Super Soldiers

by Jason Inman

  This super soldier would soon come to the end of his career, though. In the landmark Amazing Spider-Man #800 (2018), written by longtime Spider-Man writer Dan Slott, Flash would face his final mission. Through various comic book shenanigans, Flash lost the Venom symbiote to its most famous human host, Eddie Brock. However, in the transfer process, a piece of the Venom symbiote bonded with an anti-symbiote serum and turned into something new. This transformed symbiote bonded with Flash, giving him a white version of the classic costume and a powerset more focused on healing injuries. Plus, Flash still had all the web powers he was granted before. Thus he was dubbed “Agent Anti-Venom.” This led to Flash and Spider-Man teaming up to duel against the new Red Goblin. This new goblin was the original Green Goblin, who had been transformed by the Carnage symbiote, a relative of the Venom symbiote (comics, kids!). In the chaos of the issue, Spider-Man was forced to re-don the Venom symbiote in an attempt to match the power of the Red Goblin. When the stakes were high and Spider-Man felt the battle was lost, Flash Thompson came to his rescue.

  Flash had used his Anti-Venom powers to heal all the people who had been injured by the Red Goblin, and by tracking the common factor among all these victims, he was finally able to deduce that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. The two men finally saw each other for who they truly were. Peter saw how far Flash had come in his transformation, and Flash, once and for all, discovered his greatest hero, Spider-Man, was the kid he used to push into lockers for laughs. Flash asked Peter for forgiveness, filled with intense regret for all his past transgressions. Peter stopped him, only to reveal that he had forgiven the former high school jock many years ago.

  Their touching moment was interrupted by the Red Goblin swooping in to separate the two friends at the emotional peak of their long-awaited team-up. The Red Goblin tried to grab Spider-Man, but Flash jumped in the way, saving Peter as the Red Goblin fired off several thousand volts of electricity—so much power pushed through Flash’s body that not even the symbiote could protect him. Peter rushed over to his dying friend and offered Flash the original Venom symbiote. Flash refused. With his dying breath, he said, “People need you. Peter Parker. The Amazing Spider-Man. My hero. My friend.” Thus, Flash Thompson passed away. Due to Flash’s sacrifice, Peter was able to defeat the Red Goblin later in the same issue.

  This life of service transformed Flash Thompson from loathsome supporting character to full-fledged comic book superhero. His time in the military gave him the tools and determination to transform himself into a better person. I cannot think of any better example of a military hero. At its base level, the military is a duty of sacrifice and service. Protection of the innocent through duty. So Peter Parker’s words at Flash’s funeral ring true. Peter gave a stirring eulogy for his friend: “Flash started a life of service. Protecting others in a way that people will never know,” Peter said. What a thing to say about a hero.

  Chapter 9

  Isaiah Bradley

  The First Captain America

  Isaiah Bradley is the finest fictional soldier I will mention in this book, and I bet most of you reading don’t even know his name. Isaiah is an addition, a retcon if you will, to the history of Captain America—a secret chapter even Steve Rogers didn’t know about. When talking about the past of the US military, we are often forced to look at the blemishes amidst the victories—and to bear witness to them straight-on, without flinching. For every successful D-Day invasion victory, there is a darker, not as morally clear, questionable action, such as the bombs being dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Fictional comic book soldiers follow this same trend, and the story of Isaiah Bradley is one of the most troubling tales ever rendered on panel. His is a story of personal courage—a value he maintained through every mission, through every slight, and through his months away from his family, even after his government betrayed him and his body.

  In Truth: Red, White & Black #1, released in January 2003, we are introduced to Isaiah Bradley, an African American man who is excited to join the infantry. He kisses his pregnant wife goodbye and ships out to basic training. What began as a dream of responsibility for the young man soon turns into a tale of discrimination and humiliation. At Camp Cathcart, Mississippi, we first met Isaiah’s unit when they have recently finished digging and covering the camp’s latrines. The all-Black unit marches back to their barracks as the white soldiers turn their noses up at the stink.

