and
John Romita, Sr. A character with a complicated history, William Burnside's origin lies in discrepancies that crept up in the history of Captain America. As a character, Captain America had been continuously published from 1941 until 1949. He was then revived unsuccessfully in 1953 in
Young Men #24–28 (Dec. 1953– May 1954) by
Stan Lee with Mort Lawrence and
John Romita, Sr. These stories starred the original Captain America and Bucky in both their civilian and superhero guises, and were clearly set in the 1950s, with the character prominently battling communism and a communist
Red Skull. The character also made appearances in ''Men's Adventures
#27–28 (May–July 1954) and Captain America Comics'' #76–78 (May–Sept. 1954). However, when Lee revived the Captain America concept a second time in 1964, he either ignored or forgot about the 1950s stories. When the character reappears in
The Avengers #4 (March, 1964) Lee reveals that the original Captain America had fallen into a state of suspended animation after a battle he fought near the end of
World War II in 1945. The 1950s stories were thus considered outside of the official canon until Englehart's 1972
Captain America storyline. This attempted to resolve the discrepancy by revealing how an unnamed man, and his teenaged student, had assumed both the public and private identities of the original Captain America and Bucky. This was part of a government-sponsored program which planned to replace the lost heroes to combat the "red threat" (i.e., communism). However, as Englehart's 1972 story reveals, the treatment, which these individuals underwent to replicate the original Captain America and Bucky's abilities, was flawed (as the vital Vita-Ray radiological component was left out) and, as a side-effect, they developed psychotic symptoms. Consequently, the government placed them in suspended animation in the mid-1950s (only for an undisclosed jingoistic individual to revive them, decades later in contemporary times, to battle the original Captain America). This complicated origin is the reason that some sources list
Young Men #24 as this character's first appearance, when in fact this, and subsequent 1950s-published Captain America stories, was clearly created with the intention of depicting the original Captain America. Englehart's story was somewhat controversial; many praised it as accounting for a discrepancy in Marvel continuity in a way that expanded the Captain America cast, but a number of fans who had followed the 1950s Captain America adventures were dismayed by the revelation that their hero was just a well-meaning imposter. A 1977 story,
What If #4 (Aug. 1977), introduces two other, previous Captain Americas -
William Naslund, appointed by Truman in 1945 to succeed the original Captain America, and
Jeff Mace, who succeeds Naslund as Cap in the spring of 1946 after Naslund is killed in action. These versions of the character were created to resolve the discrepancy created by the Captain America stories which had been published between 1945–1949 in the newer, post-
The Avengers #4 continuity. Though depicted in an issue of the
What If? series, this story was explicitly noted as taking place as part of the formal canon. The 1950s Captain America was known for a time as Captain America IV. In later years, yet earlier Captain Americas were introduced, obscuring their numbering, though most of these other, later-introduced Captains are not formally part of the recognized lineage (such as the Revolutionary War-era ancestor of Steve Rogers). Many recognize this character today with the specific terms 1950s Captain America, Captain America of the 1950s, or "Grand Director" to distinguish him from the World War II Steve Rogers. In 2010 the character's birth name ("
William Burnside") was revealed in
Captain America #602. ==Fictional character biography==