Skull says in of the panels above:
“Of course , Captain, how else can one play his TRUMP for maximum effect?
…The worse is yet to come”
How prescient.
One of the lowlifes and lunatics on that plane ride in the last issue of Cap before Kirby took over was Dr. Faustus’ drawn-but-not-colored naked gun moll, Karla. She plays almost no role in the story at all, but for some reason, three years later Roger Stern brought her back in The Incredible Hulk as the eventual significant character Moonstone. Which is one of the things I love about comics – one creative team’s throwaway character can be picked up and dusted off by a later writer and turned into a major player. There was absolutely no reason for Stern to have revealed Moonstone to have been a (barely) previously existing character, but I guess the image of a beautiful naked woman draped in bandoliers and gunbelts who served no real purpose in a space-filling Captain America story that existed only to kill time before Kirby arrived was one that stuck with Stern and he thought “Eh, why not?” when he was concocting a backstory for his new villain. Then a couple of decades later that barely-there henchwoman became one of the linchpins of the Thunderbolts (soon to be a major motion picture featuring none of the original Thunderbolts).
Ha! I hadn’t realized that “Karla” in that Cap story had anything to do with the sinister Dr. Sofel before you brought it up, Wire154. That’s a hoot.
I remembered Sofern introduced herself as a former Falstaff associate but I assumed it was a retcon, not that Stern tied her to a real henchwoman.
Robbins’ version of the Red Skull belongs in Not Brand Ecch. Hilarious, but not appropriate for the regular Cap series.
I agreed with Englehart that Sam Wilson was boring AF but the retcon and its nearly being ignored was terrible. Sure, the man did have that habit of making outrageous or sudden swerves work down the line but outside of immediately revealing Snap was the fiction I don’t see how a fairly racist new background would have played out. BTW, did anyone else also dislike both Falcon color schemes?
And I still do not get the hate for Robbins art.
I for one don’t hate Robbins’ art. Mainstream super-hero fare was not the best place for him, unless it were to have a very humorous twist to it. His style could have worked on DC’s Metal Men or Plastic Man, for instance. I already mentioned Marvel’s Not Brand Ecch. Arrgh! was another Marvel satire comic in the ’70s where he would have been a good fit.
Frank Robbins’ drawing was simply too far from the John Buscema or Romita Sr. template which really defined the Marvel “house style” of the 1970s. His characters did not retain a consistent likeness or proportions from panel to panel, and he did not draw believable action poses. The anatomy was all over the place.
I’ve gone back and looked at some of his old comic strip work, and even there he was an acceptable Milt Caniff acolyte, but he seemed to avoid drawing figures in action or rapid motion. One can see why with his ’70s output at DC and Marvel where he went way over the top.
I wouldn’t have hired him myself.
Thanks for another excellent review, Alan. I always learn something new in your reviews. I have not read an issue of Captain America since Ed Brubaker left the series, so I was quite pleased to learn that Rick Remender retconned the retcon of “Snap” Wilson. That is a very good solution. I had read the interviews (yes there were several) where Englehart admitted that he wasn’t sure where he would have taken the revelations about the Falcon’s “true” origin, and that perhaps the Skull was just messing with Cap’s mind. Apparently Rick addressed that very well although it took some 40 years to do it.
Some historical notes… Marvel’s first black hero was the Black Panther (1966), but the Falcon has the distinction of being Marvel’s first African American hero, introduced in June 1969 in CA 117. I came across an article a few years ago (sorry, I don’t remember where) from mid 1969 which discussed Stan Lee talking either at a convention or college. He was very excited that Marvel would be introducing a new black character, which of course was the Falcon. At this time both Stan and Roy were pretty thoughtful about diversity (Roy had added the Black Panther to the Avengers). Stan was pretty far ahead of DC (they took much longer to get there). It is clear that Stan wanted to make the Falcon as decent and upstanding a character as possible. However, in 1975, it is not clear that Stan was paying much attention to the Marvel comics at that time (except perhaps Spider-Man). I would think he would not have been pleased with what was done to the Falcon, but he probably left it to Len Wein as editor-in chief, to keep an eye on things. And here I believe is where the problems began. It is not clear how much Len was paying to the contents of CA/F 186. He was now managing a huge number of books and may have assumed that Englehart knew what he was doing. But the Falcon had a certain historic importance as the first African American superhero, and personally, in retrospect I believe what Englehart wrote for Sam was a mistake. But it seems no one ever questioned this (I don’t believe a story like this would ever have been approved by editors at DC). This is a fairly good example of the point that a lot of good work came out of Marvel in the 70s and some bad work came through too. And let me be clear: I enjoyed CA/F 184 and 185 (even though confused by the end of 184), but disappointed by the whole Snap Wilson debacle. Perhaps Marvel was more focused on other black characters (Luke Cage and Black Panther had their own series, and Black Goliath had just been introduced). I just remember being very confused by CA/F 186 at the time. I stayed around with the book because I thought Englehart would return. I remember being very disappointed when it was announced that Englehart would not return. I decided to keep reading because I hoped there would be some resolution to the Falcon storyline.
