Sight Unseen

After a day working at a construction site, Sam Wilson changes into the Falcon and takes to the skies. As he heads to his intended destination he thinks back on his childhood, his past criminal behavior, and how he turned his life around becoming Captain America’s sidekick.[1] He soon arrives at Central Park where his pet falcon Redwing had been trailing Henry Gyrich, the Avengers liaison, while on a job.

However, Gyrich is well aware that the Falcon has been tailing him and demands to know what he wants.[2] Sam doesn’t say anything and Henry continues his jog, telling the hero that he is very busy and doesn’t have time for this.[3] Falcon continues following him on his job. Gyrich figures that Sam is on him because he still has unresolved tension from back when Henry forced the Avengers to make the Falcon a member of the team.[4] Gyrich is unapologetic for that, saying he was just following orders from the government. When he tells Sam to get over it, he makes the mistake of calling him “boy”, angering Falcon enough to punch Gyrich in the face.

Seeing he won’t get rid of the Falcon, Gyrich resigns to being followed. He has to return to his apartment to sort out a dispute with his neighbors. On the way, Gyrich explains how high pressure his job is convincing the UN not to go to war with Asgard.[5] and that the threat posed by Jack of Heart’s powers has been resolved.[6] Sam remarks that Captain America said Henry is adapting quite well. Cap also said that Gyrich deserves another chance. Sam disagrees but is willing to give Henry a chance anyway as long as he is up front about anything shady Gyrich might be involved in. Henry takes offense to this, pointing out to Sam that his past isn’t squeaky clean either.[7] Gyrich wonders why the Falcon gets a free pass and he does not. Sam points out that this is because he has proven himself while Henry has not. Wilson also says that he wants to help Henry.

Gyrich is about to tell him something when they arrive at the doorstep of his building and see a crowd has gathered and the police are on the scene. As it turns out, his neighbor’s two daughters were kidnapped by the Scarecrow. She pleads with Gyrich to call the Avengers to save her daughter. Henry tries to explain that it doesn’t work like that, but Sam agrees to help find the Scarecrow to prove Gyrich wrong. Since he first got his mental link with Redwing, Sam has since learned that he can mind link with any bird, giving him access billions of eyes all across Manhattan. The Falcon then takes off, telling Gyrich if he wants to talk, to meet him back at the Avengers Embassy at 9 pm.

By this time, the Scarecrow has taken his hostages to a nearby junkyard where he easily dispatches the guard. The insane villain revels in their fear, saying he felt the same fear when Captain America sent him to prison.[8] The Falcon soon arrives and ambushes the Scarecrow with a swarm of birds on his side. He quickly trounces the villain and turns him over to the authorities.

Later that evening, Falcon returns to Avengers Embassy and sure enough, Gyrich meets with him shortly after 9 pm. Seeing that Gyrich is making an effort makes Sam smile. A few hours later, Gyrich goes to Liberty Island where he meets with Dell Rusk, the Secretary of State. Per their arrangement, he has made copies of the Avengers account codes, passwords, and blueprints of their headquarters and equipment. Gyrich hands over the data even though he doesn’t know how he’ll look at himself in the mirror. Rusk smiles and says that this is the only way to get things done in politics. He then suggests that Henry close his eyes instead of looking in the mirror. As the stolen data is handed off, Redwing passes by overhead unseen by either man.[9]

Recurring Characters

Falcon, Scarecrow, Red Skull, Henry Gyrich, Redwing

Continuity Notes

1. Sam Wilson glosses over his past life. Some of the statements he made here turn out to be untrue. The details:

   • He mentions how his parents were killed when he was still a teenager. His father, Paul Wilson as stabbed trying to break up a fight. His wife, Darlene was shot in a mugging not long after this. This was first reported in Captain America #277.

   • The exact time frames surrounding these events and how old Sam was when they happened differ from account to account. Captain America #277 states that Sam was 9 years old when he father died and that his mother died two years later. While this story states that Sam’s father died when he was 16. It still maintains that Darlene died two years later. All-New Captain America #1 depicts Sam as a teenager when his parents died, and states that his mother died one year after his father. I would chalk up the discrepancies to the fact that Sam’s memories had been tampered with, see below.

   • Sam Wilson mentions having become a criminal. Sam’s alleged criminal career as “Snap” Wilson were first revealed in Captain America #186. At the time the Red Skull stated that he used the Cosmic Cube to alter Sam’s personality and and memories so he would be an ideal partner to Captain America….

