Back in September, I put together a series of posts for my "Comic Cult" group about the evolution of the Falcon over the character's earliest years in the Marvel comics. With the looming release of CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD, in which the Falcon has become the new Captain America, I expanded this to a thread on BlueSky. It was enough work that I thought I'd (slightly) rework it yet again, fix some of the things--imprecise language and other defects dictated by the latter platform's character limit--and put it here as a proper article (or as proper a one as a fairly basic BlueSky thread can be), timed for the new movie's screen debut.
Created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, the Falcon first appeared in 1969, in Captain America #117. Initially, Sam Wilson wasn't a superhero but an ornithophilic social worker from Harlem who answered an ad by parties looking to hire a hunting falcon. When he and his trusty bird Redwing turned up, it turned out his would-be employers were a group of former Nazis, who had enslaved the residents a tropical island.
Wilson was Antifa; he remained on the island to try to organize the locals to resist the fascists. He encountered Steve "Captain America" Rogers, then trapped in the body of the Red Skull (it's a long story), who encouraged Sam to adopt a costumed persona as an organizing symbol of resistance.
He also trained Sam to fight.
Thus was born the Falcon. But the colorist on these issues seems to have been under the impression that he was the Parrot instead, and made his uniform green.
(This early design may remind pro-wrestling fans of--ahem--a certain age of Koko B. Ware, who came along a few years later and had a parrot as part of his act.)
The Falcon and Captain America eventually defeated the Nazis then the Red Skull and returned to the U.S., where Wilson continued his newfound superheroing gig. He became a recurring character, returning to reteam with Cap in issue #126 then again in #133.
The Falcon must have been good for sales; that second time he returned, Cap recruited Sam as his full-time partner.
With issue #134, the name of the book was changed to "Captain America & the Falcon."
Though the Falcon's wings have come to be as strongly associated with him as the shield is with Captain America, he didn't yet have them in these early adventures. He was a tough, Cap-trained fighter and acrobat who relied on his wits and his fists. Stan Lee and Gene Colan seem to have had flight on their minds pretty early though. The first time the Falcon took to the skies was in Captain America & the Falcon #136, when Tony Stark--Iron Man--loaned him a jet-pack for a mission. The first time he uses it is rather glorious.
In the next issue (CA&TF #137), the Falcon adopted the use of a rather unwieldy hook & rope for climbing. In a bid to make a name for himself, he somewhat unwisely (but certainly ballsily) decided to try to take on Spider-Man, then wanted by police, and found he couldn't even keep up with the web-slinger.
After that tale--and lesson--the Falcon (in CA&TF #139) adopted the use of a much more compact grapnel-and-line-launching rig, integrated into his glove. With some practice, he was soon swinging through the city like Spider-Man.
The Falcon eventually abandoned his Parrot garb for the more familiar--shall we say, classic--red and white uniform he wore in the comics for decades. For whatever reason, the 1st appearance of the revised suit happened on the title illustration on the cover of CA&TF #143. In the book itself--and even on the main illustration on its cover--he was still Koko B. Parrot!
Within the book, the new look, designed by artist "Jazzy" Johnny Romita (who had drawn it on that earlier cover), made its debut in CA&TF #144:
After Captain America gained super-strength in #159, the Falcon began to develop, over time, something of an inferiority complex, feeling as if he couldn't hold up his end of the team, as if he had devolved into a sidekick.
This came to a head in #169, when the Falcon was fighting a group of street hoods. They were going hard at him but when Captain America arrived and jumped into the fray, they all ran away.
In the MCU, the Falcon's wings were created by Tony Stark, but comic Sam asked Cap if the Black Panther could do something to provide him with an edge, not seeming to have anything particular in mind. The Panther came through and in CA&TF #170, a full 53 issues after the character was introduced, the Falcon finally got his wings (and a new set of gloves that completed his "classic" look):
Being a Marvel character, the Falcon sometimes struggled with his new wings.
A significant limitation on them was that, at first, he could only launch himself from a high position, which sometimes made it difficult for him to maintain his dignity.
Steve Englehart, the book's main writer in this time, eventually came to his senses on that one and in #185, he gave the Falcon the ability to launch from a standing position by basically just writing around what had come before.
In #186--a storyline most fans (including this one) like to pretend never happened, Englehart retconned Sam's past, introducing a stupid, convoluted scheme by the Red Skull, who, it was said, mind-waxed him and made him forget who he really was: a mobster, "Snap" Wilson! The less said about that the better.
The Captain America/Falcon team lasted for 7 years, from January 1971 to January 1978, the book chronicling the pair's adventures both together and, when not, individually. The latter portion of their team-up featured a magnificently weird run by Jack Kirby, who had co-created Captain American in the early 1940s. Some behind-the-scenes creative instability in the wake of Kirby's departure seems to have led to a decision to take the book in another direction. So in CA&TF #217, Nick Fury of SHIELD recruited the Falcon to train and lead a new team of operatives and Sam dropped out of the book.
There must have been some lingering editorial question as to whether the team would, at some point, resume, because the Falconless book carried on under the "Captain America & the Falcon" title for 5 more issues, until #223, when it reverted back to simply "Captain America."
A few months later, the Falcon got his first fully-solo comic--a standalone issue of Marvel Premiere:
...and that milestone (with that great cover by Ed Hannigan, Frank Miller and Klaus Janson) seems as good a point as any on which to end.
--j.
