Post by Captain America on Mar 5, 2007 3:55:09 GMT -5
Full Name: Steven "Steve" Rodgers
Code Name: Captain America
Former Aliases: Nomad, The Captain, Brett Hendrick, Steven Grant Rodgers, Rodger Stevens, Yeoman America, Cap, The Sentinel of Liberty, Star-Spangled Avengers
Identity: Publicly known
Age: 88 (Appearing in his late thirties after several experiences of being frozen in suspended animation)
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 240 lbs
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Blue
Sex: Male
Citizenship: U.S.A. with no criminal record
Place of Birth: New York City, New York
Education: High school graduate; one year of art school; military basic training; private tutoring in hand-to-hand combat, gymnastics, military strategy, piloting, demolition, and other disciplines
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Joseph Rodgers (Father; deceased), Sarah Rogers (Mother; deceased) Steven Rogers (Ancestor; deceased)
Occupation: Adventurer, formerly WPA Artist, Soldier, Police Officer, Teacher, Freelance Illustrator, Special S.H.I.E.L.D. Operative
Area of Operation: Various, Avengers Tower, S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier
Group Affiliation: Avengers; formerly Invaders (wartime), Redeemers, Queen's Vengeance, Secret Defenders
Known Powers: Rogers has no superhuman powers, although as a result of the Super-Soldier serum, he was transformed from a frail young man into a "perfect" specimen of human development and conditioning. Captain America is as intelligent, strong, fast, agile, and durable as it is possible for a human being to be without being considered superhuman. With peak human strength, Captain America's physical strength is enhanced to the very peak of human potential; he was once seen bench-pressing 1100 lbs. unassisted. With peak human speed, Captain American can run at a speed of approximately 35 miles per hour easily and has run a mile in a minute. With peak human agility, Captain America's agility is superior to that of any Olympic athlete that has ever competed. With peak human stamina, Captain America's body eliminates the excessive build-up of fatigue-producing poisons in his muscles, granting him phenomenal endurance. He can exert himself at peak capacity for up to one hour. With peak human durability, Captain America's ability to resist or recover from injury and disease are superior to those of most ordinary humans. However, he can still be injured in much the same way. This accounts for many of his extraordinary feats. Captain America's mental performance has been greatly enhanced. This manifests as an ability to quickly process multiple information streams (threat assessment) and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations; making him a tactical genius. With peak human reflexes, Captain America possesses reaction time superior to any Olympic athlete that has ever competed. With peak human senses, Captain America has exceptionally keen eyesight and hearing. Furthermore, his enhancements are the reason why he was able to survive being frozen in suspended animation for decades. Rogers is also unable to become intoxicated by alcohol and is immune to many diseases.
Abilities: Mentally, Rogers' battle experience and training make him an expert tactician and an excellent field commander, with his teammates frequently deferring to his orders in battle. Rogers' reflexes and senses are also extraordinarily keen. He is a master of multiple martial arts, including boxing, jiu jitsu, and judo, combined with his virtually superhuman gymnastic ability into his own unique fighting style with advanced pressure-point fighting. Years of practice with his indestructible shield make it practically an extension of his own body, and he is able to aim and throw it with almost unerring accuracy and even ricochet the shield to hit multiple targets. He is extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, sometimes taking on and defeating foes whose strength, size, or superpowers greatly exceed his. He is regarded by other skilled fighters as one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the universe.
Rogers has vast U.S. military knowledge and is often shown to be familiar with ongoing, highly-classified Defense Department operations. Despite his high profile as one of the world's most popular and recognizable superheroes, Rogers also has a broad understanding of the espionage community, largely through his ongoing relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D.. He occasionally makes forays into mundane career fields, including commercial arts, comic book artistry, education (high school history) and law enforcement.
Captain America uses several shields throughout his history, the most recognizable of which is an indestructible discus-shaped shield. Captain America's Shield is his primary, and usually only weapon. A concave disk about 2.5 feet in diameter, weighing 12 pounds. 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 a 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; although efforts to reverse engineer it result in the creation of adamantium. 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's uniform is made of a fire-retardant material, and he wears a lightweight "duralumin" chainmail beneath his uniform for added protection. Originally, Rogers' mask was a separate piece of material, but an early engagement had it dislodged, thus almost exposing his identity. To prevent a recurrence of the situation, Rogers modified the mask with connecting material to his uniform, an added benefit of which was extending his armor to cover his previously exposed neck. Since then, events have forced him to reveal his identity to the world. As a member of the Avengers, Rogers has an Avengers priority card, which serves as a communications device.
