LOU HAINES
Real Name: Lou Haines
Identity/Class: Normal human (early 1940s)
Occupation: Ex-soldier
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Two thugs (names unrevealed)
Enemies: Bucky (James Buchanan Barnes), Captain America (Steve Rogers); Colonel Stevens
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: "Traitor" (in story title)
Base of Operations:
USA;
First Appearance: Captain America Comics#3/3 (May, 1941)
Powers/Abilities: A normal human being, Haines was described as a "muscular giant" with "enormous fists". He was armed with a "wicked-looking" knife. His two accomplices were armed with standard revolver handguns.
History:
(Captain America Comics#3/3) - Lou Haines' past is unknown, but while serving in the US Army, he got into trouble for his aberrant behavior. He was reprimanded by Colonel Stevens for his bad conduct (which included lying, cheating, spying, and stealing), given a dishonorable discharge, and ordered to leave camp. Haines threatened to get even with Stevens, and was still angrily muttering insults when he was escorted out the gate by Pvt. Steve Rogers; Rogers advised Haines not to try anything.
But later that night, Haines returned to the camp with two accomplices and was determined to get his revenge on Colonel Stevens. As the three malefactors sneaked up to the Colonel's tent, they were confronted by Captain America and Bucky (who were in the tent next to Stevens and heard the trio prowling around). Haines told the goons to deal with the "fancy pants" heroes while he ran into Stevens' quarters. Acting quickly, Cap picked up Bucky by the arms and swung him right into the thugs, knocking their guns out of reach before they could fire. After offering a few words of encouragement to his stalwart sidekick and leaving him to take care of the disarmed duo, Captain America dashed into the tent and saw Lou Haines standing over Stevens' cot, about to plunge his knife into the sleeping Colonel's heart. Captain America threw his shield and smacked the weapon from Haines' hand, then followed with a punch to the traitor's head; but Haines shook off the blow, grabbed Cap by the throat, and began to choke him. Cap felt himself passing out, but he managed to summon up his remaining strength and brought his fist up under Haines' jaw, knocking the treacherous ex-soldier unconscious with a final punch. Then Cap went outside to check on Bucky's progress, and saw the gallant lad standing over the two crooks, who were tied up back-to-back. When Colonel Stevens woke up in the morning, he found Lou Haines and the two thugs tied up outside his tent, with a note pinned to them: "Regards from Captain America and Bucky".
Comments: Created by Stan Lee (writer) and Jack Kirby (art).
This was a text story with 2 images.
(Boy, that Colonel Stevens was sure a heavy sleeper--there was a five-man brawl taking place a stone's throw away from him, and it never disturbed his shut-eye.)
From his description in this prose story, Lou Haines would seem to be a big palooka, but in the accompanying illustration, he was about the same size as Captain America.
Haines' fate following this story
is unknown, but since he now had an attempted murder charge against
him, he probably wound up getting locked up in the hoosegow--too bad no
one remembered him, he might have been an interesting recruit for the
Deadly
Dozen (he was tough enough to go toe-to-toe with Captain
America
for a short time).
... It's unlikely that
any formal charges could've been racked up against him without Cap or
Bucky's testimony.
---Grendel Prime
Although Lou Haines may seem rather insignificant, he's noteworthy because he was the very first Timely/Marvel character ever created by Stan Lee. In fact, this story can kinda be considered the "First Appearance" of Stan Lee. Permit me to explain...
(NOTE: The following information is courtesy of the book "Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics" by Les Daniels)
In late 1940, Timely Comics hired 17-year-old Stanley Martin Lieber, who was a recent high school graduate and the cousin of publisher Martin Goodman's wife. Stanley started out basically doing "gofer" work--running errands, proofreading, erasing penciling from inked pages--but he had aspirations to someday be a writer, and like most of his contemporaries, he didn't expect to remain in the recently born comics business for long. Eventually, Stanley got his first writing assignment for the company, which was this two-page text story, "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge". But when it came to signing the story, Stanley Lieber decided to use the pen name "Stan Lee" (Stan: "I changed it because I felt someday I'd be writing The Great American Novel and I didn't want to use my real name on these silly little comics. In those days, the comic book business was the absolute bottom of the cultural totem pole, and I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to write books.") The pen name stuck, and eventually he adopted it as his legal name, to become the most famous writer and editor in the history of comics (Stan: "I'm sorry I did it, because Stan Lee is a dumb name. Well, I guess in the long run it hasn't hurt.") [I tend to agree with him].
And a BIG Thank You to
Avatarwarlord for the scans!
Profile by John Kaminski.
CLARIFICATIONS
:
Lou Haines has no known connections to:
images:
(without ads)
Captain America Comics#3/3, p1 (main image)
Other Appearances: None
Last updated: 01/29/10
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™
and © 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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