Today, we look at how John Walker murdered two of his original partners before he became Captain America...only for Marvel to then decide that he didn't actually do that.
In every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without actively retconning away the previous story. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.
My friend Chris suggested this one (he was doing a re-read of these comics recently on his blog).
WHO WERE THE BUCKIES?
In Captain America #323 (by Mark Gruenwald, Paul Neary and John Beatty), we met a new patriotic vigilante known as Super-Patriot. He was unusual in that he played everything like it was a publicity game. He gave out rallies and he tried to turn the country against Captain America, who had famously just publicly killed a terrorist with a machine gun to save some hostages. The Super-Patriot twisted things to make it seem like Cap was outdated and that the Super-Patriot was the true patriotic superhero the country needed. As part of his rallies, he is attacked by a group of Cap-supporters calling themselves the Buckies (Bold Urban Commandoes)...
Super-Patriot easily defeats the Buckies and wins the crowd over even more. Of course, it is all a sham. The Buckies and Super-Patriot are working together. They were all former Army buddies who decided to get super-strength enhancements from the Power Broker and became part of the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation (a special wrestling league in the Marvel Universe where superpowered wrestlers competed). Eventually, they came up with the Super-Patriot scam, with John Walker becoming Super-Patriot and his friends Lemar, Hector and Jerome becoming the Buckies.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BUCKIES WHEN WALKER BECAME CAPTAIN AMERICA?
Things changed when Walker had done such a good job with his publicity that the United States government approached him about taking over as Captain America from Steve Rogers once Rogers refused to keep playing ball with the government. He accepted the government's offer in Captain America #333 (by Gruenwald, Tom Morgan and Dave Hunt). His original intention was for his government deal to also work in his friends and their promotional manager, Ethan, into the deal. The problem was that Ethan, Jerome and Hector all failed the background checks. So the government told Walker that if he were to accept their offer of becoming Captain America, he would have to cut ties with all but one of his old friends (as Lamar Hoskins had passed the background check). Despite his genuine friendship for his friends, he took the deal.
In the following issue, Ethan threatens to go public with Walker's real name and the whole Super-Patriot scam. Walker and Lemar then use Guardsman suits of armor to threaten Ethan. They fight with Hector and Jerome and Walker accidentally blasts Jerome with the Guardsman's power blaster ray. They hurry off and it seems as though they've successfully cowed their old friends into keeping quiet.
THE BUCKIES' REVENGE
This clearly did not work out, as in Captain America #341 (by Gruenwald, Kieron Dwyer and Al Milgrom), when Walker and Hoskins are publicly introduced to the world as the new Captain America and his partner, Battlestar (Hoskins was originally called Bucky, but he convinced the government that that name was inappropriate, as well as asking a grown man to wear a kid's costume), Jerome and Hector show up as new costumed vigilantes, Left and Right Winger and they expose Walker's secret identity to the world.
After a brief fight, Hector and Jerome are arrested, but the damage was done. They embarrassed John and Lamar at their big day, but no one know just HOW bad things would get.
THINGS GO WRONG
A terrorist group known as the Watchdogs had fought against the new Captain America early in his tenure as Cap, and now that they knew his real name, the terrorists took Walker's parents hostage. Walker surrendered himself, but then tried to break free and take them all down. In the process, the bad guys opened fire and killed Walker's parents.
He snapped and slaughtered the Watchdogs who were there and then cradled his parents and pretended as though they were still alive, as he was clearly suffering a mental breakdown.
Naturally, he blamed Hector and Jerome for revealing his secret identity and so he visited their respective parents and threatened to kill them. This led to Hector and Jerome finally taking on John in a battle near an oil refinery. They were unprepared for how vicious of a fighter John was now that he was completely unhinged and he easily took them apart and then he tied them up next to an oil drum and left their torch loose next to them...
He told them that they had the chance to free themselves before the torch hit the oil drum and killed them. He then walked away and as he walked away and they fought to get their arms free, the torch ignited the oil drum and it exploded, clearly killing them as Walker just walked away, expression never changing.
Now, again, they clearly died there. How could they not? So Walker just murdered his old best friends.
Later, they showed up in Avengers West Coast #61 (by Roy and Dann Thomas, Paul Ryan and Danny Bulanadi) as members of the Legion of the Unliving (to be fair, though, there have been many members of that group over the years who turned out to not be dead)...
Oddly, though, in that issue, they specifically tell John (who has now become USAgent and joined the West Coast branch of the Avengers) that they are NOT dead and Walker seems to believe they are not dead, either.
That is confirmed in Captain America #383 (in a story by Gruenwald, Mark Bagley and Dan Panosian) that John actually went back and saved them after the oil drum blew up...
However, they then both killed themselves because they were disfigured and in constant pain from being burned by the flames of the explosion. USAgent then decides that he has to just be be a better person to redeem himself, as he is now remorseful for their deaths.
It's the oddest darn thing. It's like Gruenwald decided that killing his old friends was a bridge too far and if USAgent was ever going to be redeemed as a superhero, they would have to get rid of that part of his backstory, so despite CLEARLY killing them, it was slightly changed (not necessarily retconned, though) to them not dying at that moment. Of course, they were still badly burned and eventually kill themselves, so what was the difference in the end, really? Did that really make USAgent look any better in the end?
Thanks to Chris for the suggestion! If anyone else has a suggestion for a future edition of Abandoned Love, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!