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COMIC URBAN LEGEND: Mark Gruenwald had to change the name of his 1980s Bucky character because of racial reasons.

STATUS: True.

Lemar Hoskins made his debut in Captain America #323, as a member of the “Bold Urban Commandoes,” or Buckies, for short, a bunch of enhanced meatheads who pretended to be enemies of John Walker - Super-Patriot.

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Later on, Walker was named to be Steve Rogers’ replacement as Captain America by the Commission on Superhuman Activities. Hoskins tried out for, and was granted, the role of being Walker’s sidekick - Bucky to Walker’s Captain America.

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However, this situation was not exactly well received.

Not only was it a bit weird to see a grown black man in the role of a teenaged sidekick, but (and here is the entry at the Urban Dictionary), “Buck” happened to be a slang term for a young black man.

So, unbeknown to Mark Gruenwald, writer of Captain America (okay, he probably should have known it was a bit odd to see a grown man in the role of a teen sidekick), he accidentally was treading on some sketchy racial grounds.

Luckily, Gruenwald quickly addressed the situation - in the comic, no less!

In Captain America #341, he had a backup story that dealt with it all, as Lemar went from Bucky to Battlestar!!

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Gruenwald even directly addressed the criticisms, with no spin in his favor, which was quite cool of him, I thought….

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Lemar later ended up becoming a stalwart member of Silver Sable’s Wild Pack.

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He then faded into comic limbo for years, before briefly showing up during Civil War, where he was one of a number of unregistered heroes who were captured by SHIELD.

One thing I do not know, and I’d be quite grateful if anyone happened to know of a source for this, is who filled Gruenwald in? I would imagine that letter writers must have brought it up, but perhaps someone at Marvel also noticed it? If anyone happens to know, I’d be mighty obliged if you let me know!

Thanks to the Grand Comic Book Database for all this week’s covers!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/01/24/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-139/#more-14163