While U.S. Agent is a significant player in the comic book universe,
he's not a household name among mainstream Marvel fans. And that's why we're going to
run down some of his weirdest and wildest stories. Here's the untold truth of Marvel's U.S. Agent.
In Captain America #323, readers are introduced to Super-Patriot,
the original superheroic identity of U.S. Agent. As Super-Patriot, John Walker seems
like the exact opposite of the Captain America that readers know. While Cap was often thoughtful
and aware of the responsibility of his uniform, Super-Patriot ignores an old lady being mugged
because the crime isn't glitzy enough for him to bother to stop it. He's first introduced
trash-talking Cap and urging the American people to focus their patriotic energy on him.
As you might expect, Cap's not thrilled about the upstart new hero, but he's willing to let
Super-Patriot express his first amendment rights ... until he finds out that Super-Patriot and his
cronies are manufacturing events to make themselves look better.
After Super-Patriot and his Buckies, short for "Bold Urban Commandos,"
cause enough trouble for Cap, Steve Rogers and John Walker finally face off.
Somewhat surprisingly, Walker's not all bluster. He's got super strength and
enough fight training that he actually battles Cap to a draw. The fight only ends when Bruce
Springsteen shows up, causing Walker to choose listening to the Boss rather than beating up
on Captain America. As the old saying goes, if you want to be the man, you gotta beat the man.
"You just don't know when to give up, do ya?"
"I could do this all day."
Captain America has to deal with a lot of stuff, like Hydra or the Winter Soldier, but as it turns
out, he's got even bigger problems. The man owes back taxes to the U.S. government. Combined with
the fact that his superhero identity, powers, and unbreakable shield are all the property of
the federal government, a federal council called the Commission tells the hero that he's no longer
able to keep operating as an independent entity. The Commission offers him a choice:
Work under their purview, or give up being Captain America. Steve walks out on them,
choosing to adopt a black costume and the moniker of the Captain in order to keep his independence.
In Captain America #333, the Commission taps Super-Patriot to replace Cap, training him to
fight smarter and work harder. One of Walker's Buckies, Lemar Hoskins, gets the opportunity to
join the new Cap as his partner, while the other two are left on their lonesome to become vaguely
self-interested supervillains called Left-Winger and Right-Winger. Walker's willing to prove that
he's ready for the big time, but he's not quite the pure-hearted patriot that his predecessor was.
Unlike the original Cap, Walker's got some serious anger issues stemming from
a brother who died in Vietnam and his time getting experimented on by the Power Broker,
the man who gave Walker, Hoskins, and the other Buckies their super strength.
Heavy is the head that wears Captain America's little head wings. Almost immediately after
taking on the role of Captain America, Walker runs into trouble. His former pals,
Left-Winger and Right-Winger, reveal his secret identity to the world in Captain America #341.
Four issues later, his parents are killed by the Watchdogs, a militant group of domestic
super-terrorists obsessed with keeping America free of "filth." Walker's response is to kill
a bunch of the Watchdogs, and then hunt down Left-Winger and Right-Winger to cripple them in
a massive oil tanker explosion. That's not exactly acceptable behavior for a Captain America, but the
Commission keeps him on anyway. And there's a good reason for that. Perennial thorn in the original
Cap's side, the Red Skull, engineered the entire string of events, manipulating the Commission,
Walker, and even the Watchdogs, all in order to drag Cap's good name through the mud.
It all comes to a head in Captain America #350, when the Captain and Walker team
up to take down the Red Skull. When the dust settles, Walker is impressed with the original
Cap's convictions and skill. When the Commission begs Rogers to take back the suit, he refuses,
but Walker convinces him to return, admitting that the job was harder than he thought it would be.
Captain America #351 sees Walker return the Captain America suit and shield to Rogers
during a press event, but the celebration is cut short when Walker is brutally shot by a Watchdog,
who is soon killed himself by the homicidal vigilante, Scourge.
Lemar Hoskins, Walker's former partner now operating under the moniker Battlestar,
finds something suspicious about the series of events, eventually discovering that the
Watchdog who murdered Walker wasn't a real member of the organization. Instead, he was a government
agent who faked Walker's death to give the former Captain America time to undergo memory implants,
plastic surgery, and vocal lessons in order to begin a new identity as Jack Daniels, aka
U.S. Agent. However, it's not quite a completely fresh start, as his new outfit looks just like
Steve Rogers' "the Captain" suit. Plus, he's still got a vibranium replica shield.
