Kistler's History of Captain America - Part 4
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 05:46PM This is part of my files on the History of Captain America and follows our hero from the events of September 11th up to the modern-day.
FIGHT THE TERROR
After the attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001, many people in the U.S. were hit very hard and characters such as Captain America seemed to gain a new relevance in people’s mind. Several posters and pictures came out showing Captain America as a symbol of the U.S. itself, hanging his head as he mourned the lives that were lost when the two towers came down.
In the famous “black issue” of Amazing Spider-Man, an issue dedicated to the tragic attack and aftermath, Spider-Man noticed how hard his friend Cap took the whole thing. As Spidey remarked, Cap had the experience of having lived through a war before and seen such attacks on innocents far too many times. To see it in the here and now, on American soil, was a terrible thing for him.
So when Cap’s series was relaunched, it used this as a 
springboard. The issue, written by John Ney Reiber, opened up with a chilling scene of Osama Bin Laden smiling as he launched the attack on America. It then picked up the next day as Steve Rogers went through the rubble of the World Trade Center, joining several volunteers as he searched for survivors.
Steve couldn’t get over the fact that he passed by the twin towers nearly every day during his morning jog and that he wasn’t there when he might’ve been needed most. Nick Fury showed up and seemed to imply that he knew where Bin Laden was and wanted Cap himself to take him down. But true to beliefs he’d espoused time and time again, Cap said his primary goal was to protect lives rather than be a warrior or a weapon. He told Fury to get lost, determined to stay and find survivors who might need a super-soldier to carry them out before it was too late.
The issue was good but sadly depended on you having previous knowledge of the comic series. When something is labeled “Issue #1”, it should really have a couple of captions explaining briefly who the main character is, what if any special abilities he has, and who the other major character with history who appears is. For instance, Nick Fury shows up but he is never referred to by name in the issue nor is his connection to Cap or position in the government explained. Thus, while Cap fans loved it, some new readers found themselves a little confused about some of the story elements.
The rest of the issue launched into a new storyline as we saw that, months later, a small town in America was attacked by terrorists. They dropped land mines on the place and then took the survivors hostage. Nick Fury grabbed Cap and set the super-soldier loose on the bad guys. As the story continued into issue #2, new readers finally got some more depth. Through flashbacks, Cap reminisced about his early days during World War II. John Ney Reiber also retconned his age a bit, saying that Cap had only been 19 when he'd gone into the European battlefields.
The conflict against these terrorists concluded in issue #3 as Cap proved to everyone that, while he may not follow orders blindly, that didn’t mean he didn’t think like a soldier. When faced with a nearly impossible situation, Steve decided the only way to protect the hostages was to kill the terrorist in charge as quickly as possible. He hated the decision but saw no other way.
(It was later revealed that the villain had been killed by someone else just before Cap’s fatal blow, but that didn’t change the fact that Cap had been willing to take him out).
As the terrorist's body hit the floor, Cap realized his actions had been caught on television and was suddenly afraid of retaliation against the U.S. in response to his actions. And that’s when a major change happened in Cap’s life. Determined that any future enemies would only target him for revenge, that they would see him as a single American rather than as a representative of the American people, Cap turned to the cameras and unmasked, revealing that his name was Steve Rogers.
It was a huge shift in the life of Captain America. Now he was someone that would be recognized on the streets and at a restaurant. But it also led to him being allowed to speak frankly about his thoughts and actions in a way he hadn’t been able to before. While riding a plane, Steve was approached by a young woman of German descent. Speaking about how her grandfather had talked about how Cap was like during World War II, the girl wondered if Cap or anyone else knew what they were still fighting for in the “war on terror.” Cap couldn’t speak for the government, but he knew that in his own battles his purpose was clear. As he saw it, he was fighting so that there wouldn’t ever be a World War III.
It was a great story and a great direction for Cap. Sadly, John Ney Reiber left after this and the subsequent writing was not as emotional or riveting. Chuck Austen attempted a story in which Cap was convinced that his memories of his and Bucky’s last battle was actually a lie. This turned out to be untrue, so the story seemed pretty pointless, other than to let us know that the new fictional Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk was a character not to trust.