A few years ago I ran across a FOOM article from 1975 which detailed all sorts of plans that Tony Isabella had for the Captain America series since he thought he would be the regular writer, and of course those plans included the Falcon. Of course all those plans fell by the wayside when it was announced that Jack Kirby and would be returning as writer, artist and editor of CA. Tony claimed that he had voluntarily stepped aside from CA/F, and that sounds nice, but I suspect that he was actually removed (it doesn’t seem like he had a choice).
I stayed with CA until 200. But when Kirby returned he completely ignored all the subplots and character development built up by Englehart (part of why I left). As far as I am aware there were no references to the Falcon’s past during Kirby’s run. Roy Thomas was supposed to take over when Kirby left with CA/F 214, but he changed his mind and only wrote CA/F 215 and part of CA/F 217. Issue 217 would be the last issue that the Falcon would appear in as Cap’s partner. The Falcon’s name would appear on the logo for several more issues but it had been decided to remove the Falcon from the book. There would be several attempts to explain the “Snap” persona in the 80s but they would be messy and confusing.
I agree with fraser sherman’s comments regarding the Red Skull’s plan for the Falcon. It makes absolutely no sense. I read CA 114-119 as a kid. Those stories were entertaining when I was a kid but they also don’t make a whole lot of sense now. That story went on way too long and there is a lot of strange stuff in there..it took several issues for Cap to realize (while he’s the Red Skull)..oh..this is a mask…I can take this off! But we are supposed to believe that the Red Skull who has the most powerful weapon on earth would come up with this crazy scheme to give Cap a fake partner, and then planned to lose in their final encounter in CA 119? It sure didn’t read that way at the time. Also thinking about it further, if the Red Skull has the cosmic cube, why he would plan to lose? He can do anything! And the Red Skull never used the Falcon in their encounters in 143 and 148. No it just doesn’t make sense.
By the way, Alan, thanks for the explanation regarding CA 184. I always wondered what happened at the end. They made such a big deal of saying they were going to explain how that man was killed at the end and never did!
Regarding Sharon Carter’s behavior..this is totally inconsistent with her comments in CA/F 176 (whatever you do I’ll be with you) and she is supposed to be a former agent of SHIELD, not Karen Page circa 1969-1970 (please Matt don’t be Daredevil!). The problem, as you pointed out, Alan, is that Englehart had shown her to be such a strong character in his earliest issues. Here she’s crying! Sad.
I have to admit that after Englehart’s departure with 186, staying with this book was tough and I’m not sure why I did. I still did not care for Robbins’ artwork and the number of writers that came through during this period, 187-192 was also troubling (four different writers!). Also, I had not read the early Strange Tales issues with the Druid and had no idea who he was (and didn’t care).
I actually did look forward to Kirby’s arrival but that would be another kind of disappointment and definitely a discussion for another time. Thanks again Alan!
This story reminds me of that line of Brubaker’s during The Trial of the Winter Soldier, something to the effect that “Haven’t you noticed whenever superheroes break the law, the explanation is always ‘mind-control.'”
My very first issue of Captain America was #278 (cover-dated Feb 1983) which had a backup story wherein J.M. DeMatteis offered up a soft retcon of the “Snap” Wilson storyline. DeMatteis basically tried to thread the needle by saying that both Stan Lee and Steve Englehart were telling the truth about Sam Wilson’s history. It’s too much detail to go into here, but if Alan is still blogging in late 2032 maybe he’ll cover that issue.
