The United States government is developing a secret process, called the Super Soldier Formula (SSF), which is designed to take normal humans and boost their abilities to the maximum human potential. This is being by Dr. Emil Erskine (code-named Reinstein), and the first scheduled trial subject is the 4-F Steve Rogers. This test program is called Operation Rebirth.

Rogers had tried to enlist, but was deemed too sickly and frail for military service. However, his willingness to serve is tested when General Phillips offers him a chance to take part in Operation: Rebirth.

However, the morning of the test, rogue General Maxfield Saunders decides to pre-test the SSF on PFC Clinton McIntyre, who was awaiting execution for having murdered his commanding officer. General Saunders steals an incomplete sample of the SSF, and orders McIntyre to drink it. The pre-experiment is a limited success; while McIntyre's strength and damage resistance are increased, the incomplete formula also drives him berserk. Rampaging out from the secret facility, he hits the street and wreaks a tiny bit of chaos before falling over dead, apparantly from heart failure. General Phillips is outraged, and Saunders will hang for murder. McIntyre's body is preserved, presumably for later analysis, and would later be stolen by AIM to become the villain known as Protocide.

Steve Rogers undergoes the SSF treatment, and it is successful - but a Nazi assassin kills Dr. Erskine before Rogers can stop him, and the complete formula is lost! Rogers vows to become a symbol for America, and is issued (in part to counteract the terror and propaganda of the Red Skull) a triangular shield and the original Captain America costume. Under the somewhat dubious cover of PFC Steve Rogers, he is sent to Camp Leigh, where he meets camp-follower Bucky Barnes. Bucky would discover his secret identity, and be allowed (after some serious commando training) to become Captain America's first partner, taking care of some of the dirty work required for successful missions.

PFC Rogers would continually run afoul of Sgt. Duffy, whose distaste for that "screw-up goldbrick Rogers" would make his PFC identity painful. Rogers would also repeatedly encounter secret FBI Agent Betsy Ross, with whom he would have a low-level romantic relationship.

Renegade elements in the American intelligence community would attempt to re-discover the secrets of the Super Soldier Formula (complete with a head scientist code-named "Erskine"), experimenting on black subjects. The only survivor of these experiments, Isaiah Bradley, would don a Captain America costume and fight back, putting an end to those responsible.

Captain America and Bucky would fight through most of the war, either alone or as part of the Invaders, until Baron Zemo attempted to steal an experimental Allied Drone Plane. Zemo launched the plane, to send it to Germany for study, but Captain America and Bucky raced to the plane as it took off, and leaped from a captured motorcycle. Captain America fell back, plunging in the icy water. The SSF reacted with the extreme cold to send Rogers into a state of suspended animation, and the cold currents would eventually freeze him in a block of ice, to be found decades later and revived by the Avengers.

Long thought dead, there is a possibility that somehow Bucky survived the explosion, and was captured by Soviet forces. Brainwashed and turned into a cyborg assassin called the Winter Soldier, his story is only now coming to light.

When the original Captain America and Bucky disappeared, Harry Truman approached William Naisland about taking over the role until the original Captain America returned.

He accepted, become the second person to take the costume. He served through the completion of the war as part of the Invaders, with Fred Davis (who had once before substituted as Bucky to foil the Red Skull) as the replacement Bucky. After the war he and Bucky served as a member of the All-Winners Squad.

In 1946 he was killed in action battling an evil android named Adam II in an attempt to prevent the assassination of a Boston congressional candidate, John Kennedy.

Captain America II was found dying by Jeff Mace, the Patriot of the Liberty Legion. Jeff took the costume and shield, continuing the legacy, and defeated Adam II, saving a then-Senator John F. Kennedy. Mace continued in the role of Captain America as a member of the All-Winners Squad and retired as Captain America in the early 1950's.

