In comics, as in life, context is everything. At any other time in comic book history, the sight of Steve Rogers lifting Mjolnir would have been a confirmation of the inherent goodness of Marvel’s first and greatest hero. However, Captain America’s latest successful attempt to wield Thor’s mighty hammer occurred on the battlefield, in the pages of the Free Comic Book Day issue of Secret Empire; and it happened as he and his Hydra cohorts were taking the Capitol by force, overthrowing the government of the United States.

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Striding through the chaos and the carnage to pick up the mystical weapon, Rogers sent a message to everyone fighting the battle, and to viewers watching the destruction live on TV and online: “I am worthy. Hydra is worthy.” After all, the enchanted hammer can only be hoisted by a person who meets Odin’s criteria of worthiness, concepts which have never been expressly stated, but which are widely assumed to include uncommon valor, honesty, integrity and the like.

But what if he wasn’t just trying to prove his worthiness to the world? What if Rogers was also trying to prove his worth to himself?

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Captain America was borne out of Steve Rogers’ desire to prove his worthiness. The 98-pound weakling refused to accept that he was too frail to serve in the U.S. Army against Hitler’s Nazi hordes, and kept re-enlisting despite repeated rejections. His perseverance got him noticed, and as result he became the first—and only—recipient of the experimental Super-Soldier Serum, which imbued him with enhanced strength and intelligence.

These new-found powers did not magically transform Rogers into a hero. They were, instead, a vector for his valor, and merely enhanced his ability to champion what he believed was right.

In many ways, Steve Rogers was a stand-in for his creators. Jack Kirby and Joe Simon were two young Jewish men who were frustrated at the United States’ hesitation to enter the Second World War. Angered by their government’s refusal to stop Hitler’s atrocities, especially the persecution in Europe of their fellow Jews, the pair created a hero who would fight in their stead.

With a cover date of March, 1941, Captain America #1 went on sale on December 20, 1940. Although it was nearly a year before the United States entered the war (following the attack on Pearl Harbor), the iconic image of the titular hero punching out Hitler resonated with readers and propelled the debut issue to sales of over a million copies.

The national symbol who thus emerged was not an expression—or a celebration—of unquestioning patriotism. Kirby and Simon had put the nation on trial, and had found it unworthy.

Captain America was a call to arms. As the war progressed and the United States’ involvement escalated, Captain America -- like so much of the pop culture of the day—became part of the machine that bolstered the war effort at home and on the European front. Comic books were such an integral part of the war propaganda machine, so much so that the U.S. Army was their single biggest buyer.

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Captain America Goes Into Post-WWII Cold Storage

Easy to ship, easy to carry, and easy to read, comic books were sent overseas. They were not only cherished by servicemen, but by European children, who were often gifted the precious commodity when American G.I.s were done reading them, or when the soldiers shipped out. Such gifts were especially generous in Italy, where Mussolini had banned American comics in 1938.

Unlike other superheroes, Captain America was a serving member of the U.S. Army. His struggle against the Axis powers was neither tangential nor occasional -- it was his raison d’être. A typical adventure saw Rogers using his brains and brawn to fight Hitler’s minions, who often resorted to treachery and deceit to advance their nefarious plans. But Steve was a straight arrow. His honesty and integrity always won the day. The panels may have been in glorious color, but the message was black and white.

After the war, Captain America’s popularity waned, and the character was retired. It was part of an overall trend, of course; superhero titles weren’t selling as well as a whole as older readers who had discovered them during the war were asking for something other than high flying men and women in tights and capes. Batman and Superman weathered the storm, but a battle-fatigued audience cooled to Cap, a hero so closely associated with the conflict.

None of this was lost on Joe Simon, who re-teamed with Kirby to pioneer a whole new genre aimed at older readers. Young Romance debuted in 1947—two years before the publication of the last Captain America story. It was the first of the so-called romance comics, and it drew its inspiration from magazines like Fawcett’s True Confessions, which featured lurid “reader accounts” of illicit love and longing.

