5 Reasons You Should Care about … Sharon Carter

It was announced last week that actress Emily Van Camp (ABC’s Revenge) would be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Agent 13 in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, in a cast list that’s shaping up to make it Avengers 2.5.

Van Camp’s character had maybe the least to do in last year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but the truth is she’s been an important part of Steve Rogers’ life for nearly 50 years now, since her first appearance in 1966’s Tales of Suspense #75. She also played a very crucial role in one of the defining moments of the Civil War comics story from which the 2016 movie takes its name.

Here’s some more fun facts about this Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creation:

1. She’s the sequel to Agent Carter: Sharon was originally the younger sister of Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers’ love interest from World War II. Rogers was thawed out in the 1960s, when Peggy and Sharon being sisters would have been plausible. Comics’ sliding timescale has since made Peggy Sharon’s aunt and later great aunt. Minor point: The issue in which Sharon first appeared also marked the first appearance of everyone’s favorite French foot fighter, Batroc the Leaper.

2. She’s been Steve’s No. 1 gal far longer than Peggy: In the comics, Steve and Sharon have been on-again, off-again lovers for the better part of five decades. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, they just met, and her relation to Peggy hasn't been explicitly revealed yet. Also, in what is absolutely a good problem to have, Peggy has become one of the MCU’s most beloved characters, to the point where ABC last week announced a second season of her TV series (Marvel had a busy news week last week). Perhaps, with Revenge having just been canceled, there’s room for both Agents Carter to share the spotlight, in a passing-of-the-torch story that jumps between past and present.

3. She’s died at least twice in the comics: Sharon Carter was first killed in Captain America #233, when she detonated an explosive on her person while under the control of a group called the National Force led by perennial Cap villain Dr. Faustus. She stayed dead for more than 200 issues, finally returning in issue 444, at the hand of writer Mark Waid, who’d revealed Sharon had faked her death to run a covert op for Nick Fury and later got caught up in a plot to resurrect Hitler. Much later, in 2013, Rick Remender made it look like he’d killed Sharon again during his first arc on Captain America, during a mission to save Cap from a dimension ruled by the mad biogeneticist Arnim Zola. Instead, she survived and raised Steve’s adopted son, whom he’d taken from Zola.

4. She killed Captain America: In Ed Brubaker’s brilliant 2000s run on Cap, Sharon was brainwashed once again by Dr. Faustus, this time into shooting Steve in the stomach post-Civil War as part of a long-game plan by the Red Skull. Sharon was pregnant with Steve’s child at the time, unbeknownst to her, and loses the child amid a fight with the Skull’s daughter, Sin. Faustus then makes her forget being pregnant. Steve’s death set up his original sidekick, Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, to take his place for a time as the good captain.

5. She’s been an Avenger: Sharon was part of the cast of the 2010-13 volume of Secret Avengers, running covert missions alongside Steve, Black Widow and other heavy-hitters. Brubaker was the first among a chain of writers on this series.

Read this: Ed Brubaker’s phenomenal run on Captain America, which we've covered before and which served as the inspiration for the Winter Soldier movie. The lion’s share of it is available in three hardcover ominbi that start at the beginning of the run in 2004 and end with Steve Rogers’ resurrection in 2010.

Watch that: Watch The Winter Soldier again, because even though she’s barely in it, it’s just that damn good.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

Fit to Be Tied In: A History of Marvel Crossovers and Events- Part 6: Disassembled to A vs. X, the Bendis Avengers years

In 2004, Marvel gave the Avengers to writer Brian Michael Bendis, who immediately disbanded the team, in a line-rebooting story called “Disassembled.” The Scarlet Witch went crazy; Jack of Hearts, Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and Hawkeye were killed; Tony Stark appeared to have fallen off the wagon again in front of the United Nations; and the Avengers realized they needed a little bit of a break (except Lionheart, who was all, “but I just bloody got here!”).

From the ashes of the Avengers rose the New Avengers, a Bendis-helmed team that mixed classic heavy-hitters such as Captain America and Iron Man with street-level heroes such as Spider-Man and Luke Cage. There also rose a story called Secret War (singular), a Bendis-penned mini in which the aforementioned heroes went on a classified mission for Original-Recipe Nick Fury into Latveria that resulted in Fury going underground and the appointment of a new SHIELD director, Maria Hill, who was decidedly anti-hero.

The next big event, 2005’s House of M, was the first of the post-“Disassembled” era and was mainly told in its own book, written by Bendis and drawn by Olivier Coipel. House of M dealt directly with the fallout from Disassembled, specifically the Scarlet Witch’s out-of-control powers. Wanda warps reality and creates an alternate world in which her father Magneto’s dream of mutant dominance comes to fore. Through a young girl named Layla Miller (a future star of Peter David’s second run on X-Factor), the X-Men and Avengers come to realize they are trapped in a world they never made, and confront Magneto and the royal family. Reality is restored, except for the part where Wanda whispers “No More Mutants,” and all but 198 of the world’s homo superior lose their powers.

Meanwhile, tensions between SHIELD and the tights-and-capes set kept climbing, coming to a boiling point in a massive explosion in Stamford, Connecticut, that was a direct result of the New Warriors hunting supervillains for a reality show. This led to the creation in Congress of the Superhuman Registration Act and caped crusaders of all stripes taking sides and battling each other in a superhero Civil War, written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven. On one side was Team Iron Man, which favored registration and the regulation of powers, and on the other side was Team Captain America, which favored freedom and the right to privacy. Civil War is notable for a few things, namely Spider-Man unmasking on national television, the death of Goliath (Bill Foster) at the hands of a robot clone of Thor, Tony Stark becoming director of SHIELD and, most importantly, the death of Steve Rogers. Don’t worry, he got better.

