Friday, February 5, 2021

"Captain America" premieres 1944


Captain America, the first Marvel superhero to appear outside of a comic book, premiered February 5, 1944.  Dick Purcell played Captain America/Grant Gardner instead of Steve Rogers.  The studio Republic rejected the backstory of Rogers being too puny and weak to join the army, so he took a serum that turned him into a super soldier.  Grant Gardner is a lawyer who fights crime by night.

Captain America was a serial, Republic's last, and had fifteen episodes.  Dick Purcell, an amateur boxer and a black belt in Judo, died of heart failure in 1944, shortly after filming concluded. 


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