A Brief History Of All The Men To Ever Suit Up As Captain America

Captain America II – William Naslund

Imagine wishing your whole life that you could be a patriotic super hero only to find out that your one chance turned out to be fool’s gold cooked up by the enemy. That’s what happened to Naslund, who became the nattily attired Spirit of ’76 only to find out that the mystery man who assembled a team called the Crusaders was, in fact, a German spy. Bummer.

Undaunted, Naslund continued his career after the plot was foiled, and his persistence paid off. After Steve Rogers was assumed dead at the hands of Baron Zemo, he was selected to succeed him as Captain America — a retcon invented by later — getting Fred Davis as his Bucky. The two heroes finished World War II with the Invaders and then transitioned to the All-Winners Squad (which was not, in this writer’s opinion, made up completely of winners) after that.

Naslund’s story ends in tragedy, however. While fighting a crazed android named Adam II alongside the All-Winners Squad, he was crushed to death while preventing the kidnapping of a young John F. Kennedy. Thanks to the magic of comics, he did have one further adventure when the Comtemplator summoned him to team with other Captain Americas to fight Adam II on an alternate Earth.

Since he only had the strength and endurance of a normal man in really good shape, Naslund was probably the physically weakest of any Captain America, though an argument could definitely be made that he was the most courageous because of that.