As if Civil War hadn’t done enough to prove superheroes have trust issues, the New Avengers had stumbled upon Elektra’s body morphed into that of a Skrull, a green, shape-shifting, craggy-jawed race of aliens. This led to months of “how do I know you’re not a Skrull?” stories that culminated in 2008’s Secret Invasion, an event series by Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu. A number of people are revealed to be Skrulls, including Hank Pym, Dum Dum Dugan and the Avengers’ butler Jarvis. Chief among the secret Skrulls though, is Spider-Woman, who is revealed to be the Skrull queen, and who also had been playing double agent for both SHIELD and Hydra. The queen is killed by, of all people, Norman Osborn, who at the time was running a government-sponsored Thunderbolts team. This leads to Osborn disbanding SHIELD and running its replacement agency, HAMMER. As a result, all heroes – not just the anti-registration ones – are now public enemy No. 1.

Osborn’s Dark Reign culminated in Siege, a 2010 event series by Bendis and Coipel that plays off recent events in Thor. The Odinson was reborn and in turn revived all his friends and Asgard itself, which was now floating a few feet off the ground in rural Broxton, Oklahoma. Loki convinces Osborn to make a play for Asgard, which, naturally, leads to Osborn’s downfall, as participation in Marvel events is mandatory for all heroes, from Spider-Man right down to Howard the Duck. Osborn falls, the government apologizes for treating superheroes like dirt for the past few years, Steve Rogers is appointed commander of all goodie-goodies and the Ewoks sing “Celebrate the Love.” Oh, and there’s a super-gross double-page spread of the Sentry ripping a dude in half.

In the next crossover, 2011’s Fear Itself by Matt Fraction and Stuart Immomen, Odin’s brother, the Norse god of fear, takes on Earth’s mightiest. Eight hammers carrying the power of the former generals of Cul, the fear god, fall to Earth to be wielded by Sin, Juggernaut, the Hulk, Titania, Attuma, Grey Gargoyle, The Thing and the Absorbing Man. In response, Tony Stark and Odin forge new weapons to be wielded by Spider-Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Wolverine, Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel, Red She-Hulk and Dr. Strange. If there’s ever a crossover where death meant squat, it’s this one, as Bucky Barnes, the Thing and Thor were all shown to die but quickly got better. That said, it is in Fear Itself that Steve Rogers returns to being Captain America after leaving the role to Barnes, and Colossus becomes the Juggernaut.

The Bendis age of Avenger-dom ends with 2012’s Avengers vs. X-Men, which is fitting, considering after the crossover he jumped over to the X books. The main series was co-written by Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron and Jonathan Hickman and co-penciled by Coipel, John Romita Jr. and Adam Kubert. The event is incited by the Phoenix Force, which was coming to Earth, supposedly to possess the X-Men’s ward, Hope. The Avengers want the X-Men to fork her over, Cyclops says no and eventually we get Civil War 2: Mutant Boogaloo. When the Phoenix Force finally does come to Earth, instead of going after Hope, it splits and possesses Cyclops and his four capos: Emma Frost, Colossus, Magik and Namor. Fighting continues, Namor levels Wakanda, Cyclops kills Professor Xavier, Hope gets a training montage in Iron Fist’s home of K’un-Lun, Cyclops goes Dark Phoenix and, finally, Hope and Scarlet Witch’s powers combine to repel the Phoenix Force and, BONUS, reverse the effects of M-Day, giving all the mutants their powers back. As additional fallout, Matt writes a piece about how Cyclops was right.

Next week, we wrap this series with a look at the crossovers of the Marvel NOW era and a bonus look at some of the stories we previously missed.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

The Matt Signal Advent Calendar 2014 Day 15: Civil War #1

Civil War #1, July 2006

I took a couple years off from superhero comics in the mid-2000s. I walked away from the X-books when Grant Morrison did, and for a while the only thing I was reading was Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina.

Marvel’s Civil War event got me curious, though. The House of Ideas hadn't really pushed its crossovers in the mainstream, non-comics media prior to this, so I picked up the first few issues.

But I’m not writing about Civil War because I think Marvel’s most hyped event of the past decade is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The reason this book sticks out to me, personally, is the Steve McNiven splash page in which Captain America is shown surfing on a jet.

I hadn’t really read much Cap before then, save for occasional minor appearances in X-Men. So I was surprised to watch this red-white-and-blue badass beat up a couple dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, hijack a jet, lecture the pilot about his language and, as a Cabinet secretary later describes, land the plane on a football field and take the pilot out for a burger and fries. Mark Millar – who crafted an alternate-Earth version of the character in The Ultimates – wrote Cap as the perfect combination of Boy Scout and action star. As team leaders go, Cyclops was never this cool.

Before long, I started reading Ed Brubaker’s run on Cap’s solo title and had collected every trade from the first hardcover omnibus right up until Fear Itself. Having completed that, I expanded outward, reading the new stuff by Rick Remender and Jack Kirby’s stories from the bicentennial.

So thanks, Civil War, for giving me a new favorite character.