Probably a day late, but I had an odd question…how many mutant characters in Marvel’s canon are Vietnam veterans?
Granted, with Marvel’s usual rolling timescale, a lot of them probably are now no longer 'Nam vets, but I’m counting anyone who originally had it in their established backstory.
I’m primarily counting Earth-616 characters, but other universes or timelines will do, if noted. I’m also counting anyone who fought on the other side.
So far, I can think of: Forge and Thunderbird (I), from Earth-616; and most of the cast of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but that’s it.
In the original canon, Tony Stark received his shrapnel wounds in Vietnam.
Not sure if that counts, as he wasn’t a ‘vet’ per se, he wasn’t military, and had instead travelled to Vietnam to see his weapon designs ‘in the field’.
But James Rhodey (Warmachine) was definitely a Vietnam vet, he was a chopper pilot.
Obviously the movie’s updated things to Afghanistan. I seem to recall the comics did the same a while ago, and may even have done so quite some time prior to the movie coming out IIRC.
Madison Jeffries of Alpha Flight and his brother Lionel, both mutants, served in Vietnam and were among the 30,000 or so Canadians who enlisted in the U.S. military during that conflict.
It should be noted that since it’s now 2011, many characters who were formerly Vietnam vets…no longer are, since they’d be significantly older than they are, if they had been. (Oh, the joys of sliding time scales!)
The Jeffreys brothers, for instance, being in their 30s or 40s, would have been too young to enlist, as the’d have been pre-teens (or even infants) when the war ended.
Flash Thompson served in Vietnam, and married a girl from there. He’s currently a semi-heroic Venom.
The Punisher also served in Vietnam.
The Juggernaut got his powers in Korea, which is not the same, of course.
There was an entire comic about Vietnam, by Marvel, called The Nam. Well done, too.
Snake-Eyes, Stalker and Storm-Shadow served together in a Long Range Recon Patrol unit.
None of these characters are mutants, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
Karma of the New Mutants was a refugee from the fall of South Vietnam and her crimelord uncle was a corrupt ARVN General before he fled to America after the fall of Saigon. Of course, now she is too young (mid-20s) for that origin to work as it was written in 1980 or so.
Non-mutant members of the Avengers - Swordsman (#1) and Mantis. The Swordsman was a mercenary with a never-totally explained past. He was in Vietnam for some reason during the late 60s (apparently after a two-issue stint as a mole who joined the Mighty A’s in order to sabotage them), where he made the acquaintance of an empathic hooker with martial arts skills and a serious attitude, but one who was secretly the most perfect human being ever and fated to give birth to a godlike entity, who got bored of the Swordsman and attempted to seduce the “synthezoid” Vision away from the Scarlet Witch while she was studying witch-craft and communing with demons…and…and…
(Boy the writing staff at Marvel were on some seriously hard drugs in the early 70s!)
The most that can be said for these characters were that the Swordsman was the first Avenger ever to die in battle, and that at one point a readers’ poll named Mantis as “the most hated character in Marvel Comics.”
Did Cable ever turn up in vietnam? I’m pretty sure he was a merc for hire with the wildpack around that time, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he cropped up there.
They eventually revealed that the Swordsman first donned his costume in – let’s say “French Indochina” – back when the local commies were bent on revolution against the colonial power thereabouts (including a government official we’ll call “the Swordsman-to-be’s dad”).
Anyhow, the masked Frenchman with inside info about the occupiers thought he was helping to liberate the people, but realized too late that he was just the tool of another tyranny – specifically, the double-crossing rebel leader who’d planned to make said Swordsman as dead as said dad. Problem is, he’s the frickin’ Swordsman; he can beat Captain America in a straight fight, he can sure as hell wipe the floor with half-a-dozen soldiers before laying out Wong-Chu.
Yes, that Wong-Chu; the manhandled guy spent years remaking himself into an intimidating grappler, eventually priding himself on the ability to beat anyone in hand-to-hand combat; cue the Iron Man origin. And as for the fallen idealist who promptly fell into mercenary work and a life of crime that eventually gave way to a life on the run – well, heck, Southeast Asia is where our hero grew up, speaking the language and feeling at home; it’s little wonder he made his way to Vietnam when loneliness and further disenchantment sank in.