   • Sam and Cap then met in Captain America #118. Unaware of his mental tampering, Wilson became Cap’s sidekick the Falcon for a few years until the Red Skull revealed the “truth”. About that…

   • In All-New Captain America #3, it was revealed that the “Snap” Wilson memories were actually the false ones. As it turned out the Red Skull created a “criminal persona” for Sam and hid it in his mind to torment him at a later date. Since memories of Sam’s past that depict him as 9 years old when his father was murdered, one could assume that these are altered memories and the ones of him as a teenager when his parents died are genuine. Not precisely recalling the length of time between the death of each of his parents could be chalked up to misremembering the exact dates.

2. The Falcon was asked to watch Gyrich by Captain America in Avengers (vol. 3) #61. In that same issue, Sam — via his mental link with Redwing — witnessed Dell Rusk, the Secretary of Defense, strong arm Gyrich into providing him Avengers secrets. We'll discover that Dell Rusk is actually the Red Skull in disguise, see Avengers (vol. 3) #65-70.

3. Gyrich complains about how Yellowjacket and the Wasp just ran off to Las Vegas without any advance warning. For more on their antics there see Avengers (vol. 3) #71.

4. Back in Avengers #181, Gyrich forced the Avengers to pair down to no more than seven members. He also insisted on the Falcon joining the team to fill an employment quota. Sam wasn’t interested in joining up but did so as a favor to Captain America in issue #184. He then left in Avengers #194 once Gyrich was finally off their ass. He had maintained reserve status ever since, only re-joining the main roster in Avengers (vol. 3) #61.

5. Thor almost caused an international incident by preventing the Slokovian government from committing acts of genocide against its people who worship the gods of Asgard. The situation was diffused by Iron Man and Captain America. See Thor (vol. 2) #58, Iron Man (vol. 3) #65, and last issue.

6. Since Avengers (vol. 3) #58, Jack of Hearts needs to be placed in a specially prepared Zero Room to drain off his access energies, otherwise he will reach critical mass and explode. We learned this in issue #61, and that it is getting worse. It’s later reveal that his sudden instability is due to the fact that his body is absorbing gamma radiation from his teammate the She-Hulk something that won’t be uncovered until issue #67. So no, the Jack of Hearts situation isn’t really resolved. It’ll solve itself when Jack is seemingly killed when his body explodes in Avengers (vol. 3) #76.

7. Gyrich mistakenly believes that the Red Skull developed Falcon’s wings. Sam corrects him, saying that it was actually the Black Panther. This is true, see Captain America #170.

8. Captain America has sent the Scarecrow to prison on two different occasions at the time of this story. The first was in Captain America #280 and the next in Ghost Rider/Captain America: Fear #1.

9. We’ll soon discover that Gyrich is only playing along with Rusk so that he and Falcon can figure out what his motives are, see Avengers (vol. 3) #65-70.

Topical References

• Sam Wilson is depicted and states that he is working on the reconstruction efforts at the World Trade Center following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. This should be considered a topical reference as construction of the Freedom Tower began in 2006 and it opened to the public in 2013. Modern readers should reinterpret this to mean that Sam is involved in a general restoration project unrelated to any real world events.

• When talking about the Red Skull, Henry Gyrich says he would make Adolf Hitler look like Giuliani. This is a reference to Rudolph Giuliani who was mayor of New York at the time this story was published. Giuliani received a lot of positive feedback and was considered a hero due to his actions on September 11. This of course was many years before he utterly wrecked his reputation by being on of Donald Trump’s sycophants in the 2020s, but I digress. This reference should be considered topical as Giuliani ceased being New York’s mayor in 2001. Also his public reputation is dog shit these days, people would be more inclined to liken Giuliani to Hitler than anything else.

• Sam says that his mental link with birds gives him access to six billion sets of eyes. I’m not sure if this is an accurate number or not, but if it is, then it is a reference to bird populations when this story was published in 2003. This figure has probably changed since then and should be considered topical.

• The data stolen from Avengers Embassy is depicted as being stored on a CD, the most common form of data storage at the time this comic first came out. While you can still burn data on CD nowadays, it has mostly fallen out of use in favor of more expansive/efficient data storage types and is on its way to obsolescence. As such its use here should be considered topical.