After that were a few stories that just weren’t that great and one in particular that seemed to have very little idea of Captain America continuity. In that story, Cap reminisced about his original partner Bucky. But instead of calling him James Buchanan Barnes, which had been his name since 1940 and was known to every hardcore Cap fan, Steve said that his name was Michael “Bucky” Barnes. WHAT?! How did that happen? Where was the editor?
Because of lack of interest and the fact that they seemed unable to keep a writer, the series ended, just around the time the storyline “Avengers Disassembled” came out. More on that story later.
NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
Stories about World War II tended to portray America as patriotic do-gooders. But the fact was, there were some sad and bad things that happened back then. For instance, the still very present racism in the country. Black men who tried to enlist were sometimes turned away because they were only allowed in all-black units and there weren’t enough such units to accommodate all of them.
In 2003, writer Robert Morales decided to do a mini-series that would address this while also adding to the legend of Captain America. In TRUTH: Red, White and Black, Morales revealed to readers that before Steve Rogers ever met Dr. Erskine, the lab boys of Operation: Rebirth had used black men as beta test subjects, believing they were more expendable than enlisted white men.
This may sound shocking to some, but let us remember that from 1932 - 1972 the U.S. Public Health Service conducted experiments on 399 black men who suffered the later stages of syphilis. If you’re not aware of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the men involved were not told what they were suffering from nor how serious it was so that scientists could see just how much damage they suffered when untreated and how the disease spread. The 399 involved were chosen due to being illiterate and without many advantages in life, thus making them anxious for what they believed to be free medical care. It continued until the truth was leaked to the press forty years after it had begun, leading to the establishment of the National Human Investigation Board.
With this in mind, Morales gave a tale that showed the darker side of Operation: Rebirth as early super-soldier test subjects did not turn out as well as hoped for. The one test subject who seemed to react the best was a man named Isaiah Bradley.
After the other two remaining members of the super-soldier test group died, Bradley stole the costume that the U.S. intended to give to their later-to-be-selected public super-soldier rallying symbol. Donning the outfit, Bradley went on a self-directed mission to take out the Nazi’s own super-soldier program. He succeeded, but was captured by the Germans.
The U.S. did not go after Isaiah, not sure where he was nor wishing to risk themselves for an insubordinate proto-type super-soldier. With the data they’d collected from Isaiah and the other test subjects, Operation: Rebirth focused its efforts on perfecting the serum, giving it to Steve Rogers soon afterward. When Isaiah was found a couple of years later, he was not welcomed or rewarded for his place in history but instead was court-martialed and imprisoned for going AWOL. In 1960, he was pardoned.
So if Isaiah was a super-soldier, why hadn't we ever seen or heard about him before? Why had he never donned the costume again and done something after being released from prison? Well, it turned out that after a while, the proto-type super-soldier serum in his veins had begun to take its toll. Although his aging was seriously retarded, his body and mind began breaking down, leaving him with effects similar to steroid side-effects and Alzheimer’s. It was in this condition that Steve Rogers finally met Isaiah and learned his story.
TRUTH: Red, White and Black is an interesting tale and involves a lot more I won’t go into here for the sake of you enjoying it. Robert Morales gave a very good story with lots of historical information for detail and Kyle Baker illustrated it in a way that made it stand out from most comics on the rack. What’s more, it involved a lot of commentary about racism of the time and the hardships related to it, such as “Negro Week” at the World’s Fair in 1940.
A later short-lived comic series The Crew later introduced a character called Josiah X who was connected to Isaiah. It was revealed that while he was in prison, the government attempted to use Isaiah’s blood to create new super-soldiers, resulting with the man called Josiah X after 39 attempts.
And TRUTH was not the only story to show us there was more to Operation: Rebirth than we'd ever realized.
THE WEAPON PLUS PROGRAM
Elsewhere in Marvel, beloved writer and possible madman (and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible) Grant Morrison took over writing chores on the series New X-Men. As has been mentioned before, Wolverine of the X-Men has a bit of a connection to Captain America. The two had fought alongside each other briefly during World War II and it was in attempting to recreate Cap’s shield that Dr. MacLain accidentally created adamantium, the indestructible metal that was later bonded to Wolverine’s skeleton during the experimentation program known as the "Weapon X Project."
