Captain America

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigation Jump to search

For other uses, see Captain America (disambiguation).
"Steve Rogers" redirects here. For other uses, see Steve Rogers (disambiguation).
"Steve Rogers (Marvel Comics)" redirects here. For the lm character, see Steve Rogers (Marvel
Cinematic Universe).
Steve Rogers
Captain America

Captain America #109 (January 1969).

Cover art by Jack Kirby and Syd Shores.
Publication information
Publisher Marvel Comics
Captain America Comics #1 (March
First appearance
1941)
• Joe Simon
Created by
• Jack Kirby
fi
 In-story information
Alter ego Steven Grant Rogers
• Avengers
• Avengers Unity Division
• All-Winners Squad
• Illuminati
• Invaders
• Landau, Luckman, and Lake
Team af liations • New Avengers
• Project: Rebirth
• Redeemers
• S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Secret Avengers
• Secret Defenders
• U.S. Army
• Bucky Barnes
Partnerships • Falcon
• Sharon Carter
Nomad
Notable aliases
The Captain
• Enhanced strength, speed,
stamina, durability, agility,
re exes, senses, and mental
processing via the super soldier
serum
• Master martial artist and hand-to-
Abilities
hand combatant
• Accelerated healing
• Slowed aging
• Master tactician, strategist, and
eld commander
• Using Vibranium-steel alloy shield

Captain America is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
Created by cartoonists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the character rst appeared in Captain America
Comics #1 (cover dated March 1941) from Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics.
Captain America was designed as a patriotic supersoldier who often fought the Axis powers of
World War II and was Timely Comics' most popular character during the wartime period. The
popularity of superheroes waned following the war, and the Captain America comic book was
discontinued in 1950, with a short-lived revival in 1953. Since Marvel Comics revived the character
in 1964, Captain America has remained in publication.

The character wears a costume bearing an American ag motif, and he utilizes a nearly-
indestructible shield that he throws as a projectile. Captain America is the alter ego of Steve
Rogers, a frail young artist enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental "super-
soldier serum" after joining the military to aid the United States government's efforts in World War
II. Near the end of the war, he was trapped in ice and survived in suspended animation until he was
revived in modern times. Although Captain America often struggles to maintain his ideals as a man
out of his time, he remains a highly respected gure both with the American public and in the
superhero community, which includes becoming the long-time leader of the Avengers.
fi
fl
fi
fi
fl
fi
 Captain America was the rst Marvel Comics character to appear in media outside comics with the
release of the 1944 movie serial, Captain America. Since then, the character has been featured in
other lms and television series. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the character is
portrayed by Chris Evans. Captain America was ranked sixth on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book
Heroes of All Time" in 2011,[1] second in their list of "The Top 50 Avengers" in 2012,[2] and second
in their "Top 25 best Marvel superheroes" list in 2014.[3]

Contents
• 1 Publication history
◦ 1.1 Creation
◦ 1.2 Golden Age
◦ 1.3 Silver and Bronze Age
◦ 1.4 Modern Age
• 2 Legal status
• 3 Fictional character biography
◦ 3.1 20th century
◦ 3.2 21st century
• 4 Powers and abilities
◦ 4.1 Tactician and eld commander
◦ 4.2 Super Soldier Serum
◦ 4.3 Artist
◦ 4.4 Weapons and equipment
• 5 Antagonists
• 6 Other versions
◦ 6.1 Steven Rogers (Revolutionary War Era)
◦ 6.2 Bob Russo, "Scar" Turpin, and Roscoe Simmons
◦ 6.3 Dave Rickford
◦ 6.4 1602
◦ 6.5 1872
◦ 6.6 Age of Ultron
◦ 6.7 Age of X
◦ 6.8 Amalgam Comics
◦ 6.9 Avataars: Covenant of the Shield
◦ 6.10 Bishop's Future
◦ 6.11 Bullet Points
◦ 6.12 Captain America: Guardian of Freedom
◦ 6.13 Captain Colonies
◦ 6.14 Civil War
◦ 6.15 Civil Warrior
◦ 6.16 Danielle Cage
◦ 6.17 DC vs. Marvel
◦ 6.18 Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth
◦ 6.19 Earth X
◦ 6.20 Elseworlds
◦ 6.21 Exiles
◦ 6.22 House of M
◦ 6.23 JLA/Avengers
◦ 6.24 Kiyoshi Morales
◦ 6.25 Last Avengers Story
◦ 6.26 Larval Earth
fi
fi
fi
 ◦ 6.27 Little Marvel
◦ 6.28 Marvel 2099
◦ 6.29 Marvel Apes
◦ 6.30 Marvel Mangaverse
◦ 6.31 Marvel Zombies
◦ 6.32 MC2
◦ 6.33 Mutant X
◦ 6.34 Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.
◦ 6.35 Old Man Logan
◦ 6.36 Peggy Carter
◦ 6.37 Ruins
◦ 6.38 Spider-Gwen
◦ 6.39 Spider-Island
◦ 6.40 Spider-Man: Life Story
◦ 6.41 Truth: Red, White & Black
◦ 6.42 Ultimate Marvel
◦ 6.43 Weapon X: Days of Future Now
◦ 6.44 What If?
• 7 See also
• 8 References
• 9 External links
Publication history
Further information: List of Captain America titles
Creation

