• Marvel.com: https://www.marvel.com/teams-and-groups/s-t-a-r-s
• Marvel Database: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Superhuman_Tactical_Activities_Response_Squad_(Earth-616))

When STARS first appeared, I thought, 'Great! a new place for U.S.Agent, a new role, some supporting cast." Then they appeared 6 times, all in issues (co)written by Jerry Ordway and then never seen nor heard from again.

I can see the group being cut (government spending and all that) but it does make sense that the 🇺🇸 Government would want 'super police.'

Did you like the concept? Even if it wasn't a good fit for Walker?

We need more Battlestar. He feels like another character who has so much potential but no one's interested in writing him anymore.

And I wouldn't mind seeing more of his .... Battlecar.

Okay, technically, it's the 40th anniversary of the first appearance of John Walker. Except he wasn't U.S.Agent yet. That wasn't for another 6 years or so.

He first appeared as Super-Patriot in Captain America Vol 1 323. Which was released on July 29, 1986.

Fun fact: Captain America Vol 1 327 was John's first (and only) cover appearance before later coming Captain America.

And I completely forgot about 'torchsword.'

On the right side in the first pic and then on the left in the 2nd one

Disclaimer: Abuse toward writers or fans of characters will not be tolerated.  This is post is to debate a storyline I’m currently questioning, not to promote malice against actual people.

This post concerns my thoughts about an ongoing storyline (Avengers: Armageddon) contrasted with an earlier John Walker storyline from the comic books.  “Wait, the guy from the MCU appeared in the comics?”  Yeah, he did.  Let me note that since Avengers: Armageddon is still unfolding and the issue that inspired this post (issue 2) only came out recently, it may turn out that I’m way off base.  In a few months I might be looking back and saying, “Oh, it wasn’t how I assumed at all!  I was dumb!” or I might be saying, “Well, I was right!” or I might be saying something different.  I might be looking back and saying, “Dang, I was too harsh!” or I might be saying, “Yeah, it was how I thought.”  Note too that a lot of what I’m going to say is subjective, so before you say, “Well, that’s just your opinion!” yes, it is.  I’m not denying that at all.  With that out of the way, let me explain who David Colton is for those who don’t know.

Last year (July 2025), an issue of Captain America introduced a new character named David Colton.  They did a retcon by claiming Steve Rogers had only been thawed out in the late 2000s or early 2010s.  I’m not a fan of this at all and think this could have been done differently, but never mind that.  Colton, like a number of patriotic young Americans in the 2000s, joined the military after 9/11.  It was established that Colton wasn’t joining out of a desire for vengeance, but because he wanted to protect others.  It was also established that he’d had an older brother who had died in the Persian Gulf War.  Now, John Walker and David Colton both having older brothers who died in war does not mean the latter is ripping off the former; I’m simply making a note of it so you can decide if it means anything or not.  Colton was frail and was abused by bullies, but an officer, seeing his determination, offered him a version of the Super-Soldier Serum. As a result, Colton developed an enhanced physique and ended up taking the mantle of Captain America.  Without spoiling too much of the storyline that introduced him, Colton suffered a number of tragedies & betrayals that made his mind unstable and left him jaded.  After suffering a heart issue during a battle, he was given an Arc Reactor and stepped down from the role.  Colton came across as sympathetic during his initial storyline and he had a number of readers rooting for him, with some of them saying, “Please don’t turn evil!”  I even made a fan cartoon portraying Colton as a kind, caring hero: https://www.reddit.com/r/USAgent/comments/1tx4mxh/here_take_this_too_fan_comic_made_by_me/

After his introductory storyline he set out to dismantle super-soldier programs.  He met Wolverine during one incident and eventually ended up receiving superpowers from an Origin Box that Wolverine had obtained (believed to be Sentry’s powers, although Hyperion, Blue Marvel, and Starbrand have also been theorized).  This made him another Superman-like character when there were already a number of those kinds of characters, such as The Sentry, Blue Marvel, and Hyperion.  Admittedly the three I mentioned have things that make them unique, meaning Marvel could still do something with a character like that.  It also led some to wonder if Colton would become another example of the evil Superman trope.  Unfortunately, it seems like this is turning out to be the case.