For years readers had gotten only vague and sometimes contradictory information about the Weapon X. Apparently, it involved using mutants as sleeper agents, controlling them through memory manipulation. Morrison decided to delve deeper into the Weapon X program and turn the concept into a whole new direction. He revealed that the “X” in “Weapon X” was actually meant to signify the number “10", since it was the tenth generation of a program that had begun many decades before. All of these projects were part of the larger “Weapon Plus program.”
And where did it start? While checking through the Weapon Plus computers, Wolverine found out that the test subject designated Weapon I, the Weapon Plus Program’s most successful creation, was none other than Captain America.
Yep. Evidently, after Operation: Rebirth was a success, the U.S. government started getting concerned with all the new super-humans showing up. They might not have been able to create another super-soldier just like Cap, but that wasn’t going to stop them from trying. So they began the Weapon Plus program and re-classified Isaiah Bradley and Steve Rogers as “Weapon 0” and “Weapon I”, respectively. During the 1980s Daredevil storyline "Born Again", writer Frank Miller had introduced the psychotic character Nuke as an attempt to recreate Captain America. This meant that Nuke was also part of the Weapon Plus Program (specifically, Weapon VII).
To date, there has been no mention of any of this in Captain America’s own book. Considering how much time he and Wolverine would later spend together, you’d think Wolvie would have told him about all of this and about the people who had been experimented on just so the govt. could top what was accomplished in Operation: Rebirth. Hopefully there will be a story that addresses this soon.
SECRETARY DELL RUSK
After Kurt Busiek completed a long run of writing Avengers, new writer Geoff Johns stepped up to the plate and took the book in a new direction. When the leaders of the world vanished, the U.N. turned to the Avengers to keep the peace. After things were set right, the Avengers got U.N. authority and backing, allowing them more political freedom. However, U.S. Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk (introduced during Chuck Austen's Captain America story-arc) was very upset that the Avengers were no longer under the sole authority of the U.S. and viewed the team as a threat.
Johns’s second story arc "Red Zone" was one of my favorites. An air-borne virus killed hundreds of people visiting Mt. Rushmore in minutes. The Avengers came to see what was going on and were soon shocked to learn the origins of the virus and that it was connected to the Red Skull. This time around, the Skull had sought to recreate America as his own new country. Fortunately, the Avengers were there to kick a little ass.
Johns left the book then and in later years would become famous at DC Comics for resurrecting Hal Jordan, writing Infinite Crisis and doing some acclaimed work in Superman's books. Following his departure, there were some mediocre stories in Avengers by Chuck Austen.
One of these stories involved U.S.Agent getting back into action and forming a new team of Invaders, a group that would aggressively hunt down any super-villain threats to the U.S. before they struck. U.S.Agent's new costume was very similar to Cap's. He also got a new shield that was decorated with the names of 9-11 victims. The New Invaders series would fail to hit the mark, however, and soon died out.
Elsewhere in Marvel, Christopher Priest had started writing the new title Captain America and the Falcon. It was not good. But the title didn't do too well and some felt that Priest's stories were too similar to well-known classics.
Both of Cap’s titles were doing poorly now and Avengers sales were sliding. Marvel decided that things needed a shake-up. So they brought in Brian Michael Bendis, who’d gotten a lot of acclaim for his work on Daredevil and Ultimate Spider-Man, to do just that. To kick things off, Bendis wrote a story called ...
"AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED"
Many years back, the Avenger Wanda Maximoff AKA the Scarlet Witch (daughter of Magneto and twin sister to the mutant Quicksilver) had fallen in love with the android Avenger called the Vision. Wanda’s power was basically to manipulate magical energies around her in order to affect probabilities, causing “hexes.” Over the years, he'd suffered through many things. She'd learned that her biological father was the terrorist mutant Magneto. Her romantic life was a roller coaster ride, as she was often torn between the hero Wonder Man (who had literally died and come back to life more than once) and the android hero Vision, who at times seemed incredibly cold and inhuman. It was amazing she seemed as stable as she usually did.
