It’s rare for Marvel to give a person of color a solo book, so it’s really important to like Falcon. So important that Marvel gives a full page explantation of how the series came to be.
It’s even more rare for a writer to knock it out of the park on his first try. This is the first published work by Jim Owsley, later known and Christopher Priest, and then just Priest. It’s one of the author’s best works, too. And it is one of the top 10 Marvel Miniseries of the 1980s.
He’s not as good at dialog or characterization as he would be later, given his youth and inexperience, but what he accomplished was no small feat: He turned a B (or perhaps even C) list character and made him a leading man. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like this miniseries. And Mark Bright’s wonderful art didn’t hurt a bit.
It’s at its best when it focuses on street-level stuff, but of course it needs to be “big.” Starting with using The Sentinels as an enemy.
And there was enough big action fun: Sentinels hunted Sam Wilson down, establishing for the first time that he is a mutant.
Also: Electro, and an appearance by (of course) Captain America.
In issue #4, Ronald Reagan gets kidnapped. It made for some overly heavy social overtones, but still–good stuff.
It made for fun reading. But it stayed a 4-issue miniseries and didn’t lead to a full-series launch.
The covers sure rocked though, didn’t they?