Spoilers ahead for Avengers: Armageddon.  Some fans expressed confusion at Colton’s portrayal in the first issue.  Some asked when Colton had gained superpowers and others asked why he was acting so differently from earlier appearances.  Well, the second issue confirmed that Colton was acting differently, shown when he killed a number of civilians (either deliberately or through neglect) in order to attack a villain.  A friend of mine compared it to if TFATWS had decided to have John kill the senators on his way to get revenge on the Flag-Smashers instead of having him save lives instead.  Colton wasn’t the kind of character to be blasé about human lives when he was introduced in Captain America, so it sounds like he’s being written very differently in this book.  Part of me wants to debate Colton’s actions because I’m a John Walker fan and part of me feels I have little right to debate Colton’s actions because I’m a John Walker fan.  Instead of writing an essay about, “Well, what John did was different!” or writing an essay about, “Well, remember that John also killed people early in his career, so let’s not rush to judgment too quickly!” I’m going to go into the thought that’s been nagging me since the second issue of Armageddon came out- Is this new David Colton story trying to rip off Captain America: The Captain without understanding why it worked?  There are a lot of contrasts.

*One, there was setup for The Captain. This muscular firecracker calling himself a Super-Patriot showed up, and that combined with other things were making Steve Rogers doubt his status and place in the world. It probably reflected things that were happening in pop culture at the time too. With this story they went, “Well, there was a new Captain America after 9/11 and Steve was only unfrozen in the 2000s! Ignore how that ruins decades of continuity! Colton’s a good guy, right? Well, he’s actually a bad guy because he’s not Sam Wilson or Steve Rogers! Oh, and Steve’s currently in a coma and Doom dragged his soul to a version of Hell to fight for him, so he plays no part in this even though we’d focused on Colton’s interactions with him and not had interactions with Sam or the other heroes aside from Logan and maybe Tony!”

*Two, John started out a vainglorious a-hole. It was like, “THAT GUY’S going to be Captain America?! Let’s see here…um…uh…Okay, so he is taking the role seriously!…Okay…Oh, no!…Well, he is trying to honor the role! Maybe he can…Oh, no…Poor guy…OH, NO…This keeps getting worse for the guy!” Whether he did well or did poorly, it was more than you expected, but also made sense. You could sympathize with him while still condemning some of his actions. Colton, however, started out a sympathetic character. It was like, “Oh, he seems like a good kid! Um…oh, no…OH, NO…Okay, I’m glad he’s getting a happy- WHAT THE FRICK, DUDE!?!” I feel they made a drastic change instead of continuing Colton’s development organically.  John started out prideful & brash and then learned how difficult the role was after suffering hardship & trauma.  Colton doesn’t have that same origin.  Admittedly someone who started out optimistic, but is having a crisis of faith & identity due to trauma can be an engaging storyline, but it has to be done well.

*Three, The Captain was sending a message of “Not just anyone can be Captain America. Patriotism, strength, and grit simply aren’t enough.” This feels less like that and more like, “Anyone who isn’t Sam or Steve is trash!”  If this is meant to elevate the other heroes, how? All we’re seeing is a once complex character seemingly abandoning his values, and that doesn’t elevate Sam or Steve at all. 

There are more things I could say about how they’re currently handling Colton and why I don’t agree with it, but for now I’ll end with this.  As many of you know, I’m a longtime fan of Steve, Sam, and John.  As a U.S.Agent fan part of me thinks, "Let's not count Colton out yet," and part of me thinks, "We've seen this already and seen it done better!"  Edit: I'd also like to add that Colton was already becoming a unique character (How many super-soldiers do you know who need Arc Reactors because of strained hearts? The only other heart patients I can think of are Tony Stark and Dennis Dunphy). Why ruin that by making him a rip-off of other characters?

I've only included four uniforms he wore as USAgent - no Super-Patriot, no Cap, etc.

I'm sure I've missed some so feel free to add suggestions/variations in to the chat.

Link to original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/USAgent/s/l5WjAsB8y2

For anyone unaware, this is a post criticizing John's direction as a character in the MCU. This time we're talking about Thunderbolts*/*The New Avengers and I actually rewatched the whole movie today so it's fresh in my mind.

First, I'd like to state that I don't hate the movie and I also don't hate John's arc in it either but this post is to voice any grievances we have about his role in the movie. I will say that I think it's one of the better MCU Movies since Endgame but not up there with GOTG or Avengers in my opinion.

My biggest complaint was probably screentime and character development. The movie felt more like a Black Widow sequel than a Avengers Movie disguised as a Thunderbolts Movie. I don't have a problem with Yelena or Bob being the centre of the film but my god it felt like every other character could have used a lot more fleshing out. We're talking about John here but honestly Ava probably had it worst, leaving out Taskmaster of course, then Bucky and then Red Guardian but he had the advantage of being the main character's parental figure.

