Captain AmericaBack
Real Name: Steve Rogers
Occupation: crimefighter, (former) freelance artist
Legal Status: Citizen of the United States with no criminal record
Identity: Secret
Other Aliases: Nomad, the Captain
Place of Birth: New York City
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Joseph (father, deceased), Sara (mother, deceased)
Group Affiliation: Former member of the Invaders, former partner to Bucky, the Falcon, and Nomad, current member of the Avengers
Base of Operations: New York City
First Appearance: CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #1 (1941)
Height: 6 ft. 2 in.
Weight: 240 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond
Strength Level: Captain America represents the pinnacle of human physical perfection. While not superhuman, he is as strong as a human being can be. He can lift (press) a maximum of 800 pounds with supreme effort.
Known Superhuman Powers: Known
Brief History
Steve Rogers was born during the Depression and grew up a frail youth in a poor family. His father died when he was a child, his mother when he was in his late teens. Horrified by newsreel footage of the Nazis in Europe, Rogers was inspired to try to enlist in the Army. However, because of his frailty and sickness, he was rejected. Overhearing the boy's earnest plea to be accepted, General Chester Phillips of the U.S. Army offered Rogers the opportunity to take part in a special experiment called Operation: Rebirth. Rogers agreed and was taken to a secret laboratory in Washington, D.C. where he was introduced to Dr. Abrahan Erskine (code named: Prof. Reinstein), the creator to the Super-Soldier formula.
After weeks of tests, Rogers was at last administered the Super-Soldier serum. Given part of the compound intravenously and another part orally, Rogers was then bombarded by "vita-rays," a special combination of exotic (in 1941) wavelengths of radiation designed to accelerate and stabilize the serum's effect on his body. Steve Rogers emerged from the vita-ray chamber with a body as perfect as a body can be and still be human. A Nazi spy who observed the experiment murdered Dr. Erskine mere minutes after its conclusion. Erskine died without fully committing the Super-Soldier formula to paper, leaving Steve Rogers the Sole beneficiary of his genius.
Roger was then put through an intensive physical and tactical training program,teaching him gymnastics, hand-to-hand combat and military strategy. Three months later, he was given his first assignment, to stop the Nazi agent called the Red Skull. To help him become a symbolic counterpart to the Red Skull, Rogers was given the red, white, and blue costume of Captain America.
During the war, he served as both a symbol of freedom and America's most effective special operative. Then, during the final days of the war, he was trying to stop a bomb-loaded drone-plane launched by Nazi technician Baron Heinrich Zemo when the plane exploded, killing his partner Bucky; and throwing him unhurt into icy Arctic waters. The Super-Soldier formula prevented crystallization of Captain America's bodily fluid, allowing him to enter a state of suspended animation. Decades later, he was rescued by the newly-formed Avengers and became a cornerstone of the team. His might undiminished. Captain America remains a symbol of liberty and justice.
Abilities
Captain America has agility, strength, speed, endurance, and reaction time superior to any Olympic athlete who ever competed. The Super-Soldier formula that he has metabolized has enhanced all of his bodily functions to the peak of human efficiency. Notably, his body eliminates the excessive build-up of fatigue-producing poisons in his muscles, granting him phenomenal endurance.
Captain America has mastered the martial art of American-style boxing and judo, and has combined these disciplines with his own unique hand-to-hand style of combat. He engages in a daily regimen of rigorous exercise (including aerobics, weight lifting, gymnastics, and simulated combat) to keep himself in peek condition. Captain America is one of the finest human combatants Earth has ever known.
Limitations
Captain America is subject to all human vulnerabilities, although his immunity to diseases is extraordinary.
Weapons
Captain America's only weapon is his shield, a concave disk 2.5 feet in diameter, weighing 12 pounds. It is made of a unique Vibranium-Adimantium alloy that has never been duplicated. The Shield was cast by American metallurgist Dr. Myron MacLain, who was contracted by the U.S. government to create an impenetrable substance to use for tanks during World War II. During his experiments, MacLain combined Vibranium with an Adamantium-steel alloy he was working with and created the disc-shaped shield. MacLain was never able to duplicate the process due to his inability identify a still unknown factor that played a role in it. The shield was awarded to Captain America by the government several months after the beginning of his career.
The shield has great aerodynamic properties: it is able to slice through the air with minimal wind resistance and deflection of path. Its great overall resilience, combined with its natural concentric stiffness, enables it to rebound from objects with minimal loss of angular momentum. It is virtually indestructible: it is resistant to penetration, temperature extremes, and the entire electromagnetic spectrum of radiation. The only way it can be damaged in any way is by tampering with its molecular bonding.