Anyway, when I did pick up the run of 1970s Cap issues throughout the 1990s as back issues, I finally got to read the original Engelhart storyline that introduced the “Snap” Wilson retcon, and I have to agree that it doesn’t make much sense. I also agree that maybe it could have worked better if Englehart had actually stuck around to deal with the wreckage of his massive bombshell. But I’m glad that Rick Remender did eventual fully retcon the retcon.
I had no idea Engelhart had introduced the Red Skull’s “dust of death.” I guess I must have just assumed that it had shown up earlier.
I never noticed it until Alan pointed it out here, but elements of this storyline do in hindsight feel like a dry run for Engelhart’s classic “Laughing Fish” storyline with the Joker in Detective Comics a few years hence. Gotta agree that that one is a *much* better story. Maybe it just works better because whatever logical flaws there might be in it can easily be papered over by saying that the Joker is bat$#!+ crazy 🙂
“…if Alan is still blogging in late 2032 maybe he’ll cover that issue.”
Alas, Ben, I was only picking up CA intermittently in that period, so I missed that one. But if anyone is interested in learning more, that Brian Cronin piece I linked to seems to cover the basics pretty well.
Odd thing, I really liked Tony Isabella’s fill ins.
They were fun stories and they give you an insight into how much Isabella obviously loved the circa 1965-’66, Lee/(usually, at least for layouts) Kirby (pre-Jim Steranko) SHIELD.
I also really enjoyed Isabella’s run on Daredevil in late ’74 an d early ’75 which also involved SHIELD.,
I recall having told Isabella on TWITTER/X how much those stories should not have worked, taking two unrelated things (street-level heroes and villains and spies) that REALLY should not work. mixing them, shaking vigorously and . . . having it work.
Sometimes things in popular culture work (in spite of themselves) where the creators are having fun
I also got an idea that many of the other creative people involved were not having as good a time . . .
“The Joker’s 5 Wat Revenge” was a story that cast a long shadow. Here, with Englehart’s reinvention of the Classic (!?) Red Skull and, in an issue of Superman published in the Summer of 1975 with Elliott S! Maggin’s attempt to restore Luther in ‘The Luther Nobody Knows.”
The attempt to reinvent Sam Wilson was neither as interesting nor as much fun to read. As solid a writer as Englehart was. the “Snap” Wilson arc was a bit of a debacle; probably the nadir of his career (except possibly the Arisia thing in Green Lantern)..
I mostly loved Englehart’s writing, but sometimes he seemed to be plotting while stoned out of his gourd, to a much greater extent even than even Gerber at his trippiest. Even during these last few issues of his run, there are aspects that are great and others that are simply horrid. Starlin’s first Thanos epic was the first story I read to feature the Cosmic Cube. A bit later, I got the issues of Marvel Double Feature that reprinted the original Cosmic Cube story, wherein the Red Skull stole the artifact from A.I.M. In retrospect, it’s a sort of cut-rate version of the near contemporaneous story in the FF wherein Dr. Doom likewise stole cosmic powers, from the Silver Surfer, and went on a rampage. Cosmic-powered Red Skull should have been impossible for Captain America to overcome but the Skull seemed intent to prove that for all his ruthlessness and cunning, he was still very small-minded, the bell boy fueled by hatred and delusions of grandeur. I didn’t read C.A. issues 13-19 until the ’80s, and aside from that final chapter of the Steranko trilogy, was mostly underwhelmed by 2nd Cosmic-Powered Red Skull saga. It didn’t speak well of Steve Rogers’ intelligence that it took him so long to figure out all he had to do stop people mistaking him for the Red Skull after the magic mind-transfer was to remove that mask! But then that would have deprived Lee & Romita & Colan of the opportunity to wring as much drama as they could from everyone accepting the Skull Cap as real and trying to take down the Cap Skull! Also, having read the Loki/Thor and Dr. Doom/Daredevil mindswitcheroos from roughly the same period, give or take a couple of years, I got the feeling Lee had gone to that particular story well at least twice too often! At least by then I had a much better understanding of Thanos’ putdown of everyone who had previously possessed the Cosmic Cube.
