106 Fun Facts About Captain America

After ten issues of Captain America Comics, its creators left Timely for which rival publisher?

DC Comics offered the pair far more after Simon decided Goodman was holding back their promised share of the profits, and Goodman fired them when he learned of the talks.

Who made his comics debut with a two-page prose story in Captain America Comics #3?

Stan Lee was a teenage office assistant then, and when Simon and Kirby left later in 1941, Goodman made him interim editor.

Who is Captain America shown punching on the cover of his first issue?

Adolf Hitler was the greatest villain you could think of, Simon said, and the pro-Nazi German American Bund objected to the comic mocking their leader.

Roughly how many copies did Captain America Comics #1 sell?

About 1,000,000 copies sold, and the series kept selling a million a month, yet Simon and Kirby saw little of the profits.

In The First Avenger, what job is the newly enhanced Captain America given before he sees combat?

Selling war bonds on tour kept him from the front until he learned Bucky's unit was missing in Italy and went behind enemy lines to rescue them himself.

Which secret wartime programme turned Steve Rogers into a super-soldier?

Project Rebirth was meant to turn out more super-soldiers, but a Nazi spy shot the serum's creator, Abraham Erskine, just after Rogers was treated.

In the comics, which fictional metal went into the alloy of Captain America's shield?

Vibranium was fused into the alloy by a process no one could repeat, and metallurgist Myron MacLain's attempts to recreate it produced adamantium instead.

In The First Avenger, which act finally convinces Colonel Phillips that frail Steve Rogers is worth choosing?

Jumping on a grenade won Phillips over, though it was a dummy he had tossed to test the recruits, and every other man ran for cover.

When the Avengers found Captain America in 1964, how had he survived since the war?

Frozen in ice after a drone plane exploded in the war's last days, he had survived the blast that apparently killed Bucky.

The Falcon, introduced in 1969, was mainstream comics' first what?

African-American superhero is the exact first: Black Panther reached comics three years earlier, in 1966, but he is an African king from fictional Wakanda.

In a 1974 Watergate-inspired storyline, Rogers briefly dropped the Captain America identity to become whom?

Nomad, 'the man without a country', lasted only four issues, long enough for Rogers to trip over his own new cape in the middle of a fight.

Ed Brubaker's 2005 relaunch revealed that which country had turned Bucky into its assassin, the Winter Soldier?

Soviet Union forces found Bucky and brainwashed him, breaking the old joke that no one in comics stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd and Uncle Ben.

Which actor plays Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, in the Marvel films?

Sebastian Stan first auditioned to play Steve Rogers himself and was handed the role of Bucky instead.

In Nick Spencer's 2016 run, Cap was replaced by a version loyal to which organisation?

Hydra's Cap came from Kobik, a living reality-warping artifact who rewrote his memories; the original Rogers returned to beat his double in 2017's Secret Empire.

Under which name did John Walker, later U.S. Agent, debut in Captain America #323 in 1986?

Super-Patriot vowed to prove he would make a better symbol of America than Rogers, and in 1987 he got the chance as the new Captain America.

Isaiah Bradley's 2003 origin series Truth: Red, White & Black drew on which real-life episode?

The Tuskegee Study inspired its story of 300 Black soldiers used as serum test subjects; sole survivor Bradley is court-martialed and jailed for taking Cap's costume.

In Republic's 1944 Captain America serial, the hero's first screen appearance, what replaced his shield?

A revolver stood in for the shield, and the serial also dropped Steve Rogers and the army; publisher Timely objected, but Republic was already deep into filming.

In the 1979 Captain America TV movies, Cap's shield doubled as what on his motorcycle?

The windscreen was the shield itself: clear plexiglass with red stripes that Cap unclipped to throw, on a rocket bike that launched from the back of his van.

Who played Captain America in the 1990 film?

It got a theatrical release abroad but went direct-to-video in the US.

Who directed Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)?

Joe Johnston got the job for The Rocketeer, his earlier comic-book adventure, and for the ships he designed for the original Star Wars.

Who plays the Red Skull in The First Avenger?

Hugo Weaving played him only once: when the Skull resurfaced guarding the Soul Stone in Infinity War and Endgame, Ross Marquand had taken over.

In The First Avenger, the Red Skull seizes the Tesseract, hidden on Earth by Odin, from a town in which country?

Norway's Tønsberg guarded the cube for centuries, and the same town returns in Endgame as New Asgard, home of Thor's surviving people.

Who plays Dr. Abraham Erskine, the scientist who lets Rogers enlist?

Stanley Tucci says he took the part for the chance to do a German accent, something he had always wanted to try.

Which actress plays Peggy Carter?

Hayley Atwell's Peggy outgrew the films: she led her own ABC series, Agent Carter, for two seasons in 2015 and 2016, set just after the war.

Who directed The Winter Soldier and Civil War?

The Russo brothers came from TV comedy, best known for directing the sitcom Community before Marvel trusted them with a political thriller.

Which Hollywood legend plays Alexander Pierce, a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official, in The Winter Soldier?

Robert Redford was cast partly as a nod to the 1970s conspiracy thrillers the film copies, above all his own Three Days of the Condor.

What is Project Insight in The Winter Soldier?

Three helicarriers linked to spy satellites would kill anyone an algorithm flagged as a future threat, judged from records as ordinary as bank statements and test scores.