History: Steven Rogers was 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 was 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 offered Rogers the chance to serve his country by taking part in a top-secret defense project — Operation: Rebirth, which sought to develop the means to create physically superior soldiers. Rogers volunteered for the research and, after a rigorous physical, combat training and selection process, was chosen as the first human test subject for the Super-Soldier serum developed by the scientist "Dr. Reinstein,”; a code name for the scientist Abraham Erskine.
Rogers was not the first to be given the Super-Soldier formula. The night before Rogers received the Super-Soldier formula, some military members of the project decided that a non-soldier was not the right candidate and secretly gave Erskine's incomplete formula to Clinton McIntyre. This, however, made McIntyre violently insane, and he was subdued and placed in cold storage. The criminal organization AIM later revived McIntyre as the homicidal Protocide.
The night that Operation: Rebirth was implemented, Rogers received injections and oral ingestions of the Super-Soldier formula. He was then exposed to a controlled burst of "Vita-Rays" that activated and stabilized the chemicals in his system. Although the process was physically arduous, it almost instantly successfully altered his physiology from its relatively frail form to the peak of human efficiency, greatly enhancing his musculature and reflexes. Erskine declared Rogers to be the first of a new breed of man, a "nearly perfect human being.”
At that 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 Nazi spy in retaliation and vowed to oppose the enemies of America.
The United States government, making the most of its one super-soldier, re-imagined him as a superhero who served 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 was 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 was also given a cover identity as a clumsy infantry private at Camp Lehigh in Virginia. Barely out of his teens himself, Rogers quickly made friends with the camp's teenage 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. Rogers met President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who presented him with a new shield made from a mixture of steel and vibranium, fused by 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. It proved so effective that Captain America discarded the sidearm. 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.
In 1942 (after Rogers had become Captain America), a beta version of the formula was given to a group of African-American soldiers as part of a military experiment by another scientist given the Reinstein code name; Isaiah Bradley was the sole survivor. After the last two members of his group were killed, Bradley stole a uniform 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, however, the U.S. Army rescued and court martialed him. He was imprisoned for 17 years in Leavenworth until pardoned by President Eisenhower. By the time of his release, the long-term effects of the formula had turned Bradley into a hulking, sterile giant with the mentality of a seven-year-old. Rogers did not find out about Bradley until decades later. The Patriot, a member of the Young Avengers, is Bradley's grandson.
Further revelations later explained that Operation: Rebirth was funded by 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 was "Weapon I", the first-generation living weapon. Following his disappearance, subsequent phases involved 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 tried to stop the villainous Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launched the plane with an armed explosive attached to 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 body was found, and both were presumed dead.
Years later, the superhero team the Avengers discovered Steve Rogers' body in the North Atlantic; his costume under his soldier's uniform and still carrying his shield. After he was revived, they pieced 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 was worshiping the frozen figure, threw it into the ocean. Rogers accepted membership in the Avengers, and although long out of his time, his considerable combat experience made him a valuable asset to the team. He quickly assumed leadership, and has typically returned to that position throughout the team's history.
Captain America was plagued by guilt for being unable to prevent Bucky's death — a feeling that did not ease for some time. Although he took the young Rick Jones (who closely resembled Bucky) under his tutelage, he refused for some time to allow Jones to take up the Bucky identity, not wishing to be responsible for another youth's death. Jones eventually convinced Rogers to let him don the Bucky costume, but this partnership lasted only a short time; a disguised Red Skull, impersonating Rogers with the help of the Cosmic Cube, drove Jones away.
Rogers also reunited with his old war comrade Nick Fury, who was similarly well preserved thanks to his Infinity Formula ingestions. As a result, Rogers regularly undertook missions for the security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. for which Fury was executive director.
Rogers later met and trained Sam Wilson, who becomes the superhero the Falcon. 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 encountered the revived but still insane 1950s Captain America. Although Rogers and the Falcon defeated the faux Rogers and Jack Monroe, Rogers became deeply disturbed that he could have suffered his counterpart's fate.