Yeah, I think we can all agree that the Red Skull, underneath all of his bluster, is a very petty, small-minded individual. I used to think that it was unrealistic that the Skull could get his hands on the Cosmic Cube, a device capable of reshaping the entirety of reality, and all he could think to do with it was to find ways to make Captain America’s life miserable. But then I thought about it, and I realized that it suits the character. And as we’ve seen in the real world, there are people who possess astronomical amounts wealth & power, people who are able to do literally anything they want with their lives, but all they can think to do with that massive influence is to pick on society’s most vulnerable members.
The Doom story worked since Doom’s ego makes him relatively easy to manipulate.
The first Skull Cosmic Cube story — for anyone who doesn’t know, Cap tells the Red Skull “Spare me and I’ll be your devoted slave!” which lets him get close enough to knock the Cube from the Skull’s hand. Sorry, but even at his most Idiot Plot, I think the Skull would know better than to buy his enemy as a groveling worm.
Isabella’s a good writer. I usually like his work. I do wonder how things would have turned out if he’d been able to remain on Captain America as the regular writer. Sometime in the past, somewhere or other on social media, he mentioned he’d had plans for a bicentennial story featuring Cap fighting the Red Skull. No idea if it would have been better or worse than what we got from Kirby with the “Madbomb” storyline. If Alan ends up covering those Kirby issues, I’ll share my thoughts on that storyline then. But I do wonder if Isabella would have ended up bringing back the Skull too soon. I give Kirby points for introducing a new group of foes for Cap and the Falcon to fight in “Madbomb.”
Isabella, and their writing partner Bob Ingersoll, did write a novel “Liberty’s Torch” in the 90s, I read it at the time and liked it, and my memory is that it had a strong presence by the Falcon. So it could well have been a novelization of some of their ideas for the book back in the 70’s.
I enjoyed Liberty’s Torch as well.
Congratulations on a great piece of work, Alan. This was a great rundown of the last days of Englehart prior to the Return of the King (you see what I did there?) in Captain America, and to paraphrase Bette Davis, it certainly was a “bumpy trip.”
First of all, I have no problems with John Wagner’s scripting. He took a bunch of plates Englehart had launched into the air and brought most of them down safely. He wasn’t helped any by Frank Robbins, who continues to be the worst penciller in the entire history of four-color comics, and if anything, his unremarkable pencils actually worked against the story far more than it worked with it.
I don’t remember reading this story back in ’75, but whenever it was that I first heard about the Secret Origin of Snap Wilson, I was truly disappointed that Englehart had taken and extremely unstereotypical black guy–wasn’t a hood, wasn’t a pimp, wasn’t a drug addict, wasn’t a football or basketball player–just a good guy who wanted to do something for his community, and then turned him into all of those stereotypes in the course of one story (and by the way, whether it was written in the story or not, Robbins certainly equated Snap’s gangster background with being a pimp, cause he certainly dressed him like one). I thought it was a huge step back for the character and I’m glad Snap basically got retconned out of existence. Good riddance. One question though, in Cap #184, in the scene at Sam and Leila’s apartment, Leila calls Steve a “Tom,” as in, “Uncle Tom,” I assume. That’s not the correct use of that expression, is it? I thought a “Tom” was an African-American who sucked up to “Whitey.”
Speaking of race relations in 1975 (which don’t seem to have changed much in fifty years, I’m sorry to say), I thought it was telling that the Red Skull got so completely pissed about the interracial relationship between Gabe and Peggy, that he almost completely sidelined his “master plan” of taking down FMOC in order to try and do them in. That seems very “on-brand” for a guy like the Skull to me. Speaking of Gabe and Peggy, I’ve also heard this kiss (which Robbins wasn’t quite brave enough to draw) was the first of it’s kind in comics. Englehart never really did right by Sharon Carter, but he did OK by Peggy–finally–in the end. Thanks, Alan!
“…I thought a “Tom” was an African-American who sucked up to “Whitey.”” Actually, Don, I think that’s exactly what Leila means to call Sam in that scene — the same as when she and other more “militant” Black characters had called both Sam and the Falcon that name in numerous earlier issues. (By the way, did anyone else out there who’s seen Captain America: Brave New World notice that President Ross’ Black female security officer is named for Leila?)
On another point — as I wrote in the post, the main competition for Gabe and Peggy’s kiss being the first interracial kiss of its kind seems to be the one between two of the characters in “Killraven” (M’Shulla and Carmilla Frost). But the issue of Amazing Adventures where that occurred came out several weeks after CA #186, so that only works if you take the reticence of Frank Robbins that you mentioned, i.e., his not drawing a full-on lip-lock, as a disqualfier.