For a time, Wanda and the Vision had children, produced through magic. But writer John Byrne didn't like this and wrote a story where Wanda found out that her kids were actually magically-created illusions, nothing more. This threatened her sanity and so the Avengers allowed her memory of the children to be repressed.
But in "Avengers Disassembled", that all changed. For months, Wanda had been showing that she was more powerful than ever before. Bendis revealed this was because she'd become more unstable and had been losing her inhibitions more and more. Why? Because her repressed memories had begun returning and the pain they brought was making her unstable.
Finally, the worst happened. Resentful that her friends had known about her repressed memories and 
kept the truth from her, she found herself wishing that they too would suffer horrible losses. Essentially, she wished for them to have the worst day possible and then her probability-altering powers made the wish come true.
Within a single day, Wanda caused Tony Stark to humiliate himself in front of the U.N., caused the death of Scott Lang (Ant-Man II), and made She-Hulk freak out and destroy the Vision’s body. Her power increased so much that she was also able to create false facsimiles of people to act on her desires. For instance, in the same day, she created her own version of the Kree armada to attack New York, an attack that apparently resulted in Hawkeye’s death. And when the heroes finally learned that she was responsible and attacked her, she created facsimiles of them and other heroes to act as her protectors.
In the end, the sorcerer Doctor Strange and the gathered heroes finally defeated Wanda, who was then taken away by Magneto and Charles Xavier so they could try to help her heal her sanity. But the damage had been done. Avengers Mansion was destroyed (again). With Tony Stark’s reputation ruined, his investors and stockholders were starting to pull out, placing his resources in jeopardy and making it impossible for him to continue funding the Avengers at that time. The U.N. revoked their authority from the Avengers due to the Scarlet Witch’s attack and Tony’s actions.
And it wasn't just their financial status and headquarters which had been destroyed. She-Hulk left the team in shame, horrified that she had destroyed the Vision. The Wasp (who had been seriously injured in the battle) decided to head out with her husband Hank Pym so that the two of them could spend some time taking a break from super-hero life. The Vision was gone, too damaged to be repaired anytime soon. Scott Lang was dead, as was apparently Hawkeye.
Thor was gone too. Days before Wanda's attack, Thor and all of Asgard had faced their doom, Ragnarok. It had ended when the thunder god caused his entire realm (himself included) to be sent into oblivion in order to defeat their true enemies.
With morale so down, it seemed that none of the Avengers wanted to continue as a team. Each wanted to take some time to themselves and reflect on just how much had happened in the span of a day.
SPECIAL NOTE: Since Marvel has a problem publishing some of their stories out of order, the rest of the profile will involve me speaking of how things happened chronologically within the story and not in the order they were published in.
THE PAST IS NEVER GONE
The Avengers might’ve been gone, but Cap couldn’t lie down. Angry at the situation (and perhaps at 
himself for not being able to help Wanda before things got so bad), he got back to the streets, fueled by a renewed fire. This was the starting point for the new Captain America series written by Ed Brubaker, who continues writing to this day. Brubaker showed just how much the loss of the Avengers had hurt Cap. While fighting terrorists in NY, Steve didn’t just take the bad guys down, he actually tossed a couple off of a moving subway train. Sharon Carter and Nick Fury were both worried about him, but Steve insisted he was fine.
Meanwhile, the Red Skull had finally reassembled the Cosmic Cube and was plotting Captain America’s final defeat. Suddenly, he was shot through the head by an assassin known only as “The Winter Soldier.” SHIELD autopsies confirmed that it was indeed the Red Skull. And so, in this single, debut issue, Brubaker had taken several things we would have taken for granted (the Red Skull is using the Cosmic Cube AGAIN and once again is plotting a psychological attack on Steve) and with one gunshot he altered our expectations of what came next.
