CAPTAIN AMERICA (STEVE ROGERS)

Born in 1922, Steve Rogers was a young and idealistic artist orphaned at an early age. Appalled at reports of Nazy activity and believing the American entry intro World War II was inevitable, he attempted to enlist in the armed forces but was rejected for his physical frailty, only to be chosen as a volunteer for the government project known as Operation: Rebirth. Rogers received several experimental treatments that elevated him to the peak of human physical perfection, and after months of intensive training, he was selected to become a special government operative, a living symbol of liberty known as Captain America.

Rogers was soon given a unique weapon, a virtually indestructible shield. Joined in action by young Bucky Barnes, Captain America fought a wide variety of criminals and Axis operatives; his most dedicated opponent was the Nazi leader known as the Red Skull, whom he clashed with many times. When America entered the war following the Pearl Harbor attack, Cap and Bucky were among the founding members of the superteam known as the Invaders. Adventuring around the world alone, with Bucky, and alongside the other Invaders, Captain America achieved the greatest reputation of any wartime hero and was respected by ally and enemy alike.

Toward the end of World War II, Captain America and Bucky were sent to prevent Nazi operative Baron Zemo (Heinrich) from obtaining an experimental plane; when Zemo launched the plane, the two heroes attempted to stop it but were thrown off when it exploded. Bucky was apparently slain, but the super-soldier formula that had transformed him years earlier saved Cap's life, throwing him into suspended animation insteed. In the years following his dissapearance, at least three men took on the role of Captain America, with varying degrees of success.

Captain America remained frozen in ice for decades until, hurled into the sea by Namor the Sub-Mariner, he was discovered by the Avengers and revived. He quickly proved himself a worthy addition to the newly formed team and was chosen as the first new member of the Avengers; when Baron Zemo learned of his enemy's survival, he formed the Masters of Evil to fight the Avengers, and the menace of the Masters has recurred many times since.

Some months later, when the founding Avengers chose to leave the team, Captain America became the leader of a new incarnation of the group, a post he would hold many times over the next several years. As members came and went, he proved to be one of the few constants of the team, rarely leaving active membership and leading the team against such menaces as Kang, the Mole Man, Doctor Doom, and others. He also found himself again fighting against the Red Skull, who had also survived the decades through suspended animation and had awoken the threaten the world anew.

In addition to his Avengers activities, Captain America also worked closely with the espionage agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. and it was there that he met Agent Sharon Carter, who would become the great love of his life; he was also joined in his crimefighting activities by the acrobatic Falcon, who himself would later join the Avengers. Some years after his revival, a clash with the subversive Secret Empire cost Cap his faith in the American government, and he took on the new identity of Nomad; however, when a young man named Roscoe was slain attempting to fill his original role, Cap reclaimed his mantle and rededicated himself to his fight against evil.

Several months after the apparent death of Sharon Carter, Captain America began dating glassblower Bernadette Rosenthal; with her assistance, he set up the Captain America Hotline in order to learn about menaces throughout the U.S. although the couple broke up not long afterward. When the American government ordered Captain America to again become a full-time government operative, he refused, choosing to surrender his customed identity and continue to operate as a free agent. While another man assumed the role of Captain America, Cap himself took the new identity of the Captain, working with the Falcon and others in his continued crimefighting endeavors. Even in this new identity, he remained dedicated to the Avengers; when the team temporarily disbanded, he reorganized it with new members. After reclaiming his role as Captain America, he oversaw the rebuilding of the Avengers while again acting as chairman.


Captain America has long held a position of authority in the superhuman community, and, alongside Mister Fantastic and Professor X, he has led many heroes through such crises as the Secret Wars and the Infinity War. However, during the intergalactic Kree-Shi'ar War, he found his leadership and principles challenged by some of his fellow Avengers; leaving the team for a time, he returned during their clash with the Gatherers and helped keep the team together despite various pressures.

Months later, Cap was crippled by a deterioration of the Super-Soldier formula, but remained active via a specially designed exoskeleton. Eventually succumbing to physical deterioration, he was revived as part of one of the Red Skull's schemes and learned that Sharon Carter had survived, although their reconciliation would take months.

Shortly after his return, the Avengers met one of their greatest challenges in the trans-temporal events known as the Crossing. Although the team seemed on the verge of desintegration, Captain America again rallied his fellow Avengers and kept them together, only for many members, including Cap, to seemingly perish battling the psychic entity called Onslaught. Actually sent on a strange transdimensional experience of several months, the Avengers returned to face a worldwide challenge by Morgan le Fay, and Cap once more led the team to triumph over their adversary. Captain America continue to successfully led the Avengers against some of their greatest challenges, including the Exemplars, the Triune Understanding, and Kang's all-out assault on Earth.

Re-energized in his belief in America and what it stands for since terrorist attacked New York and Washington, D.C., Captain America revealed his true face to the world, realizing he was needed more than ever to stand up to those who would see his country in ruins. More international strife loomed when Thor and Iron Man battled over the strife Thor's support of his Earthly worshippers had caused, and Cap stepped between his two friends, his example calming the thunder god as little else could. Shortly afterward, Cap enjoyed a whirlwind romance with Rebecca Quan and investigated her life of near-forgotten Super-Soldier Isaiah Bradley, whom he befriended.

