Knowledge Waits is a feature where I simply share a bit of comics history that interests me. Today I’m looking at how the recent poster for the movie Captain America: Brave New World certainly didn’t want to pay homage to a Captain America issue that had some significance to Sam Wilson, but it does!
A few days ago, Disney released a new trailer for Captain America: Brave New Worldthe new Captain America film, scheduled for release in February, the first Captain America film to star Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson as the new Captain America, succeeding the retiring Steve Rogers.
At the same time, Marvel also released a new poster for the film, showing Harrison Ford’s Red Hulk punching Captain America’s shield…
Longtime comic book fans were quick to notice that the poster paid homage to a classic Captain America cover by Ron Wilson and Bob Layton (isn’t it amazing how strong Layton’s inks are? He really had a way of putting his mark on everything he wrote, in a good way, of course) to Captain America #230…
Now obviously this particular cover was chosen purely because it’s A. awesome, and B. involves Hulk fighting Captain America, so obviously it would work for THIS fight between Hulk and Captain America, with the added twist that it’s This is a DIFFERENT Hulk and a DIFFERENT Captain America.
So the choice of this cover was obviously strictly related to the cover design, and yet, incidentally, this issue of Captain America is actually a standout issue for Sam Wilson!
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What was the significance of this Captain America issue for the Falcon?
After being featured in the pages of Captain America #117, Sam Wilson, the Falcon, became a recurring player in the ongoing Captain America series, but it wasn’t until Captain America #133 that the Falcon officially became Captain America’s crime-fighting partner, and the book cover added Falcon as a regular part of the book (the clues, however, never changed from just Captain America ).
The Falcon remained a co-lead in the series for nearly 100 issues, until he was finally removed from the book in Captain America #217 (by (by Roy Thomas, Don Glut, John Buscema and Pablo Marcos) when Roy Thomas took over writing the series. The way the Falcon was written was that he was put in charge of a new group super-powerful Agents of SHIELD known as, aptly, Super Agents of SHIELD….
Obviously, Thomas had planned for the Super Agents to be recurring characters in the series (in fact, there is a good part at the end where Falcon yells at the agents, and Marvel Man, who would later be known as name Quasar, remarks “Say, I didn’t know Nick Fury was black.”) but Thomas had too many books on his plate, so he had to abandon Captain America, and the book was quickly adopted by so many writers that not only was the Super Agents storyline abandoned. of the book, but seemingly every other arc abandoned plotlines introduced by OTHER writers (this included the infamous Steve Gerber comeback that Steve Rogers was inspired to become Captain America after his brother’s death at Pearl Harbor, which, of course, makes NO sense since Steve was Captain America BEFORE Pearl Harbor)
Finally, in Captain America #228, after almost a YEAR of not mentioning the Falcon, Cap suddenly remembers that he hadn’t spoken to the Falcon in a while, and so he starts looking for his old partner, and discovers that he is missing, as well as the Super Agents. I don’t know where he went. Cap then discovers that at least one of the super agents was secretly working for the evil organization known as The Corporation, and that Falcon was their prisoner at Alcatraz!
So when Captain America and the remaining Super Agents go to save the Falcon in Captain America #230 (by Roger McKenzie, Sal Buscema and Don Perlin), this is the first time the Falcon has appeared in the book in over a YEAR!
So that’s already notable, but the reason WHY the company was looking for the Falcon was the OTHER notable reveal in this issue…
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When you attend New York Comic Con, you can’t help but be struck by the power of collective fandom.
Which character was revealed to be Falcon’s parent in this issue of Captain America?
Jim Wilson made his debut in The Incredible Hulk #131 (by Roy Thomas, Herb Trimpe and John Severin) replacing Rick Jones as Hulk’s new human partner…
Years later, he was caught up with the Corporation, and they wanted to put him back under their control, so they kidnapped his uncle Sam Wilson to hopefully get Jim out (they were simultaneously trying to capture the Hulk for the same reason).
Although there had been hints in the previous two issues, Captain America #230 was the first time it was confirmed that the Falcon WAS Jim Wilson’s uncle…
They never really did much with Sam and Jim Wilson’s relationship, and obviously, years later, Jim tragically died of AIDS (the Falcon WAS involved in the story where we first learned that Jim was sick).
So, yes, although it is 99.9% sure that no one knew the importance of Captain America #230 when it was chosen as a tribute to the film’s poster, it’s interesting to note that it actually had real meaning for Sam Wilson.
If anyone else has an interesting piece of comic book history they’d like me to talk about, email me at brianc@cbr.com!