Truth: Red, White & Black

Truth: Red, White & Black
Issue #1 of Truth: Red, White & Black (Jan 2003). Pencils and inks by Kyle Baker.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Publication date	January - July 2003
Number of issues	7
Main character(s)	Captain America (Isaiah Bradley)
Creative team
Writer(s)	Robert Morales
Penciller(s)	Kyle Baker
Inker(s)	Kyle Baker
Letterer(s)	Wes Abbott
Colorist(s)	Kyle Baker
Editor(s)	Axel Alonso John Miesegaes

Truth: Red, White & Black is a seven-issue comic book limited series written by Robert Morales and drawn by Kyle Baker, published by Marvel Comics.

The idea for the series first sprung up in a meeting involving Joe Quesada, where Morales was asked to pitch a story. He notes that "I wrote a proposal that was so staggeringly depressing I was certain they'd turn it down. But they didn't."

Published from January 2003 to July 2003, the series Truth: Red, White & Black is composed of seven comics: "The Future", "The Basics", "The Passage", "The Cut", "The Math", "The Whitewash" and "The Blackvine".

The trade paperback collecting the series was published in February 2004 and the hardcover in 2009. The book version of Truth contains Morales's appendix in which he clarifies myth, history and imagination and provides sources for his story.

Set in the Marvel Universe, the series takes the Tuskegee Experiments as inspiration for a tale that re-examines the history of the super-serum that created Captain America. Beginning in 1942, the series follows a regiment of black soldiers who are forced to act as test subjects in a program attempting to re-create the lost formula earlier used to turn Steve Rogers into Captain America. The experiments lead to mutation and death, until only one remains: Isaiah Bradley.

In Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes, Adilifu Nama notes that "Truth admonished the reader to incorporate the experiences and histories of black folk that paint a different picture of the cost and quest for freedom and democracy in America."

Axel Alonso felt some of the criticism for this series came from "outright racists who just don't like the idea of a black man in the Cap uniform."