  Dealing with latrines is a foul job everyone in the military has to face at one time or another. It becomes another sad fact of Isaiah’s story that the all-Black units of the time—like Gravedigger’s unit from Chapter 2—would be forced to complete the missions no other soldier wanted to do. The bitter fact of the matter is that Isaiah’s unit would be subjected to racism and violence at every turn. These Black soldiers, whose only difference was their appearance, had to fight twice as hard to get anything close to the rights and recognition of their peers.

  Some of the greatest moments in Isaiah’s story come when all their misfortune is transformed into teachable lessons. The men of this unit are sweaty and covered in an ungodly filth that would make a dog run for the hills. They are also angry. Not certain of the point of it all. Is there a point? Sgt. Lucas Evans, their African American squad leader, strolls in with the mail and, when one of the men asks Evans why they had to go into the smelly field, he drops a truth bomb on them without warning. It is a lesson many soldiers have to learn the hard way. He tells the men that battles require luck and skill, and if you ever find yourself face-to-face with the enemy in a foxhole on the other side of the world, your enemy may stink to high heaven. Your enemy could stink so much it could flummox you. If you can be thrown by something as simple as smell, your enemy’s allies may learn to pounce on that very weakness. Sgt. Evans finishes by saying, “Boys, you are your best weapon. Any hesitation on your part will definitely mean that you die in this war.”

  It’s true. The human brain has been, and always will be, the most potent weapon. There will always be the new bayonet, the new grenade, the new gun, but it all pales in comparison to the cold logic and survival instinct of a human being. These soldiers learned the hard way that comforts and smells are meaningless in the game of war.

  It’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way myself. While I loathe comparing my experiences or any of my tribulations to Isaiah Bradley, I am a fellow soldier who has experienced the stinky side of the military. Toward the end of my Advanced Individual Training as a combat engineer, my battalion had to complete a long march and several days in the field at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri. Step one of this training exercise was a twenty-six-mile walk. This was no pleasure stroll on the beach; this was a march in full battle gear with a weapon and a fully packed rucksack. Many people dropped, and I don’t think I’ve ever had as many blisters on my feet at one time. When we finally arrived at the location where we would set up camp, we were told to dig foxholes outside our tents. At the time, it was very late at night, and immediately after the long walk, so not one of us wanted to do any digging. Nonetheless, there we were, digging with our tiny spades through the wet dirt as it began to rain on us. It was September at the time of this exercise, and if you aren’t familiar with Missouri, the temperature can fluctuate widely at that time of year. During the day, the sun will bake the Earth like summer, but at night it can get within spitting distance of freezing. For several soldiers, caked in the sweat of the long march, this was not an ideal situation. The holes were finally dug. The camp was finally set up. All of us wanted our sleep, but that was the last thing our instructors were going to let us have. They said it was time for us to guard our perimeter, and the best way to accomplish that was to get down in our holes, lie in the muddy trench, and stare out into the blackness for enemies. We knew there were no enemies in that forest. We were on an Army base! Did the instructors think we were stupid? Despite our reservations, we did it. We got down in those water-filled holes and stared at the darkness. That’s what you do. You
follow the orders and you push through it. With grit and courage and sweat, you find a way to make it happen. Keep those eyes open. Doesn’t matter how tired you are. It matters whether you keep yourself and the unit safe. No matter the cost. I can’t tell you how many times I nodded off that night, my drooping head sagging until my Kevlar helmet clunked into my M16 rifle, instantly rousing me. It was one of the longest nights of my life. I was covered in mud and sore beyond reason, but I made it through.

