The first appearance of the Swordsman in Avengers 19 (Aug. 1965) echoed the first appearance of Wonder Man 10 issues earlier.
In both cases, colorful, heroic-looking figures drawn by Jack Kirby dominate the cover, but behind those covers we learn that both are in fact criminals who intend to join the Avengers in order to use and betray them.
The Avengers apparently learned by experience, though not much. This time, they didn’t fall for the con job — at first.
Hawkeye’s former circus mentor Jacques DuQuesne, the Swordsman, figures Avengers’ membership will provide cover for his activities as a criminal mercenary. When he breaks into Avengers’ Mansion, he is confronted by Quicksilver and felled by the probability-permutation powers of the Scarlet Witch.“He dared to try to join our ranks?” huffs the late-arriving Captain America. “He’s known in almost every nation in Europe as one of the most dangerous adventurers of all! He’s been exiled from a dozen countries!”
The Swordsman ultimately captures Cap, making him “walk the gangplank” atop a building under construction while the other Avengers watch helplessly from the street.
CBR’s Brian Cronin noted that the Swordsman “…offers to spare Captain America’s life if he is made the leader of the Avengers! You have not thought things out, dude! There is no way this works out for you! Cap then takes himself out of the equation by just jumping from the building.”
And on that literal cliffhanger, the issue ends.
In the next issue, we learn that plucky, true-blue Cap has simply trusted that his teammates will help save him, and they do.
Yet despite all this, the Mandarin can con the Avengers into accepting the Swordsman as a member by making them wrongly believe that Iron Man has vouched for him.
Both Wonder Man and the Swordsman turn on their allies at the last minute to protect the Avengers. Wonder Man apparently pays with his life, while the Swordsman pays by being expelled because the other Avengers have no idea what he’s done.
“So we’re now in this weird place where he saved the Avengers, but they don’t know it, but the Mandarin KNOWS that he betrayed him, so Swordsman is in a really bad spot no matter what, so he just heads off on his own,” Cronin observes.“However, the fascinating thing is that this clearly ended with him sort of being an actual hero and yet this wouldn’t be paid off for YEARS.”
“Too bad it had to end this way!” thinks the saddened Swordsman. “There’s something about being an Avenger — even a bogus one — that seems to get into your blood and never let go!”
Eventually, both Wonder Man and the Swordsman become true and trusted members of the Avengers.
But that, as they say, is another story…
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