Soon afterwards, the Winter Soldier also tracked down and killed Jack Monroe. By this time, remember, Jack had resumed his identity as Nomad. But things hadn’t gone too well. It seemed that Jack had been suffering dementia for some months now, due to the super-soldier serum in his veins once again becoming unstable. He thought he was beating up criminals, but actually he was attacking people at random. Moments before he was killed by the Winter Soldier, Jack looked up and wondered curiously why the assassin looked familiar.
As Cap hunted down Lukin and the Winter Soldier, he learned a horrible secret. The Winter Soldier was actually James “Bucky” Barnes. It turned out Bucky had gotten off of Zemo’s robot plane just before it had blown up, but his wounds were still fatal. Finding him dead and frozen, the Russians did their best to revive him through experimental means. It worked, but he’d been dead long enough that his brain had been damaged. He had almost no memory of who he’d been nor could he really speak and communicate.
After some time in training, the Russians turned him into their own assassin, equipping him with experimental cyborg limbs to replace the ones he lost in the bomb blast. As the “Winter Soldier”, Bucky did several covert kills for Russia, until they began to realize that some part of him was trying to remember who he was. After that, they made it a habit to keep him in suspended animation for years at a time, only releasing him when they needed him. So even though it's been decades since World War II, Bucky now looked to be only in his early to mid 20s.
In this story, Brubaker made it a point to bring new readers up to date on the basic history of Captain America, summarizing who he was, who his major friends and enemies were, and even taking time to talk about the alternate Captains such as Jeff Mace and Will Naslund. Brubaker also made a change to continuity concerning Bucky's origins.
In Nicieza’s revision of Cap’s early adventures, he’d made it that Bucky was a street wise kid who was not against fighting dirty and was able to do some amoral things Cap couldn’t. Mark Waid had agreed with this and in his final issue of Sentinel of Liberty, he’d shown that Bucky was much more prone to firearms and destructive methods than Cap. Brubaker took this a few steps further. Bucky was no longer a kid who had stumbled onto Cap’s secret and talked his way into being a partner. Now Brubaker took it a step further and revealed that Bucky didn't just stumble onto Cap's secret and become his partner, he'd actually been assigned as Steve's back-up by the military. Why? Well, on one hand, he was a rallying symbol just like Cap, the anti-thesis of a boy in the Hitler Youth. And on the other hand, Bucky was a very stealthy and deadly killer. He could sneak into a base and take out a few guards before telling Captain America it was now his turn to charge in with the Invaders and kick up a lot of noise.
Brubaker also reminded readers that if Steve was only 19 when he began as Captain America (as had been established by John Ney Reiber) then Bucky was only a few years younger than him. Thus, their relationship was more of an older and younger brother rather than a father/son sidekick relationship seen with many DC Comics heroes (Batman and Robin, Green Arrow and Speedy, etc.). All of this helped cement Bucky as a formidable and serious character, even if his nickname was still a bit silly.
Lukin wanted to use the Cosmic Cube and Cap battled him for it. In the end, Cap got a hold of the cube long enough to use it to restore all of Bucky’s memories. Bucky took off after that, trying to cope with his old and new life. Although Steve hoped they could re-unite as friends, Bucky was ashamed and kept his distance from his old friends. Eventually, he did seek out the Sub-Mariner in order to ask what had become of his old friend Thomas "Toro" Raymond.
Lukin, meanwhile, found out he’d gotten more than he bargained for. The Red Skull was dead ... yet now Lukin heard his voice in his mind and saw the villain in the mirror. The Skull’s longtime association with the cosmic cube had allowed him to transfer his spirit into Lukin. As time went on, the Skull would occasionally take full possession of Lukin's body and so the two souls became uneasy partners.
Soon after the incident with Bucky, Cap read in the newspapers about a teenage team of “Young Avengers” forming. Initially, he and Iron Man did their best to shut the team down, but the teenagers proved that they would not sit by when they had abilities that could help people. One of the Young Avengers was a young man named Elijah Bradley, grandson of Isaiah Bradley. Calling himself the new “Patriot”, and dressing in a costume that emulated Bucky's original outfit, Elijah displayed enhanced physical skills which he claimed were the result of a blood transfusion he’d received from his grandfather.
