As we’ve noted before, Captain America has had a gay best friend for a while, but he also had an openly gay ally. Brian Falsworth was an WWII-era gay man who took up his father’s mantle as Union Jack to save his lover and fight the Nazis in Marvel’s timeline, but he was written out in the early ’80s as dying in a car crash. But nobody’s dead forever in comics, and Marvel has decided to bring Falsworth back, although admittedly in an unusual way.
Specifically, Union Jack is now a teenager in Marvel’s popular mobile game Marvel Avengers Academy, introduced as part of Marvel’s “British Invasion” that also brought Captain Britain and the Black Knight to the game. And this isn’t a wink-wink-nudge-nudge matter, either, as Falsworth bluntly tells Black Widow he’s gay when she won’t get the hint and stop flirting with him. No means no, Natasha.
It’s fairly clear this is a reaction to the Twitter campaign asking Cap to get out of the closet already, and it’s a nice touch in more ways than one. Falsworth has gotten some time on Marvel’s pages in the recent past as part of a miniseries here and there, but by and large, he’s been forgotten in favor of a new hero to take up the costume. It’ll be interesting to see if Falsworth turns up elsewhere in the Marvel Universe, but for now, at least, he’s getting another shot at glory in the Marvel universe.
(Via NewNowNext)