SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Secret Empire #10, on sale now.


We all knew he was coming back.

Even without Monday’s spoilers (courtesy of Marvel Comics and the New York Times), it was a given that the original Steve Rogers would return at the conclusion of Nick Spencer’s Secret Empire. It’s not just a comic book thing about restoring the status quo; part of Rogers’ M.O. is making his way back from places nobody else could.

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After being frozen in ice at the end of World War II, he returned in the 1960s to lead the Avengers. He made his way back from a remote tropical island after the Red Skull used a Cosmic Cube to swap bodies with him, stranding him in the middle of nowhere. He even survived being shot by his girlfriend, Sharon Carter, then being sent back in time to careen from one random moment in his past to another.

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How We Got Here

Rogers’ latest return is from an oblivion that began in the pages of Captain America: Sam Wilson #7. Marking the 75th anniversary of Simon and Kirby’s original Captain America, the issue was penned by Nick Spencer with art by Daniel Acuña. It tied in to the Avengers: Standoff event that revealed S.H.I.E.L.D. had built a secret prison for super villains powered by a reality-bending sentient Cosmic Cube named Kobik. After an aged and de-powered Rogers was beaten nearly to death by Crossbones, Kobik -- who had taken the form of a four-year old human girl, and who was imbued with the emotional maturity of a child, despite her godlike powers -- restored him to his youth, and sent the Super Soldier Serum coursing through his veins once again.

What we didn’t know then was that Kobik, who had previously belonged to the Red Skull, had not only restored Rogers to his former self: She had also altered his reality. Not only had Steve been an agent of Hydra all along, but Hydra had won the second World War. The version of history that we take for granted had been engineered by the Allies, who had built the first cosmic cube in the '40s, and had used it to reverse their defeat.

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But all of this wasn’t just in Steve’s head. Most notably, Elisa Sinclair, the woman who had recruited his mother in his altered past, appeared in the present as the latest incarnation of Madame Hydra. Also, some members of the Hydra Council appeared to have either lived his version of history, or at least to feign a belief it had happened.

Everything changes

At the beginning of Secret Empire #10, Steve Rogers is virtually a god. Even though he's missing the final fragment of Kobik, the Cosmic Cube that powers his modified Stark armor, the remaining fragments are enough to render him invincible, and also allow him to bend reality to his will.

His plea that his former superhero allies join him, and Hydra, in transforming the world into something better and stronger falls on deaf ears. Led by Hawkeye, who seeks payback for the death of Natasha, the Avengers assemble for a final attack. Their end is swift. Rogers overwhelms them in the present, and overwrites their past. In fact, he rewrites the entire Marvel Universe as we know it.

Or so he thinks.

A splash page reveals this new past through a collage of newspapers behind an armoured Hydra Cap. It shows a Peter Parker who was deliberately bitten by a genetically modified Hydra spider, Charles Xavier and Magneto being executed, and a version of the Avengers headed by a Hydra-compliant Iron Man.

There is also a Fantastic Four led by Doctor Doom, a very clever touch by Spencer. There was some speculation that Secret Empire might conclude with the return of the FF, but there is no Reed Richards to serve as a deus ex machina in Hydra Cap’s reality.

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The Way Back

But as he gazes out at a shiny new Capitol molded in the image of his Hydra pipe dream, Rogers’ reality comes crashing down. The heroes’ final stand was a feint, a diversion that allowed Bucky Barnes to implement the plan he’d hinted at in Secret Empire #8.

Dressed as Captain America and clutching the missing shard of Kobik regurgitated by Barf in Secret Empire #8, Sam appears behind Rogers. As he approaches his former mentor, he pictures the Captain America he knew, confronting Thanos, in a panel homaging this moment from Jim Starlin and Ron Lim's Infinity Gauntlet work. He knows that he is as outmatched as his hero once was. “Hail Hydra,” Sam says, kneeling and offering the prize. He also surrenders his shield, at Rogers’ request.

With a fully reconstituted Cosmic Cube powering his armor, Rogers transcends even godhood -- but his ascension is short-lived, and Bucky’s plan is revealed.

