Every Saturday, we will be examining comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent). Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of The Abandoned An' Forsaked. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

Today we look at the death and life of Sharon Carter.

Enjoy!

In Captain America #217, Sharon Carter was written out of the book by Roy Thomas, through Steve Rogers going on a search for his past mixed with a misunderstanding on Sharon's part...





(the woman who kisses Cap was a bad guy whose job was to get close to Cap in a plot that really didn't end up going anywhere)

The next we hear about Sharon is in #231 (during Roger McKenzie's stint on the book) where we learn that she was brainwashed by some neo-Nazis...







In #232 we see her in action...



In #233, we discover that the Neo-Nazis come with self-destructive incendiary devices, so Cap doesn't know if Sharon was one of the agents who self-combusted...



Cap goes looking for Sharon. He discovers that the bad guys have made a robot copy of her...





This is an important point to note. THEY MADE AN EXACT ROBOT COPY OF HER, PEOPLE!!

So Cap eventually stops the bad guys (as it turned out, Dr. Faustus, the evil expert in psychological warfare, was behind the Neo-Nazis), but then gets some bad news the following issue (#237 with a script by McKenzie and a plot by Chris Claremont, of all people) - Sharon WAS one of the brainwashed people who set themselves on fire...





So he sees on videotape Sharon burn up - when he has seen a robot copy of her from the same bad guys, who happen to be run by an expert in psychological warfare!!! And he just accepts it? WEIRD!!

This lasted for YEARS!

Go to the next page to see how Mark Waid rather easily explained why this was BS...

Anyhow, over 200 issues later, in Captain America #445, Cap meets a familiar face...





Later, we learn that SHIELD faked her death to cover up a mission she was on, but then "burned" her afterwards. Eventually we learn that Nick Fury thought that she died on the undercover mission, so he figured it was better to have Cap think that she was dead from the first thing rather than tell him that THAT death was faked but she died on a DIFFERENT mission (which actually does make sense).

Thank goodness for her return! And I can't believe it took that long to happen.