Captain America and Bucky in World War II

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The following is a biography of Captain America and Bucky Barnes during World War II.

Biography

Origin

By early 1941, Nazi spies had infiltrated the United States: though the U.S. had yet to officially enter the war, they were sympathetic toward Allied causes. Seeking a way to fight back against the Germans, the U.S. government initiated Operation Rebirth, a program to create "super soldiers" using a special serum developed by Abraham Erskine.[note 1] A young man named Steve Rogers was selected to be the first test subject: he was short, skinny, and medically problematic, but his sense of courage and honor was unmatched. Erskine applied the serum in a top-secret underground government facility, and it worked perfectly, granting Rogers superhuman strength, agility, and general physical wellbeing. Suddenly, an undercover Nazi spy revealed himself, shooting and killing Dr. Erskine. Rogers fought him off, and the spy stumbled into some electrical equipment to his death. The government branded Rogers as Captain America, equipping him with a patriotic costume and shield that he used to fight various foreign threats on American soil. Rogers also formally enlisted in the Army as a private, as his identity was concealed from the rank-and-file military officers. He was stationed at Camp Lehigh, where he met a teenage boy named Bucky Barnes. Bucky's father had died in training, and as a result had become "adopted" by the troops at Lehigh as the camp's mascot. Soon, Bucky stumbled upon Steve donning the Captain America uniform, unintentionally discovering his secret. Bucky offered to be Cap's sidekick, and he accepted, with the caveat that Bucky would have to undergo intense training to be able to keep up with Captain America. Bucky was up to the task, and soon became a valued partner to America's newest hero.[1][2]

1941

Early adventures

In one of their first missions together, Cap and Bucky learned of a pair of supposedly psychic entertainers named Sando and Omar. Omar was allegedly capable of predicting the future, and Sando would project his visions onto a crystal ball for the paying audience's edification. Their first demonstration was to predict a tank explosion at Camp Lehigh, which indeed took place the following day. Cap sensed something fishy about this, and he and Bucky went to the theater to investigate. They found that Sando was in fact Colonel Wolfgang von Krantz, a Nazi who answered directly to Adolf Hitler. The act was naturally fake, as Krantz cooperated with other Nazi forces to foretell acts of sabotage in order to confuse and torment American forces. Cap and Bucky ran into a special agent at the theater, and the three of them teamed up to take down Krantz and other Nazi spies present. Omar, a man with an abnormally large head, was in fact a sideshow in a traveling circus who had been coerced and victimized by Krantz to cooperate with him.[3][4] Around this time, Cap also stopped a pair of spies from poisoning Lehigh's food supply.[5]

Steve and Bucky were to attend a lecture put on by one Admiral Perkins, but upon their arrival to the auditorium, the curtains opened to reveal his dead, bloodied body. The two rushed out of the building and suited up, hoping to find the culprit before he escaped. They indeed caught him, but the man refused to talk, and was soon shot from a car containing three assailants. The car got away before Cap and Bucky could reach them. That night, the two were assigned guard duty outside General Ellsworth’s tent at Camp Lehigh, but when they showed up, they found that he too had been killed. The next day, a strange German man came to Bucky’s tent and gave him supposed directions to where he could find the killer. The impressionable Bucky followed the directions to an abandoned house on Peek Street, leaving behind a note for Cap to follow him when he was available. There, Bucky was ambushed and knocked out by a Nazi named Rathcone. Cap found Bucky's note and went to the house himself. He was also taken captive, but the two heroes managed to escape and take down Rathcone along with a series of Nazi spies. They found a pile of plans detailing attacks on American holdings, and contacted the authorities to bring the spies to justice.[6]