  Isaiah fought through it as well, to serve his country and out of respect for the service, even when the United States government did not treat him with the proper respect. Very soon he would go from a full-fledged soldier to a terrible statistic. It is at this point that the issue could easily pass for a horror comic where human dignity is concerned; three hundred men from Isaiah’s unit were randomly chosen to become test subjects for the famous Project Super Soldier. This project should sound familiar from earlier in this book, as it is the very experiment that granted powers to Steve Rogers and transformed him into the mighty Captain America. It only makes sense for the government at the time to not want a white man to be subjected to anything as dangerous or body-altering as the Super Soldier Project. It had to be tested on, in the government’s minds, “lesser men.”

  This is where Truth: Red, White, and Black stands revealed as an allegory to the Tuskegee Experiments. These were historically real and morally wrong experiments involving hundreds upon hundreds of African American men who lived in Tuskegee, Alabama. They were told they were receiving free medical care. This was false. The government made these men unwilling participants in a gross experiment. Leaving men with syphilis untreated (despite a known and effective cure) to determine how the disease progresses through the body and its long-term effects.

  Isaiah’s unit confronted this horror as they were subjected to barbaric medical practices. One of his compatriots lost his life, exploding from the inside out, the muscle growth becoming too much for his small frame, and the doctors went through man after man in an attempt to determine whether these men were dying due to a failure in the formula or the dosage.

  This story plays on not only the fear of body mutilation, but also another small fear many service members experience. One secret many civilians do not know is that soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors are injected with all kinds of chemicals. All kinds of vaccines are pumped into service members. Do we have any choice in the matter? No. Uncle Sam is trying to make you healthier, so you gotta do it! There’s a point at which every service member experiences the train of needles. We get in a straight line to be poked with needle after needle. No care is taken for your pain or your aversion to blood, just shot after shot of concoctions being jammed in your arm. The room is padded, and I saw several new recruits drop or pass out from so many injections being jammed into them. We had no idea what was inside those needles. We trusted the government, and we trusted our superiors. (Currently, none of the injections have made me a superhero, but one day they could.)

  Isaiah and his unit must have felt the same way. They did what their superiors told them for the good of the unit, for the good of the country, or so they thought. I thank Thor, the mighty thunder God, I never saw anything like this atrocity being committed during my time in the armed forces. For their blind faith and patriotism, Isaiah and four other men in his unit emerged as the only survivors. The super soldier serum transformed them into large hulking versions of themselves. Some of them had grossly misshapen heads, but their strength and agility were increased.

  Soon the men found themselves in the Black Forest, able to dispatch the German soldiers with ease and having to come to grips with the morality of performing missions other units would never have been asked to. They knew it was their only ticket home. During this time, Isaiah was the first to question the purpose of their unit. He read Captain America Comics #1, the issue that outlines Steve Roger’s origin, which caused Isaiah to wonder how he was connected to America’s blonde hero. After all, his origin was basically the same as Steve Rogers’—except Steve got his power with less torture. Sgt. Evans told Isaiah to ignore it. Evans threw the comic book away and simply stated, “This is a war. And in a war, the Army decides everything is government-issue.”

  Evans could have been throwing Isaiah off the scent, or he could have been giving him an excuse to make him forget and instead focus on the mission. Evans is right about one thing, though: when you serve, it doesn’t matter what unit you are in or where you serve, you’re in a military bubble. Everything you smell, taste, and hear comes from the US government. Can you trust it? Sometimes, but you also have to take it all with a grain of salt. Any distractions can destroy unit functionality, so the higher-ups are going to make sure that what disseminates down to the grunts won’t rile them up. Maybe the comic book, in this case, is a whitewash of their history. A perfect recruiting tool for white men across America, but Isaiah didn’t get much time to consider that point.

