(Captain America I#328) - Sawbones, in a new costume, trained with the Red Zeppelin at a training center, doing his best to teach him how to properly sell a side headlock.
SAWBONES
Real Name: Unrevealed
Identity/Class: Human mutate
Occupation: Commentator; former professional wrestler
Group Membership: Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation
Affiliations: Agent Anti-Venom (Flash Thompson), Power Broker Inc., Red Zeppelin, Toxin (Bren Waters), Venom (Eddie Brock)
Enemies: Armadillo (Antonio Rodriguez), Zombiotes
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: Doc Sawbones, Junkyard Surgeon
Base of Operations: Grand Garden Arena in New York City, New York (see comments);
formerly the training center of the UCWF in Los Angeles, California;
formerly Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York;
First Appearance: Captain America I#316 (April, 1986)
Powers/Abilities: Sawbones received superhuman strength and durability of an unknown degree from the Power Broker treatment. (see comments)
History:
(Captain America I#316 (fb) - BTS) - Sawbones was a superhuman wrestler working for the UCWF as a heel.
(Captain America I#316) - The UCWF held their first event at Madison Square Garden and promoted a main event match between the Awesome Armadillo and Doc Sawbones. Steve Rogers saw an ad for the event in a newspaper and later attended it with Bernie Rosenthal, Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and Barbara Barton (Mockingbird).
Armadillo defeated Sawbones in the main event and was cheered by the audience.
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(Captain America I#328) - Sawbones, in a new costume, trained with the Red Zeppelin at a training center, doing his best to teach him how to properly sell a side headlock. |
SECRET WARS III HAPPENED
(Venom War#1 (fb) - BTS) - At some point Sawbones switched to commentating.
(Venom War#1) - Sawbones and Crusher Hogan were the commentators for the UCWF event Night of Fights 2024 at the Grand Garden Arena in New York City. They witnessed the arrival of Lumberjack, Caveman and Gator Grant for Symbiote Smith's open challenge for his Unlimited Golden Belt. The event went off-script when Eddie Brock and his time-split versions Bedlam, Tyro and Wilde teleported into the arena. Sawbones heard the evacuation siren and suggested to the live audience to flee because things just got real. Sawbones and Crusher kept commentating throughout the carnage caused by Eddie and his counterparts until Eddie took the microphone and demanded his son and symbiote be delivered to him.
The live broadcast continued and Sawbones and Crusher kept commentating through the attempt by mercenaries Solo and Paladin to stop the symbiotes while Eddie Brock defeated Symbiote Smith. The arena was evacuated, but Sawbones and Crusher kept commentating and after a commercial break returned with the surprising arrival of Eddie's son Dylan Brock and his allies Normie Osborn (Rascal), Bren Waters (Toxin), Sleeper and Flexo. Spider-Man with the Venom symbiote soon joined the action.
(Venom War#2) - Back from another break Night of Fights 2024 continued with Sawbones and Crusher Hogan on commentary and the factions of symbiotes facing each other. Spider-Man got into a fight with Brock, who wore Bedlam, and got punched to the commentator table.
(Venom War#3) - After another commercial break the event continued with Sawbones and Crusher still on commentary. They were shocked that Eddie Brock had just been gunned down by his own son. Bedlam fought Spider-Man and because the symbiote was too powerful for him, Spider-Man asked Sawbones and Crusher if they could control the entrance music. Sawbones told him that they could because the whole system ran off an app and Spider-Man wanted something classic and loud. They started up "Pomp and Circumstance" (Ooooh yeah!!!) to weaken Bedlam long enough for the Venom symbiote to join with Eddie and Dylan at the same time.
(Venom War#4) - The arena was attacked by Zombiotes (corpses wrapped in mindless symbiotes) and Crusher and Sawbones were bitten and infected by them. Toxin tried his best to hold down Sawbones until Anti-Venom (Thompson) could save the former wrestler from the symbiote infection, but in the end it was Venom (Eddie) with the combined powers of Venom and Anti-Venom that eliminated the infection from Sawbones and all the other infected people in the building.
Comments: Created by Mark Gruenwald, Paul Neary and Vince Colletta.
According to Avengers, Thor & Captain America: Official Index to the Marvel Universe#8 Doc Sawbones in #316 is the same as Sawbones in #328.
Sawbones apparently went through a gimmick change between his first and second appearance. It looked like he was wearing a skeleton-like costume in #328.
--Markus Raymond
UCWF performers (according to Captain America I#316) had to have at least ten times the strength, endurance and resistance to injury of an Olympic athlete.
In Captain America I#375/2-378/2 (August-October, 1990) Sawbones was possibly among the costumed wrestlers captured by Dr. Karlus Malus to perform experiments on in an attempt to cure the Power Broker of his augmentation. All of the wrestlers were returned to normal afterwards.
I looked it up and there is a Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, but not in New York City. The arena in question should be Madison Square Garden and it was even known by that name in the past (see this profile). Was it renamed in the Marvel Universe at some point?
--Markus Raymond
Profile by Prime Eternal. Update by Markus Raymond.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Sawbones should not be confused with:
images:
Venom War#1, p2-3, pan3 (main)
Captain America I#316, p8, pan2 (on poster)
Captain America I#316, p10, pan1 (defeated by Armadillo)
Captain America I#328, p3, pan1 (training)
Venom War#4, p15, pan1 (infected by symbiote)
Appearances:
Captain America I#316 (April, 1986) - Mark Gruenwald (writer), Paul Neary (pencils), Dennis Janke (inks), Michael Carlin (editor)
Captain America I#328 (December, 1986) - Mark Gruenwald (writer), Paul Neary (pencils), Vince Colletta (inks), Don Daley (editor)
Venom War#1-4 (October, 2024 - January, 2025) - Al Ewing (writer), Iban Coello (artist), Jordan D. White (editor)
First Posted: 08/11/2004
Last updated: 06/05/2025
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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