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Biography of Captain America

Steve Rogers is born on July 4, 1917 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to Irish immigrants Sarah and Joseph Rogers. By the early 1940s, before America's entry into World War II, Rogers is a tall (6'2") but scrawny American fine arts student specializing in illustration. Disturbed by the rise of the Third Reich, Rogers attempts to enlist, only to be rejected due to his poor constitution. A U.S. Army officer looking for test subjects offers Rogers the chance to serve his country by taking part in a top-secret defense project — Operation: Rebirth, which seeks to develop a means of creating physically superior soldiers. Rogers volunteers for the research and, after a rigorous selection process, is chosen as the first human test subject for the Super-Soldier serum developed by the scientist "Dr. Reinstein", later retroactively changed to a code name for the scientist Abraham Erskine.

Later stories reveal that Rogers is not the first to be given the Super-Soldier formula. The night before Rogers receives the Super-Soldier formula, some military members of the project decide that a non-soldier is not the right candidate and secretly give Erskine's incomplete formula to Clinton McIntyre. This, however, makes McIntyre violently insane, and he is subdued and placed in cold storage. The criminal organization AIM later revives McIntyre as the homicidal Protocide.

The night that Operation: Rebirth is implemented, Rogers receives injections and oral ingestions of the Super-Soldier formula. He is then exposed to a controlled burst of "Vita-Rays" that activate and stabilize the chemicals in his system. Although the process is arduous physically, it successfully alters his physiology almost instantly from its relatively frail form to the maximum of human efficiency, greatly enhancing his musculature and reflexes. Erskine declares Rogers to be the first of a new breed of man, a "nearly perfect human being".

At that moment, a Nazi spy reveals himself and shoots Erskine. Because the scientist had committed the crucial portions of the Super-Soldier formula to memory, it cannot be duplicated. Rogers kills the spy in retaliation (retconned in 1964 so that the spy accidentally kills himself by fleeing into an "electrical omniverter", but changed back in 1969) and vows to oppose the enemies of America.

The United States government, making the most of its one super-soldier, reimagines him as a superhero who serves as both a counter-intelligence agent and a propaganda symbol to counter Nazi Germany's head of terrorist operations, the Red Skull. To that end, Rogers is given a uniform modeled after the American flag (based on Rogers's own sketches a bulletproof shield, a personal side arm, and the codename Captain America. He is also given a cover identity as a clumsy infantry private at Camp Lehigh in Virginia. Barely out of his teens himself, Rogers makes friends with the camp's teenage mascot James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes.

Barnes accidentally learns of Roger's dual identity and offers to keep the secret if he can become Captain America's sidekick. Rogers agrees and trains Barnes. Rogers meets President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who presents him with a new shield made from a mixture of steel and vibranium, fused by an unknown catalyst. The alloy is indestructible, yet the shield is light enough to use as a discus-like weapon that can be angled to return to him. (In several stories, due to error, the shield is described as an adamantium-vibranium alloy; see Captain America's shield.) It proves so effective that Captain America forgoes the sidearm. Throughout World War II, Captain America and Bucky fight the Nazi menace both on their own and as members of the superhero team the Invaders (as seen in the 1970s comic of the same name).

In 1942 (after Rogers has become Captain America), a beta version of the formula is given to a group of African-American soldiers as part of a military experiment by another scientist given the Reinstein code name; Isaiah Bradley is the sole survivor. After the last two members of his group are killed, Bradley steals a uniform meant for Rogers and wears it on a suicide mission to destroy the Nazi super-soldier effort at a German concentration camp. Bradley is captured but the U.S. Army rescues and court martials him. He is imprisoned for 17 years in Leavenworth until pardoned by President Eisenhower. By the time of his release, the long-term effects of the formula have turned Bradley into a hulking, sterile giant with the mentality of a seven-year-old. Rogers does not find out about Bradley until decades later. The Patriot, a member of the Young Avengers, is Bradley's grandson.

Further revelations later explain that Operation: Rebirth is funded and secretly a part of the Weapon Plus program, a clandestine government organization devoted to the creation of superhumans to combat and exterminate mutants. Rogers is "Weapon I", the first-generation living weapon. Following his disappearance, subsequent phases involve experimentation on animals, racial minorities, criminals, and mutants, with results including Wolverine (Weapon X) and Fantomex (Weapon XIII).

In 1945, during the closing days of World War II, Captain America and Bucky try to stop the villainous Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launches the plane with an armed explosive on it, with Rogers and Barnes in hot pursuit. They reach the plane just before it takes off, but when Bucky tries to defuse the bomb, it explodes in mid-air. The young man is believed killed, and Rogers is hurled into the freezing waters of either the North Atlantic or the English Channel (accounts differ). Neither body is found, and both are presumed dead.