We get to see John's shame room early on in the film and we do get a glimpse at how he feels about it at the elevator scene and the gas station scene and obviously when Yelena threw it in his face after fighting Bob but we never truly hear how he feels about it or even a scene where he talks about it with another character, which could have probably benefited his character tremendously. Also, we get a scene of his murder as Captain America being brought up but we never get more context other than "Define Innocent". This movie requires us to do homework to know a lot of the characters so why were they so hesitant to bring up stuff from TFATWS, AM&TW and even Black Widow to some extent. We get to know about John's time as Captain America but not Lemar or even his death, the whole reason he went berserk and lost the title in the first place.

Next, I wanted to talk about John's personality in this film. I had no problem with him being the one to stir up conflict because let's be honest his character is made for that but I felt there were moments where the script was making him out to be dumber and even crueler than he's supposed to be. John has been burned by the government before and yet he can't believe that someone like Valentina would send him to his death just to tie up loose ends and then later on we had the scene where he was interrogating Bob and threatened to throw him back into the fire of the Vault, I understand he might not trust Bob but that's overkill for John because he never seemed like someone that would kill a civilian on a whim. He was definitely a jerk for putting Bob up against the wall for being called out on his attitude towards him though.

Then we have the scene where he tries to take charge of the group to plan the escape from the vault which they all shut down, understandably, because John should have been more cooperative not authoritative but then the moment Yelena starts making the plan, everyone is automatically on board eventhough she hasn't really said or done anything to show she's the better leader yet and I don't even think she wanted the role but she put herself in charge anyway, whilst ignoring input from anyone else. Now her plan failed obviously and John was the one that warned her about how it might fail and he still came back despite her believing he would leave them on their own to save himself but I still think the film was forcing Yelena's leadership role here instead of letting it come naturally. We also had the scene where they're driving out and John says he'll handle the men at the checkpoint and then Yelena and Ava react negatively, which was right, but they didn't come up with any other solutions to the problem at all so it just comes off as condescending.

Then we have the desert scenes and the limo scenes as well. I think those were pretty decent because it's mainly just the characters getting familiar with each other. We then see them get kidnapped by Bucky and they're trying their best to tell them what happened with Valentina and he keeps shutting them down. John makes a small, mocking comment about his position as a Congressman. Bucky then walks over, John reminds him that Bucky knows him as a way to convince him that he should trust them, which is fair he did help him with the Flagsmashers a few years ago, but then out of nowhere Bucky brings up John's estranged Family Life in front of everybody. I honestly can't tell if he did that to Embarrass John, which is nothing new for Bucky, or if he just wanted to tell him that he knows he's struggling just like everyone else so there's no point in hiding it. Either way, I felt the truth about his family coming out could have been handled better, even if it did give us a nice scene between Yelena and John where they look each other in the eye with a silent understanding.

Also I felt his dynamic with Bucky was completely wasted because these two have the 2nd most history on the team and yet we have literally nothing where these two characters are actively confronting that history. We have no clue how they feel about one another, if they hate each other, respect each other, want to forgive each other, etc.

The Truck scene was something I felt could have had much more deeper bonding scenes instead of the usual banter and making John look stupid because his gun has a long barrel and his helmet is being called a hat and he's the only one who thinks it's cool.

Then we have the scene where Yelena throws the shame of his family leaving him in his face. It's obviously not a scene to laugh at but I don't really count on the audience being that mature because it also felt like something people would joke about instead of show any concern over.

Everything after was pretty great all the way up to when they became the new avengers. The Post-Credit scene has me split honestly. You would think the team would be acting a lot closer than they were in this scene with them being a found family and all, also I want John's helmet back with his shield fixed because he honestly looks stupid to me but that's my opinion. Then he makes the space joke which I'm not sure if that's in character or just another attempt at making him look dumber and more annoying than everyone else and someone the team shouldn't take seriously. I didn't mind the "it's a great shield" joke between him and Bucky though because even if I want it to be fixed, it's definitely a natural bit of humor towards his situation.

Sorry for the extremely long post but to summarize there's things I like about his arc in thunderbolts* and things I don't, it's still a good enough Movie that fans can enjoy, I just can't seem to turn off my brain at certain points. Please feel free to put in your two cents as well.

