One character that I think is interesting BECAUSE an effort was made to make him dissimilar to Superman, is Hyperion, the Superman-esque figure of the Squadron Supreme. Hyperion, at least as he was originally presented by Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart, was an arrogant muscleman that believes might makes right.
This is, among many other reasons, why I think the Gruenwald SQUADRON SUPREME miniseries was terminally overrated. The Gru "sanitized" the character of Hyperion and made him much more in like with his Superman point of inspiration, instead of letting Hype act like Hype. The only signs of the Thomas/Englehart Hyperion characterization in that mini was when in the scene where Hyperion pounded the everliving radioactive snot out of the Squadron Sinister Hyperion, saying "No one uses MY reputation to conceal MURDER and LUST!" After hitting him with George Washington's nose. That was an ever so slight glimmer of that personality type shining through.
Well, in the end it's true that there can only ever be one Superman, whereas "Captain America" is a nom de guerre that can be passed on to different men (and has been, as you note, in several storylines). Of course, take the "Cap" out of Steve, or Steve out of the suit, and neither is all it can be. Sort of like Sean Connery as James Bond.
My interpretation of the appearance of characters like the 50s Cap during the Englehart years (a mentally unstable demagogue) is that ultimately, Steve Rogers is irreplaceable. Every time some other guy has stepped up to plate the result has been that they've been unsuitable and that the original, Steve Rogers himself, has had to come back and show 'em how it's done.
Though it would be interesting to know if this means that perhaps sometime in the future, Rick Jones will become Captain America?
As for that "Bucky" stuff, I always did hate it. To me, that was Stan Lee trying deperately to shoe-horn some 60's-style Marvel pathos into a strip where it didn't belong. Cap does not fit the mold of the standard, self-doubting, whining Marvel hero and if he did he wouldn't work (as indeed he did not in his Tales of Suspense days, IMHO).
While I do agree with you that Stan never really could find an identity for Captain America, whose TALES OF SUSPENSE appearances were the least of the Lee Silver Age output, at the same time, the Bucky thing served two purposes:
1) It established why Marvel didn't have a kid sidekick tradition. AND NEVER SHOULD - are you listening, YOUNG AVENGERS?
2) It was the basis for a father/son friendship and relationship between Captain America and Rick Jones.
Well, I hesitate to say this to an Englehart fan, but I think Dr Strange shouldn't have been in the Defenders, either. That book always baffled me. It was as if Marvel was saying, "Here's all your favorite anti-social loners who don't work well in a team setting...together at last in a team book! Whee!" I suppose there's a certain irony there that makes it funny for readers and challenging for writers, but ultimately I think putting Strange in a team hurts the character.
Really? Because, if anything, Doctor Strange was the ONLY person that fight right into some of the DEFENDERS stories! What the Silver Surfer was doing there I'll never know.
I think the reason that Doctor Strange's presence in the Defenders worked was because, at least in their better stories, the "non-team" fought the sort of idiosyncratic menaces that one could see emerging in Doctor Strange's own book, and the story elements that emerged are suitably weird ones. An example would be Necrodamus and his Satan-worshipping cult, for instance, or the presence of Loki and Dormammu and Prester John's Evil Eye in the Avengers/Defenders War.
Actually, now that I think about it, it's a credit to Englehart and Gerber's skill for characterization and playing up all these idiosyncratic personalities that DEFENDERS didn't become "Doctor Strange and Friends." Examples would include the Englehart subplot with the Valkyrie falling in love with a man turned to stone, which was one of the more beautiful love stories of the Silver Age, as was the Gerber Nighthawk tales.
(Speaking of Nighthawk, is Kyle Richmond alive or not, at present? It's hard to keep track. Anyway, if he is back, could somebody give him his jetpack back? I was sorry when that thing got taken away.)
It's interesting to draw comparisons between Doctor Strange in DEFENDERS and Tony Stark in AVENGERS. Both guys provide the headquarters for both teams (Avengers Mansion or the Sanctum Sanctorum, respectively). Both serve as patrons, providing Quinjets, communicards, or Spells of Disguise for their respective teams. And both have some stylin 'stache action going on.
Oh, and I thought of another similarity between Cap and Supes...Alex Ross uses the same model for both! Ahem. Speaking of which, I was out of the room for a while, can anyone tell me if Ross' fifteen minutes are up yet?
I'm not placing Alex Ross in this category (his art is impressive, if a bit stiff) however, there are some ghastly writers and artists whose careers evaporate (Rob Liefeld comes to mind), but then again, there are others, usually people so astonishingly bad, that will. Never. Go. Away!
I'd lump my two sworn archenemies, Keith Giffen and John Byrne, in that category. Actually, I predict that if there was ever a nuclear war, these two would be the only survivors.
The same thing is found in showbiz, too. Madonna and Morrissey are, respectively, the Byrne and Giffen of the music world: cockroach-durable, unsinkable rubber ducks.
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