In 1940, writer Joe Simon conceived the idea for Captain America and made a sketch of the
character in costume.[4] "I wrote the name 'Super American' at the bottom of the page," Simon said
in his autobiography, and then decided:

No, it didn't work. There were too many "Supers" around. "Captain America" had a good sound to
it. There weren't a lot of captains in comics. It was as easy as that. The boy companion was simply
named Bucky, after my friend Bucky Pierson, a star on our high school basketball team.[5]

Simon recalled in his autobiography that Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman gave him the
go-ahead and directed that a Captain America solo comic book series be published as soon as
possible. Needing to ll a full comic with primarily one character's stories, Simon did not believe
that his regular creative partner, artist Jack Kirby, could handle the workload alone:

I didn't have a lot of objections to putting a crew on the rst issue ... There were two young artists
from Connecticut that had made a strong impression on me. Al Avison and Al Gabriele often
worked together and were quite successful in adapting their individual styles to each other. Actually,
their work was not too far from [that of] Kirby's. If they worked on it, and if one inker tied the three
styles together, I believed the nal product would emerge as quite uniform. The two Als were eager
to join in on the new Captain America book, but Jack Kirby was visibly upset. "You're still number
one, Jack," I assured him. "It's just a matter of a quick deadline for the rst issue." "I'll make the
deadline," Jack promised. "I'll pencil it [all] myself and make the deadline." I hadn't expected this
kind of reaction ... but I acceded to Kirby's wishes and, it turned out, was lucky that I did. There
might have been two Als, but there was only one Jack Kirby ... I wrote the rst Captain America
book with penciled lettering right on the drawing boards, with very rough sketches for gures and
backgrounds. Kirby did his thing, building the muscular anatomy, adding ideas and popping up the
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
 action as only he could. Then he tightened up the penciled drawings, adding detailed backgrounds,
faces and gures."[5]

1974 Comic Art Convention program featuring Simon's original sketch of Captain America
Al Lieberman would ink that rst issue, which was lettered by Simon and Kirby's regular letterer,
Howard Ferguson.[6]

Simon said Captain America was a consciously political creation; he and Kirby were morally
repulsed by the actions of Nazi Germany in the years leading up to the United States' involvement
in World War II and felt war was inevitable: "The opponents to the war were all quite well
organized. We wanted to have our say too."[7]

Golden Age
fi
fi
 Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). Cover art by Joe Simon (inks and pencils) and Jack
Kirby (pencils).
Captain America Comics #1 — cover-dated March 1941[8] and on sale December 20, 1940,[9][10] a
year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, but a full year into World War II — showed the protagonist
punching Nazi leader Adolf Hitler; it sold nearly one million copies.[11] While most readers
responded favorably to the comic, some took objection. Simon noted, "When the rst issue came
out we got a lot of  ... threatening letters and hate mail. Some people really opposed what Cap stood
for."[7] The threats, which included menacing groups of people loitering out on the street outside of
the of ces, proved so serious that police protection was posted with New York Mayor Fiorello La
Guardia personally contacting Simon and Kirby to give his support.[12]

Though preceded as a "patriotically themed superhero" by MLJ's The Shield, Captain America
immediately became the most prominent and enduring of that wave of superheroes introduced in
American comic books prior to and during World War II,[13] as evidenced by the unusual move at the
time of premiering the character in his own title instead of an anthology title rst. This popularity
drew the attention and a complaint from MLJ that the character's triangular shield too closely
resembled the chest symbol of their Shield character. In response, Goodman had Simon and Kirby
create a distinctive round shield for issue 2, which went on to become an iconic element of the
character.[14] With his sidekick Bucky, Captain America faced Nazis, Japanese, and other threats to
wartime America and the Allies. Stanley Lieber, now better known as Stan Lee, in his rst
professional ction writing task, contributed to the character in issue #3 in the ller text story
"Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge", which introduced the character's use of his shield as
a returning throwing weapon.[15] Captain America soon became Timely's most popular character and
even had a fan-club called the "Sentinels of Liberty".[7]

