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Why the Swordsman was an Avenger

"Who is more dangerous than a fallen idealist?"

The Swordsman is surely unique in comics in having his origin published and his secret identity revealed for the first time fifteen years after he permanently died. That origin, revealed in Avengers Spotlight #22 by the unknown (to me) Lou Mougin and the famous Don Heck, tells us much about the man who died to be an Avenger.

Jacques Duquesne grew in luxury and privilege as the son of a French government official in their Asian protectorate of Sin Cong. Much like Antony Stark half a world away he frittered away his time with parties and trivial pastimes. Even when his father revealed to him the family heritage of the World War One hero the Crimson Cavalier his only reaction was to speculate about borrowing the sword for a party sometime. Yet a chance involvement with a servant who was the butt of his father's brutality led young Duquesne to a forbidden meeting of the Communist rebellion, and at that meeting he found their doctrines and ideals filling a void in his life and became converted to their cause. Thus Duquesne created a costumed identity as his ancestor had, and wielded his ancestral blade for justice as the Swordsman.

Duquesne cites the Crimson Cavalier and Captain America as his inspirations in donning his costume. He is a man seeking a cause, a man needing to prove his worth to himself by proving it to others.

The Swordsman became an active participant in the civil uprising which swept Sin Cong into communist hands. Naively, Duquesne never noticed the cynical way he was regarded by his fellow revolutionaries - "a French dog [...] who was stupid enough to fight on our side". He believed revolutionary leader Wong-Chu's promise of amnesty for his father. And when he had handed victory to the communists whose cause he had embraced, he was betrayed and sentenced to death.

Incidentally, Wong-Chu is therefore the only villain to be responsible for the origins of two Avengers (the other being Iron Man).

His idealism shattered, having sacrificed all for a cause that had let him down, the Swordsman fled. He later emerged as a mercenary, a carnival act, and a costumed criminal.

But long before this rationale of the Swordsman's career we have a long set of indicators as to who he really was and why he might seek out Avengers membership. From his first appearance in Avengers #19 he is a man seeking to prove himself by measuring his skills against others; especially against Captain America, the idol whom he has failed to follow, and Hawkeye, his protégé who has outdone him. Yet at the same time he yearns to be what they are, to be the man he can see Captain America is (the sort of man who would throw himself off a high building rather than allow himself to be used as a hostage against his teammates in Avengers #19), to make good his early blunders in the way that Clint Barton was able to.

The Swordsman's first clumsy attempt to bully his way into a place with the Avengers failed. Given more power (in the form of a device-filled sword) by the Mandarin and sent to infiltrate the Avengers and then plant a bomb to destroy them (#20), the Swordsman again found himself wrestling with a curious set of contrasts: a resentment that others had what he did not, and an attraction for the sort of nobility and courage that the fallen idealist could hardly believe still existed. Oh, there was an attraction to Wanda of the all-too-human sort as well, but who wouldn't fall in love with Don Heck's Scarlet Witch? Hence the Swordsman regains some shred of his code of honour and prevents the bomb from detonating, but also loses any chance of being trusted by the Avengers.

Several times the Swordsman fought the Avengers or Captain America, and each time he failed, not only because he was up against the Avengers or Cap, but also because some part of him wanted them to win. They were the people he had dreamed of being. Somehow the groups the Swordsman found himself part of, the Mandarin's minions, the Black Widow's operatives, the Lethal Legion, were poor substitutes for the noble fellowship of heroes he had glimpsed once before he had failed himself and them.

By the time the Swordsman sought out Clint Barton in Avengers #65 he had definitely pieced together Hawkeye's secret identity (although Clint was now Goliath, to Swordsman's surprise and disgust). Gradually we learned of the history between the two of them, and of Duquesne's role in training young Hawkeye (and as we later learned, arranging with trick-Shot to have him trained). Early on as an Avenger, Hawkeye had to face up to his awe and fear of the Swordsman. Later, the Swordsman had to face up to the truth that his student had surpassed him.

Beaten again, his reputation in tatters, as lost and alone as any man can be, the Swordsman staggered back into the stewpots of Saigon and drowned his sorrows in cheap whiskey and cheaper women. He had failed at everything he had ever set out to do, and with Hawkeye's success he had learned that he could not blame circumstances, for had not Barton faced the same kind of trials Duquesne had and surmounted them? Yet even then some vestige of the man the Swordsman could have been remains, and he rescue and hooks up with a bar girl - read prostitute - indentured to the crimelord Monsieur Khrull. Mantis redeems the Swordsman even as he fights for her. Two soiled and broken souls find love and new self-respect in each other. The first person to believe in Duquesne since Clint Barton fled from his carny tent after seeing stolen cash is the Swordsman's lifeline.

Mantis was an extraordinary woman. She lead the Swordsman back to New York and managed to get him his dream - a probationary place with the Avengers (#114).

But the more he grasps his dream, the more it slips between his fingers. Duquesne wants to be like Captain America, but he's no Cap. He wants to triumph over his past like Hawkeye, but he's frankly no Clint either. Mantis is his lifeline, and now she seems to be transferring her affections to the powerful, intelligent, self-controlled android Vision. He's in a team with a god of thunder, a transistor-powered genius, an African king - and he's a guy with a trick sword. Mantis has joined the group because he wanted it, but she seems more at home there than he is (shades of Justice and Firestar).

Duquesne is wounded in battle (with the Valkyrie, #117) shortly after joining (again shades of Justice), and finds himself further and further removed from his fellow Avengers. Not only has he failed to overcome the suspicion of Captain America (who opposed his probationary membership), but Mantis' attempts to break up the Vision/Wanda romance are causing serious tensions in the group. And Mantis is the focus of the major cosmic events which the Avengers are about to face.

The Swordsman died in giant-Sized Avengers #2, November 1974 (it followed on from Avengers #129). Still weakened by his wounds, the only way he could save Mantis from a lethal blast spitefully fired at the last moment from the defeated Kang the Conqueror was to interpose his own body. All his life Duquesne had been looking for a cause to die for, and at last he had found it in the woman who he could not keep. Mantis repented of her actions as he died in her arms, so perhaps at the last the Swordsman caught a little of all that he had once dreamed of having and being. At last the Swordsman was an Avenger, and perhaps he would not have begrudged the price.