Aided by Ant Man, Barnes shrinks and whips himself at Hydra Cap’s chest, hurtling into the Cosmic Cube as Rogers completes it with the final fragment. Bucky’s gamble pays off. He rightly guessed that Kobik harbored within her the memory of the true Steve Rogers before she corrupted him, and that she could also return to her human form once she was fully restored.

The scene that plays out within the confines of the Cosmic Cube is nothing short of wondrous. In the ruins of a town, a terrified Kobik finds shelter underneath a table in a bombed-out daycare shelter. “I’m sorry I messed up real bad,” she weeps. “I just wanted everyone to be happy—I made him ‘cause I thought Hydra was the best thing.

“But he wasn’t,” she confesses, “He was horrible.”

The Steve Rogers who we know and love comforts the terrified child. Spencer and artist Rod Reis -- who has been drawing the world inside Kobik’s mind during Secret Empire -- deliver one of the most iconic panels in Marvel history. Eyes bright with purpose and compassion, Steve explains: “I’ve been fighting fascists my entire life. And I promise you there is nowhere you can run or hide that will keep you safe from them. There’s only one thing you can do.” He completes his thought in the next panel: “You stand and fight.”

Steve takes Kobik’s hand and leads her out of the daycare center. Upon exiting, he hears the voice of Bucky in the sky, picks up the child and cries out for his wartime partner. He replays the fateful day that he fell off Zemo’s drone into the icy waters of the Atlantic as Bucky flew off to his death.

This is the moment that has haunted him for years. It is the very event he tried to prevent in the pages of Captain America Reborn when he was unstuck in his own past. It was the moment that he decided to change the timeline, but failed. In a mirror image of what happened in Ed Brubaker’s story, Bucky reaches into the memory of the past and rescues his former partner.

Kobik returns to the real world, and immediately sweeps away Hydra Cap’s alterations. She then restores the Steve Rogers who existed in her mind; the memory of the hero before she altered him. He emerges into reality in his classic outfit, the iconic costume we last saw at the end of Rick Remender’s run, before he was drained of the Super Soldier Serum.

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Secret Empire Consequences

What follows is a callback to 1943. Steve Rogers punches a fascist -- again and again -- as the world watches. “Our champion did not falter,” we are told, “He was a man at war with his worst nightmare. A warped and twisted version of everything he stood for.” It is a stark reminder that the noblest ideal -- America itself -- can be co-opted and corrupted by those who would “come to power on the back of a lie.”

And what a lie it proves to be. It turns out that Hydra Cap was never worthy of wielding Mjolnir to begin with. Unkbeknownst to him, Elisa Sinclair had used a fragment of Kobik to temporarily alter Thor’s hammer so that it could be wielded by the strongest, thus conferring leadership of Hydra to Rogers. The real, unaltered Mjolnir can only be wielded by the real, unaltered Steve Rogers, who uses it to deliver a finishing blow to Hydra Cap, and then returns it to Jane Foster. (Apparently, Odinson is also still unworthy.)

Steve also returns the vibranium shield to Sam: “I told him this didn’t belong to him,” he says of Hydra Cap. “It doesn’t belong to me either.”

Steve’s return concludes with the restoration of the timeline. Kobik reconstructs “the history that had been corrupted and taken from us.” But this isn’t a reset switch. The events of Secret Empire have not been erased. History unfolded as we saw it, and the devastating consequences are real, Las Vegas is still is a pile of rubble. Rick and Natasha are still dead, and Hydra Cap remains to answer for his crimes.

The Future

As Marvel moves past the Generations one-shots into the Legacy soft reboot, we've been told that there will be no more line-wide events from Marvel in the next 18 months. This may mean that Secret Empire is the final chapter in a saga that began in 1984 with Secret Wars.

It may not be the last ever event, but Secret Empire may become the final hero vs. hero event. We've seen the trope spun out repeatedly. There have been two superhero Civil Wars. The Avengers have taken on the X-Men, and the X-Men have squared off against the Inhumans. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Nick Spencer may have given us a fresh spin on the trope, but the conclusion of Secret  Empire makes it clear that its time for Marvel's heroes to stop fighting each other and start fighting the bad guys. Come to think of it, that's a pretty good take on the way we should all be living our lives.