The Commission puts U.S. Agent to work as their man on the inside for the West Coast Avengers — a
group of also-rans operating out of Los Angeles instead of New York. While on the team, U.S.
Agent doesn't exactly make friends. But he still joins the team in fighting Master Pandemonium,
a former movie executive who made a deal with the devil and stole the Scarlet Witch's imaginary
babies to use as his arms in Hell. That's not exactly the type of threat that a super strong
patriot is equipped to handle. Around this time, U.S. Agent's old friend Battlestar shows up to
restore his memories and remind him that he's not just a government stooge. Since that also
means remembering that his parents are dead, it's a bit of a mixed blessing for John/Jack.
It might seem like U.S. Agent only battles against Captain America's
arch-enemies alongside Cap's old friends, while never having any adventures of his own,
but that's not exactly true. In the U.S. Agent miniseries, John Walker battles against Scourge,
the vigilante that shot the man who pretended to shoot Walker way back in Captain America #351.
Yeah, we know, it's kind of confusing, but it gets crazier. As it turns out,
this Scourge isn't the same guy as the one before. Instead, Scourge is an identity
offered up to basically anyone who wants it. Each Scourge is given the same training, information,
and resources to go around and murder criminals, kind of like the Punisher.
However, when the newest Scourge, Priscilla Lyons, is tasked with gunning down a bad guy,
she suddenly decides she can't do it, as it seems the criminal has genuinely reformed.
Of course, the rest of the Scourge aren't pleased about this, so Lyons begs U.S.
Agent to help her stay alive. But after they team up to find the source of the Scourge organization,
U.S. Agent is captured, drugged, and eventually released by the Scourge trainer,
Bloodstain. Bloodstain then reveals that he's actually Mike Walker, John's brother who was
supposedly killed in Vietnam, but that ends up being a mind game to confuse U.S. Agent.
"I missed out on the whole thing to be honest with you. I was confused by it. I
was confused by the whole thing, if we're being honest.”
Ultimately, Walker finds the true mastermind behind Scourge,
a decrepit old man who used to be the old Marvel hero, the Angel,
not to be confused with the X-Man of the same name. Bloodstain dies in the fight,
and U.S. Agent leaves the old man trapped and helpless on the lawn of his mansion. Day saved?
Nothing lasts forever, and that includes the West Coast Avengers. The team comes to an end
in West Coast Avengers #102, which finds the main Avengers team criticizing and ultimately
firing everyone in the spinoff group. U.S. Agent takes the team's dissolution hard, throwing his
shield and costume into the Hudson River. Luckily for him, it doesn't take long for most of the
West Coast Avengers to reform into a new group created by Iron Man, a team called Force Works.
U.S. Agent keeps his codename, but he finally dons a costume that wasn't formerly worn by
Captain America. Unfortunately, it's terrible. It does come with some new weapons, though.
To replace the vibranium shield he threw into the Hudson, U.S. Agent is given photon gauntlets that
can create a laser shield and shoot laser blasts. Together with Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, Wonder Man,
Spider-Woman, and an interdimensional alien named Century, Force Works battles against a bunch of
aliens and dream monsters, proving that no idea or team name was too crazy to publish in the '90s.
For someone who's been around the Marvel universe for as long as John Walker has,
he doesn't have the best track record for keeping friends.
That's probably because anytime a former pal of his does anything even remotely questionable,
Walker is the first one showing up to berate them and send them to prison.
That's certainly the case when Hawkeye takes over the Thunderbolts, a team of former supervillains
who want to start living on the right side of the law. People aren't exactly thrilled that Hawkeye,
himself a former criminal, and a bunch of former supervillains are hanging out in Colorado.
Their presence leads Walker to become the leader of the Jury, a corporate-owned superhero team
that transitions over from symbiote-hunting and bothering Venom to taking down the Thunderbolts.
Since the Thunderbolts are the team with their name on the comic cover, they handily trounce the
Jury, eventually sending U.S. Agent bouncing back around the Marvel universe to look for a new job.
