Secret Empire #1 Reveals Captain America's Plans, Brings Hydra's Reign Across The Marvel Universe

Nick Spencer's Captain America storyline takes an epic turn this May when his dark and dirty secret gets loose at the worst possible time.

Marvel has let loose a few details regarding this summer's event series, Secret Empire, which culminates the threads Spencer's been building in his Super-Soldier comics for the last couple years.

Marvel honchos Axel Alonso and Tom Brevoort finally revealed details about the event to ABC News, announcing a nine-issue series beginning with a prelude in #0 this April.

Series artists Steve McNiven, Andrea Sorrentino, and Leinil Francis Yu will handle interior duties with covers provided by Mark Brooks.

When the sentient (and highly impressionable) Cosmic Cube named Kobik gave back a depowered Steve Rogers his abilities, she also recreated his personal history so that he's always been an undercover Agent of Hydra.

"His plans and Hydra's plans will have begun to unfurl," Brevoort said. "We are done with the covert portion, the buildup portion of the program, Secret Empire is the pyrotechnics, the big Michael Bay blockbuster, huge colossal struggles and battles across the Marvel Universe, with all of our key characters and players taking on a big role."



And the events of Civil War II once again positioned the character as the top cop of the Marvel Universe. The character has since been manipulating events to unleash Hydra on the country in the wake of all the turmoil.

But his undercover status will be revealed early in the event, delivering devastating blow to the heart of the Marvel Universe.

"If you are going into this story not knowing how it's going to go, yeah you should have some misgiving about [a happy ending], because it's a really ridiculously awful situation he is in," Brevoort said. "It might not all be fine."


Alonso and Brevoort defined this series as a rallying cry of sorts for the Marvel heroes, who have just come off of two different conflicts against each other in the form of Civil War II and Inhumans Vs. X-Men.

"This is very much more an old school story. You will know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. This is not heroes fighting heroes, this is heroes fighting a bad guy," Alonso said.

Check out the gallery for the first issue cover and an interior page by Yu.

Secret Empire #1 will hit shelves in May.