The character John Walker was first introduced as the super villain Super-Patriot in Captain America #323. Mark Gruenwald created Walker to counter the general message in Captain America of patriotism being invariably good, describing him as someone who embodied patriotism in a way that Captain America didn’t—a patriotic villain.
After a return appearance in Captain America #327, Gruenwald reintroduced him as the new Captain America in issue #333. Though Gruenwald said he would not have done this if it had not been a logical development from the preceding storylines, he also openly acknowledged that the motivating reason for replacing Steve Rogers as Captain America was to boost sales:
John Walker’s installation as Captain America indeed provided a major boost to the series’s sales and he remained the main character of Captain America for issues 333 through 350, during which his character generally becomes more heroic. In Captain America #354 he is given another name and costume change, this time as U.S. Agent using a discarded costume of Steve Rogers (the original Captain America), a black outfit with a different alignment of the stars and stripes to differentiate it from Steve Rogers’ suit.
Like some West Coast Avengers teammates who had their own series (such as Iron Man, or Hawkeye in Solo Avengers), the character U.S. Agent was popular enough to earn his own limited series in 1993. The mini-series was used to finish off a long-standing Marvel Universe plot thread involving the Scourge of the Underworld.
Backstory:
John Walker was born in the fictional town of Custer’s Grove, Georgia. He grew up idolizing his older brother, Mike, a helicopter pilot who died in the Vietnam War. John wanted to honor his brother’s memory by enlisting in the military, becoming a soldier himself.
After John received an honorable discharge from the United States Army, he was told by a friend about the Power Broker, a mysterious individual who gave people superhuman abilities. Walker and his friend received treatments that granted him superhuman abilities…
From:
Sam Wilson – Captain America #13 (2016)
Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Daniel Acuna
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Author: lowbrowcomics
Greetings!
Hello! Welcome to my blog page! This is a page dedicated to comic books, comic book movies, pop culture news and other stuff that I find interesting. I will try to update this page as much as possible with the junk I find interesting. I hope you find it interesting too.
Why the name Lowbrowcomics?
Well, while comic books can be compelling, imaginative and extremely well written, they aren’t exactly Shakespeare. Even though I love reading them, the title of the blog serves as a reminder to just have fun with them.
Ok, cool. So what about you? Who are you?
I’m glad you asked!
I’ve been reading comics for more than 35 years! I remember the day I started pretty clearly. When I was about 3 or 4, my dad came home from work and among the little treats he usually brought home, he brought an issue of the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil and Power-Man and Iron Fist. It was all over after that. All night long we laid on the floor, reading these comics and even though I was too young to read them myself, I listened intently while he discussed and explained Daredevil’s powers, what happens when Hulk gets mad and Iron Fist’s prodigious use of Kung-Fu.
From then on out, I wanted to read as much as I could (not limited to comics of course) everything from the Marvel and DC universe. From then on out it was Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends on Saturday morning, Batman birthday cakes, Fantastic Four bed sheets, watching Superman movies and on and on and on.
At age 7 in 1984, I was at a birthday party and while most of the kids were playing with toys with the birthday boy, I noticed a TV on in the other room. I poked my head in to see what was on and noticed something strange on the tube. Something I had never seen before. Strange machines were walking across a frozen wasteland shooting lasers at peculiar looking ships, a man clad in all black with a deep raspy voice strode through frozen hallways looking for someone called “The princess”. Yep, you guessed it. The Empire Strikes Back. Thus began my second great love affair.
So there you have it, I’m not going to go through all my major milestones with comics, there just isn’t enough bandwidth available :) I just hope you enjoy my blog as much as I enjoy making it!
Hit me up on Twitter @lowbrowent.
Fin.
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