Late 1940s–1950s: After Steve Rogers

Fearing it would be a blow to American morale if Captain America's demise is revealed, President Truman asks William Naslund, the patriotically costumed Golden Age hero the Spirit of '76, to assume the role, with a young man named Fred Davis as Bucky. They continue to serve in the same roles after the war with the All-Winners Squad, until the android Adam II fatally injures Naslund in 1946. After Naslund's death, Jeff Mace, the Golden Age Patriot, takes over as Captain America, with Davis continuing as Bucky; however, Davis is shot and injured in 1948 and forced to retire. Mace teams up with Betsy "Golden Girl" Ross, and sometime before 1953 gives up his Captain America identity to marry her. Mace develops cancer and dies decades later.

In 1953, an unnamed man (who later goes by the title "The Grand Director") who idolizes Captain America and who had done his American History Ph.D. thesis on Rogers discovers Nazi files in a German warehouse, one of which contains the lost formula for the Super Soldier serum. He takes 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 agree, and the man undergoes plastic surgery to look like Steve Rogers, even assuming his name. The war ends and the project is never completed. "Rogers" finds a teaching job at the Lee School, where he meets Jack Monroe, a young orphan who also idolizes Captain America. They use the formula on themselves and become the new Captain America and Bucky, this time fighting Communism.

"Rogers" and Monroe do not know of and therefore do not undergo the "Vita-Ray" process, and the imperfect implementation of the formula in their systems makes them paranoid. By the middle of 1954, they are irrationally attacking anyone they perceive to be a Communist. In 1955 the FBI places them in suspended animation. The 1950s Captain America and Bucky are revived years later after the return of Steve Rogers. They go on another rampage and are defeated by the man after whom they had modeled themselves.

1960s–1970s: Return of Steve Rogers

Years later, the superhero team the Avengers discovers Steve Rogers' body in the North Atlantic, his costume under his soldier's uniform and still carrying his shield. After he revives, they piece together that Rogers had been preserved in a block of ice since 1945. The block had begun to melt after the Sub-Mariner, enraged that an Arctic Inuit tribe is worshiping the frozen figure, throws it into the ocean. Rogers accepts membership in the Avengers, and although long out of his time, his considerable combat experience makes him a valuable asset to the team. He quickly assumes leadership, and has typically returned to that position throughout the team's history.

Captain America is plagued by guilt for being unable to prevent Bucky's death — a feeling that does not ease for some time. Although he takes the young Rick Jones (who closely resembles Bucky) under his tutelage, he refuses for some time to allow Jones to take up the Bucky identity, not wishing to be responsible for another youth's death. Jones eventually convinces Rogers to let him don the Bucky costume,but this partnership lasts only a short time; a disguised Red Skull, impersonating Rogers with the help of the Cosmic Cube, drives Jones away.

Rogers also reunites with his old war comrade Nick Fury, who is similarly well preserved thanks to his Infinity Formula ingestions. As a result, Rogers regularly undertakes missions for the security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. for which Fury was executive director.

Rogers later meets and trains Sam Wilson, who becomes the superhero the Falcon, one of the early African-American superhero in comic books. As a result, the pair have a partnership and friendship that has remained strong at varying levels to this day, (including sharing the title for some time as Captain America and the Falcon). The two later encounter the revived but still insane 1950s Captain America.Although Rogers and the Falcon defeat the faux Rogers and Jack Monroe, Rogers becomes deeply disturbed that he could have suffered his counterpart's fate.

The series also dealt with the Marvel Universe's version of the Watergate scandal, making Rogers so uncertain about his role that he abandons his Captain America identity in favor of one called Nomad. During this time, several men unsuccessfully assume the Captain America identity. Rogers eventually re-assumes it after coming to consider that the identity could be a symbol of American ideals and not its government. Jack Monroe, cured of his mental instability, later takes up the Nomad alias. During this period, Rogers also temporarily gains super strength.

In the 1980s, in addition to runs from such acclaimed creators as John Byrne, the series reveals the true face and full origin of the Red Skull. Long-time writer Mark Gruenwald explores numerous political and social themes, such as extreme idealism when Captain America fights the anti-nationalist terrorist Flag-Smasher; and vigilantism when he hunts the murderous Scourge of the Underworld.The series also subtly addressed the issue of homophobia when Captain America reunites up with a childhood friend named Arnold Roth who has long since known that Steve Rogers was Captain America. We first meet Roth in Captain America #270 and while the word "homosexuality" is never said, Roth is living with another man, a school teacher who helped him overcome his gambling addiction, and is shown to be heartbroken when his roomate is murdered by Baron Zemo.