Circulation gures remained close to a million copies per month after the debut issue, which
outstripped even the circulation of news magazines such as Time during the period.[13][16] The
character was widely imitated by other comics publishers, with around 40 red-white-and-blue
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
patriotic heroes debuting in 1941 alone.[17] After the Simon and Kirby team moved to DC Comics in
late 1941, having produced Captain America Comics through issue #10 (January 1942), Al Avison
and Syd Shores became regular pencillers of the celebrated title, with one generally inking over the
other. The character was featured in All Winners Comics #1–19 (Summer 1941 – Fall 1946), Marvel
Mystery Comics #80–84 and #86–92, USA Comics #6–17 (Dec. 1942 – Fall 1945), and All Select
Comics #1–10 (Fall 1943 – Summer 1946).

In the post-war era, with the popularity of superheroes fading, Captain America led Timely's rst
superhero team, the All-Winners Squad, in its two published adventures, in All Winners Comics #19
and #21 (Fall–Winter 1946; there was no issue #20). After Bucky was shot and wounded in a 1948
Captain America story, he was succeeded by Captain America's girlfriend, Betsy Ross, who became
the superheroine Golden Girl. Captain America Comics ran until issue #73 (July 1949),[18] at which
time the series was retitled Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues,[19] with the nale being a
horror/suspense anthology issue with no superheroes.

Atlas Comics attempted to revive its superhero titles when it reintroduced Captain America, along
with the original Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, in Young Men #24 (Dec. 1953). Billed as
"Captain America, Commie Smasher!" Captain America appeared during the next year in Young
Men #24–28 and Men's Adventures #27–28, as well as in issues #76–78 of an eponymous title.
Atlas' attempted superhero revival was a commercial failure,[20] and the character's title was
canceled with Captain America #78 (Sept. 1954).

Silver and Bronze Age

Avengers #4 (March 1964). Cover art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos.
In the Human Torch story titled "Captain America" in Marvel Comics' Strange Tales #114 (Nov.
1963),[21] writer-editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Jack Kirby depicted the brash young
fi
fi
 Fantastic Four member Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, in an exhibition performance with Captain
America, described as a legendary World War II and 1950s superhero who has returned after many
years of apparent retirement. The 18-page story ends with this Captain America revealed as an
impostor: it was actually the villain the Acrobat, a former circus performer the Torch had defeated
in Strange Tales #106, who broke two thieves out of jail, hoping to draw the police away while
trying to rob the local bank. Afterward, Storm digs out an old comic book in which Captain
America is shown to be Steve Rogers. A caption in the nal panel says this story was a test to see if
readers would like Captain America to return. According to Lee, fan response to the tryout was very
enthusiastic.[22]

Captain America was then formally reintroduced in The Avengers #4 (March 1964),[23] which
explained that in the nal days of World War II, he had fallen from an experimental drone plane into
the North Atlantic Ocean and spent decades frozen in a block of ice in a state of suspended
animation. The hero found a new generation of readers as leader of that superhero team. Following
the success of other Marvel characters introduced during the 1960s, Captain America was recast as
a hero "haunted by past memories, and trying to adapt to 1960s society".[24]

After then guest-starring in the feature "Iron Man" in Tales of Suspense #58 (Oct. 1964), Captain
America gained his own solo feature in that "split book", beginning the following issue.[25] Issue #63
(March 1965), which retold Captain America's origin, through issue #71 (Nov. 1965) was a period
feature set during World War II and co-starred Captain America's Golden Age sidekick, Bucky.
Kirby drew all but two of the stories in Tales of Suspense, which became Captain America with
#100 (April 1968);[26] Gil Kane and John Romita Sr., each lled in once. Several stories were
nished by penciller-inker George Tuska over Kirby layouts, with one nished by Romita Sr. and
another by penciller Dick Ayers and inker John Tartaglione. Kirby's regular inkers on the series
were Frank Giacoia (as "Frank Ray") and Joe Sinnott, though Don Heck and Golden Age Captain
America artist Syd Shores inked one story each. A story in issue #155-157 revealed the 1950s
"Commie Smasher" Captain America and Bucky to be imposters.

This series — considered Captain America volume one by comics researchers and historians,[27]
following the 1940s Captain America Comics and its 1950s numbering continuation of Tales of
Suspense — ended with #454 (Aug. 1996).
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi