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20 years later, Marvel is still haunted by what is perhaps one of their biggest ‘oops’ moments in history, publishing a working phone sex line on the cover of aCaptain Americaissue. What’s even funnier is that they made zero attempt to fix it, and fans can still find the number circulating among reprints and digital versions of the comic.
DuringCaptain America’s Winter Soldier era, Marvel made the mistake of featuring a phone number on the cover of Ed Brubaker and John Paul Leon’sCaptain America#7 that unexpectedly connected to a sex hotline. The cover, illustrated by Steve Epting and colored by Frank D’Armata, showed a ‘Missing’ poster for a former Bucky, Jack Monroe.
The poster included a telephone number (866-555-1963) for people to call with any information about his whereabouts. However,the number, which was intended to be fake and serve only as an Easter Egg, turned out to be real and linked to a sex hotlineof all things.
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“I seem to recall that there was a hassle with that phone number on the flier on that cover. The 555 exchange had been set up as a non-functioning exchange for use in television and film production, so we figured that we were safe in using it here. Turned out afterwards that despite that, this specific number connected to one of those call-porn lines. Nobody on our end had ever thought to call and check, something we’re a bit better about policing these days.”
At the time, Marvel assumed the number would besafe to use because of the 555 prefix, which was widely recognized as fictional.However, what they didn’t realize was that beginning in the mid-1990s, some 555 numbers had started being assigned to real businesses and individuals. As a result, the mistake went unnoticed until after the issue was published.
This marked a major shift from the decades-long status quo. Since the 1960s,555 numbers had been used exclusively for fictional phone numbers in movies, TV shows, books, and comics. But due to a lack of fact-checking and failure to keep up with evolving telecom practices,Marvel accidentally linked Captain America to a sex hotline, cementing one of the strangest missteps in the character’s publishing history.
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What makes Marvel’s mishap of printing a sex hotline on the cover ofCaptain America#7 even funnier is thatthe publisher made little to no effort to correct the mistake.A quick Google search shows that reprints, collected editions, and digital versions of the comic still include the original phone number.
In Marvel’s defense, the number is no longer connected to the sex hotline or to any individual or business. At this point, there is really no reason to change it. That said,Captain Americalikely became a brief hero to the hotline workers, unintentionally driving business their way thanks to Marvel’s free, if accidental, advertising.
