3. There Were Other Captain Americas (Captains America?)
Marvel ComicsYep, Steve Rogers isn't the only one to dress up like a Fourth of July parade float made flesh; in fact, he wasn't even the first. In recent years the title of Captain America has been taken up by the likes of the resurrected Bucky, who managed to shake his Winter Soldier programming and replace his mentor after Cap got shot and "killed" for a little while. There was a precedent for people adopting the Captain America name and outfit during his absence, however, dating back to the time he spent as a life-sized popsicle, presumed dead, after the war ended. As there were people who became the new "Bucky", there were those who took it upon themselves to replace the star spangled avenger, too. After the war clumsily-named superhero Spirit of '76 was asked to become Cap alongside Fred Davis as his sidekick, which he kept up through the fifties. Jack Monroe's history teacher was the one who had surgery to look more like Steve Rogers (creepy), but all of those were just pretenders to the crown. We wanna talk about the original Captain America. Which Steve Rogers wasn't. According to Truth: Red, White & Black anyway, a truly great miniseries which you should totally go read immediately. Or after you're done here at least, we do only have a couple more points to get through. Drawing on the real-life Tuskegee Experiments and the historical racism of the American military (and America in general), Truth reveals the, er, truth about the dozens of black soldiers who tested early versions of the super serum that gave Captain America his powers. All but one dies horrifically and painfully, and Isaiah Bradley - the lone survivor - was swept under the rug. And despite this landmark series being all about making uncomfortable things disappear, that's exactly what's happened to Isaiah, who hasn't appeared in comics since.