Marvel's Generations Cements Sam Wilson's Legacy as an A-List Superhero

What if you lived in the shadow of somebody else? What if that somebody else was Steve Rogers, and you thought you could never live up to his legacy, even if he’d entrusted you with his shield and the title of Captain America? This is the central premise of Generations: Captain America #1, the final issue in the series of one-shots that leads to Legacy. It also provides a grace note to Secret Empire, and both of Spencer’s Captain America titles.

Despite his role in defeating Hydra Cap, Sam doesn’t feel worthy of the mantle of Captain America. Even after having run a literal Underground Railroad that helped mutants, Inhumans and other refugees escape to Canada after the Hydra take-over, he doesn’t feel like much of a hero. His friend and mentor casts that much of a shadow.

Generations: The Americas #1 follows the same formula as the other issues in the series, but writer Nick Spencer takes the conceit to another level. Sam doesn’t spent a few hours or a few days in an alternate reality to learn a valuable life lesson: He takes an entire lifetime.

The issue is a long flashback that begins with Sam being interrogated regarding what he remembers about the Vanishing Point. In his mind, he is whisked away at the end of the Battle of Washington, Sam finds himself in Harlem just after America entered the Second World War. He is taken in by Elvin Monroe, who gives him clothes and a place to sleep, and gets him a job washing dishes in a restaurant. He also takes the name Paul Jeffries, his father’s first name and his mother’s maiden name.

As he watches history unfold before his eyes, Sam can’t help but enlist. Seeing newsreel footage of Hitler only strengthens his resolve. Although he’s aware of the perils of altering the timeline by remaining a bystander, he sees others joining the war effort, and he wants to do his part.

Life in the army isn’t quite what Sam expected. Training comes easy to the hero, but the segregated barracks, and the poor living conditions afforded to servicemen of color, don’t sit well with him.

As he prepares to go into battle, Sam not only sees hope in the figure of Steve Rogers leading the charge on the ground, he also provides air support for his once-and-future partner in the heat of battle.

A gorgeous splash-page shows Sam as the Falcon in camouflage, flying in front of a squadron of fighters piloted by African-Americans. No doubt inspired by the 99th Pursuit Squadron, an all-Black Air Force unit that was part of the Tuskegee Airmen (so called because they trained at a Blacks-only facility in Tuskegee, Alabama). Spencer makes a powerful statement by showing Sam leading the charge. During the war itself, flight crews in the 99th received far less combat training than their white counterparts, spending only a week in the company of pilots who had seen actual combat.

After the air fight, Sam descends to the battlefield where he meets Steve for the "first" time, but the man he meets isn’t the stalwart super soldier he expected. This Steve is in the first weeks of his tenure as Captain America. He is shaken by combat and has a severe case of impostor syndrome. He confides in Sam that he doesn’t think he can live up to the hype that the government has created around the Captain America persona.

Sam -- or rather Paul -- initiates the friendship by giving Cap the pep talk he needs. Having knowledge of the future, Sam tells Steve that he’s going to inspire generations to come. He also offers a piece of advice: that Steve ask for a round shield he can throw. But Sam also asks for a favor. He wants the existence of the “Man in the Air” to remain a rumor. “Let’s be real here,” he tells Rogers. “If the military’s top guys got real confirmation of these wings, they’d be tempted to put them on a soldier who a looks a little more like… you.”

Thus, over the course of the War, Sam continues to support his friend in combat, and watches him grow into the icon that is Captain America. Yet the Falcon remains anonymous

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After the conflict is over, Sam retires the Falcon and adopts a different garb. Like his brother Gideon, he becomes a preacher. As a man of the cloth, he leads an entirely different life as he waits for Rogers to be retrieved from his icy prison. He marries, has children, and grand children. He becomes a civil rights activist. He marches, and is assaulted by cops armed with truncheons and water cannons. He ends up in jail. Sam becomes hero in a very different way, all the while waiting for the return of the hero that he knows is to come.