  A later altercation with a white officer and infighting in the unit left Isaiah the only surviving member of his original unit. (It is later revealed in the hospital that autopsies on his fallen comrades revealed enlarged thyroid glands which led to the brutal behavior and infighting.) An Army officer confronted Isaiah in the hospital and threatened that his family would be harmed if he didn’t complete the mission before him. The order was given with full knowledge that it was a suicide mission. Isaiah agreed, but not before he got what was his—something that he deserved—a badge of respect he had already earned many times over. Isaiah stole the Captain America costume. Brandishing the flag on his chest, Isaiah parachuted into Schwarzebitte, Germany. What a moment this is. Through each low point in his story, Isaiah wanted the basic respect which should have been afforded him by his courageously being a soldier in the US Army. However, his superiors stole it from him at every possible turn. They pilfered it from his missions, they purloined it from his body, and they blackmailed it out of him. This is a stand-up moment for Isaiah. I cheered when I read this page in his mini-series. Finally, a moment of recognition.

  It’s a feeling all service members confront at one time or another. It becomes very easy to feel like you have been forgotten, that no one knows what you’ve done for your country. When a veteran grabs a piece of respect, we all stand up and applaud.

  Bradley was captured during his mission, and it took several years for him to make it back to the States. When he reported back in to command, he was arrested and court-martialed, receiving a life sentence for stealing Captain America’s uniform. Isaiah would spend seventeen years in solitary confinement. The rudimentary medical care and isolation ate away at his brain and left him a mute man-child when he was finally released, on the day of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. It would be years until Steve Rogers was made aware of the first Captain America: the Black Captain America. Isaiah and his family were ordered to keep the legend secret, but it leaked. The story of bravery, pride, and true heroics spilled out into the world. Isaiah became an urban legend in the Marvel Comics Universe. Many celebrities wanted to meet him, including Malcolm X, Richard Pryor, and Gen. Colin Powell. King T’Challa of Wakanda, the Black Panther, even secretly invited Isaiah to his wedding.

  I wish this type of story didn’t exist. I wish the US military didn’t have blemishes of this nature on its soul, but it does. This is because all of our honor still comes from a human-based system, and we are far from perfect. Through Isaiah’s story, we become Steve Rogers, a white man completely ignorant of the suffering perpetrated on different races for the false “good” of mankind.

  Isaiah walked into the US Army with a good heart and his head held high. The system chewed him up and spat him out because of his race. It reminds me of the soldiers who came back from Vietnam who were attacked by protestors. Did the US government do terrible things in a terrible war? Yes. But, did these young men who were drafted against their will deserve to be punished for it? No.

  The greate
st lesson to take from this story is that, at every turn, Isaiah pushed through. He completed the missions. He took the painful experiments and he excelled in the laughable training scenarios. He sacrificed for his family and for his country, and he came out the other side. That’s what a good soldier does.

  At the very end of Truth: Red, White & Black, Isaiah earns a small reward. Captain America has finally tracked down Isaiah’s wife and visited his home. Cap talked with his wife, thinking the great hero was dead. Isaiah’s wife laughed and revealed her husband. Even though Isaiah could no longer speak or fully comprehend the situation at hand, you can see him perk up. Captain America thanked him for his service, for his sacrifice. Steve Rogers would not be the star-spangled hero without the blood and tears of greater men like Isaiah. Then, Cap pulls a surprise out of a grocery bag—a torn Captain America uniform—Isaiah’s uniform. A smile peeked out. Isaiah donned the tattered costume proudly. The symbol of his heroism has finally returned to him. Isaiah’s wife took a picture of these two Captain Americas together and Isaiah finally got his just reward.

  Chapter 10

  Sgt. Rock

  The Strength of an Enlisted Man

  It doesn’t matter how big a comics fan you are. Whether you are a casual reader of the medium or a Wednesday Warrior who shows up as soon as the store is open to grab that latest floppy. If you consume comics, you have been told of Sgt. Rock in some capacity. He stands like a legend over this medium and casts his presence over all his fellow DC Comics creations because, for a long time, war comics sold. They sold like gangbusters. That doesn’t mean we should consider them to be nationalistic propaganda. These war comics of old are jam-packed with characters and page after page of action, and at the top of the list of war comics rests Sgt. Rock.