Although the genre supplanted superhero titles for a time, it too fell victim to the mid-1950s witch hunt against comics. The industry then self-censored, focusing on safe stories about happily married couples instead of tales of pre- and extra-marital tales of lust and longing. But Simon and Kirby’s creation had a huge impact on pop culture, and even influenced the genre it had supplanted: Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man stories combined the best elements of romance comics and super heroics that attracted a whole new generation of readers.

We all know what happened next. The success of Amazing Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four birthed The Avengers, and heralded the return of Captain America -- sans Bucky, thanks to Stan Lee’s distaste for teenage sidekicks. After being trapped in ice since the Second World War, the thawed Captain America not only had to adapt to the swinging '60s, but also had to deal with the apparent loss of his teenage partner.

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Captain America: Reborn; Bucky: Re-Cast

Rogers blamed himself for Bucky’s death, and therefore questioned his worthiness as a hero. The matter came to a head in the pages of Captain America #110, after he saved Rick Jones from a raging Hulk. The incident triggered his remorse over the death of his wartime partner, but things got even stickier when Rick went rummaging in Cap’s closet and came out wearing Bucky’s old uniform.

Wary of taking on a new partner, Rogers initially refused, but he then let Jones follow him into the sewers to take on Hydra. Despite some hiccups on their first sortie, Captain America felt that the boy showed promise, and decided to train him. A second sortie proved more successful and, seconds before diving into a hail of bullets in order to fake his own death -- Rogers conclude that the boy was worthy, and that he’d have to show his own worth in return.

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Steve’s fake death, as contrived as it may seem today, shocked readers at the time. The floating rubber mask and the bullet-riddled helmet & jersey were meant to convey that Steve was not only dead, but that he wasn’t even the person everyone thought. It also implied that, if Rogers were a fabrication, anybody else could assume the mantle. After all, if Rogers’ public persona were an act, and it included a starring turn as Captain America, the identity of the “actor” was irrelevant.

The message was clear: Captain America wasn’t a person, he was a symbol. And he wasn’t the exclusive property of Steve Rogers, or the product of the Super-Soldier Serum. Rogers wanted to be free of the symbol -- not only to protect his loved ones from harm, which was the whole point of other heroes’ secret identities -- but also on the existential level. He was tired of living under the microscope. Also, having finally made peace with the death of Bucky, he was ready to fully embrace the title, but not at the expense of a private life.

Of course, this being comics, Rogers’ gambit didn’t work. Although he’d holed up in a seedy motel, under an assumed name, his old nemesis the Red Skull found him, albeit by using his recently retrieved cosmic cube—which he’d then use to torture Cap in a number of ways. This development would quickly lead to hero and villain switching bodies, with the Skull on the loose in New York City in full Captain America regalia, while Rogers languished on a desert island in Schmidt’s body.

Things get weirder still from there. 1974 saw the arrival of the original Secret Empire storyline, which concluded with a poignant exploration of Steve’s worthiness. After uncovering a plot to overthrow the government, involving a Madison Avenue advertising guru, a Hydra splinter group that had built a flying saucer powered by the mental energy of kidnapped mutants, and the president of the United States himself, Steve lost faith in everything.

The disillusioned Rogers not only questioned his own worthiness, but also the worthiness of the government he served, as well as the very notion of super heroism itself. Written by Steve Englehart, with pencils by Sal Buscema, and inks by Vinnie Colletta, “Captain America Must Die!” appeared in issue #176 of the title that the hero shared with his Falcon sidekick.

In some ways it echoed Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Captain America #112. Following the death that Lee and Jim Steranko had depicted in the previous issue, Kirby’s art retold the broad strokes of Captain America’s life using a videotape review by Iron Man as a plot device. Englehart, however, had Rogers look back at his own life with a critical eye, and the Captain wasn’t happy with what he saw.

