SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Captain America #2 by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Sunny Gho and Joe Caramagna, on sale now.


It’s to be expected that superhero characters get put through the ringer; Spider-Man has the ol’ Parker luck, Iron Man struggles with alcoholism, Daredevil’s wives and girlfriends keep getting killed. It’s something that comes with the genre; we like to see heroes brought down to their lowest moment so we can watch them climb back to the top of the mountain. It’s what makes them heroes, after all -- their unwillingness to quit in the face of the harshest adversity and their selfless commitment to saving the world despite the effects it has on their own lives.

Captain America’s had it worse than most in recent years, and is only now just coming through the other side. However, just because Steve Rogers is back to normal doesn’t mean the world around him is and people trust him and the concepts he represents less than ever, and he’s finding himself more conflicted and more unsure than he ever has in his career; not to mention he’s keeping a massive secret from those closest to him which could change everything we know about Steve Rogers forever.

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Man Out Of Time

Steve Rogers’ current predicament dates back a lot further than Secret Empire, having roots in Rick Remender’s run on Captain America, where the villainous Iron Nail drained the Super-Soldier Serum from Steve’s blood. The process not only reduced Steve to the skinny, powerless person he was before he became the Sentinel of Liberty, it forced his body to rapidly age to accommodate all the years he’s been alive and in the blink of an eye, Cap was a nonagenarian.

While he took a role at S.H.I.E.L.D., and Sam Wilson took over as Captain America, Steve was eventually restored to his young and virile self by Kobik, the young girl who was actually a sentient Cosmic Cube. However, Kobik had actually changed Steve’s memories and personal history, making him loyal to Hydra at the insistence of the Red Skull. Under everyone’s noses, Captain America slowly took control of S.H.I.E.L.D. and placed himself in the perfect position to be appointed the head of US defense in the case of a national emergency; then all he had to do was create one.

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Captain America and Hydra took over America, rounding up Inhumans into concentration camps and forcing any resistance deep underground, while Steve Rogers’ true core personality existed within the Cosmic Cube. It was only through the the Avengers Resistance’s tenaciousness that they were able to free the real Captain America who went on to defeat the imposter. This was no happy ending however, and things didn’t go back to normal as soon as Cap came back. Black Widow was still dead, Las Vegas still decimated and Steve Rogers legacy tarnished, possibly forever.

Following the events of Secret Empire, the hero took off across America on his motorcycle to find the so-called “real America” and see the effects of Hydra’s takeover from a man-on-the-street level. During his journey, he encountered old and new threats but mostly saw that his country was still populated with decent, well-meaning people who just want to look after each other and do their best to get by day-to-day. A brief trip into the far future helped remind Captain America exactly what he fights for, and he returned to the present reinvigorated and ready to continue to fight for his country and the world.

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Devil’s Bargain

Ta-Nehisi Coates and Leinil Francis Yu’s run on Captain America is only a couple of issues in so far, but it’s already dealing with the themes and fallout of Secret Empire head on, as the government no longer trusts Steve Rogers or appreciates his help in matters of domestic terrorism. Headed up Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, Cap is ordered to stay out of governmental affairs and is even more conflicted when his partner Sharon Carter is offered a job working for Ross, picking up the pieces of what used to be SHIELD which was disbanded in the wake of Hydra’s takeover.

Sharon has her own problems to focus on, too, having returned from Dimension Z significantly older than Steve, and while he doesn’t show signs of it bothering him, their significant age difference is on the back of Sharon’s mind and neither of them have spent much time mourning the death of their adopted son, Ian.

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With everything that’s going on, Steve hasn’t had a chance — or possibly doesn’t want — to tell Sharon the truth about his return, something he refers to as The Bargain. All we get is a small hint of it, but we see Kobik holding out her hand offering Steve Rogers the ability to be “strong again” although it’s unclear what that means. It’s possible that Kobik would have only been able to return Steve to his pre-Hydra old man body but offered him some sort of deal to make him Captain America again. It’s also possible that Kobik traded Steve more power than he’s used to; Wolverine is coming back with flaming hot claws, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Steve Rogers came back with a little extra juice kept secret.

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Whatever Kobik did, and whatever power she gave to Steve, it strikes the question: What could Captain America possibly offer a sentient Cosmic Cube in the form of a little girl? Kobik’s language makes it seem like an offer, but Cap refers to it explicitly as a bargain, meaning some sort of deal was struck and some sort of exchange was made. Whatever he did, he doesn’t seem to proud of it as he hasn’t told Sharon, but it seems to be something he considers necessary to continue existing as Captain America in the post-Secret Empire world. Captain America has long been the Marvel Universe’s moral, incorruptible core but he is still just a man after all and men falter all the time; it was only a matter of time for Captain America to make a selfish decision he’d come to regret.