After the events of the Secret Empire, Rogers was so uncertain about his role that he abandoned his Captain America identity in favor of one called Nomad. During this time, several men unsuccessfully assumed the Captain America identity. Rogers eventually re-assumed 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 took up the Nomad alias. During this period, Rogers also temporarily gained super strength.
Sometime after, the true face and full origin of the Red Skull was revealed. Captain America dealt with extreme idealism when fighting the anti-nationalist, terrorist Flag-Smasher; and vigilantism when he hunted the murderous Scourge of the Underworld. Captain America also reunited up with a childhood friend named Arnold Roth who had long since known that Steve Rogers was Captain America. Roth was living with another man, a school teacher who helped him overcome his gambling addiction, and was shown to be heartbroken when his room mate was murdered by Baron Zemo.
Rogers received a large back-pay reimbursement dating back to his disappearance at the end of World War II, and a government commission ordering 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 chose instead to resign his identity and take the alias of "The Captain". A replacement Captain America, John Walker, struggled to emulate Rogers' ideals until pressure from hidden enemies helped to drive Walker insane. Rogers returned to the Captain America identity while a recovered Walker became the U.S. Agent.
Sometime afterward, Rogers avoided the explosion of a methamphetamine lab, however the drug triggered a chemical reaction in the Super-Soldier serum in his system. To combat the reaction, Rogers had the serum removed from his body, and trained constantly to maintain his physical condition. The serum was not a drug per se, which would have metabolized out of his system, but in fact a virus that affected a biochemical and genetic change. This additionally explained how his arch-nemesis Red Skull, who at the time inhabited a body cloned from Rogers' cells, also had the formula in his body.
Because of his altered biochemistry, Rogers' body began to deteriorate, and for a time he was forced to wear a powered exoskeleton and was eventually 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 virus within his system. Captain America returned both to crime fighting and the Avengers.
Rogers revealed his identity to the world, and established 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 discovered that Bucky is alive and being used by Soviet espionage interests as the Winter Soldier. Rogers also resumed his on-again, off-again relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Sharon Carter.
Code Name: Captain America
Former Aliases: Nomad, The Captain, Brett Hendrick, Steven Grant Rodgers, Rodger Stevens, Yeoman America, Cap, The Sentinel of Liberty, Star-Spangled Avengers
Identity: Publicly known
Age: 88 (Appearing in his late thirties after several experiences of being frozen in suspended animation)
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 240 lbs
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Blue
Sex: Male
Citizenship: U.S.A. with no criminal record
Place of Birth: New York City, New York
Education: High school graduate; one year of art school; military basic training; private tutoring in hand-to-hand combat, gymnastics, military strategy, piloting, demolition, and other disciplines
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Joseph Rodgers (Father; deceased), Sarah Rogers (Mother; deceased) Steven Rogers (Ancestor; deceased)
Occupation: Adventurer, formerly WPA Artist, Soldier, Police Officer, Teacher, Freelance Illustrator, Special S.H.I.E.L.D. Operative
Area of Operation: Various, Avengers Tower, S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier
Group Affiliation: Avengers; formerly Invaders (wartime), Redeemers, Queen's Vengeance, Secret Defenders
Known Powers: Rogers has no superhuman powers, although as a result of the Super-Soldier serum, he was transformed from a frail young man into a "perfect" specimen of human development and conditioning. Captain America is as intelligent, strong, fast, agile, and durable as it is possible for a human being to be without being considered superhuman. With peak human strength, Captain America's physical strength is enhanced to the very peak of human potential; he was once seen bench-pressing 1100 lbs. unassisted. With peak human speed, Captain American can run at a speed of approximately 35 miles per hour easily and has run a mile in a minute. With peak human agility, Captain America's agility is superior to that of any Olympic athlete that has ever competed. With peak human stamina, Captain America's body eliminates the excessive build-up of fatigue-producing poisons in his muscles, granting him phenomenal endurance. He can exert himself at peak capacity for up to one hour. With peak human durability, Captain America's ability to resist or recover from injury and disease are superior to those of most ordinary humans. However, he can still be injured in much the same way. This accounts for many of his extraordinary feats. Captain America's mental performance has been greatly enhanced. This manifests as an ability to quickly process multiple information streams (threat assessment) and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations; making him a tactical genius. With peak human reflexes, Captain America possesses reaction time superior to any Olympic athlete that has ever competed. With peak human senses, Captain America has exceptionally keen eyesight and hearing. Furthermore, his enhancements are the reason why he was able to survive being frozen in suspended animation for decades. Rogers is also unable to become intoxicated by alcohol and is immune to many diseases.
