Captain America Destroyed a Marvel Hero Over Their R-Rated Codename
While Marvel's Captain America might be level-headed, even he has his limits. In the cult series Nextwave, fans were introduced to "the Captain", a perpetually drunk superhero who has struggled to find a name among the crowd of similarly named heroes. He reveals that he used to go by "Captain ****", with the asterisks covering some foul word, but when he introduced himself to Captain America, Steve Rogers' reaction was as old school as could be expected.
Created by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen, Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. is a wild ride through the tropes of superhero stories. The authors picked up characters that no other writer was interested in: Monica Rambeau (formerly known as Captain Marvel, then Photon, now Spectrum), Elsa Bloodstone, Machine Man (Aaron Stack), Tabitha Smith (aka Boom-Boom), and also created a brand new character called simply "the Captain". His origins are a satire on the idea of the good, benevolent aliens gifting powers to a "chosen" human. One night, two aliens came across a drunk man on the streets of Brooklyn. They granted him the "Messianic Sidda-Complex", a powerful artifact called the "Heartstar of the space between galaxies" (which recently reappeared in the hands of the Beyond Corporation). The man was tasked with using his newfound powers to "make this nightmarish land of 'Brooklyn' a better place", but he immediately proceeded to beat the aliens because, in his drunken state, he thought that "when you hit leprechauns on the head they turned into gold coins." This would set the tone for much of the Captain's career and exploits.
After realizing he could be a superhero, the unnamed young man assumed the identity of Captain ****. Apparently, his reasoning was that, being from Brooklyn, he couldn't go by "Mr. Friendly", so "Captain - terrible swear word" was the next best choice. Speaking with his Nextwave teammate and resident monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone, the Captain recounts how this was not the best choice in hindsight. He tells her how he met Captain America once, and Steve Rogers asked him what his name was. When he answered "Captain ****", Steve beat the hell out of him and left him in a dumpster with a bar of soap shoved in his mouth. From that moment onwards, it was just "the Captain".
As with everything else in Nextwave, the Captain is a satire of a particular aspect of the superhero genre. In this case, it's the tendency that so many characters have to add "Captain" to their codenames, even if they never had anything to do with the Army. Captain America's reaction is also perfectly in style with the old-school roots of his characters, as "go wash your mouth" was a frequent reproach used to scold children who swore too much. Despite the fact that Nextwave's interaction with Marvel's regular continuity has always been dubious, this particular encounter between the Captain and Captain America is actually canon, because it was also referenced in Nova vol. 6 #9 (by Sean Ryan, R. B. Silva, and Andres Mossa).
Despite this unfortunate interaction with Steve Rogers, the Captain shows in Nextwave that he is a really powerful and fun character who needs more exploration in Marvel lore. His brief cameo in Nova was certainly not enough. Luckily, the Heartstar recently reappeared in The Amazing Spider-Man, and it looks like Monica Rambeau is putting her Nextwave team back together. If this is the case, Marvel fans will get more of the Captain - hopefully without Captain America having to wash his mouth again.