On his way to Rio de Janeiro, his plane crashed and he was later found by the Red Skull. Consumed by grief and 'angry at the world' Sam became a respected community volunteer and social worker to try to better his community. Two years later, his mother is shot and killed by a mugger one block from their apartment.
The next night, however, Sam's father is killed trying to break up a neighborhood fight. To his surprise, rather than put up a fight, they provide him with books on different religions and comparative theology. When he is 16, Wilson refuses to go to church, believing his deeply religious parents' faith could be wrong. In his teens, however, he encounters racism for the first time which leaves him frustrated, jaded, and disappointed. He takes up training pigeons, and has the largest pigeon coop in Harlem. Sam's childhood started out a happy one during which he finds he has a natural affinity for birds. Sam was his parents' youngest child with older sister named Sarah and older brother named Gideon. Samuel Thomas Wilson was born in Harlem, New York City to Darlene and Paul Wilson, a prominent minister.