Abilities: Mentally, Rogers' battle experience and training make him an expert tactician and an excellent field commander, with his teammates frequently deferring to his orders in battle. Rogers' reflexes and senses are also extraordinarily keen. He is a master of multiple martial arts, including boxing, jiu jitsu, and judo, combined with his virtually superhuman gymnastic ability into his own unique fighting style with advanced pressure-point fighting. Years of practice with his indestructible shield make it practically an extension of his own body, and he is able to aim and throw it with almost unerring accuracy and even ricochet the shield to hit multiple targets. He is extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, sometimes taking on and defeating foes whose strength, size, or superpowers greatly exceed his. He is regarded by other skilled fighters as one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the universe.
Rogers has vast U.S. military knowledge and is often shown to be familiar with ongoing, highly-classified Defense Department operations. Despite his high profile as one of the world's most popular and recognizable superheroes, Rogers also has a broad understanding of the espionage community, largely through his ongoing relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D.. He occasionally makes forays into mundane career fields, including commercial arts, comic book artistry, education (high school history) and law enforcement.
Captain America uses several shields throughout his history, the most recognizable of which is an indestructible discus-shaped shield. Captain America's Shield is his primary, and usually only weapon. A concave disk about 2.5 feet in diameter, weighing 12 pounds. 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 a 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; although efforts to reverse engineer it result in the creation of adamantium. 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's uniform is made of a fire-retardant material, and he wears a lightweight "duralumin" chainmail beneath his uniform for added protection. Originally, Rogers' mask was a separate piece of material, but an early engagement had it dislodged, thus almost exposing his identity. To prevent a recurrence of the situation, Rogers modified the mask with connecting material to his uniform, an added benefit of which was extending his armor to cover his previously exposed neck. Since then, events have forced him to reveal his identity to the world. As a member of the Avengers, Rogers has an Avengers priority card, which serves as a communications device.
History: Steven Rogers was 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 was 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 offered Rogers the chance to serve his country by taking part in a top-secret defense project — Operation: Rebirth, which sought to develop the means to create physically superior soldiers. Rogers volunteered for the research and, after a rigorous physical, combat training and selection process, was chosen as the first human test subject for the Super-Soldier serum developed by the scientist "Dr. Reinstein,”; a code name for the scientist Abraham Erskine.
Rogers was not the first to be given the Super-Soldier formula. The night before Rogers received the Super-Soldier formula, some military members of the project decided that a non-soldier was not the right candidate and secretly gave Erskine's incomplete formula to Clinton McIntyre. This, however, made McIntyre violently insane, and he was subdued and placed in cold storage. The criminal organization AIM later revived McIntyre as the homicidal Protocide.
The night that Operation: Rebirth was implemented, Rogers received injections and oral ingestions of the Super-Soldier formula. He was then exposed to a controlled burst of "Vita-Rays" that activated and stabilized the chemicals in his system. Although the process was physically arduous, it almost instantly successfully altered his physiology from its relatively frail form to the peak of human efficiency, greatly enhancing his musculature and reflexes. Erskine declared Rogers to be the first of a new breed of man, a "nearly perfect human being.”
At that 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 Nazi spy in retaliation and vowed to oppose the enemies of America.
The United States government, making the most of its one super-soldier, re-imagined him as a superhero who served 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 was 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 was also given a cover identity as a clumsy infantry private at Camp Lehigh in Virginia. Barely out of his teens himself, Rogers quickly made friends with the camp's teenage 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. Rogers met President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who presented him with a new shield made from a mixture of steel and vibranium, fused by 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. It proved so effective that Captain America discarded the sidearm. 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.
