Avengers: Falcon

Reprints The Falcon #1-4, Captain America #117-119, Marvel Premiere #49, Falcon back-up stories from Captain America #220, 276-278
Written by Christopher Priest (writing as Jim Owsley) , Mark Evanier, Scott Edelman, J.M.DeMatteis and Stan Lee.
Penciled by Paul Smith, Mark Bright, Sal Buscema, Mike Zeck, Gene Colan.
Inked by Vince Colletta, Mike Gustovich, Joe Sinnott, Dave Simons, Al Gordon, John Beatty and Josef Rubenstein.


Sam Wilson fights crime as the Falcon and works as a Social Worker in poor neighborhoods of  Harlem. He's accompanied by Redwing, his trained Falcon. Falcon is helped out by Sgt. Francis Tork of the NYPD. Tork respects Falcon, but they have very different approaches to law enforcement.

In addition to battling crimnals, Falcon spends lots of time counseling gang members, encouraging them to reject violent "solutions" to the problems in their neighborhood. One gang called the Legion is trying to move from gang fights to more productive, peaceful methods of problem solving.

Tork, Falcon & Redwing battle Nemesis.

Daryl Kane, a landlord and developer with a shady reputation is building new housing projects in Harlem. Falcon doesn't trust him and says the new buildings will be constructed with shoddy materials. But the buildings are attacked by a supervillain who calls himself Nemesis. Falcon, with some assistance from a member of the Legion, defeats Nemesis, but the villain's identity comes as a bit of a surprise.

Sometime later, Falcon is flying over New York when he is captured by a mutant-hunting Sentinel robot. The Falcon finds himself somewhere in Upstate New York. At the same time, a riot breaks out in Harlem between the police and the Legion. 

Left:The Legion tells Falcon they're done with crime;
Right:Falcon is attacked by a Sentinel!

Following that, the supervillain Electro returns to New York. He's hiding out in Harlem, but is paranoid and convinced the Falcon has found him. Electro decides to kill Falcon so he can't capture him and send him back to jail.

While Electro is at large, Pres. Ronald Reagan makes a fact-finding visit to Harlem. The Legion attacks the Presidential Motorcade and in the chaos, Reagan disappears. When the Falcon goes searching for the President, he's attacked by Electro. A brief battle leaves them both unconscious. But Electro wakes up and goes searching for the President. Falcon's old partner, Captain America, shows up and helps Tork look for Reagan.

Shortly after battling Electro, Sam Wilson decides to hang up his Falcon wings and run for Congress.  But Sam's candidacy is damaged by a Daily Bugle article that unearths Sam's petty criminal past, when he was known as "Snap" Wilson.

We learn that Snap is a separate personality that Sam has repressed, and he's struggling to understand who he is. Will this kill his chances of winning election to Congress?

But that's not all!

Falcon attends a soiree at the Bodavian embassy.

Falcon is invited to a party at the Bodavian embassy. The atmosphere is already hostile when a gunman breaks into the embassy. He calls himself the Silencer. His gun shoots a ray that renders people mute. Silencer captures Sigjid Roskoff, a famous Bodavian orator. Falcon pursues Silencer, but Roskoff is killed.

Roskoff wrote a note before he died. Falcon thinks it contains an anagram that reveals the killer. The Falcon becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of Roskoff's death. J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson of the Daily Bugle also try to decipher the anagram. 

Lastly, Mortimer Freebish, a wannabee supervillain armed with a crossbow, captures Redwing and tells Falcon to meet him at midnight. Will the Falcon be able to rescue Redwing and defeat Freebish?

Freebish captures Redwing.

Review:
Avengers: Falcon is a fun, if sometimes silly, tpb. In case anyone is wondering, Jim Owsley, who wrote the bulk of this book, has since changed his name to Christopher Priest, so I'll refer to him by that name in this review.

Falcon & Redwing rescue people from a burning building.

