Envious of his friend Bucky Barnes’ military enlistment, and undeterred by his own multiple rejections by the U.S. Army, physical weakling Steve Rogers made one more attempt to join the march of men to fight for their country in the dark days of World War II. Rogers’ valiant wish to fight bullies wherever they were grabbed the attention of scientist Dr. Abraham Erskine, and he handpicked the idealistic young man for the Army’s Super-Soldier program under his supervision.
Though Rogers learned of Erskine’s disastrous previous attempts to realize a super-soldier, Germany’s so-called “Red Skull,” he braved the process and emerged from it a new man. With a powerful body and heightened speed and reflexes, Rogers faced his first challenge when forced to chase down Dr. Erskine’s assassin immediately following the experiment. In doing so, he also learned of the involvement of Hydra, the Nazi science division, in the doctor’s murder.
The Army moved swiftly to create a colorful, star-spangled persona for Steve Rogers they called “Captain America,” and put him on a tour to sell war bonds. Chafing at what he felt was inaction, Rogers jumped at the chance to join the real fighting when he received news of the capture of his friend Barnes’ army division and rushed to rescue the soldiers. Upon the successful completion of the unplanned mission—and a brief meeting with the Red Skull himself—Rogers determined his path as a one-man fighting force.
As Captain America, Steve Rogers carries a nearly indestructible shield fashioned from the rare Wakandan metal known as vibranium. Designed and crafted by genius inventor Howard Stark during World War II, the shield is a perfectly balanced instrument capable of withstanding intense stress and damage, yet also able to be thrown as an offensive weapon that rebounds back to its owner. Rogers maintains the shield as an almost constant companion after it was recovered from the wreckage of the Red Skull’s airplane, as it has become a symbol of strength to all those who recognize Captain America as the country’s defender.
Rogers is also well-versed in the use of firearms, though he rarely carries or uses them in modern times. His famous Captain America suit and helmet have been updated more than once since the 1940s, and offers him some protection against the elements and enemies alike.
Steve Rogers’ first real enemy took the form of Johann Schmidt, a German scientist and wartime leader of the Nazi science division, Hydra. Schmidt became known as the Red Skull after a failed attempt to augment himself using Dr. Erskine’s super-soldier serum devolved his features into a crimson, skull-like countenance. His obsession with power led him to gain possession of the Tesseract, an otherworldly power source of unparalleled energy, and split off of Hydra from Hitler’s forces. The Red Skull met his match, though, in Captain America. The hero dogged the villain throughout the war until Schmidt’s apparent demise in his own aircraft high above the North Atlantic.
Arnim Zola, a scientist under the Red Skull’s command, managed to survive the war by supposedly allying himself with the allies and the newly created S.H.I.E.L.D.; but in reality, he kept the dream of Hydra alive all the while. When his own death approached, Zola transferred his consciousness into a S.H.I.E.L.D. computer to continue to be a thorn in Captain America’s side in the present.
Other modern-day menaces for Steve Rogers include Asgardian god of mischief Loki, mercenary and martial artist Georges Batroc, and weapons dealer Brock Rumlow, AKA Crossbones.
Captain America has also come face to face with the fearsome threat of Thanos, doing all he can to stop the Titan in his quest to end half the life in the universe.
Steve Rogers’ forthright attitude and positive disposition has attracted a select group of people into his inner circle of friends. His longest companion is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, who Rogers met in his Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in New York and formed a close friendship with. Despite Barnes’ enlistment in the Army and Rogers’ career as Captain America during the war, the two found each other and united to form a solid battlefront against the Axis. When Barnes seemingly fell to his death, Steve Rogers felt as if a brother had been taken from him.
Though his time with Peggy Carter was comparatively short to his friendship with Bucky Barnes, Rogers’ feelings toward the capable young woman had begun to blossom into romance before his crash into the Atlantic. The two reunited in the present day, but Carter’s advanced age and her weakening health prevented them from continuing what they’d begun during the war. Regardless, Rogers maintained his connection with the woman until her death from natural causes and looks forward to what the future may bring with his relationship to Sharon Carter, Peggy’s great-niece and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Agent 13.
