Stan Lee didnt tend to sweat the small stuff. Or the big stuff, either. When he retconned Marvel history so that Captain America had been frozen for years during the Second World War, he didnt fret that hed effectively erased those 1950s stories where he battled the Red Scare from existence. He didnt think anybody would care. It wasnt until years later, when it was clear people did care, that explanations for these Cap vs Commie stories came out. Yet another pile of retcons revealed that there had been various stand-ins for both Cap and Bucky after the originals were presumed dead, including fellow WWII heroes Spirit Of '76 and Patriot and a mad professor who the government froze. William Naslund and Jeffrey Mace, meanwhile, gracefully retired from their roles as Captain America as Mace supplanted Naslund and then the one, true Steve Rogers appeared to come back from the dead. Years later, both of their graves were vandalized by somebody with a grudge against Cap in Ed Brubakers run on the book (#4, 2005). Those guys really had the worst luck.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