Another violent threat soon made itself known, as one Major Croy was attacked and killed in his home. Cap and Bucky investigated the area, and Bucky found a hideout of spies led by a man wearing a Nazi costume and bearing a grotesque Red Skull. He was caught and taken captive, but Cap soon arrived and the two fought their way out. Red Skull escaped, but they managed to bind the other Nazis to be retrieved by the police. The next day, Rogers was at an army air base where aircraft magnate George Maxon was on hand for a demonstration of one of his vehicles overseen by General Curtis. The plane malfunctioned midflight and crashed, killing the two men aboard. Maxon was concerned at losing the plane, but didn't seem to pay any mind to the loss of life. His behavior rubbed Rogers the wrong way, and he and Bucky decided to visit General Curtis's home for more information on Maxon. There, Red Skull had also killed Curtis, and was about to do the same to his wife. Cap and Bucky stopped him, and pulled off the mask to reveal George Maxon: actually, the man under the mask was a Nazi spy posing as Maxon, who had been killed by the Nazi regime. Red Skull managed to escape with the help of more Nazi interlopers.[7][8][note 2]

Emergence of the true Red Skull

In truth, the fake George Maxon was also a fake Red Skull: a spy who had been sent by the real Red Skull. Cap and Bucky soon found themselves in the clutches of that very man, as his fleet brutally attacked their sea convoy and took them captive. Red Skull told the bound Captain America his life story, having grown up a poor orphan boy and being handpicked by Hitler himself to be an exceptionally cruel commander. A Nazi scientist gave Cap a drug that would make Cap susceptible to influence, and Red Skull brainwashed him into being a loyal Nazi soldier designed to kill a major Allied military leader.[9] Skull presented Cap to Hitler, who was terrified simply being in Cap's presence. He ordered Skull to use him and kill him afterward. Meanwhile, during a mock firing-squad execution designed to torment Bucky and a group of other prisoners, Bucky escaped and stole a Nazi uniform as a disguise. Cap and Bucky both wound up on the same plane bound for an attack on London. There, a group of soldiers led Cap to his target. Bucky realized what was happening and tried to get through to Cap, but to no avail. Cap entered the general's office and aimed his gun at him, but the brainwashing was apparently not strong enough to make him commit murder.[10]

The intense cognitive dissonance in what he was about to do caused Cap to return to normal, and he fought off the Nazis around him. Bucky soon arrived, and the two reunited in combat. Allied guards arrived soon after and took the Germans into custody. Soon after, Rogers and Barnes were tasked with guarding one of the Germans taken prisoner as he was transported across northern England. The Nazi escaped using a concealed gas cylinder, and the heroes and the rest of their soldier escort set out to find him. They found him at an Allied outpost in a rural home, where the soldiers had been knocked out by gas. The Nazi emerged from the house with a large weapon strapped to his body: this was a secret weapon developed by the English known as Project Vanish, which Red Skull's intel allowed him to intercept. When fired, the weapon caused its target to utterly disappear from destruction. They fought to the roadside, where the Nazi fired the ray into an Allied tank, missing the soldiers inside. Cap used reverse psychology to trick him into firing the ray at full power, which caused it to explode. Incredibly, neither man was seriously injured. Allied forces moved in to take the Nazi back into custody. [11]

Escape from Greymoor Castle

While still in England, Rogers was part of a major assault on a Nazi-held port in France. Bucky desperately wanted to be a part of the operation, but Rogers encouraged him to stay behind and watch the undermanned base. Bucky's vigil turned out to be a fruitful one, as Nazi saboteurs triggered an explosive in the base that night. Bucky went out into the woods to investigate, but was blindsided and knocked out by Nazi spies, who took him to Greymoor Castle in remote, rural Britain. Meanwhile, the French assault was a success, and Rogers found a message in a Nazi outpost that Bucky was being held at Greymoor. Unfortunately, in his haste, Rogers believed that his mission was over, and missed another dispatch detailing a Nazi pincer attack approaching the port. Steve suited up as Captain America, ran to the airport, and commandeered a Nazi plane to make his way back to Britain. The unconscious Bucky was taken into the laboratory of Cedric Rawlings, a British scientist who had defected to the Nazi cause in pursuit of scientific glory, much to the consternation of his sister Celia. Cedric had been perfecting a type of scientific shrinking (similar to that of Ant-Man), and looked to employ it on Bucky and Captain America.[12]

