Issue(s): Tales Of Suspense #63 (Captain America story only)
Cover Date: Feb 65
Title: "The origin of Captain America!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Jack Kirby - Penciler
Frank Giacoia - Inker

Review/plot: This issue of Tales of Suspense covers Cap's origin and how he hooked up with Bucky. This is the first of many retellings of Cap's origin.

Since there's been several iterations of this, i'll cover the way it plays out here. You've got the old lady with the shotgun, who turns out to be wearing a mask. I'm pretty sure she's in every version of the story; it's a strange little series of events and it wouldn't feel like a definitive origin without her.

The main scientist's name is Erskine here. He was "Josef Reinstein" in Captain America Comics #1 but that will later be revealed to have been an alias.

There's no information about Steve Rogers himself, except this:

Too puny, too sickly, to be accepted by the army! Steve Rogers! Chosen from hundreds of similar volunteers because of his courage, his intelligence, and his willingness to risk death for his country if the experiment should fail!

So, nothing about whether he was from the city or the suburbs. Nothing about his relative level of patriotism or a specific reason or drive that led him to volunteer. No special or fortuitous event that led to him specifically being chosen (from, apparently, a pool of hundreds of volunteers).

And as far as we see, he only takes the super-serum. Orally.

No additional vita-rays or anything like that. Unless you think that might be why he's glowing in this panel:

From the death of Erskine, we jump pretty quickly to Rogers being firmly established as Captain America. No training, no meeting with the president. I don't know if these newspaper headlines refer to any actual Golden Age issues, but i doubt it.

We do meet Steve Rogers' (currently unnamed) Sergent and establish that Rogers maintains a cover as a bumbling Private.

Bucky Barnes, identified as the camp mascot because his father died during training, discovers Steve changing into his Cap uniform and (softly) blackmails Cap into letting him become his parter. Bucky transitions into a costumed role in the very next panel, although a narration caption mentions "the most intensive period of training any youth has ever undergone".

Captain America is operating in America at this point, fighting spies and Nazi raiding parties.

And on the question of did Captain America kill during World War II, well...

Obviously it's a heck of a lot of information to cram into half an issue, but it definitely reads less like an actual story and more like an encyclopedia article. And the art is sometimes awkward.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - Definitive Silver Age version of Cap's origin.

Chronological Placement Considerations: This was published in 1965 but is a re-telling (or replacement?) for Captain America's origin from Captain America Comics #1, which had a cover date of March 1941.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: Giant-Size Captain America #1

"I'm pretty sure she's in every version of the story; it's a strange little series of events and it wouldn't feel like a definitive origin without her."

So much so that they felt the need to include her (sans the mask part) in the recent Captain America movie.

According to the marvel database (which I'd say is pretty reliable) x-13 is Betsy Ross/golden girl! So this might count as a golden girl appearance. I'll leave it up to you fnord.

Unless i'm missing something, X-13 doesn't appear in this issue. The "old" lady is Agent R (Cynthia Glass).

Oh. I've never actually read this issue but the marvel database listed x-13/Betsy Ross here. They must have considered x-13, agent R and Betsy Ross to all be the same person.

Maybe they aren't as reliable is I thought they weren't!😡(sarcastic angry face)

The (not so great) auto correct on my iPad thought I was trying to say weren't when I meant to say were in that last sentence.