Captain America has used many shields over the years, the most traditional of which is an indestructible discus-shaped shield made from a vibranium/steel alloy. This alloy was accidentally created and never duplicated, although efforts to reverse engineer it resulted in the creation of adamantium.
His costume is made of a fire-retardant material. He also wears a light weight "duralumin" chainmail beneath his costume for added protection. As a member of the Avengers, Rogers has his Avengers priority card, which also serves as a communications device, on his person at all times.
About the Legend
Publication history
Captain America was one of the most popular characters that Marvel Comics (then known as Timely) had during the Golden Age of Comic Books. He was, if not the first, certainly the most prominent and enduring of a wave of patriotically themed superheroes that American comic book companies introduced just prior to and during World War II. With his sidekick Bucky, Captain America faced Nazis and Japanese troops during his 1940s heyday, but after the end of the war, his main reason for existence (as a fictional war hero) was gone, and the character's popularity faded. Bucky disappeared from the comic in 1948 and was replaced by Captain America's girlfriend, Betty Ross, or Golden Girl. By the end of 1949, after the publication of Captain America's Weird Tales #74, Captain America had disappeared from comic book pages.
He was briefly revived, along with the original Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, by Marvel's 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, in Young Men #24 (December 1953) as an anti-Communist superhero. Captain America made several appearances over the next year in Young Men and Men's Adventures, as well as in three issues of his eponymous title, but sales were poor. After the publication of Captain America #78 (September 1954), the character disappeared again. In the 1970s, this version of Captain America would be retconned into a separate character—not Steve Rogers—who briefly took up the mantle.
In 1964, by which point Atlas had evolved into Marvel Comics, Captain America was revived with the explanation that he had fallen from an experimental drone plane into the North Atlantic in the final days of the war and spent the past decades frozen in a state of suspended animation. (Retellings sometimes place the event over the English Channel.) The hero found a new generation of readers as the leader of the all-star group the Avengers and in a new solo series.
Since then, Captain America has been a much more serious and less jingoistic hero. Writers have used the character to reflect the conflict between politics and ideology by placing him at odds with the United States government and angry and troubled about the state of the country. He considers himself dedicated to defending America’s ideals rather than its political leadership, a conviction summed up when Captain America confronted an army general who tried to manipulate him by appealing to his loyalty. Rogers responded, "I'm loyal to nothing, General.. except the Dream." (Daredevil #233, August 1986)
Marvel has repeatedly revised the Captain America continuity; the character's unbreakable ties to a specific time period make it particularly difficult for the series to avoid conspicuous anomalies and inconsistencies.
Character Biography
1940s - Operation: Rebirth
In current Marvel Universe history, Steven Rogers was a scrawny American fine arts student specializing in illustration in the early 1940s before America's entry into World War II. He was disturbed by the rise of the Third Reich enough to attempt to enlist only to be rejected due to his poor constitution. By chance, a US Army officer looking for test subjects for a top secret defense research project offered Rogers an alternate way to serve his country. This project, Operation: Rebirth, consisted of developing a means to create physically superior soldiers and Rogers was deemed ideal.
Rogers agreed to volunteer for the research and after a rigorous physical and combat training and selection process, was chosen as the first human test subject. He received injections and oral ingestions of a chemical formula that was termed the Super-Soldier Serum, which had been developed by the scientist Dr. Emil Erskine (who was code-named "Dr. Reinstein"). Rogers was then exposed to a controlled burst of "Vita-Rays" that activated and stabilized the chemicals in his system. Although the process was arduous physically, it successfully altered his physiology from its relatively frail form to the maximum of human efficiency, including greatly enhanced musculature and reflexes.
At this moment, a Nazi spy revealed himself and shot Erskine. Because the scientist had committed the crucial portions of the Super-Soldier formula to memory, it could not be duplicated. Rogers killed the spy in retaliation (retconned in the 1960s so that the spy accidentally killed himself by fleeing headlong into an "electrical omniverter") and vowed to oppose the enemies of America. The United States government, making the most of its one super-soldier, reimagined him as a superhero who served both as a counter-intelligence agent and a propaganda symbol to counter Nazi Germany's head of terrorist operations, the Red Skull. To that end, Rogers was given a costume modeled after the American flag, a bulletproof shield, a personal sidearm and the codename Captain America. He was also given a cover identity as a clumsy infantry private at Camp LeHigh in Virginia. Barely out of his teens himself, Rogers then made friends with the teenage camp mascot, James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes.
Barnes accidentally learned of Roger's dual identity and offered to keep the secret if he could become Captain America's sidekick. Rogers agreed, and trained Barnes appropriately. By this time Rogers had met President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who presented him with a new shield made from a chance mixture of iron, vibranium and an unknown catalyst. The alloy was indestructible, yet the shield was light enough to use as a discus-like weapon that could be angled to return to him. (In several stories, due to writer error, the shield was described as an adamantium-vibranium alloy.) It proved so effective that the sidearm was dropped. Throughout World War II, Captain America and Bucky fought the Nazi menace both on their own and as members of the superhero team the Invaders (beginning with 1970s comics), which after the war evolved into the All-Winners Squad (in 1940s comics).
