Captain America Comics #66

Captain America Comics #66 (1948)
by Bill Woolfolk & Syd Shores

Marvel doesn’t have a ton of Golden Age super-heroines (which are relatively rare in general), so it’s weird that the one who was Captain America’s sidekick is barely ever mentioned.

And if you’re thinking “wait, wasn’t Bucky the only sidekick Cap had at the time?”, the teaser page tells you what to expect.

Our villain is going to be the perfume-obsessed Lavender.
Now that I think about it, she’s the only supervillain I can think of with perfume as the gimmick… which is kind of weird, right? Next to jewels, I’d expect that to be the most obvious stereotype to be associated with a villainess.

Captain America and Bucky show up to stop her, and I’m guessing Cap is now regretting not giving him a shield.

This is surprisingly brutal for a mainstream 1948 comic.
Granted, the Comics Code wasn’t fully in authority yet, but still.

This is where Steve Roger’s not-girlfriend Betsy Ross shows up.

Yeah while this is the first Golden Girl appearance, it’s not the first Betsy Ross one… and that’s complicated enough to warrant a tangent.

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A character from the first Captain America story, where she was identified as Agent X-13 (the one posing as the old lady), was later identified with Betsy…

…who makes a proper appearance in the story published in the same book.

That Betsy makes sporadic appearances in the proper Golden Age; that one was kind of an adventurer on her own.
But this is most likely a different Betsy Ross, because the Captain America she interacts with… isn’t the actual Captain America still running around in 2025.
That would be the relaunch where Steve Rogers was posing as a bespectacled professor, and Betsy was a teacher at the same school.

I’ve only read a couple of Captain America stories from this relaunch, but she seems to be in a will-they-won’t-they relationship with Steve.

Confusingly, however, this MIGHT still be the same Betsy from the Golden Age, since she used to be an FBI agent.

I said that Captain America was not the original Captain America… but this should NOT be confused with the “Commie Smasher” failed relaunch, which won’t happen until 1954.

So to recap: Betsy Ross might or might not be the same Betsy Ross of the early Golden Age, and she interacts with a Captain America who is not the original Captain America but is also not the 1950s impostor, except he might be depending on which recton you’re looking at.

Also the “Bucky” in the story isn’t Bucky. He’ll eventually return to be Steve Roger’s sidekick in the 80s, and in the 90s he ends up being an edgy badass.
He’s sort of a progenitor of the evolution of Bucky into the Winter Soldier, which is definitely why they killed him off in 2005 and don’t seem to be in a rush to bring him back.

And they say the Legion of Super-Heroes is confusing. Try figuring out which Captain America is the real deal and which is an impostor.

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Back to the story, Bucky’s going to be out of commission for a while… but Cap still needs a sidekick, because that’s how things used to work.

Cap interviews Betsy to know if she’s up to becoming his new sidekick, and conveniently she has all the necessary backstory.

This might not be the real Steve Rogers thanks to the retcons, but I see that the trope of “all you need to be a superhero is train with Cap for a couple of days” has deep roots!

And so Betsy decides to take on the identity of Golden Girl, complete with wings on her head in honor of Cap and showing off her legs because even if Bucky couldn’t go full Robin, she can pull it off.

The new duo gets the drop on Lavender…

…and fail spectacularly.

Yeah I’m kind of with Cap on this one: how do you forget HE HAS A SHIELD, Betsy!?!?

But she proves useful figuring out where Lavender is hiding the furs she stole (so I guess she’s not limited to perfume).
Because “women talk” I guess.

She then takes care of Lavender in a rather well-coreographed fight.

When Captain America gives her a compliment, she mistakes this for a romantic gesture.

I wonder why she gets these ideas.

Shockingly, Bucky is not back at the end of the story: Golden Girl effectively replaces him as Captain America’s sidekick.

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Historical significance: 1/10
Possibly as a combination of the retcons and Stan Lee’s aversion towards sidekicks in the Silver Age, Captain America’s second sidekick seems to have been mostly forgotten.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
The only weird thing is that the criminals don’t even try to shoot the heroes AT ALL after the first encounter, but that’s more of a Golden Age thing.

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
Shockingly less sexist than I was expecting. Yes the kiss at the end does seem to be out of nowhere (I’d have to read more of the preceding issues), but Cap really does treat Golden Girl as a legitimate hero. Even his criticism isn’t out of nowhere, and she does eventually prove herself.

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How close is this to the modern character? What modern character?
Golden Girl continues to be Captain America’s sidekick throughout the series, until issue #75 in 1949. It’s an unusual dynamic, because despite teasing her as a potential love interest she’s not Cap’s girlfriend… meaning this is an EXTREMELY rare case of a male hero having a female sidekick who is NOT his romantic partner.

This run can be quite boring… except issue 70, where Captain America FIGHTS OFF AN ALIEN INVASION.

This nearly destroys New York City. No biggie.

I can’t believe Marvel is not in a rush to reference this story.

Bucky never returns to active duty in that run (!!!). For that we have to wait #76 for the “Commie Smasher” Captain America, which also has a Betsy Ross… who is now a redhead journalist.

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Betsy would be basically forgotten until 2010, where Karl Kesel reintroduces her in the EXCELLENT “Captain America: Patriot” miniseries.
As the title implies, the protagonist is Patriot (who is really newspaperman Jeff Mace).

That’s because Patriot is ALSO another Captain America impostor. Specifically, he’s been retconned into being Captain America between 1945 and the “Commie Smasher” incarnation.
See, I told you this is complicated!

Lavender ends up shooting Bucky in this one too…

…and Golden Girl shows up to help.

This version has an additional gimmick: her bulletproof cape.
Taken from “Spirit of 76”, who was… and I’m not kidding here… YET ANOTHER CAPTAIN AMERICA IMPOSTOR.

The story takes advantage of being a period piece whenever it can.

At the end of the miniseries, Betsy ends up marrying Patriot after both have retired from superheroing… and she’s revealed to be the aunt of none other than Thunderbolt Ross!

I’m pretty sure it was mentioned by some handbook, but this makes it canon that Golden Girl was the aunt of General Ross… and the whole reason the Hulk’s wife is called Betty Ross.
Thunderbolt named her after Captain America’s sidekick.

She was last seen in 2015 in the Secret Wars tie-in “Ant-Man: Last Days”, where we see a superhero retirement home.

The heroes are temporarily de-aged in the story. By this point, Patriot had long been dead (he died in 1983, on Captain America #285).

I highly doubt we’ll see much of her again… the various Captain America retcons are INCREDIBLY confusing, there’s already too many people from the Golden Age still running around.
And tying both Thunderbolt Ross and Betty Ross to a character who was around in 1948 creates all sorts of problems with the floating timeline.

But the next time Marvel does a period piece set in the late 40s or 50s, I hope they remember she’s supposed to be active in that time.