Earth's Mightiest Annotations
by Sean McQuaid
Supplemental: The Falcon
The FALCON (Samuel Wilson) is a social worker and sometime adventurer
who
started his crimefighting career in partnership with Captain America but has
been flying solo more recently. Aside from being a formidable unarmed
combatant and acrobat, Wilson possesses a high-tech costume (a gift from
the
Black Panther) that allows him to fly, and also has a mental link with his
pet falcon, Redwing, who accompanies him in battle (the mental link was
created through the cosmic cube by the Red Skull, who recruited Falcon
from
a life of crime as gangster "Snap" Wilson and groomed him to become Cap's
partner in hopes of turning him against Captain America someday, but Falcon
managed to shake off the Skull's influence and his own criminal past after
the truth about his origins came out). As a sometime partner of Captain
America, Falcon has worked alongside the Avengers as early as Avengers
[v1] # 88, but did not officially join the team until Avengers [v1] # 183,
when he was drafted into the group at the US government's insistence to
fill a racial minority quota imposed on the team's membership. Falcon served
capably but was uncomfortable with the circumstances of his joining and felt
out of place with the group since he was concerned chiefly with
down-to-earth social ills and street crime in his native Harlem, so he
resigned after a short time; however, he has been a reliable reserve member
of the group since then, serving on many subsequent cases. The costume he
wears here is his second outfit, since replaced with a newer uniform seen in
Avengers [v3] # 1-4. Falcon first appeared in Captain America [v1] # 117.
His official partnership with Cap formed in Captain America [v1] # 133 and
dissolved in Captain America [v1] # 218. He adopted his third and current
costume in Captain America Annual # 11.
Note: Falcon is unrelated to the obscure
1940s costumed crimefighter
of the same name who appeared in Daring Mystery Comics.