Rogers was not the first to be given the Super Soldier formula. It was revealed years later that while Rogers was still being assessed, some military members of the project felt that a non-soldier was not the right candidate and secretly gave Erskine's incomplete formula to Clinton McIntyre. However, this made McIntyre violently insane, and he had to be subdued and placed in cold storage. The criminal organization AIM would later revive McIntyre as the homicidal Protocide. (Captain America Annual, 2000).
A beta version of the formula was given to Isaiah Bradley, who became the only survivor of a group of African-American soldiers that "Reinstein" and the military experimented on in 1942. After the last two members of his group were killed, Bradley stole the costume meant for Rogers and wore it on a suicide mission to destroy the Nazi super-soldier effort at a German concentration camp. Bradley was captured, but eventually rescued and court martialed. He was imprisoned for 17 years in Leavenworth until he was pardoned by President Eisenhower. By the time of his release, the long-term effects of the formula turned Bradley into a hulking, sterile giant with the mentality of a 7-year-old. Rogers would not find out about Bradley until decades later (Truth: Red, White and Black, 2003). The Patriot, a member of the Young Avengers, has been revealed to be the grandson of Isaiah Bradley.
According to files in the Weapons Plus Program, a clandestine government organization devoted to the creation of superhumans to combat and eventually exterminate mutants, Rogers was "Weapon I", the first generation living weapon. Following his disappearance, the following installments of the Weapon Plus Program moved on to new attempts to create the ultimate weapon, experimenting on animals, racial minorities, criminals and eventually mutants, with results such as Wolverine, Deadpool and Fantomex (New X-Men #145, October 2003).
In the closing days of World War II in 1945, Captain America and Bucky tried to stop the villainous Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launched the plane with an armed explosive device on it, with Rogers and Barnes in hot pursuit. They reached the plane just before it took off, but when Bucky tried to defuse the bomb, it exploded in mid-air. The young man was believed killed, and Rogers was hurled into the freezing waters of either the North Atlantic or the English Channel (accounts differ). Neither his body or Bucky's were found, and both were presumed dead.
Fearing a blow to morale if the news of Captain America's demise was revealed, President Truman asked William Naslund, the Golden Age patriotic costumed hero known as the Spirit of '76, to assume the role, with a young man named Fred Davis as Bucky. They continued to serve in the same roles after the war with the All-Winners Squad, until Naslund was fatally injured in a battle with the android Adam II in 1946 (What If? #4, August 1977). With Naslund's death, Jeff Mace, also known as the Golden Age Patriot, took over as Captain America, with Davis continuing to act as Bucky. However, Davis was shot and injured in 1948 and forced to retire. Mace then teamed up with Betsy "Golden Girl" Ross, and sometime before 1953 gave up his Captain America identity to marry her. Mace contracted cancer and died some decades later (Captain America #285, September 1983).
In 1953, an unnamed man who idolized Captain America and had done his American History Ph.D. thesis on Rogers discovered some Nazi files in a warehouse in Germany, one of which apparently contained the lost formula for the Super Soldier serum. He took it to the United States government on the condition that they use it to make him the fourth Captain America. Needing a symbol for the Korean War, they agreed, and the man underwent plastic surgery to look like Steve Rogers, even assuming that name. However, the war ended and the project never went forward. "Rogers" found a teaching job at the Lee School, where he met Jack Monroe, a young orphan who also idolized Captain America. They decided to use the formula on themselves and became the new Captain America and Bucky, this time fighting the so-called Communist scourge (Young Men #24–28, Dec. 1953–May 1954). These stories were written by Stan Lee with art by a young John Romita Sr.
"Rogers" and Monroe did not know of and therefore did not undergo the "Vita-Ray" process, however. The imperfect implementation of the formula in their systems made them paranoid, and by the middle of 1954 they were irrationally attacking anyone they perceived to be a Communist. In 1955 the FBI placed them in suspended animation. The 1950s Captain America and Bucky would be revived years later after the return of Steve Rogers, go on another rampage, and be defeated by the man they had modeled themselves after (Captain America #153, Sept. 1972).