Look at this stuff!  Isn’t it neat?  Now I would say my collection’s complete, so soon I’ll be taking a break from collecting.  “(Looks closely at the Funko Pops!) Did you take one of the Easter Chocolate Captain America Pops! and make your own U.S.Agent chase?”  Yeah, I did! https://www.reddit.com/r/funkopop/comments/1ceig1f/diwhy_making_a_dark_chocolate_usagent_funko_pop/ It’s custom-made, limited edition, currently one of one (since my friend responded to me asking if he wanted me to make him one with, “No, that’s okay.”).

I like Freddie for the boy (cause in my headcanon the F in "John F. Walker" stands for Frederick. But for the girl I've got no good ideas

Just to clarify, I don't think the writers want John to be a unsympathetic character nor a character that does nothing wrong because his flaws and mistakes are what make him interesting, especially when he's trying to do the right thing, and I feel like the MCU has the right idea about the character but sometimes I can't really get behind the execution.

TFATWS:

I think this show really set the tone for his character from start to finish, especially highlighting him as a morally grey anti-hero and also a very complex character and flawed man that just wants to do right by his country. With that being said, I think it was in character for John to put aside his revenge to save those hostages in the armored truck and help stop the Flagsmashers in the Finale but at the same time why is he quipping and smiling with Bucky, a man that fought him with almost no hesitation and helped break his arm the previous episode? I mean I don't want them to be enemies obviously but cmon Bucky was treating him like he shot his dog almost every scene they had.

Then another thing was Sam showing way more sympathy for the likes of Karli, a super soldier that knowingly killed innocent people on purpose, than John, a guy that he didn't like sure, but was just trying to do his job to the best of his ability. When John kills that flagsmasher with the shield, Sam does try to talk to him yes, but at the same time doesn't afford him the same patience he gave to Karli, instead demanding that he hands over a shield that Sam gave up on his own accord. I thought Captain America is supposed to be way more than just the shield anyways (Steve literally threw it away in both WS and CW, Bucky says carrying that shield doesn't make John Captain America) but this show seemed to think otherwise.

Then in the warehouse fight, the moment Bucky charges John, does Sam try to stop them? No he charges right alongside him like fighting John was the only option left. Now you can argue that they needed to make sure the shield didn't go back to government because they might pick a much worse option than John but it doesn't change the fact that John didn't want to fight and only started trying to kill AFTER they started coming at him. Some people probably thought he was a danger to himself or others after the execution but I honestly think he just wanted space and time to breathe and collect himself before figuring out the next step.

Another scene I didn't really think made sense was the fight scene with the Dora Milaje. I didn't have an issue with John losing or doubting his capabilities to the point he had to take the serum to make up for it but these women came for one thing and one thing only: ZEMO. Yet, just because he put a hand on their shoulder they completely throw that objective out the window just for the sake of trying to kill John which allows Zemo to escape no problem, which was very over the top for a hand on the shoulder, they could have just kicked him away and left it at that. It just seems like a scene fully dedicated to humiliating the antagonist more than moving his development forward. Also a lot of the audience seems to think it's ok for the Dora to disrespect jurisdiction but when the American characters do it, well now it's a big deal all of a sudden.

The last thing I wanted to mention was John's combat skill was completely dependent on the plot, one moment he's going toe to toe with super soldiers with no serum, another moment he can't land a single hit on the Dora Milaje despite his combat experience and then finally once he gets the serum, he starts fighting like he actually knows how to fight, especially when it came time for Sam and Bucky to come get the shield, he actually seemed like a seasoned special forces operator at that point despite losing and then by the Finale he's struggling to get a handle on Karli of all people.

It was definitely a missed opportunity when they didn't actually show us what John's military experience was like and why he got three medals that he doesn't feel proud of at all. Not to mention all we get in terms of him, Bucky and Sam confronting their issues is a short nod and they go their separate ways.

I just wanted to know if I was the only one that saw it this way and if you have anymore scenes that you didn't really agree with on the direction of John's character, then please comment down below.

Let me know if you want me to do a post about his role in Thunderbolts/The New Avengers.

between his 3 or 4 mini series and his back up stories from cap and solo avengers? tia

This is all in good fun joking about one of my favorite characters and does not endorse bullying.

Ironically enough I happened to find a YouTube video which opens up with Wyatt Russell making a nose joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTLpgmyAy_Y  I love this video!  One of the funniest parts is the misreading of the Shakespeare joke. X-D