Fred Davis was sidelined in the early 1950's by a gunshot wound, and replaced by Betsy Ross, who adopted the costumed identity of Golden Girl I for a short while as Captain America's partner. For many years he was believed retired, but recent evidence has tied him into a shadowy, secret organization called the Penance Council.

After his retirement as Captain America, Jeff Mace married Betsy Ross.

The man who would become Captain America IV was eleven when the first Captain America was created. Throughout the war years he idolized Captain America, and was shocked to learn of his supposed death in 1946. He became a historian specializing in WWII, and he discovered that the notes and files of a Nazi spy, Major Kerfoot, contained the original Super-Soldier formula. He revealed his discovery to certain high officials in the US government, and made a deal whereby he would become the new Captain America, and act as a symbol in the Korean War. As a civilian, Steve Rogers taught high school, where he befriended Jack Munroe, who shared his adoration of the wartime duo of Captain America and Bucky.

Because they had taken the Super-Soldier formula without the radiation treatment, both "Steve" and Jack went slowly insane, brutalizing anyone they thought might be a communist. Captured by the FBI, they were placed in suspended animation. They would be awakened in modern times, where they would challenge Captain America and the Falcon. Under the control of Dr. Faustus, this CA would become the neo-Nazi leader called the Grand Director, and would commit suicide.

Jack Munroe would eventually be cured by SHIELD, and become the hero known as Nomad (and later, the Scourge). However, the alternate treatment he had taken, in combination with later SHIELD treatments and nanobot infections, eventually would become a fatally degenerative condition. However, before the condition would kill him, Jack would be assassinated by the Winter Soldier as part of a plot against Captain America.

Early after his own return from a period of amnesia, Namor fought the Avengers, and was defeated. Sulking and rampaging in the ice of the North Atlantic, he came upon a group of natives worshipping a figure caught in a block of ice and hurled the ice-block into the ocean, where the warm currents of the Gulf stream began to melt it.

The Avengers (who were searching for Namor after his attacks), recovered the reviving figure from inside the ice, and Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, returned.

Captain America would become a key member of the Avengers, and awarded founder status. He spent much of his free time angsting about Bucky's death, and he met and fell in love with Sharon Carter (S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 13), the younger sister of an espionage agent he had known romantically during World War II. He became good friends with Nick Fury, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

After a short partnership with Rick Jones, Captain America would begin a long partnership and friendship with Sam Wilson, the high-flying Falcon.

After Captain America and the Falcon brought down the plans of the Secret Empire, Cap discovered that the conspiracy had reached to the top of the White House, and that "a high government official" (read between the lines - the President) was behind the entire plot.

When confronted with his crimes, the President.. err... the high government official committed suicide. The government covered the suicide with a different scandal, replacing the retired President with an actor (although they were never explicit, this is the Marvel explanation for Watergate and the resignation of President Nixon). Steve became disenchanted with his role as Captain America, and became Nomad, Man Without A Country.

While Steve adventured in his Nomad identity, fighting yet another plot to take over the world from Roxxon Oil and Madame Hydra, several people tried to take the identity of Captain America. The last of these, a young man named Roscoe, was killed by the Red Skull for the impersonation; the feelings of responsibility for his death and the realization that he represented the American ideals, not the American government, drove Steve back into action as Captain America.

As the results of manipulation from an agent of the Red Skull, the U.S. Government Commission on Superhuman Activity exerted their influence, and attempted to make Captain America their own operative. Steve refused, and they demanded that he return the shield and uniform under their contention that the identity is government property.

The Commission appoints John Walker (formerly the Super-Patriot) as the new Captain America. Steve adopts the identity of the Captain, with a Wakandan vibranium shield supplied by the Black Panther. John Walker will be joined by Battlestar as his partner, but eventually resign as Captain America following his mental breakdown (caused by the pressure of living up to being Captain America and the death of his parents at the hands of the Watchdogs). Faced with a scandal, the Commission changes its collective mind about the wisdom of having anyone but Steve in the identity of Captain America, and gives him back the shield and mantle. After a faked assassination, Walker will return as the government-sponsored hero USAgent.