I had that Marvel team Up #64 with iron Fist & Misty knight was the first kiss…but I’m way off in December 1977.
A later (but also ** BETTER**) template for re-inventing Sam Wilson might have been Furious Styles from John Singleton’s 1991 film Boyz n the Hood, a just and honorable man who has had to take actions he regrets to survive his particular circumstances . . .
My compliments on a stellar summation of a rather dreadful era in Captain America. Looking back, these issues remind me how difficult it was for me as a 15-year-old to stop purchasing a comic series once I started. Even as a kid growing up in a rural part of Oregon, I could see how wrong it was to smear Sam Wilson with such a poorly conceived notion – nearly destroying a solid character. (At that time, I also assumed that John Warner did not want his name attached to that origin – hence Englehart’s return for those pages.) Adding to my woes over these issues was Frank Robbin’s art. His cartoony style undermined any semblance of menace or threat from the Red Skull or this revised origin – at least in my mind. It was also at this time that as much as I despised his art, that same style was quickly winning me over on The Invaders. Ironically, once Jack Kirby took over, one issue was all it took for me to then jump ship from Captain America and not return for over a hundred issues (I’d also quit reading comics during part of that time.)
I’m with you! by the time I got to #186 I was glad to quit it. I have sporadic issues over the next several years but the next run of the title I that I have is Byrne and Stern (starting with #247), followed by Zeck and DeMatteis run up to #289. Good times!
Back in the day Steve Englehart was far and away my favourite comic book creator, and I was not happy when Jack Kirby ignored what he had done with the characters in this book (likewise with Don McGregor/Black Panther). Times change and I’m about as much Team Kirby as you’re ever likely to find nowadays, but that can maybe wait until we discuss Kirby’s return.
I know a lot of regulars here are Englehart fans, so I might make myself unpopular with this, but today I find I’m much less impressed with his work. Something I felt even at the time was that he seemed to run out of ideas towards the end of a run and maybe throw in a major curve to, like he admits, set some plates spinning. I thought his runs on Avengers, Dr Strange and here on Captain America all kind of fizzled out (as with West Coast Avengers later). Some of this might be down to Publishers’ dictates, editorial interference or his seeking new pastures, but it does feel like he put down some rather lame plot ideas that subsequent writers struggled with (like Clea’s casual liaison with Ben Franklin, or the later Hawkeye/Mockingbird/WCA rift).
This, though, is by far the most egregious. I especially liked Sam Wilson’s character early in Englehart’s run, as the solid, proudly independent guy you would want at your back in a fight. If a character who is a good guy trying to do the right thing is lame, doesn’t that describe most characters we’ve read about in the last 50 years (or more)? Even his insecurity and getting wings as a counterpart to Cap’s super-strength felt a little forced. This plot didn’t even make sense, as noted in previous comments: the Skull plants Sam Wilson as a sleeper agent, lets himself get defeated by Cap and Falc even while he holds a supreme weapon, then lets himself get defeated again by Cap and Falc in his nonsense Vegas/Sleeper scheme, and then lets himself get defeated yet again in his Harlem race riot scheme, all so that the Falcon can hit Cap once from behind and then turn into a zombie? Really?! What else is going on in the Skull’s life that he can even finance all this nonsense?
I’ve just this morning been to see ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ with my nine year-old son and we thoroughly enjoyed it, for all that it wasn’t perfect. I still have a problem accepting that Sam Wilson, who in my head canon is fiercely his own man, would ever even agree to taking on the Captain America role, but I’ll have to reserve judgement as I’ve never read the comics where this happened or seen the TV series that reflected this, so I don’t know how he was motivated. The film does at least showcase a competent and likable hero, even if some parts feel like ‘more of the same’.
All I’ll say for Frank Robbins is that, while I never liked his stylizations, I thought he was a more capable and professional artist than some others who earned regular work, such as Ron Wilson, Arvell Jones, Jim Craig, Joe Brozowski… or any number of career plagiarists that don’t even merit a name-check.
Anyways, an insightful review as usual. Thanks, Alan!
