*(a.k.a. "The Captain America of the 1950s," a.k.a. "The Other Steve Rogers"; this post largely transcribed from George Olshevsky's The Marvel Comics Index v1 #8A).
Captain America and Bucky returned to comics in the middle 1950s when stories of Marvel's original heroes began running in Young Men #24 (Dec 1953). Captain America's own title was revived for a short three issue run, Captaim America Comics #76-78 (May-Sep 1954, the numbering picking up from the last issue of Captain America's Weird Tales, #75 (Feb 1950), which carried no superhero stories at all). In the 1950s stories, Captain America was a teacher at Lee School and Bucky was his ward; the menaces he faced were inspired by the threat of Communism rather than the scourge of Naziism. With the passing of the short 1950s revival, Captain America became once again a character in Marvel's past.
- Young Men #24-28
- Men's Adventures #27-28
- Captain America #76-78
In the last few pages of Captain America #152 (Sep 1972), the Falcon encounters what looked at first to be imposters of Cap and Bucky, but what turned out to be ther Captain America and Bucky of the 1950s. The 1950s Captain America (his name, William Burnside, was not relvealed until years later), as a child was an ardent fan of the hero's World War II exploits. he was grief-stricken at the news that his hero had been killed (in the battle against Baron Zemo; Captain America was, of course, not killed but merely deep-frozen; most of the newspaper accounts of his deathwere suppressed in the interests of national security -- only the irresponsible Daily Bugle failed to comply with the request). After graduating from college, he was able to produce a super-soldier serum of his own by going through some written accounts of German espionage efforts to uncover its formula. (See The Marvels Project #4, Feb 2010).
In 1952, in response to the Korean War, he offered ghis services to the United States Govenrment to be a substitute Captan America. Plastic surgery changed his appearance to resemble the original Stave rogers. But the Korean War ended before he could enter his new role, and the governmnet refused to consider outfitting another Captain America. the ersatz Steve Rogers went to work at the Lee School and met a youngster who was a dead ringer for the original Bucky (Jack Monroe). He and the new bucky injected themselves with the super soldier serum in response to an alert of an attack by the Red Skull, and the Captain America of the 1950s was born.
the government never fully approved of this new Captain America and Bucky, and when the duo decided that "most people who weren't pure-blooded Americans were Commies," that was the last straw. They were declared insane, restrained and eventually placed into cryogenic storage, in a move paralleling closely the then-unknown fate of the real Captain America. Finally, just in time for Captain America #153-156, a disgruntled government worker revived the 1950s heroes and unleashed them on a world gone soft on Communism. Thus it turned out that the hero featured during the 1950s as "Captain America" was not at all the character everyone thought he was, and the paradox caused by portraying Captain America's revival after a twenty year freeze in Avengers #4 was circumvented.
I bought Captain America #153-156 as backissues circa 1976, and Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (which reprinted Young Men #24 in its entirety) shortly thereafter.
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I read the '50s Cap revival stories off the spinner rack in the '70s, but couldn't tell you if I had known beforehand of a '50s Cap. If there were reprints by then, I would have known. If not ... well there wasn't an Internet in 1972.