Through their partnership in the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff have formed a friendship, something the infamous Black Widow does not offer lightly. Despite moments of Rogers’ distrust of Romanoff’s decisions and her prodding of him to fully embrace the modern world, an underlying understanding exists between the two heroes.
Captain America has also formed a bond with Sam Wilson, known as the Falcon, who has shown intense loyalty to Rogers. His relationship with Iron Man Tony Stark remains a difficult one to categorize, given the rift the two have had.
After truly joining the fight in World War II thanks to his rescue of captured troops, including his old friend Bucky Barnes, Captain America quickly earned the respect and admiration. And it was not only from the soldiers he fought alongside, but also from British secret agent Peggy Carter, an expert on Hydra, who had served as Erskine’s assistant on the Super-Soldier program. After a series of battles overseas, Rogers, Barnes, and the Howling Commandos strike force staged an assault on a train carrying Hydra personnel, during which Barnes seemingly fell to his death. Grieving over the loss, Rogers nevertheless continued his campaign against Hydra, while also growing closer to Peggy.
Captain America took the fight directly to the Red Skull when he led an invasion of the villain’s base in an all-out attempt to break Hydra’s hold on the war. Rogers successfully boarded the Skull’s aircraft as it took off to launch an attack on the United States. But, when his foe’s powerful Tesseract energy source spelled the Red Skull’s doom, the Super-Soldier found himself with no other alternative then to purposefully crash the plane to stop its pre-programmed drive toward America. While Peggy Carter listened through radio communications with the aircraft, Steve Rogers took it down into the icy North Atlantic waters and apparently to his death.
Instead, Captain America entered into a state of suspended animation after the crash, and was recovered in the present day by S.H.I.E.L.D., the successor to Peggy Carter’s Strategic Scientific Reserve. Awakened, he learned of his current status and began the long journey to acclimating to a brand-new, modern world.
Almost immediately upon Steve Roger’s revival in the present, he was offered a spot in Nick Fury’s Avengers Initiative and took his place among other heroes, including Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk. The group first came together to battle Thor’s brother Loki. However, their initial teamwork was marred by internal strife, chiefly between Rogers and Tony Stark AKA Iron Man, the son of Rogers’ old wartime companion, Howard. The team eventually finally truly came together in the wake of their colleague Phil Coulson’s death at the hands of Loki.
In the ensuing battle in New York between the Avengers and Loki and his alien forces, Captain America took charge as a natural leader, coming up with an on-the-spot plan to contain the fight as much as possible to help innocent civilians escape. Loki was defeated. While the Avengers parted ways for the time being, the group had developed mutual respect for one another, as well as the desire to maintain the team when they were needed to address larger threats.
After filming a series of Public Service Announcements on different subjects for high school students, Captain America continued to acclimate to modern times and forged friendships with fellow Avenger Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow and a USAF operative named Sam Wilson. Rogers was spending much of his time assisting S.H.I.E.L.D. in the field.
Both Romanoff and Wilson aided him when it was discovered that Hydra had long ago infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and Rogers was on the run after an attempt to silence him. Rogers found another ally in Sharon Carter, an undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he would later learn was Peggy Carter’s great niece. At this time, Rogers also discovered his old friend Bucky Barnes had not in fact died during World War II, but became a brainwashed sleeper agent and assassin for Hydra called the Winter Soldier. In the midst of stopping Hydra’s nefarious “Project Insight” program, Cap and Bucky battled, and Cap’s pleas to his old friend to remember who he was finally seemed to succeed, as Bucky saved Rogers from drowning, though he vanished in the aftermath.