I was not fond of some of this work by Frank Robbins. although his affection for the Kirby/Simon CPT America was apparent (especially on The Invaders. I liked his Batman. in part because his work’s; Caniff-like quality fit Batman and he wrote the stories and it fit his art.
Anyone who can work the phrase ‘Honky Stormtroopers’ into a story is genius in my book.
Alan, another great look back at a terrific denouement of a multi-part identity crisis for Cap that began all the way back with the original Moonstone back in ish # 169. Incidentally, in your paragraph about the Red Skull’s Dust of Death, you referenced the Joker story in Batman # 251. I believe that the issue had a cover-date of September 1973, rather than 1953.
Right you are, Jay! Fixed now.
Alan, just thought I would add a few additional observations regarding CA/F 186. I just recalled that in a later letter column it was revealed there were some letters that were complaining about a potential relationship between Peggy and Gabe, and so Steve specifically addressed that head on in issues 185 and 186 with the Red Skull kidnapping and torturing Peggy and Gabe. It was then noted (and I’m paraphrasing since I don’t fully recall…) “needless to say, regarding this relationship, the Red Skull stands alone in his disapproval and hatred as in all other things”, the implication being that there were no more letters of disapproval.
Regarding the Falcon, personally I believe overall Steve had done a very good job of handling the Falcon during his writing tenure. He had several opportunities to handle him solo, such as the second half of 153, all of 154, 177-178, and he always treated the Falcon as an equal partner to Cap. I believe that his mistake was in believing that giving the Falcon a criminal past would have made him more “interesting”. I believe a good editor would have questioned this, especially since there already was a black character with his own book who had a criminal past, Luke Cage, and to make matters worse, Luke was not an ex-convict at this time in 1975 but an escaped convict. That would all be eventually addressed for Luke but it would take a while. Len would become a very active and engaged editor when he went to DC, especially on books like New Teen Titans and All Star Squadron in the early 80s, but I don’t believe he was as engaged at this time. Otherwise, he might have asked, why are you giving another of our few black characters a criminal past also. And yes, what Frank Robbins drew was unfortunate and insensitive and certainly looked like a pimp outfit and that was missed also, in the editing.
At this time Steve Englehart was probably my favorite writer with Gerber a close second. But he was capable of making mistakes and this was one (and don’t even get me started on Clea and Ben Franklin…). You provided an excellent summary, Alan but this is one I would just as soon forget….
I have to confess, brucesfl, that I kinda dug the Clea and Ben Franklin bit. But we can hash all that out when we get to it next year!
Ha! I remember Clea and Ben Franklin! With Gene Colan pencils! Yeah, that one made me crazy, too.
So, about the whole “Snap” Wilson retcon, where does that leave his LA trail? Did the Skull manufacture the memories and records of Snap’s crimes or did he take an actual criminal’s actions and substituted Sam’s name? Also, has Sam’s rapport with birds been firmly established as coming from the Cosmic Cube or something else?
All in all, another great review, so thanks for that.
I wondered about all those L.A. connections too, Marcus. And then I remembered that in the “Secret Empire II” storyline of a few years back, the Red Skull was able to use the Cosmic Cube to create a decades-spanning alteration of reality in which Steve Rogers had been a Hydra sleeper agent since before WW II. That made the “Snap” Wilson stuff seem pretty penny-ante by comparison, at least to me. Hey, the Cosmic Cube can do anything!
As far as I know, the Cube is also still the source of Sam’s avian telepathy — at least, I didn’t turn up any other info in my research for the post.
Makes sense, of course. Just wasn’t sure if it had been covered in-story. It seemed to only involve mental manipulation and didn’t take the trial into account.
Excellent post. Thank you. This series of stories highlights why the concept of “continuity” is not worth fans obsessing over. Englehart, a great writer overall, went down a rabbit hole with The Falcon that is likely best dismissed today. Reading such sagas in real time tended (and tends) to be wearying and not ultimately rewarding. I guess this one and many others like it do have the purpose of making other, truly great, stories stand out.
As you recapped my comments on the retcon, I don’t have to repeat them. I will say the end of that plotline was very “Screw it, let’s end this thing” — Modok activates a fail-safe in the cube so it dissolves, no need for Cap and Falc to do anything.