Story:
The first 4 issues are from the miniseries written by Priest, and it gets off to a good start. We get a nice balance of Sam Wilson, testifying in court as a Social Worker in the daytime, and Falcon fighting a supervillain at night. It has a good mix of "real life" problems such as poverty, arson and street gangs in Harlem and attacks by Electro and a Sentinel.

I enjoyed the interactions between Falcon and Sgt. Tork. They have very different philosophies of how to fight crime. But Tork is never demonized in the story. 

What didn't work was the kidnapping of Pres. Reagan. Even when I read this 30 years ago, this felt a bit silly. This story was published about two-and-a-half years after Reagan was shot. I can't buy that mere non-superpowered gang members could succeed in capturing a President surrounded by Secret Service.  Yes, it's silly to look for realism in superhero stories, but I think it's a fair criticism if the story is attempting to "make a statement" about social issues. On the whole, Priest writes a good story and it's obvious that he cares for and respects the Falcon as a character. 

The "Sam Wilson runs for Congress" arc was originally published as back-up stories in Captain America #276-278 and written by J.M. De Matteis. One of the worst things that was done to the Falcon was giving him the "Snap" Wilson backstory. De Matteis attempts to rehabilitate Sam and does the best he can with a damaged character.

The other two stories are standalones.

Mark Evanier wrote the story about Silencer and the Bodavians. It's a good old fashioned murder mystery, with Falcon playing detective. I enjoyed the way Evanier included J. Jonah Jameson and Joe "Robbie" Robertson in this story. It's always interesting to see supporting characters from one superhero's series interact with different heroes. Evanier (whose blog 'Newsfromme' is part of my daily reading), is a prolific writer of tv shows and comics, but he didn't write many superhero stories during the Bronze Age. This Falcon solo tale makes me wish he had.

Falcon believes an anagram will solve a murder;JJJ and Robbie Robertson have a similar theory.

The story that features Mortimer Freebish was written by Scott Edelman. It's short, funny and demonstrates how important Redwing is to Sam Wilson. I also liked the fact that it took place in Washington Square Park. I'm a big fan of stories that take advantage of New York City landmarks.

Art:
We get a bunch of different pencilers and inkers in Avengers: Falcon. I'd say the art is all pretty good.

Paul Smith draws the first issue reprinted in the book and it looks great. He's inked by Vince Colletta who does a nice job without over-inking Smith.

Electro zaps Falcon.

Mark Bright and Mike Gustovich take over as the art team for the rest of the miniseries. They give us some nice solid artwork. I especially enjoyed Falcon's fight scenes with Electro and the Sentinel. The only problem I had was their depiction of Ronald Reagan. Not a very good likeness.

Falcon & Captain America rescue Ronald Reagan.

Sal Buscema and Dave Simons did a great job on the Bodavian story. Bob Budiansky, inked by Al Gordon, make for a good team on the five-pager that features Mortimer Freebish. I liked the silly "arrow" costume worn by the hapless villain.

Mike Zeck, inked by John Beatty and Josef Rubenstein, penciled the story that involves the resurfacing of Sam's "Snap Wilson" personality. Zeck was one of the best artists who ever worked on Captain America and his work looks great when embellished by likes of Beatty and Rubenstein.   

How Does It Look?:
I've looked at a couple of the original stories. It looks like everything is faithfully reprinted. Here's a nice scan from the "Silencer" part of the book:

Extras:
The most important "extra" feature is the three-part story that introduced the Falcon (from Captain America 117-119), written by Stan Lee and penciled by Gene Colan. It was published near the end of the Silver Age (1969, to be exact), so I won't review it. But I'd never read the first appearance of the Falcon, so I'm glad it was included. It also contains Falcon's entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. We get three essays from Christopher Priest about why he wanted to write stories that featured the Falcon. The tpb also includes several pages of original art.

Avengers: Falcon is a good introduction to the Falcon, and fans who enjoyed these issues back in the 70s and 80s will appreciate the new, glossy reprints of the stories.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 Sals.