Rogers receives a large back-pay reimbursement dating back to his disappearance at the end of World War II, and a government commission orders him to work directly for the U.S. government. Already troubled by the corruption he had encountered with the Nuke incident in New York City), Rogers chooses instead to resign his identity and take the alias of "The Captain". A replacement Captain America, John Walker, struggles to emulate Rogers' ideals until pressure from hidden enemies helps to drive Walker insane. Rogers returns to the Captain America identity while a recovered Walker becomes the U.S. Agent.

1990s

Sometime afterward, Rogers avoids the explosion of a methamphetamine lab, but the drug triggers a chemical reaction in the Super-Soldier serum in his system. To combat the reaction, Rogers has the serum removed from his body, and trains constantly to maintain his physical condition. A retcon later establishes that the serum was not a drug per se, which would have metabolized out of his system, but in fact a virus that effected a biochemical and genetic change. This additionally explained how archnemesis Red Skull, who at the time inhabited a body cloned from Rogers' cells, also has the formula in his body.

Because of his altered biochemistry, Rogers' body begins to deteriorate, and for a time he must wear a powered exoskeleton and is eventually placed again in suspended animation. During this time, he is given a transfusion of blood from the Red Skull, which cures his condition and stabilizes the Super-Soldier virus in his system. Captain America returns both to crime fighting and the Avengers.

Captain America in the 21st-century

Rogers reveals his identity to the world, and establishes a residence in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

Following the events of Avengers Disassembled and under the employ of S.H.I.E.L.D. once again, Rogers discovers that Bucky is alive and being used by Soviet espionage interests as the Winter Soldier. It is revealed that Bucky was actually a 16-year-old operative trained to perform missions that Rogers was not asked to do, such as covert assassinations conducted without Rogers' knowledge. Rogers also resumes his on-again, off-again relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Sharon Carter.

Captain America Dies

The winged-hooded Marvel Entertainment Inc. hero created in 1941 is shot dead in New York by a sniper in the latest Captain America issue that hit newsstands on Wednesday, in a sensational comic-book plot twist that had been kept a closely guarded secret.

Blood seeps from his red-white-and-blue costume as life ebbs from Steve Rogers, the scrawny student who was transformed into the physically perfect superhero when he volunteered to be injected with "Super Soldier" serum during World War II.

But executives at Marvel acknowledged death is not always final in the superhero universe -- and they hope the same is true for flagging comics sales of Captain America, who has lost ground to more contemporary superheroes like Spider-Man.

"This is the end of Steve Rogers, the meat and potatoes guy from 1941," Dan Buckley, president and publisher of publishing, Marvel Entertainment, told Reuters.

"But Captain America is a costume, and there are other people who could take it over. He is iconic, and we're continuing the comic books," he added. But he declined to speculate who could step into the hero's 66-year-old boots.

He said the continuing comic series would initially be focused on the reaction of other characters to Captain America's death.

This was similar to the death of Superman in 1993, when the leading superhero of Marvel rival D.C. Comics was killed off after about 55 years -- only to be brought back months later.

Captain America has appeared in about 210 million comics in 75 countries, but currently his title sells up to 80,000 copies a month in the United States, down from about 150,000 in their heyday.

Unlike other comic heroes such as Spider-Man, Superman, Batman and the Fantastic Four, the Captain has yet to win Hollywood fame, though Buckley said there are plans for a Captain America movie.

"He is still popular, but he has not been getting the same attention as Spider-Man and others," said Buckley. "We hope this will make him more popular in the short-term at least."

Captain America's assassination secret comes in the aftermath of a seven-issue mini-series, Marvel's civil war, which divided superheroes as the government ordered them to reveal their true identities and register with authorities.

This caused a major rift and resulted in two super-powered factions, one led by Captain America, who went underground and formed a resistance movement, the other by Iron Man.

In the end, Captain America surrendered to Iron Man's pro-registration forces -- but is shot dead on the steps of New York's Federal Courthouse on his way to face charges.

Gerry Gladston, co-owner of Midtown Comics in Manhattan, said Captain America's assassination -- and the fact it had remained such a secret, even to some Marvel staff -- was "pretty Earth-shattering" and had sent sales soaring already.

"Captain America is still one of the most relevant comic book characters and the one with the most iconic status in the Marvel Universe who is revered by the others," said Gladston.

"I hope they bring him back. I miss him already."

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

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