With all the many people Superman has encountered in his relatively unaging career, it would be freakish if some of his deeds didn't have deeper consequences then he knew. Nor should it surprise us that many costumed adventurers were influenced by things they learned by "word of mouth" from those who first encountered Superman, since Clark (and later Lois, when she found out the truth of Clark's dual identity) actually did everything he could to keep Superman's deeds and very existence OUT of the media. For instance...

In a story first published in the newspaper strip, then reprinted in Superman #2, Superman took the place of "Larry Trent" to fight his way back to the boxing championship. Along the way, he earned the wrath of "Slugger" Barnes, "one of th' toughest fighters in th'game," according to his fight promoter. (Oddly, though he was called Barnes during almost all the story, once his promoter calls him "Slugger" Dolan. Maybe his full name was Dolan Barnes.) Superman won the professional fight, of course...but there were unexpected consequences.

After losing to the supposedly over-the-hill "Larry Trent" in 1934, Barnes re-examined his career. His wife had recently died. He had three children at home, two daughters, Polly and Lynn and a young boy, James Buchanan. His fight career, after that, went downhill because he lost his confidence.

He wasn't like his older brother, who was the intellect in the family. They had grown up in Kansas City. His older brother, Jake Barnes, was an expatriate American journalist living in Europe. Unfortunately, Jake suffered a bad accident during the First World War, that unfortunately rendered his love for Lady Ashley Brett purely platonic. His story was told by Ernest Hemingway in THE SUN ALSO RISES.

"Slugger" needed to find a new job, where his strong physical strength and toughness would be an asset...

So he decided to join the army.

Unfortunately, "Slugger" Barnes was older than many of the recruits. The training was harsh, and once he made a misstep---

---And died in training. That happens to a very small number of recruits each year.

The army felt a bit responsible. The two girls were raised in an orphanage, since an all-male army base would have been no place for them, but the army base, Camp Lehigh, collectively adopted the little boy, making him the camp mascot.

So James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes grew up at the Fort Lehigh army base...where he was later to meet Steve Rogers, and discover his secret...and discretely blackmail Steve into becoming Captain America's partner. He had the brown hair of his father.

Thanks to the military discipline he already knew---thanks to the inheritance from his father, the strength and ability to "take it" from one of the toughest fighters in the boxing ring...he proved a good partner. He wore a costume and a mask in case photographers ever accidentally caught a shot at him, but he didn't bother with a code-name, since Captain America was much more secret than the Simon and Kirby comics portrayed. In uniform or out, he was simply called "Bucky". He became leader of the Young Allies, and a member of Churchill's secret band of superhuman operatives against the Nazis during the war, the Invaders.

Yet the bad luck that his uncle, Jacob Barnes had in World War I, followed his nephew into World War II. Bucky Barnes died a few weeks before the ending of the war in Europe because of a Nazi bomb.

Lynn Barnes married a man named Jack Jones. Jack's grandfather was from Scotland, and claimed to be the younger brother of the scholar Dr. Henry Jones, which would make the famous archeologist "Indiana" Jones, Jack's older first cousin.

Jack and Lynn had one child before they died in a tire blowout in their car, which flung the car headlong into a large truck. That left their young son, Rick Jones, orphaned.

The fact that Rick was Bucky Barnes' nephew would explain the startling resemblence of Bucky Barnes and Rick Jones, even down to their voices, as noted by Captain America after he was roused from his two decades' old sleep.

Some might say there is a strong death wish that runs through the Barnes family. Rick Jones, on a dare, entered a nuclear testing base, unaware that a new bomb, the G-bomb, was about to go off. He was saved just in time by the bomb's creator, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner...but Banner caught the full brunt of the explosion himself, and later became the Incredible Hulk.

Rick aided the Hulk and Dr. Banner for quite some time, until the Hulk himself drove him away. He also proved to be the pivotal factor behind the gathering of the Avengers. He tried teaming up with Captain America for a time, but that didn't work out, and for a time even shared bodies with Captain Mar-Vell.

Though Rick Jones was an orphan, the evidence seems pretty good that he was raised by his Aunt Polly. Certainly there is no indication, save by later writers, that he was raised in an orphanage and didn't know who his parents were.

Yet the whole string of odd happenings---Bucky Barnes becoming Captain America's partner, Rick Jones being saved by Dr. Banner and causing the birth of the Incredible Hulk...all started when "Slugger" Barnes tried to teach Superman a lesson---in the boxing ring. He might have been present at Trent's championship fight, where it was truly Larry in the ring...and witnessed the costumed Superman stop both Larry's crooked manager from doping Larry---and a gambler from shooting Larry. (Superman just held his hand over the gun muzzle and the gun misfired.) "Slugger" might have told young Bucky tales of this bizarre, costumed adventurer...

Which inspired Bucky to become one in his own right....even though it cost him his life.

PARTIAL LIST OF SOURCES:

Of course, TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer.

GLADIATOR, Philip Wylie.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. Superman is owned by DC Comics, Warner Communications, and the Siegels. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.