Later on, Cap learned that Elijah was actually using the drug MGH (mutant growth hormone) to simulate powers for brief periods of time. Eventually though, Elijah stopped using drugs and a later transfusion from his grandfather actually did occur, making him a young super-soldier of sorts.
When the Young Avengers proved themselves to be able heroes, Steve actually gave Elijah a replica of his original triangular shield. Patriot wasn't a sidekick, but Cap would still look out for the young man.
SECRET WAR, NEW TEAM
Over in the Fantastic Four title, the villain Doctor Doom was exiled into a limbo-like dimension. The U.S. backed up the new Prime Minister of Latveria who took on the reins of the country's government in the absence of their monarch. But then in the mini-series Secret War by Brian Michael Bendis (not to be confused with the crossover Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars), Nick Fury found out the new PM was arming several super-villains in the states.
The President refused to act on the information, fearful of the embarrassment it would cause his administration. Fury decided to act on his own, recruiting several heroes to act as a special ops team for him. The team included: Captain America, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Wolverine, the Black Widow and Daredevil. The heroes even got special stealth suits for the mission, though sadly we only got to see them wear these suits in one scene of the whole story.
The team thought they were going into Latveria to expose the corrupt government, but Fury had actually used them to get him close enough to the Prime Minister to kill her. After that, he had the heroes’ memories of the mission scrubbed out. It was a year later (after the events of "Avengers Disassembled") that they learned the truth. Knowing he was now seen as an enemy to the U.S. for his actions, Fury went into hiding, leaving S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Avengers returned in the new title New Avengers, done by Brian Michael Bendis. Six months after the 
Scarlet Witch’s attack, and three months after Tony Stark had said he couldn’t fund another new team, the villain Electro was hired to bust open the Raft, a super-villain island prison outside of Manhattan. Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Drew (the original Spider-Woman) and the mysterious hero called the Sentry were already there when the attack happened. They were joined by Captain America, Iron Man and Spider-Man, each of whom responded to the emergency.
After the battle, Steve spoke to Tony about how impressed he was at how well the different heroes, many of them loners, had been able to work together. Reminded of the original Avengers, Cap was determined to recapture the old magic. But this time, he would not be bound by U.N. charters or U.S. authority. Their team would serve the people, plain and simple. Nor would they have weekly stipends provided by Tony Stark, this would be a volunteer service.
The other heroes agreed to it, with the exception of Daredevil who decided he had enough going on in his life. Interestingly, Wolverine agreed to join the New Avengers despite the fact that he was also starring in his own two titles, the X-Men books, and later would become the leader of X-Force as well. Perhaps Wolvie keeps a couple of clones we don't know about.
New Avengers was met with divided opinions. Some loved seeing these heroes under Cap's leadership, believing that this was a good collection of popular characters. Others felt that the book focused so much on action, plot twists and mysteries that there wasn't enough characterization. There were also many who criticized remarks by Bendis that the book was now much like DC's Justice League, believing the team was losing its own identity by trying to outdo a competitor. Some enjoyed that each story led into the other and involved multi-issue arcs, while others complained that the pacing of the series was too slow.
Meanwhile, in his own book, Cap had to face a couple of old foes. Crossbones and the Red Skull's daughter Synthia Schmidt joined with Lukin, whom they realized was now sharing a body with the Red Skull.
It was an exciting time for Captain America fans. And then came the story that would once again have Iron Man and Cap cross swords.
CIVIL WAR
The world had grown more and more afraid of super-human battles over the years. Geoff Johns had shown a germ weapon unleashed on Mt. Rushmore. Before him, writer Kurt Busiek had featured the time villain Kang conquering the world for a short time, before the Avengers beat him. Over in the X-Men books, Grant Morrison had the villain Xorn destroy much of New York, killing hundreds of people. And then, of course, there was the Scarlet Witch going nuts because of a lack of self-control and having had no formal training with magic.
The final straw was an incident in Stamford, CT as shown in Civil War #1. During a battle between a collection of villains and the young New Warriors, an explosion happened which took out a couple of city blocks, including a school full of kids. After the Stanford incident, the government decided to push forth the Super Human Registration Act.
