Sam Wilson just won over a whole new generation of fans thanks to Anthony Mackie's charismatic, hilarious turn playing second banana to Chris Evans in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In comic books, meanwhile, The Falcon had slightly less of an auspicious standing. Actually, that's not entirely true; when he was introduced by Stan Lee and Gene Colan in 1969's Captain America #117, Sam Wilson was the first black superhero to appear in a mainstream comic book, which was an incredibly progressive move in a country which had only just passed the Civil Rights Act. His initial portrayal, too, was mercifully free of caricature or stereotypes. His first appearance centred around organising a group of enslaved island natives to rise against their Nazi supervillain oppressors, winning the admiration of Captain America, which was more The Falcon engaging with issues of black identity than indulging in unfortunate tropes based on his race. With training he became not a sidekick but an equal to Steve Rogers, exemplified by the book being renamed "Captain America and the Falcon" for a spell. Things took a serious nosedive in 1975, when writer Steve Englehart took over the title. Where previously Wilson's origin had him as a social worker in Harlem who tried to make his part of the city a better place for his fellow man, Englehart retconned those memories to be the creation of the nefarious, reality-warping Cosmic Cube. Instead, he made it so the Falcon had begun his adult life as a mob-connected pimp, with all the cliched patois and style of a blaxploitation character. What had once been a strong, progressive character became nothing more than a racist caricature. Cheers Steve!
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/