By the time Captain America is unfrozen , Sam is an old man. He has lived a full life and, in his own unassuming way, it was as worthy as his current existence as the Falcon. Just as he did in the War, he stays in the background while others visibly lead the charge.

This being Marvel Time paired with Kobik’s notional reality, Captain America comes back in the recent past as opposed to 1963. When Rogers makes his triumphant return, amidst the flash of cameras and the requests for selfies, he picks out the elderly soldier in the crowd. The war buddies embrace and rekindle their friendship. Sam continues to live a quiet life, watching from the sidelines as his old friend goes on adventures and eventually partners with Sam’s younger self.

The old friends have a final meeting after Steve’s been drained of the Super-Soldier Serum. Rogers tells Paul Jeffries that he’s going to offer Sam the shield and the title of Captain America. He also airs his suspicion about Paul’s connection to Sam, which he’s promised to never explore.

As Steve wonders aloud about the fairness of asking Sam to be Captain America, Paul muses whether Sam’s biggest challenge will be living in Rogers’ shadow, and trying to live up to the original Captain America’s legacy.

Steve replies by revealing that it was Sam who inspired him to achieve greatness, by helping to win the War and save lives overseas, by marching for civil rights, feeding the homeless, and caring for the sick, all without seeking any recognition, sometimes out of necessity.

His words are an eloquent thesis statement, and a summation of Spencer’s Secret Empire: Heroism is not something that trickles down from the top. It is not created by blindly following leaders, or clinging to symbols of patriotism and virtue. Heroism is the hard work that rises from the depths of personal conviction. It is a force that changes history. It is the leaders who must follow the inspiration of those who toil anonymously for a better world, not the other way around.

The real heroes, according to Spencer are the anonymous service men and women who gave their lives for freedom, the crusaders who fight for civil rights, the volunteers who man soup kitchens, the preachers who minister to the poor, the sick and the dying, nurses, doctors, and people raising families. It is these people that superheroes must serve, rather than their own egos, which have caused them to fight amongst themselves through two Civil Wars, and countless other Marvel events.

Steve’s words also free Sam of Roger’s shadow.

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The elderly Paul shuffles off to bed one last time. He dies in his sleep and wakes up in the present as Sam. Having relived that other lifetime in his head, he refuses to tell the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are interrogating him what happened in the minute that he was gone from this reality. After he tells them he remembers nothing, their tone and line of questioning change. They want to know where Kobik is. Disgusted that they’ve learned nothing from the horrors of the Hydra takeover, he storms off. Upon leaving the “voluntary” interrogation, he seeks out the other heroes who experienced the Vanishing Point, and who were also called in for questioning.

After a confab at a local diner with the rest of the group that Kobik whisked away, Sam is left with Thor, whom we last saw him snogging in the pages of Secret Empire: Omega. She tells him he seems changed, and correctly intuits that Sam lived an entire life within the Vanishing Point. As the pair muses about legacy, walking their own paths, and the lessons Kobik hoped to impart, Sam realizes that he has one last thing he must do.

With the birds of the world as his eyes, he finds Steve Rogers—the version restored by Kobik. He then relinquishes the shield. Knowing he couldn’t talk his old friend into taking it back, Sam stealthily hurls the shield at Steve from above, with a note attached to it.

The note tells Steve that he’ll overcome the events of the Hydra takeover, and that he will “earn back their trust” and “inspire them again.” He concludes that he is “betting his life” on Steve once again being the “hero they need” and the “one they’ve always hoped for.” This is not a message from a friend who lives the shadows, but from a friend who is an equal. It is the passing of the torch from the present Captain America to the future Captain America.

Generations: The Americas #1 is a moving conclusion to the Generations one-shots, a last good-bye to Secret Empire, and the closing chapter in Sam Wilson’s tenure as Captain America. It is also a reminder that—for some readers—Sam is, and always will be, their Captain America.