With this new law, it would be required of any and all super-humans, no matter what age or what the source of their power was, to register their real name, powers and abilities with the Commission on Superhuman Activities and then enlist with the government. They would receive training and become official authority figures in the U.S.
Sounds kind of cool, except for a few things. First, there's the risk of your secret identity now being in a computer file, even if it is classified as "eyes-only." Secondly, under the Registration Act, even if you happened to have powers but had no desire to to don a colorful costume and fight for good or evil, it didn’t matter. You were considered too much of a risk to be allowed to walk around unchecked. You had to register, with the understanding that you were obligated to fulfill any government mission handed to you, or serve jail time. If you did not wish to work with the government, then you would be given some form of restraint or injected with nannites which would shut down your powers, leaving you an ordinary human being.
Tony Stark was an advocate of the Super Human Registration Act. He argued to his fellow heroes, and the world at large, that the SHRA would mean they would be deputized law enforcement officials rather than vigilante. Steve (having had bad experiences with the Commission before) argued that being told you had to work for the government or else go to jail was not a choice at all. Furthermore, he was afraid that becoming such an agent meant you would be restricted to only fight those your superiors deemed to be a appropriate targets and could lead to super-heroes being sent into wars overseas. Iron Man believed that whatever problems there were with the Act, it was still the law and they could not become criminals by opposing it through non-legal venues. But Steve felt that an unjust law had to be protested and fought.
Before the law passed, SHIELD Director Maria Hill asked Captain America who among the heroes, in his opinion, would stand against registration. Cap said a few names offhand and then realized that Hill wanted him to combat and capture those same heroes if they didn't comply. Steve refused to do so, saying that he would not attack people because they chose not to be drafted into government service.
Unwilling to allow Captain America to publicly refuse an order from the government and invite controversial debate about the new law, Hill called for her “cape-killer” units to capture Steve. But we know that no mere soldiers can hold our boy. Steve escaped and immediately met up with the Falcon. Together, they formed an underground group of heroes and vigilantes who refused to obey the Registration Act. On the other side of the law, Iron Man and several others made it their goal to hunt down Cap and his “Secret Avengers.” Iron Man in particular was determined to bring down Cap as quickly as possible, worrying that his charisma as a leader and a rallying symbol would weaken public approval for the Act.
Months before Civil War began, Helmut Zemo had returned from adventures in a parallel reality. These experiences, along with a new awareness he gained from now possessing cosmic-powered items 
known as "moonstones", left him with the belief that protecting the planet on a regular basis was a more rewarding challenge than constantly trying to rule it. Zemo and his new Thunderbolts team willingly submitted to the Registration Act and so the long-time enemy of Captain America and Iron Man were now actually working on the same side.
And yet, much to Cap's surprise, Zemo secretly approached him and his Secret Avengers, offering them aid. It turned out the offer was legitimate, which was shocking enough. But then, Zemo did something totally unexpected. Using the cosmic-powered moonstones he'd recently acquired, Zemo recreated Steve's personal items that he had destroyed years ago when his Masters of Evil had attacked Avengers Mansion. It was the former villain's way of apologizing for the past. Steve was touched by the act but also left confused. What kind of place had the world become when friends like Tony were trying to hunt him down and enemies such as Zemo offered aid and comfort?
After several battles and some casualties, Cap decided that the civil war was too great a danger to the civilians caught in its wake, people he wanted to protect. So he surrendered himself to stand trial for his actions, on the condition that anyone who had fought at his side would be given amnesty and allowed to register now, without punishment or obstacle, if they so wished.
As the dust settled, some of Steve's co-conspirators did indeed register. Others felt that their mind hadn't 
changed and continued to act as illegal vigilantes. And due to his actions in upholding the Registration Act, Tony Stark was made the new Director of SHIELD.
When it was announced that Cap would be brought to the New York Supreme Court to stand trial, the Red Skull and Lukin took advantage of the situation. They arranged it that Cap had minimal guard and no real cover. Crossbones was then sent as a sniper. As Steve walked up the steps, Crossbones set his laser-sight on the cop who was walking in front of the hand-cuffed hero. Unwilling to see the cop die, Cap jumped in front of the sniper's bullet, letting it drill him in the back. Then, during the confusion, Sharon Carter came up to Steve's side and, acting on a hypnotic command the Red Skull had implanted earlier, shot the hero repeatedly in the torso.