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Disillusioned with the United States, Captain America Retires

Going back to the day he was injected with the Super-Soldier Serum, and was bombarded with vita-rays, Rogers recalled the power he felt in killing Dr. Erskine’s assassin. Nothing had ever felt like that day. He marvelled at his power, not only in terms of physical strength, but also as a symbol. “For the first time, I fully realized what had been done to me,” he mused. “‘Fight for America?’ Man, I was Captain America.

“I’ve seen America rocked with scandal,” he told Thor, “Seen it manipulated by demagogues’ sweet empty words—seen all the things I hated when I saw those newsreels…” His words -- expressing his exasperation at the Watergate scandal that was rocking the nation in 1974 -- could equally apply to present day politics, and to the version of himself that is currently heading Hydra.

In recalling the fake charges leveled against him by Quentin Harderman and the Committee to Regain American Values, Rogers mused that, although he was innocent, others weren’t. “How can people trust ‘heroes’ any more—and how can I blame them?” he asked Sam Wilson, “Maybe hero worship does as much harm as good.”

Despite its stereotypical portrayal of varied ethnicities, one panel even showed Steve wondering whether a white man could symbolize an ethnically diverse America. But his mind was made up. Even a plea by his wartime cohort and one-time love, Peggy Carter -- wrapped in a history lesson that asks him to consider the very nature of his name -- could not get him to change his mind.

His final thoughts before making the decision to step away from the shield reflected the conscience of a soldier who can no longer serve in good conscience.

“The government created me in 1941 -- created me to act as their agent in protecting our country—and over the years I’ve done my best! I wasn’t perfect. I did things I’m not proud of -- but I always tried to serve my country well… and now I find that the government was serving itself.

“I just don't understand!” he concluded. “I just don’t understand.”

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These were the words of the young man who merely wanted to serve, and who considered himself worthy, despite his physical failings. They were also the words of the seasoned hero who learned that the ideals he served had been betrayed by those who should have protected them. America it seemed, was not always great, despite the greatness of its greatest protector.

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So... Is Steve Rogers Worthy, or Not?

Ed Brubaker’s legendary Captain America run also touched on the question of worthiness. Following Rogers’ death at the end of Marvel's first superhero Civil War, Bucky Barnes stole Captain America’s shield to prevent it from being given to somebody unworthy of wielding it. Unbeknownst to him, his former mentor and friend not only deeded the vibranium-infused weapon to him, he’d also left instructions that Bucky become the next Captain America. (Captain America #33).

Brubaker’s Captain America Reborn mini also explored the guilt Steve felt over Bucky’s face. It turned out that Rogers hadn’t died on the steps of a New York City courthouse. He’d instead become unstuck in time, and was leaping randomly through points in his own history. Ever mindful of not changing history, an exhausted Rogers tried to remain an observer. Interfering a first time, and hoping to have no impact on the timeline, he asked the Vision record a message to the future in the midst of the Kree-Skrull War.

But when he found himself at the moment when Bucky jumped on Zemo’s drone plane, which would lead to the youth eventually becoming the Winter Soldier, Rogers decided that maintaining the timeline wasn’t worth it. He was going to save his friend. It was the right thing to do.

Rogers never did find out whether he saved Bucky -- and in the process created an alternate timeline -- as he was about to fling the youth off the aircraft, he was pulled back to the present, during which time he experienced visions of two possible futures, one of which may have been the present day Secret Empire.

So what does all of this say about the current incarnation of Captain America? How does this Steve Rogers stand up to the versions delivered by Simon and Kirby, Lee and Steranko, Engelhart and Brubaker?

As a symbol, Captain America has always asked whether America is worthy. Simon and Kirby asked if it was worthy of fighting evil abroad. Englehart, Brubaker and Spencer ask whether it is worthy of taking on its internal evil. Spencer’s fascist Hydra Cap may be the polar opposite of the 98-pound weakling that Kirby and Simon transformed into the Sentinel of Liberty, but Spencer is asking the same question as the character’s creators.

The true question is not whether Rogers is worthy, but whether America is worthy… as a nation, as a concept, and as a dream.

This is why Secret Empire has been so uncomfortable… and so necessary.