As we get ready for Independence Day here in the U.S., I wonder just how many U.S. patriotic-themed characters there are in comics.
The grand-daddy of them all -- the first of the patriotic comic book characters --is MLJ's The Shield. J. Michael Straczynski is apparently bringing him back soon for DC. It seems like every ten years or so, somebody tries to revive those characters. I wonder if it will work this time?
Then, of course, there is Captain America. During the Golden Age, Marvel also had the Patriot and Miss America. Back in the 70s, Roy Thomas introduced the Spirit of '76, who alludes to two other Golden Age heroes, and even more recently, Mark Gruenwald created Jack Flag, who is appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy (of all places!) these days. Plus there are all the Captain America spin-offs and wannabes, like the second Patriot (from the Young Avengers).
So I said the Spirit of '76 alludes to two other Golden Age heroes. One is a Harvey character called the Spirit of '76 created by Bob Powell. The other is Quality's Uncle Sam. Thomas's Spirit of '76 was created to be the Uncle Sam analogue in a team that was composed entirely of analogues to DC's Freedom Force (which was, of course, composed of the old Quality characters, which DC had by that point acquired).
DC took its own stab at a patriotic character in the Golden Age with the Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy, but for some reason, they never seemed as USA-centric as the other Golden Age characters I've mentioned.
I don't know if Fawcett ever had a USA-themed character.
So who am I leaving out?
Posted by Jason Fliegel at July 2, 2009 1:53 PM
Well, you haven't explictly ruled out the cynical, postmodern, or post-postmodern areas, so there's also Verhoden's The American over at Dark Horse. And General Glory from the last days of Giffen's Justice League. Out of the Force of July, Major Victory appears to be the only survivor, and he wears the flag. Which brings one to Nuke, again in the cynical category. [Of course, depending on how broad you want to define 'Captain America spin-offs and wannabees', you may already have most of those covered.
Fawcett appears to have had someone called "Commando Yank" that probably qualifies...
(Oh, and at the time 'macaroni' primarily meant 'ritzy' or 'high fashion', not 'a small tubular noodle'. But you probably already knew that.)
I did not know that about the use of the term "macaroni." Another mystery solved!
What was the name of the Moore/Baikie character from ABC? He qualifies too.
Another one I just thought of -- there was a character who was prepped for Showcase and then never appeared. Grant Morrison wound up reviving/debuting him in Doom Patrol several decades after the fact. I think he was called Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Btw, the DC/Quality group is Freedom Fighters, not Freedom Force. And in addition to Uncle Sam, they have their own Miss America with a transmutation powerset. She was also, briefly, retconned into being the JSA's WWII era secretary when the Golden Age Wonder Woman was retconned out of existence (and before John Byrne retconned Hippolyta into that role).
DC's Golden Age also had Liberty Belle and Mr. America/Americommando, both of which have legacy followons in the current JSA. Marvel's got USAgent, spun off from a Captain America replacement.
The 50s had Simon and Kirby's Fighting American, who was revived briefly by DC in a 90s mini-series.
There was the recently killed off Agent Liberty, a short-lived hero/JLA member in the 90s.
Astro City has the Old Soldier.
As far as I know, the first-in-the-DC-timeline costumed hero was Revolutionary War hero Miss Liberty, a Tomahawk supporting character who was retconned in as Liberty Belle's ancestor (the other candidate for first would be the Silent Knight, but despite his having a secret identity, a knight wearing a suit of armor including a face-shielding helm wasn't quite as much of a unique fashion statement as Miss Liberty's you-know-it-would've-been-spandex-if-it'd-been-around-in-the-1700s costume).
Various 40s company's characters now in the public domain showing up in Project Superpowers including Fighting Yank, Yank and Doodle, The Flag, The American Crusader, The American Eagle, and The Super-American.
The First American? Sure.
Which reminds me about the Nedor Comics/Terra Obscura gang, which adds the Fighting Yank (who's apparently been published by lots and lots of different people over the years) to the mix.
A couple of the incarnations of Citizen V either were or were pretending to be Americans, so might count here, too...
Both Nedor Comics and Timely Comics had characters called Fighting Yank. You can see the updated Nedor version in Project Superpowers or in back issues of Tom Strong or Terra Obscura where his daughter, Fighting Spirit, appeared.
Project Superpowers is filled with these characters. Thrilling Comics had a character called the American Crusader. U.S. Jones was originally published by Fox Feature Syndicate. The Liberator was published by Nedor Comics along with Fighting Yank. And don't forget American Eagle and his partner, Eaglet, also from Nedor. The Golden Age Unknown Soldier was published by Ace Comics. There's also the original Eagle and his sidekick Buddy. And of course, there was Yank and Doodle.
I can't believe I got the Freedom Fighters confused with the Freedom Force. Although there was a superhero video-game called Freedom Force which was adapted into comics and which featured a patriotic-themed superhero called the Minuteman.
Here's 3 more patriotic superheroes: The original Minuteman, from Fawcett (he was killed off panel in the 1st storyarc in the current JSA comic), American Dream, the daughter of Capt. America from Tom DeFalco's SPIDERGIRL universe, & Free Spirit, who was introduced in CAPT. AMERICA about the saem time as Jack Falg.
Also from Marvel is Battlestar, who played Bucky to USAgent back during his short stint as Captain America.
USAgent also called himself Super Patriot for awhile, though there was a villain at Marvel that predated him in that name.
DC had a Golden Age trio of agents named Red, White, & Blue.
I guess it could have helped originally, but I just discovered a wikipedia article on US-themed superheroes.
Aaron Williams' PS238 has American Eagle and USA Patriot Act -- one a Democrat, the other a Republican. :)
Nobody's mentioned SuperPatriot from Erik Larson's Savage Dragon universe.
Then there's USA (Ultimate Special Agent) from Alan Moore's hilarious and clever 1963 miniseries!