Captain America has been an enduring character in Marvel since his introduction. Steve Rogers has always represented the ideal that all people should strive for, the personification of Marvel’s idea of perfect heroism. Even in the Marvel Universe itself, Captain America is regarded as the number one hero who inspires more people than anybody else. Everyone from Spider-Man to Mister Fantastic looks up to him like a living legend, and even Doctor Doom respects Cap’s honor and humanity. Of course, as with any legend, it couldn’t die with just Steve, when everyone thought he was gone for good. Steve hasn’t been the only Captain America, and the newest one is the star of his best story.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Captain America’s best stories always focus on two things: the near-mythology that he carved into the world by being a hero, and Steve’s struggle to live up to that ideal. Captain America became the world’s symbol of chasing a better tomorrow, but Steve is just a man, so the stories that typically resonate most dig into what Captain America stands for and how the world deals with that. No story has done that better than Chip Zdarsky’s ongoing run on Captain America (2025). The first story arc just wrapped up, and it might just be one of the best Cap stories in recent memory.
A Young Man In An Old World
The first arc in Zdarsky’s run, “Our Secret Wars,” follows Steve immediately after he’s taken out of the ice. He reemerged in a post-9/11 world and found that the United States had drastically changed from what he remembered. He left a flawed country trying to live up to an ideal, and he returned to one that seemed to have traded that ideal for power and control. Still, he was a soldier, so Steve signed up for duty again and was immediately thrust back into the field. His mission was to extract American hostages held by Doctor Doom in Latveria, and one of his teammates was David Colton, another Captain America made in the wake of 9/11 and the war on terror.
The story was split between the two Captains, dealing with their mutual struggle of representing an America that lost its conscience. David carried heavy PTSD after the atrocities he saw committed by enemy and ally alike during his tour, and Steve was trying to find meaning in a world he didn’t understand. Steve had become a mythic figure in his absence, but in truth, he was just a young man trying to do the right thing, whose view of the world was literally old-fashioned. Their problems came to a head when the strike team was dropped in Latveria and discovered that the USA had backed Doom’s hostile regime, and they were there to kill the hostages to make sure nobody talked.
Steve came into direct conflict with Doom while trying to help the rebel forces, who challenged him being made into a darker, shadowy soldier instead of the symbol he was. Steve eventually embraced that he was a symbol who stood for something that, even if it didn’t exist, he had to fight for to prove it could. He saved civilians from Doom, then had to stop David from massacring Doom’s soldiers, trying to show him that more death couldn’t fix the world. In the end, Steve quit the military to become an Avenger, deciding the world needed him more as a hero than a soldier.
A Classic Message For A New Generation
The themes explored in this story are classic for Captain America comics. Steve has always pushed and pulled against what he thinks America should be versus what it is, but this story homes in perfectly on the feelings of fear and uncertainty that an early-career Steve should have. It takes the classic Captain America formula and modernizes it, which is something that’s always been done. Marvel’s sliding timescale forces origins to be moved up every decade or so, but for Cap, it’s something more. He is just as much an allegory for the American conscience as he is a character, and “Our Secret Wars” understands that perfectly.
This comic shows Steve and David as good but uncertain young men in a world that they are trying to make sense of. There’s fear, hate, and atrocities that they face, some committed by the very country they swore to embody, that haunt them and leave them questioning if there’s any point to it all. Those fears are extremely prominent in the modern American consciousness, and contrasting Marvel’s ultimate symbol of freedom against the fascist dictator Doctor Doom is a clear connection to fears of rising fascism. This story works so well because it uses Cap as a vehicle to explore these themes, and never forgets where its heart is.
This story works both as a politically charged thriller and a familiar adventure for Captain America, and as a mirror to the fears present in the hearts of plenty of people in the world right now. It uses Cap to explore the fears, desires, and unbreakable spirit that should define the American Dream, and has a message about choosing to do the right thing, no matter the darkness present. It’s a smart, poignant, and important story that deserves to be read, no questions asked. It’s a modern Captain America masterpiece and an instant classic.
Captain America #5 is on sale now!
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image courtesy of Paramount+