Crossbones got away and Cap was taken to a hospital. Among the crowd was Bucky, the Falcon and Nick Fury. Hours later, a news reporter declared the horrible news that Captain America was dead. The world mourned and Tony Stark stood over Steve's body, admitting that the Registration Act had not been worth the death of his friend and the other casualties both sides had suffered. Sharon had to deal with the traumatic after-effects of realizing she had been used to kill the man she loved.
A funeral was held for Captain America at Arlington Cemetery, where they put up a statue for the hero. After the funeral, Tony Stark called forth the founding members of the Avengers and they had a private funeral for their fallen friend, setting his body to rest in the same arctic waters where they'd found him years before.
Cap's death only re-ignited the heated debate about the Registration Act and caused many to wonder if perhaps Tony Stark had not somehow arranged for his murder. Many people began wearing t-shirts or displaying posters that simply said "Cap Was Right."
Tony Stark received a letter that Steve had written in the event of his death. The letter stated that the country needed Captain America and Steve felt there was only one man for the job: James Buchanan 
Barnes. Tony approached Bucky, who initially refused. But in his efforts to chase down the Red Skull and his cronies for their role in Cap's death, Bucky began to change his mind. He agreed he would become the new Captain America, but refused to register with the government or take orders from anyone. He would remain a free agent. Tony agreed, saying that officially they had to be at odds but that, off the record, he would give Bucky leeway.
With Steve's shield and a new modified costume, Bucky has become the new Captain America. After combating the Red Skull and the revived 1950s Captain America, Bucky joined Earth's heroes in fighting off the Skrulls during the crossover Secret Invasion.
Following this event, Bucky approached the New Avengers team (those heroes who still worked outside of registration laws) and offered them his home as their new HQ, because this was a team that
Steve had founded following the events of "Avengers Disassembled" and this was a team that believed, as Steve had, that registration was not the way for them.
Following the events of Civil War, Thor returned from a seeming state of death and was very distressed and disturbed by what had transpired in his absence. Mourning the loss of his friend, Thor used his power as king of Asgard to summon forth the spirit of Captain America. To his surprise, the spirit was still occupying the Earthly plane. When Thor asked Cap's spirit about this, wondering why his ghost hadn't departed for some afterlife realm, Cap responded that he wasn't sure, but that wherever he was, it was dark and cold.
What does the future hold for Bucky? Is Steve really dead? Is he actually alive in that casket, floating in the freezing waters of the arctic circle once more? Or was he spirited away by the machinations of Nick Fury, who was in the crowd and has faked his own death more than once? We'll just have to wait and see.
Until next time, cheers!
Reader Comments (4)
Was curious what you felt about the Brubaker run. Your lack of criticism would suggest that you like it. Or if you don't like it... it's always difficult to dislike a comic book run that is loved by many.
I'm not a Captain America fan, but I am an Ed Brubaker fan. And I've been loving the new Cap run. the grim and grittiness of the book is wonderful. And it basically takes all of the super-heroics out of the book, and makes it more of a political espionage/spy work, which makes it more unique.
And Unique is always good!
Rest assured, there will be more articles up by the end of this week. My life is calming down now so I'm back in the saddle.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Great stuff by the way and I Ioved the Wonder Woman history and criticism - spot on!
Thanks very much. If i had to recommend one single run, I would say Brubaker's run which began after Avengers Disassembled. He has been doing a great job of delivering hard-hitting stories that play to the strengths of Captain America that make him unique from other super-heroes (SHIELD, Nazis, Hydra, political intrigue) and he also has been doing a wonderful thing of displaying long, complex history of the character while also making it easy to understand for new folks.
Granted, Steve himself is only in half the run due to the events following Civil War, so if you want a run that only has Steve in it, I'd go find Waid's run, a lot of which has been collected in trade. Waid has a deep love of the character and some far-out ideas.