When the Avengers helped contain the toxic Red Zone disaster that killed hundreds of Americans, Cap traced the Zone's creation to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk, actually the disguised Red Skull, having infiltrated the government once more. Although his imposture was exposed, another of the Skull's projects lived on in a new government-backed team of proactive Invaders, with U.S. Agent as field leader; disgusted by the needless violence of the group's international activities, Cap was all the more discouraged when Namor joined U.S. Agent's efforts. The Avengers' unpleasant interactions with more government operatives, the reckless and callous mutants of X-Statix, did Cap's optimism little good. Drawn into more government conspiracies while helping Falcon, Cap encountered his latest Super-Soldier imitator, the Anti-Cap, whom Cap tried but failed to save from further government manipulation. He also grew alienated from Sharon Carter over her involvement with the anti-mutant Project: Contingency. When Thor's home dimension was threatened by Ragnarock, Cap and Iron Man, all differences forgotten, accompanied him to battle Asgard's enemies, but Thor ultimately returned them to Earth rather than risk their lives, and he seemingly perished soon afterward. Back on Earth, when a supposedly reformed and no longer disfigured Zemo regained leadership of the Thunderbolts, Cap's distrust of Zemo helped spark a brutal Avengers-Thunderbolt clash during which Zemo was hideously scarred new while shielding Captain America.

Finally, the Avengers' darkest day arose when Scarlet Witch, insane after years of struggling with her powers, undermined various teammates via mental alteration, even drawing Cap into an apparent romantic interlude with her, then altered reality itself to send duplicates of the Avengers' many enemies against them, ending in the apparent deaths of Hawkeye, Vision and others. Days later, more alone than he had been in years, Cap was seemingly reunited with Diamondback, being used as the Red Skull's catspaw; however, to the surprise of both the Skull and Cap, she turned out to be an android duplicate. Cap faced another former flame when Ana Soria, now known as the Queen, resurfaced and threatened New York until Spider-Man defeated her.

Cap's string of discouragements reached its height when the apparent murders of both the Red Skull and Nomad were traced to the Winter Soldier, revealed as Bucky. Although Cap broke through Bucky's brainwashing via the Cosmic Cube, his one-time partner fled. Cap felt more optimistic after he and several other super-heroes helped contain a mass breakout of superhuman criminals at the Raft; he and Iron Man formalized this group as a new Avengers roster, but the goverment and SHIELD (now run by the ruthless Maria Hill) distrusted their team, and the wider super-hero community remained increasingly unstable. Although U.S. Agent's Invaders disbanded after a disaster orchestrated by the Red Skull, the Thunderbolts defeated the Avengers as part of a government conspiracy engineered by Zemo and others to humble Cap's new group. Cap also grew concerned about the activities of unsupervised teen heroes such as the Runaways and the Young Avengers, whose members included a new Patriot (Isaiah Bradley's heroic grandson Eli Bradley). When a still-insane Scarlet Witch created a new reality where humanity was ruled by the mutant House of M, Cap, rendered elderly in a new history where he never entered suspended animation, played no part in the subsequent restoration of reality. Scarlet Witch vanished after removing the powers of most of Earth's mutants.

Nick Fury next recruited Cap to infiltrate the island community of Providence, led by mutant would-be savior Cable. After weeks as an artist in Providence, Cap confronted Cable, who attempted to win Cap to his world-remaking perspective, revealing Cap's legend and shield would survive thousands of years into Cable's home era of Earth-4935. Wholly convinced by neither Fury nor Cable, Cap attempted to better prepare the super-hero community's future by providing Avengers training to the Young Avengers, and even encouraged their resident archer Kate Bishop to adopt the codename Hawkeye. Cap next intervened when Wolverine, his many repressed memories restored after the House of M's fall, began tracking past enemies, including Nuke and Winter Soldier, with whom Cap was briefly reunited in London during an attack by the Red Skull.

When the U.S. government passed a Super-human Registration Act (SHRA) requiring all super heroes to register for government service, Iron Man aggressively championed the new law. Cap's request for review of the legislation were ignored, and he went rogue rather than hunt down rebellious heroes. A civil war divided the super hero community as heroes sided either with Iron Man's government-sanctioned forces or Cap's underground resistance, the "Secret Avengers". Zemo's Thunderbolts worked for Iron Man, but Zemo secretly assisted Cap as well, finally convincing Cap that he had at least some potential to reform; Zemo even restored Cap's personal mementos, the same ones he had destroyed long ago. During the civil war's final battle, Cap's forces were on the verge of victory when he noticed that ordinary emergency workers such as firefighters, paramedics and nurses were siding with Iron Man's team. Horrified at the realization that the common people opposed his position, Cap opted to end the destructive conflict by surrendering to the authorities. Most of the anti-registration movement soon collapsed without his leadership. Following his arrest, a scheme orchestrated by the Red Skull, Arnin Zola, Doctor Faustus and others culminated with Cap's assassination by a brainwashed Sharon Carter, who apparently shot him dead at point-blank range.

To Be Continued...