For now though, Rawlings intended to use the full-sized Bucky as bait for a perfect Captain America trap. He tied Bucky to an upright board and gagged him, and rigged a sleeping-gas machine such that Cap would be gassed if he tried to interfere with it. When Cap arrived and infiltrated the castle, however, he naturally suspected some kind of trap, and the Nazis on hand were forced to attack him directly. Amid the gunfire, Cap desperately tried to free Bucky, and wound up being knocked out anyway. Celia tried to help him, drawing the ire of the head Nazi in charge, Richard Uberhart. Cap, Bucky, and Celia were taken prisoner, and Cedric complained, earning him a punch and chastisement as well. The commander announced his plans to tie the three to a huge V-2 missile aimed straight for London, as Cedric begged in vain for mercy for Celia.[13]

Uberhart threw Dr. Rawlings in the dungeon and prepared the other captives for the missile launch. However, as soldiers carried Captain America's apparently unconscious body to the missile, he recovered and began to fight back. Bucky soon also recovered and used the distraction to follow suit. Uberhart held Celia hostage, and though she fought back, another soldier managed to shoot her in the stomach. Bucky freed Cedric from his cell in an attempt to save her, but there was nothing he could do. Cedric apologized to Celia for his mistakes as she died. The dying Celia told Cap about the Nazis' planned attack in France, and he was overcome with guilt for unwittingly deserting. He had Cedric launch the V-2 missile into France in such a way as to devastate the Nazi forces and save the Allies he had deserted. Rawlings, traumatized and maddened by his sister's death, also set off a number of other explosives in the castle, and Cap and Bucky narrowly escaped before it blew up, killing Rawlings, Uberhart, and all others inside.[14]

1944

Cap loses his love

In August 1944,[note 3] Captain America dealt the decisive blow for in the battle of the Falaise gap, the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy, helping a troupe of French partisans defeat the occupying Nazi forces. In the preceding weeks, Cap had come to know an American freedom fighter named Peggy Carter: the two were deeply in love with each other, but they were separated shortly after the Falaise battle by their respective wartime responsibilities. Carter went to Nazi-occupied Paris to aid the resistance there, but she was soon captured and interrogated. She successfully resisted their attempts to pry information from her, so they took her away to execute her as the Nazis at large evacuated Paris.[note 4] Cap beat this information out of some remaining German soldiers, and further learned that an Allied shell had struck the evacuating forces, likely killing Carter. He spent the aftermath of the battle amid the celebrating French populace, crestfallen that Peggy was nowhere to be found. In truth, Carter had survived the blast, but had suffered near-perfect amnesia, making it impossible for her to come and find him as he hoped she might.[15]

1945

Red Skull's ominous warning

In 1945, Captain America faced off with the Red Skull for the last time in World War II. The two fought face-to-face on the battlefield, and Cap used his shield to prematurely detonate a grenade that Red Skull had thrown. Red Skull survived the blast due to powerful concealed armor, but knew that he was defeated. He told Captain America that regardless of what happened that day, the Third Reich would rise again in twenty years to the day, in 1965: three Sleepers would awaken and renew the Nazi cause. Before Cap could get anymore information, the defiant Skull passed out. Cap recovered a metal box containing a note marked with the names of three of the Red Skull's lieutenants, along with the names of three towns and a reminder of "the day" in 1965. Cap kept this note in his personal possessions, but he wouldn't get to see it through until the fateful day arrived.[16][note 5]

The fall of Cap and Bucky and the end of the war

In Captain America and Bucky Barnes' last mission of World War II, the two tracked down a plane near Newfoundland carrying explosives into the air. As they jumped onto it in an attempt to take it down, they found it to be booby trapped with explosives. Cap slipped and fell into the ocean, while Bucky was apparently killed by the explosion. Cap was carried through the frigid waters and eventually frozen in ice.[17] Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, the perpetrator of this sabotage was Baron Zemo.[18] Cap and Bucky's years of fighting and their final sacrifice were not in vain, as soon after, the Axis surrendered and the Allies were victorious.