In 1942 (after Rogers had become Captain America), a beta version of the formula was given to a group of African-American soldiers as part of a military experiment by another scientist given the Reinstein code name; Isaiah Bradley was the sole survivor. After the last two members of his group were killed, Bradley stole a uniform 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, however, the U.S. Army rescued and court martialed him. He was imprisoned for 17 years in Leavenworth until pardoned by President Eisenhower. By the time of his release, the long-term effects of the formula had turned Bradley into a hulking, sterile giant with the mentality of a seven-year-old. Rogers did not find out about Bradley until decades later. The Patriot, a member of the Young Avengers, is Bradley's grandson.
Further revelations later explained that Operation: Rebirth was funded by 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 was "Weapon I", the first-generation living weapon. Following his disappearance, subsequent phases involved 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 tried to stop the villainous Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launched the plane with an armed explosive attached to 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 body was found, and both were presumed dead.
Years later, the superhero team the Avengers discovered Steve Rogers' body in the North Atlantic; his costume under his soldier's uniform and still carrying his shield. After he was revived, they pieced 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 was worshiping the frozen figure, threw it into the ocean. Rogers accepted membership in the Avengers, and although long out of his time, his considerable combat experience made him a valuable asset to the team. He quickly assumed leadership, and has typically returned to that position throughout the team's history.
Captain America was plagued by guilt for being unable to prevent Bucky's death — a feeling that did not ease for some time. Although he took the young Rick Jones (who closely resembled Bucky) under his tutelage, he refused for some time to allow Jones to take up the Bucky identity, not wishing to be responsible for another youth's death. Jones eventually convinced Rogers to let him don the Bucky costume, but this partnership lasted only a short time; a disguised Red Skull, impersonating Rogers with the help of the Cosmic Cube, drove Jones away.
Rogers also reunited with his old war comrade Nick Fury, who was similarly well preserved thanks to his Infinity Formula ingestions. As a result, Rogers regularly undertook missions for the security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. for which Fury was executive director.
Rogers later met and trained Sam Wilson, who becomes the superhero the Falcon. 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 encountered the revived but still insane 1950s Captain America. Although Rogers and the Falcon defeated the faux Rogers and Jack Monroe, Rogers became deeply disturbed that he could have suffered his counterpart's fate.
After the events of the Secret Empire, Rogers was so uncertain about his role that he abandoned his Captain America identity in favor of one called Nomad. During this time, several men unsuccessfully assumed the Captain America identity. Rogers eventually re-assumed 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 took up the Nomad alias. During this period, Rogers also temporarily gained super strength.
Sometime after, the true face and full origin of the Red Skull was revealed. Captain America dealt with extreme idealism when fighting the anti-nationalist, terrorist Flag-Smasher; and vigilantism when he hunted the murderous Scourge of the Underworld. Captain America also reunited up with a childhood friend named Arnold Roth who had long since known that Steve Rogers was Captain America. Roth was living with another man, a school teacher who helped him overcome his gambling addiction, and was shown to be heartbroken when his room mate was murdered by Baron Zemo.
Rogers received a large back-pay reimbursement dating back to his disappearance at the end of World War II, and a government commission ordering 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 chose instead to resign his identity and take the alias of "The Captain". A replacement Captain America, John Walker, struggled to emulate Rogers' ideals until pressure from hidden enemies helped to drive Walker insane. Rogers returned to the Captain America identity while a recovered Walker became the U.S. Agent.
Sometime afterward, Rogers avoided the explosion of a methamphetamine lab, however the drug triggered a chemical reaction in the Super-Soldier serum in his system. To combat the reaction, Rogers had the serum removed from his body, and trained constantly to maintain his physical condition. The serum was not a drug per se, which would have metabolized out of his system, but in fact a virus that affected a biochemical and genetic change. This additionally explained how his arch-nemesis Red Skull, who at the time inhabited a body cloned from Rogers' cells, also had the formula in his body.
Because of his altered biochemistry, Rogers' body began to deteriorate, and for a time he was forced to wear a powered exoskeleton and was eventually 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 virus within his system. Captain America returned both to crime fighting and the Avengers.
Rogers revealed his identity to the world, and established 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 discovered that Bucky is alive and being used by Soviet espionage interests as the Winter Soldier. Rogers also resumed his on-again, off-again relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Sharon Carter.