Comic Book Questions Answered - where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com). Here is a link to an archive of all the past questions that have been answered so far.

Reader Randy H. wrote in to ask if there was some actual comic book reason for why Captain America's shield famously ricochets back to him after Captain America throws his mighty shield?

Read on for the answer!

The interesting thing is that during the Golden Age, Captain America didn't really throw his shield. It was just a nice shield that he used as, you know, a shield.



Or to hit people with.

He DID throw it in a short story written by Stan Lee, thus making Lee the inventor of Captain America throwing his shield.

When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby brought Captain America back, they promptly had Cap throwing the shield as soon as he came out of suspended animation in Avengers #4...



(Note that Kirby hadn't drawn Cap in almost two decades before his Silver Age return!)

And Lee and Kirby likely felt that they had to explain this new deal with Cap's shield, as logically, a shield should not be able to be throw and ricochet back to Captain America.

And so if you asked Stan Lee in the early to mid-60s how something was able to do something seemingly fantastical, he had an easy answer for you. Clearly, it was the work of transistors!!

So in Avengers #6 (by Lee, Kirby and Chic Stone)...





Of course, as you can see later in the issue, Cap's magnetic attachments were never going to be visible unless they felt like making them visible...



The next issue referred to the current status quo...



But that was it for the rest of the year. No mention in the Avengers or anywhere until late in 1964, when Lee and Kirby addressed the situation in Tales of Suspense #62, where Cap is taken prisoner at a prison as the prisoners intend to use the gizmos in his shield to help escape...









Nicely written out!

But wait, NOW how do you explain how the shield returns to Cap?

Go to the next page for the best answer that you're ever going to get...

I say "best answer that you're ever going to get" because this answer really doesn't make any sense, but, well, this is it.

The oddest part of the shield ricocheting is the fact is that the special vibranium/steel alloy has a unique reaction to kinetic energy, a reaction that is different even than standard vibranium. You see, the concept of vibranium is that it absorbs kinetic energy, so that you can have a vibranium shield, get hit in the shield with tremendous kinetic force, and instead of sending you flying, the vibranium will absorb the force of the blow so well that you're barely knocked backwards.

Here is an extreme example, when Thor hit Cap's shield with the full force of Odin (Thor was the All-Father at this time, so he had the same power as Odin)...



This was enough to send Cap flying and even dent the shield, but look at what it COULD have been, ya know? He used the full Odin Force there!!

Okay, so why does that matter? Well, the point is, if the shield absorbs kinetic energy so well, then shouldn't it specifically NOT ricochet? Shouldn't it just absorb the energy from hitting the wall and stop dead? Probably. But let's just say that the shield is a SPECIAL mix of vibranium and steel, and somehow it is able to be thrown in just such a way that it DOES ricochet.

The other tricky thing is that the edges of the shield are obviously sharp...





But Cap can catch the ricocheted shield and not cut himself (like these two separate sequences drawn by Andy Kubert in Captain America #25)...











So here's the deal. First off, here's the Official Marvel Handbook on the shield...



And here's a telling bit from Fallen Son #3, where Clint Barton is able to have the shield ricochet to him....



So the answer is basically a two-parter. One, the shield's properties work in JUST such a fashion that they allow the shield to keep rebounding without losing force (or losing little force) and two, Cap is just SO skilled at throwing it that he can see the angles in such a way that the shield will always return to him...



and he can throw it in such a way that he can control whether the sharp edge of the shield hits something or not.

Basically, don't ever play pool against Cap. He will crush you.

Does any of that really make a lot of sense? No, not really. Really, the true answer is that it is magic, but this is the closest you're going to get to a real answer.

Thanks for the question, Randy! If anyone else has a question, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com or bcronin@comicbookresources.com!