Notes

  1. ↑ Captain America Comics names FBI Director J. Arthur Grover as the head of the project, and Dr. Reinstein as the creator of the serum. Tales of Suspense retcons these to Dr. Anderson and Dr. Erskine, respectively.
  2. ↑ In Captain America Comics, Red Skull kills his victims with a syringe. In Tales of Suspense, he instead gasses them to give them memory loss. The original story is preferred in this case due to the nature of Comics Code sterilization in the 1960s. In Captain America, Red Skull seems to accidentally kill himself by rolling onto his syringe, but in Suspense he escapes. The retelling is preferred in this case, since Maxon returns anyway, and his apparent death is less cohesive with the larger narrative. In Captain America, Red Skull is the real Maxon, an American traitor; in Suspense he is simply a Nazi posing as Maxon. The latter is preferred, as it seems to have been intended as a deliberate retcon. Maxon's original given name is preferred over that in the retelling, John, due to likely error.
  3. ↑ This timing is attributed to that of the real-life battle of the Falaise gap, which took place from August 12 to 21.
  4. ↑ In reality, the Germans evacuated Paris on August 25, meaning Peggy had been there for 3-4 days.
  5. ↑ See Rise of the Sleepers.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Captain America Comics #1a: "Meet Captain America." (March 1941) Simon, Joe, and Jack Kirby (w, art), Liederman, Al (i), Ferguson, Howard (let).
  2. ↑ Tales of Suspense #63b: "The Origin of Captain America!" (March 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Ray, Frank (i), Simek, Artie (let).
  3. ↑ Captain America Comics #1b: "Captain America." (March 1941) Simon, Joe, and Jack Kirby (w, p), Liederman, Al and Joe Simon (i).
  4. ↑ Tales of Suspense #64b: "Among Us, Wreckers Dwell!" (April 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Ray, Frank (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
  5. ↑ Captain America Comics #1c: "Captain America and the Soldiers' Soup." (March 1941) Simon, Joe (w), Kirby, Jack (art).
  6. ↑ Captain America Comics #1d: "The Chess-Board of Death." (March 1941) Simon, Joe, and Jack Kirby (w, p), Simon, Joe and Al Liederman (i), Ferguson, Howard (let).
  7. ↑ Captain America Comics #1e: "The Riddle of the Red Skull." (March 1941) Simon, Joe, and Jack Kirby (w, p), Herron, Ed (w), Simon, Joe and Al Liederman (i).
  8. ↑ Tales of Suspense #65b: "The Red Skull Strikes!" (May 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Stone, Chic (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
  9. ↑ Tales of Suspense #66b: "The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull." (June 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Stone, Chic (i), Simek, Artie (let).
  10. ↑ Tales of Suspense #67b: "Lest Tyranny Triumph!" (July 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Ray, Frank (i), Simek, Artie (let).
  11. ↑ Tales of Suspense #68b: "The Sentinel and the Spy!" (August 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Ray, Frank (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
  12. ↑ Tales of Suspense #69b: "Midnight in Greymoor Castle!" (September 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Ayers, Dick (art), Simek, Artie (let).
  13. ↑ Tales of Suspense #70b: "If This Be Treason!" (October 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Tuska, George (art), Rosen, Sam (let).
  14. ↑ Tales of Suspense #71b: "...When You Lie Down with Dogs..!" (November 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Tuska, George (p), Sinnott, Joe (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
  15. ↑ Tales of Suspense #77b: "If a Hostage Should Die!" (May 1966) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Romita, John (p), Ray, Frank (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
  16. ↑ Tales of Suspense #72b: "The Sleeper Shall Awake!" (December 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Tuska, George (art), Rosen, Sam (let).
  17. ↑ The Avengers #4: "Captain America Joins the Avengers!" (March 1964) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (art), Simek, Artie (let).
  18. ↑ The Avengers #6: "Masters of Evil!" (July 1964) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Stone, Chic (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
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