Captain America noticed some increasing periods of weakness and stiffness, and goes for an examination, with startling results - the Super-Soldier formula which created him started degrading; Steve Rogers' body started failing. While Hank Pym searches for a cure, Captain America starts making plans for his mission to survive him.

Knowing he has little time left, he arranges for a battle-vest and some technological tools to assist him as he becomes weaker and weaker. He sets up the Captain America Hotline to operate in the event of his demise, and recruits Free Spirit and Jack Flagg to carry on with his mission when he finally falls - as he does against the Serpent Society, paralyzed!

Faced with paralysis, Cap had Tony Stark design an armored exo-skeleton for his use, and began to train Jack Flagg and Free Spirit as potential heirs to his legacy. Finally, he suffers his final collapse... but his body disappears! He is mourned by the world as befits a living legend who lives no more.

Steve is soon revived by his old enemy, the Red Skull, and is surprised to find that Sharon Carter is still alive. The three of them thwart a plan of Hitler's from beyond the grave (and the Cosmic Cube), but in co-operating with the Red Skull in assaulting a U.S. Army base, he falls unders suspicion; when plans which only he and the President know about are leaked to Moldavia, Steve is summoned to the President of the United States, who revokes his costume and citizenship, exiling him. After defeating the Machinesmith and saving the President, Steve is re-instated as Captain America just in time to lead the Avengers against the mutant menace known as Onslaught.

Steve, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and myriad others sacrifice themselves in battle to allow the assembled X-teams to defeat Onslaught. As far as the Marvel Universe knows, they have all died. Once again the world mourns his loss. However, this was just the beginning of one of the strangest mysteries in Cap's history!

When the Avengers and other heroes appeared to have sacrificed themselves during the Onslaught events, they actually found themselves translated to a pocket universe, formed by the powers of an out-of-control Franklin Richards.

This universe translated the physical form of some Avengers, making minor adjustments in some while leaving others untouched; for example, Tony Stark became an adult (his teen self having defeated his adult self who had been corrupted by Kang in The Crossing - don't ask. This is the Captain America site, not the Iron Man site...), and the Wasp had her human form restored (she had been mutated into a hybrid insect-human form to save her life, also detailed in The Crossing).

All of their memories and powers were adjusted in this alternate universe; in this universe Captain America had been placed into suspended animation by Presidental order following the nuclear bombing of Japan. Thawed out and mentally conditioned for the Korean and Vietnam Wars, he had recently had false memories installed and was living as Steve Rogers, with an LMD wife. Even more strange, this version of the Super-Soldier Formula was able to pass its vitality along via an oral blood transfusion, and seemed to include some sort of supra-normal healing ability. He took on a new Bucky, a female sidekick.

This universe was unstable, and the Avengers eventually returned to the regular Marvel Universe, while the pocket universe's Earth was translated from its unstable pocket reality to a diametrically-opposed orbit the normal Earth, and was henceforth referred to as "Counter-Earth".

Once he returned to the normal Earth, he and the Avengers took up their normal roles. Later, Captain America would again be announced to have died in the line of duty, and the world mourns him yet again. The reason for this has yet to be revealed, but after the 911 terrorist tragedy he again takes up the mantle of Captain America, and reveals his identity to the world.

Nothing could have prepared Captain America for Avengers Dissassembled - when the Scarlet Witch's mutant reality-warping powers went out of control, his universe was - sometimes quite literally - shattered. The aftermath left the Avengers disbanded, Hawkeye, Ant Man, and Vision dead or destroyed, and the Scarlet Witch - who had manufactured a romantic relationship with Captain America on a whim - taken by Magneto to Professor Xavier.

Heartbroken and despondant, Captain America continues the fight against those who would harm the innocent both here and abroad - but its a rougher, less gentle Captain America, one with no patience or forbearance with terrorist masterminds and their minions.