jephyork wrote:

I believe its commonly held that most if not all GA Marvel are fictionalised versions of true events

No. That's not "commonly held". SOME are fictionalized re-tellings, and SOME are flat-out canon.

Roy Thomas had this to say in the letters page of Invaders #36:

"All 1940's and 1950's stories did happen, except where they conflict with stories which have appeared (or will appear) in the current Marvel continuity!"

-Jeph
Excuse me for saying so, but thats semantics as i'm pretty certain we're saying the same thing in a slightly different way.

I'm also saying ALL GA stories occured except when conflicting with modern retellings - i'm just saying that when any hero acts out of character with what we know them to be and acts in a 'cartoon' type of way - i.e shouting 'sappy Jappys' and sprouting cartoon propogandawhile facing off with jandiced Japanese soldiers with teeth like beavers, i'm assuming i'm reading the fictionalised account because in the real account the Sub Mariner would be grimly attacking human looking Japanese soldiers with normal skin tones and not acting like a clown on occasion.

However its all perspective so i'll cite another example that might be clearer. According to Marvel canon, the Patriot and the Whizzer wore the outfits you'll find them wearing in any version of Marvel Universe so any stories where Bob Frank was running around bare armed with a cape and a stereotypical 'yassuh, landsakes massah' saying Black youth, must logically be a fiction.

i.e an in-universe Timely comics editor hears how the Whizzer foiled such and such a fifth column sabotage ad says to his team 'Write it up, but hey lets give the Whizzer a cape ... and a black comic sidekick. Oh and why don't we have Raffles in a story as well!!'

Returning to Rockman - Unless and until his original origin is restored, we can now safely say that his 4 GA tales were comic book retellings/exaggerations. We can also assume that about the single Phantom Reporter story for after all, we now know that the actual MU Reporter has a violet/purple suited look, not a red and blue and unless we assume that Mr E aged quite a lot and lost his hair between 1940 and 1945, then the handsome young Mr E in his Timely story was a comic book reproduction.