Which retconned Golden Age Captain Americas are canon?
Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 7:54 pm
This has been brought up on this board before, but I don't think it's ever been resolved.
As we probably all know, Captain America and Bucky were retconned so that, from about 1945 through the '50s, they were not Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. But of course, they were still referred to by those names in Golden Age appearances.
As far as I know, the policy toward Golden Age comics is that they're canon unless there's some reason why they're not. What's the canonical status of the 1945-1950s Captain America comics? Seems like the possibilities are:
1) They're canon, and the later Caps are called Steve Rogers for a reason, which I don't think has been explained. (I think someone speculated that they were undercover as "Steve Rogers" to throw off foreign spies.)
2) They're canon, and we just pretend they're saying the appropriate name instead of "Steve".
3) The name discrepancy is a big enough deal for those issues to NOT be canon, even if the events of those stories more or less occurred. (This would affect not only generic adventures, but also a few important comics, like the appearances of the All-Winners Squad.)
I prefer #1 myself. Worth noting: option #3 seems to be the case for certain events covered in the Captain America: Patriot miniseries, i.e. the shooting of Bucky and the origin of Golden Girl. The miniseries shows a different version of those events, which supersedes the 1940s depiction and makes at least one issue non-canonical.
As we probably all know, Captain America and Bucky were retconned so that, from about 1945 through the '50s, they were not Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. But of course, they were still referred to by those names in Golden Age appearances.
As far as I know, the policy toward Golden Age comics is that they're canon unless there's some reason why they're not. What's the canonical status of the 1945-1950s Captain America comics? Seems like the possibilities are:
1) They're canon, and the later Caps are called Steve Rogers for a reason, which I don't think has been explained. (I think someone speculated that they were undercover as "Steve Rogers" to throw off foreign spies.)
2) They're canon, and we just pretend they're saying the appropriate name instead of "Steve".
3) The name discrepancy is a big enough deal for those issues to NOT be canon, even if the events of those stories more or less occurred. (This would affect not only generic adventures, but also a few important comics, like the appearances of the All-Winners Squad.)
I prefer #1 myself. Worth noting: option #3 seems to be the case for certain events covered in the Captain America: Patriot miniseries, i.e. the shooting of Bucky and the origin of Golden Girl. The miniseries shows a different version of those events, which supersedes the 1940s depiction and makes at least one issue non-canonical.