Another Interregnum (Captain America 256-260)

After the short lived Stern-Byrne run, Captain America returned to rushed fill-in stories, all by differing creative teams. The next five issues were written by Bill Mantlo, Mike Barr, Chris Claremont and David Michelinie, Jim Shooter and Michelinie, and finally Al Milgrom. Most memorable was issue #257 guest-starring the Hulk, which was as bad an issue of the comic as was ever published. These are the kinds of comics that kept me from regularly buying the series despite liking the character.

But there were hints of better days ahead. Issues 258 and 259 were drawn by Mike Zeck, who would soon be teaming with writer J. M. DeMatteis to get the series back on track.
 

The Stern/Byrne Era (Captain America 247-245)

Not much to say about Captain America 247-255, the brief but fondly remembered run by writer Roger Stern and co-plotter/artist John Byrne in 1980. Certainly it was probably the strongest writer/artist team on the book since Stan Lee left nine years earlier. (Steve Englehart did some good writing in the early 70s, though Sal Buscema's artwork couldn't match Byrne's.)

One of the things that's most memorable about this run to me is the manner in which they swept away the background on Steve Rogers that Steve Gerber had provided. It's explained as false memories, planted to confuse the Germans during World War II.

Oddly enough, they never seemed to plant any false memories about the important stuff, like how Steve gained his powers. I guess they figured the Germans already knew that. But they managed to cover up the fact that Steve Rogers was an orphan from Manhattan, because God knows what the Germans could have done with that information!

Star Spangled Underwear

On a completely unrelated note, if you've ever lamented being unable to find Captain America underwear in adult male sizes, today is your lucky day. For $9 at your local Target you can buy a pair of these:

They've got some other heroes too, like the Flash. You can also buy these on the internet for a few more bucks. Steve Rogers would be proud.

The "Roger McKenzie Era" (Captain America 215-246)

Visit those places on the internet where fans gather to chat about Captain America comics, and you'll hear a lot of praise for the "Mark Gruenwald era," a ten year stretch from 1985-1995 by writer Mark Gruenwald (most of which I haven't read). Others sing the praises of the "Mark Waid era" that immediately followed Gruenwald's run in the late 90s. Just about everyone loves the "Ed Brubaker era" (from 2005 to the present day) and Brubaker himself was heavily inspired by the "Steve Englehart era" in the mid-70s (which got me hooked on Cap in the first place). Some insist the high point of the series was the "Roger Stern/John Byrne era", though they only wrote the comic for 9 issues around 1980. Many longtime fans still fondly remember the issues by J. M. DeMatteis from 1982 to 1984. And of course, there was a couple of years written by some guy named Stan Lee way back when that weren't too shabby either.

Never have I heard somebody praise the "Roger McKenzie era".

Actually it would be more accurate to refer to Captain America 215-246 as the "Roy Thomas/Don Glut/Steve Gerber/Peter Gillis/Roger McKenzie era", with writers Roger Stern, Jim Shooter, Chris Claremont, Alan & Paul Kupperberg, Mike Barr and Steve Grant also helping out. But Roger McKenzie wrote more issues in this period than any other writer.

What united this 32 issue span was the deliberate dismantling of the book's previous status quo. The Falcon was dropped from the book. Sharon Carter was killed, along with the 1950s Captain America and Bucky (all of them would eventually get better). Steve Rogers got a new job as a commercial artist, and a new supporting cast at his new apartment building. An attempt was also made to downplay Nick Fury and SHIELD.

What also defined this era was a rapidly rotating series of writers and artists, some of whom delivered less than stellar work.

It's not that most of these comics are terrible. But most of them aren't great either. And prior to these issues, I wasn't too happy with what writers John Warner, Tony Isabella, Marv Wolfman and Jack Kirby were delivering either. So despite being a Captain America fan (I still followed his adventures in The Avengers) I finally gave up on Cap's solo series. Which is too bad, because by most accounts it was just about to get good.

Well, that's why I'm reading them now. I'm finally going to get to enjoy the good stuff. (I hope.)

Changing Times - An Ad From Captain America 238

There was a time when Americans fretted about being too skinny?

Whatever Happened to The Falcon? On Cap and Sidekicks

A year after this letter appeared in Captain America 206, the Falcon was gone. Jack Kirby's last issue as writer/artist was 214. The Falcon was written out of the main storyline in issue 217 by Roy Thomas. He made a cameo in 218 by Don Glut. He appeared in a filler short story in the back of 220. In issue 223 (written by Steve Gerber) the Falcon was dropped from the title of the series without explanation. I was reading the book at the time as a kid, and I was not a happy camper.

Who made the call and why? I don't know. There may have been a hint in the letters page of issue 222:

Steve [Gerber] feels that most of the supporting players in earlier issues of CA&F-- Sharon Carter, the Agents of Shield, etc.-- have about had their day. He would like to endow the magazine with a new cast of characters, a different type of plotline, and, generally, a whole new look to see it gracefully into the 1980s. Do you agree?

The next issue the Falcon was gone, though Gerber never did get around to giving the series a whole new cast of characters. Roger McKenzie took over the series with issue 227, as the merry-go-round of post-Kirby writers continued.

The usefulness of a sidekick for Captain America was something his original creators recognized from the start. On the very first drawing of Captain America by Joe Simon, he wrote a note saying "I think he should have a kid buddy or he'll be talking to himself all the time." Thus was born Bucky, a standard 40s Robin-knockoff kid sidekick named after the star of Joe Simon's high school basketball team.

Later writer Stan Lee hated kid sidekicks though. He killed off Bucky in issue 66 in 1948, replacing him with a new hero named Golden Girl. Bucky's death was ignored when Cap's series was resurrected in the 50s, but Stan killed Bucky off again in Avengers #4 in 1964. After experimenting with teaming up Cap with Rick Jones (the Marvel universe's all purpose sidekick, who also teamed with the Hulk, Captain Marvel and ROM: Spaceknight), Stan created the Falcon, and eventually included him in the title of Cap's new series. The Falcon did a lot to ground the series in present day New York City, and provided Cap with a capable partner who had reason to be a bit more skeptical of America than Steve Rogers. I sorely missed the Falcon's presence in the book when he was dropped.

Pinko Captain America (Captain America 225)

Writers generally had little to say about the life of Steve Rogers before he became Captain America. In the late seventies the writers of the book decided that perhaps there was so little reference to Steve's past because even he didn't know what it was. They sent him on a quest to discover his missing history. Eventually writer Steve Gerber uncovered Steve's pinko roots:

None of this jives with the history of Steve Rogers found on Wikipedia or in other stories I've read, so I'm guessing this all got wiped out at some later point in time.

Postscript: It sure didn't take Marvel long to disavow this origin. They published a letter is issue 233 raising several questions about these flashbacks, such as why was Steve Rogers depicted as not joining the army until after Pearl Harbor, contrary to earlier tellings. In response, Marvel wrote:

Yours is just one of many letters expressing concern and confusion over CAP'S retold origin that appeared in issue #225.

But probably nobody is more confused than [current writer Roger McKenzie]. Because it will be up to him, sooner or later, to explain the events that took place in CAP #225 to the satisfaction of Marveldom Assembled.

And he will too. Somehow. Some way. Because one thing's for sure. Whoever that was in CAP #225, it wasn't CAPTAIN AMERICA...