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NOTE: This piece contains spoilers about the season (series?) finale of Hawkeye, now airing on Disney+, so, well, you’re now warned.
Today, we’ll look at how Bobbi Morse was retconend into becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with one of the odder retcons around.
This is “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking,” a feature spotlighting notable examples of retcons that don’t fit into the framework of Abandoned an’ Forsaked, which is specifically about stories that outright “overturn” older stories. There are many examples of “retroactive continuity” that do not actively abandon the works of the past (especially cases where the overall continuity was rebooted). Some of them are minor, some of them are major, all of them are interesting enough to me that I figure that they are worth writing about.
Okay, first off, let me go on a little rant. As you likely know by now, the season (series?) finale of Hawkeye ended with a reveal that Hawkeye’s wife, Laura, used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent (a fact that had been apparent since early in the series) but more specifically, she was Agent 19. Here’s my rant – instantly, there were all these articles about how, “Oh, of course this means that she is Mockingbird, since Mockingbird is Agent 19.” And that’s true…however, I take some issue with how Wikis and stuff like that have now led people to acing like information like that is…if not COMMON knowledge, at least knowledge that you would know if you’re a Mockingbird fan. It isn’t. It’s an extremely obscure piece of trivia about Mockingbird that just happens to be easily accessible since it is listed on her various internet bios/wikis/etc. Believe you me, I’m all for people having access to all the obscure knowledge in the world, I’m all ABOUT sharing obscure knowledge, after all, but I’m seeing a few too many, “Oh, of course, Agent 19, that means she’s Mockingbird.” Don’t try to play it like you knew that stuff offhand. Come on now.
Rant over! On to the obscure comic book information!
MOCKINGBIRD’S EARLIEST COMIC BOOK APPEARANCES WERE A MESS
Barbara “Bobbi” Morse made her first appearance in the Ka-Zar feature in Astonishing Tales #6 (by Gerry Conway, Barry Windsor-Smith and Bill Everett – quite an awesome creative team for your first appearance, huh?). See if you can recognize her…
Yes, when Bobbi first showed up, she had psychic powers! And it sure didn’t seem like her name was Barbara, right?
This was Gerry Conway’s last issue of Astonishing Tales, though, so next issue Roy Thomas took over, along with Herb Trimpe trying his best to do Barry Windsor-Smith’s art style….
Roy continued the plot a bit (although no more psychic powers mentioned) as we learned that her name was Barbara and that she was engaged, information we learned after she and her fiancee crash-landed in the Savage Land in Astonishing Tales #8…
Oh, and her hair is now blonde…
HOW AN UNUSED COMIC LED TO MOCKINGBIRD BECOMING A S.H.I.E.L.D. AGENT
Barbara and her fiancée just continued to be caught up in various Savage Land shenanigans for a few more issues, and Barbara was PURE “Damsel in distress” in these issues until the big reveal in Astonishing Tales #12. First, a little background. In 1971 (right around the time that Astonishing Tales #6 came out), Len Wein and Neal Adams were going to have a Man-Thing story in Savage Tales #2. That story was to introduce a woman (among many characters) named Dr. Morse. However, their story in Savage Tales #2 was canceled, as the book became strictly a Conan comic after #1. Back in those days (heck, even in these days), publishers did not like to waste stories that had already been paid for, so what appears to have happened is that Roy Thomas decided to retcon out whoever Conway intended this woman to be and have her become, eventually, the Dr. Morse from Savage Tales #2, but first, Thomas and Friedrich wanted to establish her in the book before revealing her background.
So it wasn’t until Astonishing Tales #12 (by Thomas, John Buscema and Dan Adkins) that we got her origin, first via a reveal in the framing sequence…
and then more via that old Savage Tales story, now a “flashback”…
At the end of the story, she decides to go get help, which, of course, somehow meant Ka-Zar…
In the following issue (by Thomas, Buscema, Rich Buckler and Dan Adkins), we learn that the government agency that Barbara Morse was working for was S.H.I.E.L.D….
and we learn that Paul is really a bad guy working for A.I.M…
In the end, Paul is killed by Man-Thing and Barbara reveals that she never really loved Paul, she was just pretending to to help S.H.I.E.L.D. out and now she was ready to go back to just being a scientist…
Now here’s the interesting thing. Up until this point, is it even clear that Barbara is even a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent? It sure sounds like she’s “just” a scientist working WITH S.H.I.E.L.D., no?
But don’t worry, the series has a new writer soon, and I’m sure things will be super consistent from story to story now…whoops…too late!
WHEN DID WE LEARN THAT BOBBI WAS AGENT 19?
Mike Friedrich took over writing duties with Astonishing Tales #15 (art by Gil Kane and Tom Sutton) (#14 was a fill-in issue) and he brings Ka-Zar to New York City where he learns that Barbara likes to be called Bobbi…
and that she IS a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent (I love how they act like it had been established officially earlier. It had not been established earlier!)…
She even has a badge…
And then, finally, in Astonishing Tales #18 (by Friedrich, Dan Adkins and Frank Chiaramonte), we learn that Bobbi’s Agent number is Agent 19…
The amazing thing is that this is only a drop in the bucket of how crazy her comic book “career” has been! Okay, maybe more than a drop (her clearly changing characters after her first appearance is still super weird), but not a LOT more than a drop!
Okay, folks, feel free to suggest more examples of this sort of thing! Obscure ones, famous ones, whatever! Send your suggestions to brianc@cbr.com!
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