In Avengers #4 (March 1964), the Avengers discovered Steve Rogers's body in the North Atlantic, his costume under his soldier's uniform and still carrying his shield. Rogers had been preserved in a block of ice since 1945, which melted after the block was thrown back into the ocean by the Sub-Mariner, enraged that an Arctic tribe was worshipping the frozen figure. When Rogers revived, he related his last, failed mission in the closing days of the war. Rogers accepted membership in the Avengers, and although he soon adjusted to modern times well enough to eventually assume leadership of the team, he was plagued by guilt for not being able to prevent Bucky's death. He also undertook missions for the national security agency S.H.I.E.L.D., which was commanded by his old war comrade Nick Fury.
Captain America was once again given his own series (now in its fifth incarnation), which has lasted decades longer than its original run. The book initially enjoyed the artwork of Jack Kirby as well as a short run by Jim Steranko, and many of the industry's top artists and writers have worked on the book. It was in a storyline during the book's initial series that Rogers met and trained an African American, Sam Wilson, who became the superhero known as the Falcon. The Falcon was one of the few black superheroes in comic books at that time, and it began a long association between the two characters that has continued to the present day.
The most notable stories often had a political tone to them. For example, during Steve Englehart's stint as writer, Rogers encountered his revived 1950s counterpart and dealt with the Marvel Universe's version of the Watergate scandal. This last story so severely disillusioned Rogers that he abandoned his Captain America identity in favour of one called Nomad only to reassume it to face the menace of the Red Skull, this time as a symbol of America's ideals rather than its government. During this time, several men tried to assume the Captain America identity, all without success. Jack Monroe, cured of his mental instability, would, years later, take up the Nomad alias. (Captain America #176–#183, 1974–1975). For a time before and during this period, Rogers also gained (temporarily as it turned out) super strength.
1980s
In the 1980s, in a story written by Mark Gruenwald, Rogers chose to resign his identity rather than submit to the orders of the United States government and took the alias of "The Captain" instead. This extended story arc was intended to illustrate the difference of Captain America's beliefs from his replacement who was intended to illustrate the jingoistic attitude that the popular movie character Rambo embodied and which Rogers did not share. During this period, the role of Captain America was assumed by John Walker, the former Super-Patriot. When Rogers returned to his Captain America identity, Walker became the USAgent (Captain America #332–#351, 1987–1989).
1990s
Some time after returning to the position of Captain America, Rogers narrowly avoided the explosion of a methamphetamine lab, but it triggered a chemical reaction between the drug and the Super-Soldier serum in his system. To combat this reaction, the serum was removed from his system, and now Rogers had to train constantly to maintain his physical condition. The storyline was partly prompted by reader concerns that Captain America was effectively the beneficiary of steroid treatments. A retcon was then introduced to establish that the serum was not a drug, because if it were, Rogers' body would have metabolized it out of his system some time ago. It was revealed that the "serum" was in fact a virus that had affected a biochemical and genetic change, explaining how the Red Skull (who now inhabited a body cloned from Rogers' cells) also had the formula in his body.
However, because of his altered biochemistry which took the form of the "serum" in his blood work, Rogers's body began to deteriorate due to overuse of the "serum". For a time, he had to wear a powered exoskeleton to keep moving and eventually had to be placed again in suspended animation. During this time, he was given a transfusion of blood from the Red Skull, which cured his condition and stabilized the Super-Soldier serum/virus in his system. Captain America returned both to crime fighting and the Avengers (Captain America #425– 454, 1994–1996).
2000s
Eventually, Rogers went public with his identity again, and established a residence in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He discovered that Bucky was brought back to life and used by Russians, as the Winter Soldier.
Powers and abilities
Officially, Rogers in the regular Marvel Universe has no superhuman powers, although a result of the Super-Soldier serum, he was transformed from a frail young man into a "nearly perfect" specimen of human development and conditioning. With the exception of his super-strength phase, Captain America is as strong, fast, agile, and durable as it is possible for a human being to be without being considered superhuman. The formula enhances all of his metabolic functions and also prevents the build-up of fatigue poisons in his muscles, giving him endurance far in excess of an ordinary human being.
However, this has not been consistently applied. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe gives his maximum lifting capacity at 800 lbs "with extreme effort" but he has also been seen lifting 1100 lbs in a workout while carrying on a conversation (Captain America (Vol. 1), #402), and doing other feats of strength that might be considered superhuman. Nevertheless, the Marvel Comics editorial position appears to be that Rogers is simply at the upper limits of human conditioning.
Mentally, his battle experience and training has also made him an expert tactician and an excellent field commander, with his teammates frequently deferring to his orders in battle. Rogers's reflexes and senses are also extraordinarily keen. He has mastered boxing, jiu jitsu and judo, combined with his virtually superhuman gymnastic ability into his own unique fighting style. Years of practice with using his indestructible shield has made it practically an extension of his own body, and he is able to aim and throw it with almost unerring accuracy and ricochet the shield to hit multiple targets; all told, he is one of the finest hand-to-hand combatants in the Marvel Universe.