I agree with you Alan, this was an attempt to make the Falcon less modern minority. Stan seems to have conceived him like Sidney Poitier’s character in Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, someone who sees himself as a man, not as a black man, thereby minimizing any issues for the audience.
But yeah, taking a responsible black man and rewriting him into a ghetto stereotype was a bad call. It would have worked better to make him a black activist, or someone like Ivan Dixon’s character in the movie “Nothing but a Man,” wanting to live a good life and discovering white America won’t let him.
Of course, Englehart may not have thought it was that big a deal as he could just blame it on Skull brainwashing — an easy out. Which would have worked better as a retcon — the Skull lashes out at his black opponent right before the Cube dissolves and only later discovers he’s created a Sleeper agent. Not great, but it fits better.
I hadn’t noticed the comparison with the Laughing Fish story before. As I doubt Englehart had it in his head yet, I’m guessing he was riffing on the Joker’s origin in both cases.
I’d forgotten how completely insane the Skull’s Nazism was in this run — I wonder if the subtext wasn’t “only a madman could believe in that Nazi crap any more” Ah, I wish. IIRC it’s been toned down over the years, making more more cold-blooded and power-hungry again.
It’s really jarring to realize Englehart didn’t run all the way to Kirby taking over. That’s what my memory insists — I’m guessing it’s because none of the follow-up writers got a chance to make their mark on the book.
I hated Kirby’s run with a passion at the time. Now that there’s been so many more writers on the book, perhaps it won’t bother me much. Then again, I think Kirby’s work at Marvel in the Bronze Age was forgettable crap, except for Eternals — as I hadn’t read much Silver Age Kirby and missed most of the Fourth World stuff, I was baffled why so many fans gushed about New Kirby Series — big whoop. So far, reading or rereading his work more recently hasn’t changed that.
Total agreement about Englehart wasting Sharon. I suspect he’d have written her out had he stuck around.
Oh, Tony Isabella has announced that he’s trans and is now Jenny Isabella. Though he’s keeping his “tony” pen name so I don’t think we’re dead-naming him.
I had not seen that news about Isabella, fraser — thanks for sharing.
What a blissful few years of Cap this was for me back then. A run of issues drawn by three of my all-time favourites – Frank Robbins, Herb Trimpe (albeit only as a fill-in), and Jack Kirby. Good times!
Unlike most who posted comments here, I really enjoyed these 3 issues, both then and now, story AND art! Agreed, if taken in context of what had gone before over the preceding years the Sharon situation and Sam/Falcon revelation don’t hold true, but as a standalone 3 parter there is drama, a truly heinous villain, tremendous action and frenetic, jump off the page art. The premise of economic distruction was an interesting and different take, so much better than another boring Sleeper saga.
Re Sharon and Sam: In defense of Englehart, the writer here was trying to shake things up and keep situations intriguing. It could be argued that the Skull is/was a complete lunatic, so whereas the creation of the Falcon is illogical in light of the Skull having the cube and assured victory, it could be in keeping with the leanings of an unbalanced mind and the total hatred of Cap that the Skull had.
I would have liked to have seen where Isabella would have taken the series. I really enjoyed his take on Daredevil at the time. Kirby handled the Falcon as if nothing had happened, ie the Falcon as Sam Wilson, and not a bit of Snap Wilson in there. Interestingly, Kirby did keep the Sharon/ Cap conflict going, resolving it during the next appearance of the Red Skull. Also interestingly Kirby had the Skull as very calm, cold and lucid, and not the raving maniac as shown by Englehart and Robbins.
Englehart was probably able to pace and stick the landing on Batman because he knew exactly how many issues he was going to write. It was supposed to be seven but ended up eight. He also wrote all the Marshall Rogers/Terry Austin drawn issues full script/DC style instead of the Marvel style he usually used. In interviews, he admitted it helped him with pacing the stories and the atmosphere.
I think the first interracial kiss in comics was in a black and white magazine, but the first from one of the big two may have been in Young Romance 194 from July/August 1973. Most of us probably aren’t romance comics readers, and I really don’t know how I came to own a copy of this. It was probably recommended to me on eBay when I bought some old Charlton Romance comics because they had Jose Luis Garcia Lopez art.
https://kb-outofthisworld.blogspot.com/2010/02/inter-racial-hospital-romance-young.html
Thanks for the information on YR #194, Joseph! I’ve updated the post accordingly.