Re-teaming with the Avengers to take out remaining Hydra cells brought Roger’s into contact with the enhanced siblings Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, as the Avengers retrieved the powerful staff Loki had used in his attempt to conquer Earth. After Tony Stark and Bruce Banner used the staff to help create a free-thinking robot called Ultron, only for Ultron to turn on humanity, Rogers took Stark to task over the situation, setting off a deep-seated disagreement between the two men. The Avengers, now joined by a regretful Wanda and Pietro, faced off with Ultron in the small nation of Sokovia, and although they defeated the robot, they failed to prevent the loss of Pietro or the devastation of the Sokovian people and their community.
Leading a new lineup of the Avengers, Captain America continued his work to fight criminals around the globe. But, when several innocents died during a confrontation with Cap’s enemy, Brock Rumlow, it set off a chain reaction that resulted in a United Nations-backed program called the Sokovia Accords, which would be used to register and control the actions of super humans and costumed champions. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark grappled with opposite opinions on the matter, with Rogers firmly against the concept of the Accords, which in turn led to the Avengers and various other heroes taking sides in the growing conflict. In the midst of this, Steve also had to deal with the death of the now-elderly Peggy Carter and was reunited with Sharon, who once again covertly helped him, while the two took tentative steps towards a romance.
During these events, Bucky also resurfaced after a lethal bomb was set off during a United Nation gathering over the Accords and the Winter Soldier was framed for the horrific act. The victims of that bombing included Wakanda's king, T’Chaka, leading his son, Prince T’Challa, the Black Panther, to seek revenge against Barnes. Inevitably, the tensions between Cap and his friends and their former teammates turned physical, with T’Challa among those fighting with Stark, as Rogers strove to protect Barnes and find the real culprit.
A truce was briefly called when Rogers and Stark both discovered the bombing was actually caused by Helmut Zemo, a Sokovian who lost his family during the Avengers battle against Ultron. However, the situation escalated again when Stark, as part of Zemo’s insidious plan to destroy the Avengers, learned that it was Barnes who had killed his parents years before and that Rogers had kept the information from him. In a bitter fight between Iron Man and Captain America, Rogers managed to eventually subdue Stark and walked away from the Avengers completely, leaving his shield behind. However, he sent Tony a message soon after, explaining his regrets over what had happened and letting Tony know he would be there for him should the need arise, leaving Stark a phone he could use to contact him if need be.
After breaking out the heroes who’d fought alongside him against Stark’s crew—and been imprisoned as a result—Steve Rogers accompanied Bucky Barnes to the technologically advanced nation of Wakanda to seek the aid of T’Challa, who also had learned of Barnes’ innocence in his father’s death. The Black Panther agreed to help his former foes, assuring Captain America it would be far from easy for any who may learn of Barnes’ presence in Wakanda and attempt to strike at him there.
For the next two years, Rogers remained on the run, staying in close contact with fellow fugitives Romanoff, Wilson, and Maximoff. Rogers eventually came out of hiding when Bruce Banner used the phone he’d left Stark to make contact, informing Rogers of the impending threat of Thanos, who was hunting for Vision’s mind stone. In Scotland, Rogers, Romanoff, and Wilson arrived in time to help fend off an attack against Maximoff and Vision by Thanos’ agents.
Briefly returning to Avengers headquarters in upstate New York, Rogers refused to accept Vision’s offer to have the mind stone destroyed knowing it would lead to Vision’s death. When it was suggested by Banner that there may be a way to remove the stone but keep Vision alive, Rogers once more sought help from T’Challa and the advanced science of Wakanda.
In Wakanda, Rogers and several fellow Avengers and allies, including Bucky, joined forces with T’Challa and his people to fight an army of Thanos’ followers, hoping to hold them off long enough for the stone to successfully be removed and destroyed. Despite their valiant effort, Thanos was able to gain possession of the mind stone, ripping it from Vision’s head and leaving him lifeless. Using his Infinity Gauntlet, now powered by all six infinity stones, Thanos snapped his fingers and extinguished half the life in the universe in one fell swoop. Rogers helplessly watched as many around him, including Bucky and other close friends, disintegrated before his eyes.