Truth: Red, White, and Black is a 7-issue Marvel Comics miniseries written by Robert Morales with art by Kyle Baker.
Everyone knows the details of the origin of Steve Rogers, but less known is the story of Afro-American soldiers subjected to inhumane experiments by the US Army's Super-Soldier program.
In 2021, elements of the story were adapted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with this miniseries’s protagonist, Isaiah Bradley, playing an important supporting role, as portrayed by Carl Lumbly. This led to a new collected edition, with the Franchise-Driven Retitling of Captain America: Truth.
Truth provides examples of the following tropes:
- Body Horror: The soldiers who survive the super-soldier serum gain exaggerated, grotesque musculature, with Larsen having a large head.
- The Cameo: In the final chapter, Steve views a wall covered with pictures of Bradley with various public figures, mostly black, including Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Colin Powell, Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Bono, Denzel Washington and Spike Lee, among others.
- Creator Cameo: Among the wall of pictures of Bradley with public figures are pictures of Kyle Baker and Stan Lee.
- Contrived Coincidence: The FBI agent in charge of Merritt's case just happens to be the grandson of a German resistance member who has relevant information.
- Cool Old Lady: Faith Bradley.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Pretty much all of those who died in the super soldier experiments. One soldier is shown exploding in a gory mess. Of the hundreds of soldiers taking part in the experiment, less than ten survive.
- Evans tries to reign Canfield in after Merritt mocks him for his parents murder/suicide. This leads to Canfield cruelly crushing Evans head in with a rock.
- Cursed with Awesome: The survivors of the super soldier experiments are granted incredible strength, endurance, and a long life but some have to endure horrific Body Horror transformations. What's worse, Isaiah, the Sole Survivor of the program, had his mind ravaged due to a lack of treatment. As a result, while he has the body of a man a third of his age, his mind is that of a child and is incapable of communicating with others beyond simple responses.
- Death Faked for You: Evans, Bradley, and Canfield are declared dead by the army and their families are informed they were killed in various accidents.
- Disproportionate Retribution: For stealing a Captain America uniform and wearing it on a secret mission, Bradley gets a lengthy prison sentence that ends when he is pardoned seventeen years later.
- Made worse by the fact that Walker forced Bradley to go on the mission, as it was one Steve Rogers would have gone on himself if he wasn't delayed due to weather.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Canfield's father, but not before shooting his wife.
- Walker's fate by the end.
- Dwindling Party: Of all of the test subjects, most of them meet horrific ends, with only six successful test subjects in the end, one of whom dies as they are being deployed to Europe. Two more meet their end during a raid on medical supplies being moved by the Germans, leaving just Isaiah, Maurice and Luke. Then Maurice kills Luke in a fit of rage, with Maurice being gunned down by Merritt moments after, leaving just Isaiah as the only super soldier left.
- Establishing Character Moment: Each of the three protagonists get this in the first issue.
- Isaiah Bradley is introduced by spending a day at the World's Fair with his wife, Faith. Isaiah is shown to be a gentle and good natured individual, showing a friendly and jovial nature. However, when he is rebuffed from a girly show by the nervous busker who claims his presence would make the women uncomfortable, Isaiah is ready to take action, only to be calmed down by his wife. This shows Isaiah to be someone with a decent heart, a strong sense of right and wrong, but a willingness to think of the bigger picture and not engage in violence if need be.
- Maurice Canfield is shown coming back to his family's affluent home after getting in a fight with a group of stevedores whom he tried to organize to help their economic situation. This shows his strong sense for social justice and to not rest on his laurels, but also his propensity for violence and his quick temper.
- Luke Evans is introduced taking a break from the army in a pool hall, talking to a friend recently released from prison about how he was busted down in rank for striking a superior officer after the death of a fellow Black soldier was brushed off. This shows his world weary nature and overall cynicism regarding the system and how it treats African Americans.
- Evil Is Petty: Walker claims Bradley is dead, which Steve shortly learns to be false. Faith claims he likely did it just to be unhelpful.
- Faux Affably Evil: Hitler lays it on pretty thick.
- Hate Sink: Merritt. You know a guy is bad when he's the worst in a story where Hitler and Goebbles appear.
- Interrupted Suicide: Evans is right about to shoot himself when he hears news of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
- La Résistance: The German resistance rescues Bradley when he's being driven to a Fate Worse than Death.
- Kick the Dog: Merritt casually reveals the death of Canfield's father, and taunts him about it being a murder-suicide that also claimed his mother.
- Canfield's cruel murder of Evans shortly afterwards is also particularly brutal to watch.
- Leave No Witnesses: After taking away the men he needs, Walker and his men raze Camp Cathcart, starting with their white commanding officer.
- The Mole
- When Walker threatens to shoot Maj. Brackett, the later orders the guards to stop him, only for Walker to reveal the guards are actually military intelligence soldiers and therefore on his side.
- Merritt is one for the Nazis.
- Murder-Suicide: Canfield's parents.
- Narrator All Along: The end of the fourth chapter reveals everything is being told to Steve Rogers by Faith Bradley.
- No Dead Body Poops: Discussed Trope. Evans justifies the soldier's unsanitary surroundings by them needing to acclimate to foul smells in the field, including when an enemy may die.
- Older Than They Look: Walker in the present barely looks older than he was in WWII, a "dividend" of working for Koch.
- Isaiah Bradley is this as well.
- Oppressed Minority Veteran: Bradley's fate.
- Out of Focus: Out of all the three candidates, Isaiah Bradley is the one who gets the least amount of development, with most of the attention going to Maurice Canfield, Luke Evans and even Larsen having more of the spotlight for most of the early issues. Which makes him being the Sole Survivor of the program more of a surprise.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Every single character who isn't black or Captain America is a racist, some being worse than others.
- Retcon: Reinsteinaka 's morality and circumstances of his death are changed. While previously a decent enough man, here he's a textbook case of Morally Ambiguous Doctorate. And instead of being killed during or immediately after the experiment that made Steve Rogers into a super-soldier, he is killed when on stage presenting Captain America much, much later. However, "Reinstein" was later retconned to being Wilfred Nagel using the Reinstein alias, much like the original Reinstein whose real name was Abraham Erskine, thus preserving the original.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Canfield will snark this way, usually when discussing incidents of a racial nature.
- Sergeant Rock: Sgt. Evans, a WWI veteran who was a Captain until he got demoted for striking a superior. This makes his death at the hands of Canfield all the more shocking.
- Shout-Out: Canfield is nicknamed Little Lord Fauntleroy.
- Soapbox Sadie: Canfield, before he enlists.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Larsen claims to have killed before, including children, and is eager to kill some white people.
- Canfield, of all people, also turns out to be this, brutally killing Evans when he tried to stop Canfield from beating up Merritt.
- Sole Survivor: Isaiah is this for the super soldier experiment. Notably, there were six surviving test subjects, but the rest were killed off in one way or another, leaving him the last one left.
- Trading Bars for Stripes: Canfield was arrested for sedition, as he was protesting against the war, and could have went to prison for 20 years hard labor, but the judge gave him a choice.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Faith's grandson Litigious. "Don't ask" she preemptively tells Steve.
