The Secret Origin of Captain America
A look into the popular Marvel character
The original concept of Captain America was a response to Adolph Hitler’s rise to power during World War II, a boldly patriotic superhero wearing the red, white and blue colors of the American flag.
When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created the character more than 75 years ago, they envisioned a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Steve Rogers who is recruited to undergo an experiment by the U.S. military to transform him into a super soldier. By now, thanks to the ever-expanding Marvel cinematic universe, Cap’s origin is basic knowledge to comic book and non-comic- book readers alike. At the time of his first appearance in comics in 1941, Rogers symbolized the perception of what the average American looked like — white and male.
This, of course, was before Martin Luther King, Jr., before the civil rights movement, and before desegregation.
In 2000, comic book writer Robert Morales pitched an idea to then-Marvel editor Joe Quesada about a Captain America prequel — a story about an earlier stage of the American military’s super soldier program, the very first round of Project Rebirth, before the serum was successfully tested on Rogers, and the race to develop it before the Nazis. Morales’ idea was based on research he had done about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, a 40-year health study conducted by the Public Health Services (PHS) spanning from 1932 to 1972 that tracked nearly 400 poor African-American men who supposedly had late-stage and non-infectious Syphilis, and another 200 who were assumed to be disease-free in the rural outskirts of Tuskegee, Alabama.
The PHS — a faction of the American government — lied to them, leading these men to believe they were being treated and, in some cases, even cured. Under this misleading impression, many of these men were sexually active, spreading the disease to others. Over the course of the study, 28 of the men died directly from syphilis, 100 died of complications, 40 of their wives has been infected and 19 of their children were born with congenital syphilis.
When a newspaper reporter exposed the scandal in 1972, the public outcry was huge, with a Federal investigation, senate hearings, and a lawsuit that helped change the way medical and scientific research was to be conducted.
In an article for Entertainment Weekly, Morales — who died in 2013 at age 54 — was quoted as saying about his idea, “I wrote a proposal that was so staggeringly depressing I was certain they’d turn it down. But they didn’t.”
Quesada gave Morales the go-ahead, who brought artist Kyle Baker on board. The two began work on what would eventually become Truth: Red, White and Black, which was released in a seven-issue series from January to July 2003.
In Truth, Morales and Baker used the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments as a springboard to explore the blatant racism against black soldiers during World War II, turning the Captain America mythos on its head by helping to uncover the dark realities behind the often whitewashed ideal of American patriotism.
The story follows three black soldiers — former WWI sergeant Luke Evans, Maurice Canfield, a social activist from a prominent family and recently-married Isaiah Bradley — among a small group of test subjects who were chosen to take part in the early stages of the Super Soldier program. Mirroring history, the government manipulates them, forcing the soldiers to take part in the project, which causes major physical deformities, and even death.
After a number of field tests and revisions to the formula, Bradley is the last man standing, with a seemingly successful round of super soldier serum pulsing through his veins.
Up until now, Bradley and his fellow soldiers were kept in the dark about what the super soldier program is. But after reading a Captain America comic book — serving as both a product of the military’s internal propaganda campaign geared toward lifting morale and a form of entertainment for them while overseas, Bradley begins to put things together, realizing that the Cap in the comic underwent the same treatment as him and his comrades but without the same harsh treatment. They were the test subjects before Rogers underwent the experiment because, in the military’s eyes, they were expendable. Rogers — whose first mission as the American military’s new secret weapon Captain America, was to go to Schwarzebitte, Germany to halt the Nazi’s own super soldier experiments — but had been delayed in his travels. The military looked to Bradley to take over for Rogers, since he was the only super soldier around to go, on what essentially was a suicide mission. Of course, the order was tinged with the threat of harm to his wife and newborn baby. Bradley accepted and knowing what he had to do, stole the Captain America uniform that was meant for Rogers, and headed into battle alone.
Once inside the Nazi territory, he saw Jewish prisoners who had undergone similar experiments as he and his now-dead friends. And here’s where Bradley fully realizes the contradiction of his mission; that what he’s fighting for is for the sake of the white man — not for him, his family, nor his friends.
Throughout the story, Morales and Baker pepper references to other acts of racism that occurred during American military history in the first few decades of the Twentieth century. The Double V Campaign logo – the symbol for the World War II movement that called for African-Americans who were fighting for their country abroad to be treated the same as their white counterparts back home in America — is referenced a couple of times. Also, Sgt. Lucas Evans, one of the super soldier test subjects, recalls the biggest battle he ever fought, which was not in another country but in his own United States, during the Red Summer of 1919, a series of race riots that happened in more than three dozen cities and where an estimated 240 African-Americans were killed as a result of racial tensions instigated by whites.
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Rogers does figure prominently later in Truth as he works to uncover the horrors of just what happened during the early stages of Project Rebirth. And he finds out plenty when he visits with Bradley’s wife, Faith, who recounts what happened to her husband and his comrades. I won’t tell you what happens at the end but it’s enough to make you cry.
In the Marvel comic book universe, the Captain America mantle has been assumed by others besides Rogers. Former sidekick and Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes has taken over for him and currently, Sam Wilson, otherwise known as Falcon, has the shield, which would make it the second time in Marvel history there has been a black Captain America. But Bradley was the first. In the world of comic books, he is considered a folk hero by the black heroes of the Marvel universe, a respected man who has become a legend. He’s the Harriet Tubman of superheroes. Maybe one day we will see a faithful adaptation of this relevant and truthful story.
