Superhero Wiki
Captain America

Real Name
William Burnside
First Appearance
Captain America #153 (September, 1972). (Captain America stories from Young Men #24 (Dec 1953) through to 1964 later ascribed to the character)
Creators
Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, Roger MacKenzie [as Grand Director], Jim Shooter [as Grand Director]
Team Affliations
United States Government, National Force
Aliases
The Grand Director
Base of Operations
Current whereabouts classified
Powers
Superhuman strength
Skills and Abilities
Trained boxer, Peak-level speed, agility, dexterity, reflexes, coordination, balance and endurance
Paraphernalia
Chainmail costume, bulletproof shield, atom blaster

William Burnside is the Captain America of the 1950's in the Marvel Universe, whose mind has been deranged by evil forces and his own obsession.

Origin[]

A man obsessed with Captain America and the good he did, William Burnside discovered that evil forces were planning to use the super soldier serum to make their own evil Captain America.  Burnside managed to take the formula to the US and convince the FBI to let him become the next Captain America.  However, the serum they took was tainted and resulted in Burnside becoming dangerously insane and a threat to himself and others.

Biography[]

William Burnside was born in 1930 in Boise, Idaho (his parentage has never been revealed).  As a young boy, William idolized the patriotic superhero Captain America and was shocked by Captain America's apparent death in 1945. Not long afterwards, the mantle of Captain America (who's identity was not yet made public) was passed to William Nasland but Burnside saw through the facade. Soon after his idolization became an obsession and he studied Captain America and his history (at least, all that was known and publicly revealed) extensively.

His dedication was rewarded in academics, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1952 and earning a PhD in American history from a thesis focused on Captain America. In 1953, Burnside decided his next paper would be about how Captain America was viewed by the Nazi government and military and traveled to Germany to study official Nazi documents for insight. He was shocked to learn to discover a journal by Nazi spy Major Albrecht Kerfoot which contained the long-lost Super-Soldier Serum and Burnside soon brought this bombshell secret back to the United States.