John Walker pops up again during Marvel's event comic Maximum Security, which sees the former
Super-Patriot becoming a superhuman bounty hunter, tracking down supervillain bail-jumpers under
the organization S.T.A.R.S. The job also comes with a new costume, which changes the Captain
America-esque outfit into a cross between a riot cop and Judge Dredd, complete with an electrically
charged riot baton and another photon shield. Walker's new career is complicated somewhat by
the revelation that Earth itself has become an interplanetary prison for the worst criminals in
the galaxy. That situation is eventually resolved, but Walker sticks around, continuing to hunt down
super criminals while trying to prove himself as something more than just a Captain America copy.
Considering how that led to a three-issue miniseries, followed by a brief stint where he
wears a fake Captain America costume in order to be a part of the New Invaders, an updated version
of the World War II team of Captain America, Namor, Bucky, and the original Human Torch,
his efforts to get away from the Steve Rogers comparisons haven't worked out that well.
"That is America's ass."
During the Civil War comic event, John Walker works for Tony Stark
on the side of the government registration for super-powered beings. One side effect
of registration is that villains begin fleeing across the border to Canada in order to escape
Stark's iron grip. Stark assigns Walker to head up the new Omega Flight program,
which is necessary given that Alpha Flight has been killed by a mutant named Michael Pointer,
who was possessed by aliens in a bid to take over Earth. Walker initially refuses the assignment,
but changes his mind after getting thrown off a building by the Purple Man.
Walker's new team consists of Julia "Arachne" Carpenter, Talisman, Sasquatch, Beta Ray Bill,
and Weapon Omega... a.k.a. Michael Pointer. Talisman is outraged that the man who killed
her father is on the team, but Pointer proves himself in a battle against a demon-powered
Wrecking Crew. Walker remains his usual obnoxious self in leading the team,
but the job seems to agree with him. As always, though, it doesn't last long.
John Walker has spent most of his career trying to differentiate himself from Steve Rogers. So
here's the good news. U.S. Agent eventually does find a way to distinguish himself from
Captain America. But here's the bad news. It comes with him getting his arm and leg cut
off by the supervillain Nuke during Siege, an event comic that sees Norman Osborn declaring
war on Asgard. Walker's given the option of high-tech prosthetics that would make Luke
Skywalker envious, but he accepts his missing limbs and ultimately retires from active duty.
In the interim, he becomes the warden of the supervillain prison, the Raft,
assisting Luke Cage in the formation of a new team of Thunderbolts, which uses more traditional
supervillains as a kind of probationary superhero team for extremely dangerous missions.
"What, so we're some kind of suicide squad?"
Kind of!
That group eventually gives way to the Dark Avengers, a team of villains pretending to
be their superheroic rivals. While on a mission, Walker and the Dark Avengers are teleported into
an alternate reality where, after being mistaken for that reality's John Walker,
U.S. Agent gets his limbs restored. After making it back to their home reality, the team vows to
stick together through thick and thin, which doesn't really last beyond that final issue.
Regardless of what team he's on or what the status quo of the Marvel Universe might be, U.S. Agent is
inextricably tied to Captain America. That's to be expected when even his post-Captain America
identity still has an identical shield and Cap's unused costume. But as it turns out,
that connection is consistent even when it's not Steve Rogers wearing the stars and stripes.
When Sam Wilson, the Falcon, takes over for Captain America after Steve is turned into an
old man by a supervillain, U.S. Agent steps in to convince Sam to give up the shield.
Despite his lack of super strength, the new Captain America is able to take down the U.S.
Agent by dumping him into a pitch-black tunnel and whaling on him until Walker is out for the count.
Still, as with any hero vs. hero conflict, there's a deeper conspiracy going on.
U.S. Agent wasn't just encouraged to attack Sam Wilson because a gung-ho
talk show radio host told him to. As it turns out, Steve Rogers actually put him up to it
because of some complicated shenanigans involving the Red Skull, the Cosmic Cube,
and a massively controversial retcon that saw Steve become a secret Hydra loyalist. As with
most comic storylines, it eventually gets reverted back into the normal status quo.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Looper videos about
your favorite comic book heroes and villains are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube
channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.