Every week, 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.

With Peggy Carter's first (hopefully not only) season now over, let's look at the effects of Marvel's sliding time scale when it comes to Captain America and the Carter sisters...or WERE they sisters?

NOTE: Due to the amount of images, I'm splitting this over two pages.

Our story begins in Tales of Suspense #75, as Cap (who was Mopey McMoperson back in those days) laments all the people he lost from the war, including, for the first time, a revelation of a gal left behind...



Later in the issue, Cap notices a girl...



He doesn't know it, but she is a SHIELD agent...



When they part, there is an interesting moment where the SHIELD agent notes that she recognizes Steve Rogers, as well...



The next issue Cap learns that she is Agent 13. He saves her life.

The following issue is a flashback telling us the history between Cap and his gal. Here, Stan Lee pulls out a mini-Abandoned An' Forsaked. The girl mentioned that her sister's beau was Steve Rogers. Here, though, it is clear that her sister knew Cap as Cap...









They, of course, keep her the opposite of safe and she ends up in a prison camp. Cap leads an attack to save her. She, meanwhile, is not waiting to be saved...





Yes, tragically, Cap's gal loses her memory!

From this point on, Stan Lee basically just drops the whole sister angle. Agent 13 and Cap begin to date and finally, in Captain America #103 (so nearly 20 issues after she debuted) we learn that her name is Sharon Carter...



Cap and Sharon date for the next sixty issues or until Captain America #161 by Steve Englehart, where he decides to pick up the dangling sister plotline in a big way. First, he has Sharon leave Cap...







I love Cap "zinging" no one in particular. There is no one in the room with you, Cap! There is no man to give a cigar to!

Meanwhile, Sharon is holed up in some creepy hospital where she runs into her parents...



Who is this mysterious "she"??!

Find out on the next page!



The following issue, we learn that it is PEGGY Carter, the gal from Cap's past! Englehart explains all...





Their big reunion...



Later, after the bad guys are all defeated...



So that was the set-up for years. Peggy was Sharon's older sister and Peggy became a supporting character in Cap's book and in the Avengers. She served as a SHIELD agent had a relationship with Gabe Jones (an interracial relationship - impressive, Marvel!) and she eventually worked as a support staff for the Avengers.

It was not a major issue when Sharon Carter was presumed dead (see this Abandoned An' Forsaked for more information), but when she is back and still the same age as Cap, it got to be kind of weird when we were now fifty, sixty and seventy years away from World War II.

The way it was handled for years was by just not using Peggy Carter. She sort of just vanished after Sharon returned. She was not used from the mid-90s until just a few years ago, when Ed Brubaker deftly abandoned an' forsaked the whole sister angle and the two are now niece and aunt...





Brubaker later showed Peggy suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, likely explaining where she disappeared to for all those years.

Of course, the presumption is that while Sharon is calling her "aunt" she is really Sharon's GRAND-Aunt, as 2011's Captain America #1 by Brubaker and Steve McNiven (holy crap, how awesome is this McNiven art?) shows us Cap reflecting on how it is sometimes easy to forget that he is a man from the past until, of course, one of his old friends dies. Here, Peggy passes away as a 91-year-old....









So the odds are that Sharon is too young to have a 91-year-old aunt. More likely she was Sharon's grand-aunt.

If you have a suggestion for a future Abandoned an' Forsaked, e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com