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William Burnside (character)
William Burnside, PhD, also known as the Captain America of the 1950s, Commie Smasher or Bad Cap, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Sal Buscema in Captain America #153–156 (Sept.–Dec. 1972) as an explanation for the reappearance of Captain America and Bucky in 1953 in Young Men comics and their subsequent adventures in the 1950s. It was established through retroactive continuity that the character was a completely different one from the original Captain America, who was firmly established in The Avengers #4 as disappearing near the end of World War II. Since this revelation, the character serves as a foil personality to his predecessor, serving as an example of what Captain America could have become and as a reactionary bigot driven violently insane by a flawed and incomplete copy of Project Rebirth's body enhancement treatment.
In a later storyline, the character was given a new white costume and the title The Grand Director by Buscema and writers Roger McKenzie and Jim Shooter, in Captain America #232 (April 1979), and altered to be a villain and leader of a group of white supremacists that included a brainwashed Sharon Carter. The character was killed off at the end of that storyline and not used again until Captain America vol. 5 #42, returning to being active as the Captain America of the 1950s separate from the then-current Captain America, James "Bucky" Barnes.
A character with a complicated history, William Burnside's origin lies in discrepancies that crept up in the history of Captain America.
As a character, Captain America had been continuously published from 1941 until 1949. He was then revived unsuccessfully in 1953 in Young Men #24–28 (Dec. 1953– May 1954) by Stan Lee with Mort Lawrence and John Romita, Sr. These stories starred the original Captain America and Bucky in both their civilian and superhero guises, and were clearly set in the 1950s, with the character prominently battling communism and a communist Red Skull. The character also made appearances in Men's Adventures #27–28 (May–July 1954) and Captain America Comics #76–78 (May–Sept. 1954).
However, when Lee revived the Captain America concept a second time in 1964, he either ignored or forgot about the 1950s stories. When the character reappears in The Avengers #4 (March, 1964) Lee reveals that the original Captain America had fallen into a state of suspended animation after a battle he fought near the end of World War II in 1945.
The 1950s stories were thus considered outside of the official canon until Englehart's 1972 Captain America storyline. This attempted to resolve the discrepancy by revealing how an unnamed man, and his teenaged student, had assumed both the public and private identities of the original Captain America and Bucky. This was part of a government-sponsored program which planned to replace the lost heroes to combat the "red threat" (i.e., communism). However, as Englehart's 1972 story reveals, the treatment, which these individuals underwent to replicate the original Captain America and Bucky's abilities, was flawed (as the vital Vita-Ray radiological component was left out) and, as a side-effect, they developed psychotic symptoms. Consequently, the government placed them in suspended animation in the mid-1950s (only for an undisclosed jingoistic individual to revive them, decades later in contemporary times, to battle the original Captain America).
This complicated origin is the reason that some sources list Young Men #24 as this character's first appearance, when in fact this, and subsequent 1950s-published Captain America stories, was clearly created with the intention of depicting the original Captain America. Englehart's story was somewhat controversial; many praised it as accounting for a discrepancy in Marvel continuity in a way that expanded the Captain America cast, but a number of fans who had followed the 1950s Captain America adventures were dismayed by the revelation that their hero was just a well-meaning imposter.
A 1977 story, What If #4 (Aug. 1977), introduces two other, previous Captain Americas - William Naslund, appointed by Truman in 1945 to succeed the original Captain America, and Jeff Mace, who succeeds Naslund as Cap in the spring of 1946 after Naslund is killed in action. These versions of the character were created to resolve the discrepancy created by the Captain America stories which had been published between 1945–1949 in the newer, post-The Avengers #4 continuity. Though depicted in an issue of the What If? series, this story was explicitly noted as taking place as part of the formal canon.
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William Burnside (character)
William Burnside, PhD, also known as the Captain America of the 1950s, Commie Smasher or Bad Cap, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Sal Buscema in Captain America #153–156 (Sept.–Dec. 1972) as an explanation for the reappearance of Captain America and Bucky in 1953 in Young Men comics and their subsequent adventures in the 1950s. It was established through retroactive continuity that the character was a completely different one from the original Captain America, who was firmly established in The Avengers #4 as disappearing near the end of World War II. Since this revelation, the character serves as a foil personality to his predecessor, serving as an example of what Captain America could have become and as a reactionary bigot driven violently insane by a flawed and incomplete copy of Project Rebirth's body enhancement treatment.
In a later storyline, the character was given a new white costume and the title The Grand Director by Buscema and writers Roger McKenzie and Jim Shooter, in Captain America #232 (April 1979), and altered to be a villain and leader of a group of white supremacists that included a brainwashed Sharon Carter. The character was killed off at the end of that storyline and not used again until Captain America vol. 5 #42, returning to being active as the Captain America of the 1950s separate from the then-current Captain America, James "Bucky" Barnes.
A character with a complicated history, William Burnside's origin lies in discrepancies that crept up in the history of Captain America.
As a character, Captain America had been continuously published from 1941 until 1949. He was then revived unsuccessfully in 1953 in Young Men #24–28 (Dec. 1953– May 1954) by Stan Lee with Mort Lawrence and John Romita, Sr. These stories starred the original Captain America and Bucky in both their civilian and superhero guises, and were clearly set in the 1950s, with the character prominently battling communism and a communist Red Skull. The character also made appearances in Men's Adventures #27–28 (May–July 1954) and Captain America Comics #76–78 (May–Sept. 1954).
However, when Lee revived the Captain America concept a second time in 1964, he either ignored or forgot about the 1950s stories. When the character reappears in The Avengers #4 (March, 1964) Lee reveals that the original Captain America had fallen into a state of suspended animation after a battle he fought near the end of World War II in 1945.
The 1950s stories were thus considered outside of the official canon until Englehart's 1972 Captain America storyline. This attempted to resolve the discrepancy by revealing how an unnamed man, and his teenaged student, had assumed both the public and private identities of the original Captain America and Bucky. This was part of a government-sponsored program which planned to replace the lost heroes to combat the "red threat" (i.e., communism). However, as Englehart's 1972 story reveals, the treatment, which these individuals underwent to replicate the original Captain America and Bucky's abilities, was flawed (as the vital Vita-Ray radiological component was left out) and, as a side-effect, they developed psychotic symptoms. Consequently, the government placed them in suspended animation in the mid-1950s (only for an undisclosed jingoistic individual to revive them, decades later in contemporary times, to battle the original Captain America).
This complicated origin is the reason that some sources list Young Men #24 as this character's first appearance, when in fact this, and subsequent 1950s-published Captain America stories, was clearly created with the intention of depicting the original Captain America. Englehart's story was somewhat controversial; many praised it as accounting for a discrepancy in Marvel continuity in a way that expanded the Captain America cast, but a number of fans who had followed the 1950s Captain America adventures were dismayed by the revelation that their hero was just a well-meaning imposter.
A 1977 story, What If #4 (Aug. 1977), introduces two other, previous Captain Americas - William Naslund, appointed by Truman in 1945 to succeed the original Captain America, and Jeff Mace, who succeeds Naslund as Cap in the spring of 1946 after Naslund is killed in action. These versions of the character were created to resolve the discrepancy created by the Captain America stories which had been published between 1945–1949 in the newer, post-The Avengers #4 continuity. Though depicted in an issue of the What If? series, this story was explicitly noted as taking place as part of the formal canon.