Whose preserved consciousness lives in a supercomputer in a New Jersey bunker in The Winter Soldier?

Arnim Zola's face on the monitors nods to the comics, where the scientist's mind lives in a robot body that shows his face on a screen in its chest.

What UN framework divides the Avengers in Civil War?

The Sokovia Accords are the films' version of the comics' Superhuman Registration Act, a US law that made every hero register with the government.

The Avengers' airport battle in Civil War takes place in which country?

Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport hosts the fight, though the actors were filmed partly at a studio near Atlanta and set inside a digital copy of the airport.

Civil War, 2016's highest-grossing film, has Tony Stark recruit which new hero from a Queens apartment?

Spider-Man could only appear because Marvel and Sony, which holds his film rights, struck a deal in February 2015, two months before filming began.

Which actor plays Helmut Zemo?

Daniel Brühl's Zemo knows he is no match for the Avengers, so he turns them on each other to avenge the family he lost when their battle wrecked his city.

In Avengers: Endgame, Rogers proves worthy to wield what?

Mjolnir had been destroyed in Thor: Ragnarok, so the hammer Rogers swings at Thanos is one Thor carried back from a time-travel trip to 2013.

At the end of Endgame, whom does the aged Rogers choose as his successor?

Sam Wilson is handed the shield by an elderly Rogers, who returned the Infinity Stones and then stayed in the past to live out his life with Peggy Carter.

Which song does Rogers dance to with Peggy at the end of Endgame?

It's Been a Long, Long Time, a 1945 hit, plays in Steve's apartment in The Winter Soldier, and the dance is the one he promised Peggy in The First Avenger.

At the start of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Captain America's shield is given away to which institution?

The Smithsonian gets it for a Captain America exhibit, but the government soon takes it back and hands it to a new Cap, John Walker.

Who plays John Walker, the replacement Captain America, in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

Wyatt Russell once auditioned to play Captain America himself, a part that went to Chris Evans; years later he was cast as the man handed the shield instead.

Karli Morgenthau leads which group of rogue super soldiers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

The Flag Smashers want the borderless world of the Blip years back; in the comics Flag-Smasher is a single villain, Karl Morgenthau.

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sharon Carter is revealed to be which criminal figure?

The Power Broker runs the lawless island city of Madripoor; in the comics the name belongs to a man who sells superhuman strength to paying customers.

In Captain America: Brave New World, President Ross transforms into which creature?

Red Hulk erupts at a press conference and wrecks part of the White House; the pills keeping Ross alive had been secretly laced with gamma radiation.

Which star plays President Thaddeus Ross in Brave New World?

Harrison Ford took the part after the death of William Hurt, who had played Ross on and off since 2008's The Incredible Hulk.

Which line does Steve Rogers first say to a back-alley bully, then repeat across the Marvel films?

I can do this all day comes back at him in Endgame: his 2012 self says it mid-fight, and the older, wearier Rogers just mutters that he knows.

Who plays Joaquin Torres, the Falcon, in Captain America: Brave New World (2025)?

Their first mission is in Oaxaca, Mexico, against Sidewinder's mercenaries.

What name did Joe Simon say he first considered for the hero before settling on Captain America?

Super American went in the bin because, Simon said, there were too many 'Supers' around, while comics had hardly any captains.

Captain America first went into action in print at what point in the Second World War?

Before the US had joined, a year ahead of Pearl Harbor, the issue amounted to Simon and Kirby's argument for entering the war.

In the comics, where had scrawny Steve Rogers been studying before the super-soldier serum?

Art school stuck with him: later stories have Rogers earning a living out of costume as a freelance illustrator.

For its last two issues, Captain America Comics was retitled Captain America's what?

Weird Tales chased the horror boom, and the final issue was a pure horror anthology in which Captain America never appears at all.

How was Captain America billed during his short-lived 1954 revival?

Commie Smasher was cancelled after three issues, and Marvel later disowned him: that Cap was rewritten as a paranoid impostor, not Steve Rogers.

In 1963, Marvel tested interest in Captain America with an impostor who fought which Fantastic Four member?

The Human Torch exposes the fake in a story written to test reader interest, and it worked: the real hero was back in print within months.

From 1964, Cap's solo stories shared which anthology with Iron Man, who had debuted in its pages?

Tales of Suspense split every issue between the two heroes until 1968, when it was renamed Captain America and Iron Man got a title of his own.

Which artist drew and co-wrote a brief but influential three-issue run in 1969?

He re-established Cap's secret identity and brought a more experimental art style.

In Stern and Byrne's 1980–81 issues, what offer does Captain America turn down?

To run for president was a plot Stern had turned down as editor when Roger McKenzie and Don Perlin pitched it; he later wrote it himself and credited them.

In Mark Gruenwald's 1987 storyline 'The Choice', what new identity does Rogers adopt?

The Captain was his name after he handed in his uniform and shield rather than work directly for a government commission, which made John Walker the new Captain America.

Which artist drew and co-wrote the first six issues of the 1996 'Heroes Reborn' Captain America?

Rob Liefeld says Marvel removed him after he refused a pay cut during its bankruptcy, though Marvel blamed low sales.

Why did Timely reshape Captain America's shield after his first issue?

A competitor complained: MLJ said it copied The Shield, its flag-costumed hero who debuted 14 months before Cap, so Timely redesigned it for issue #2.

Which patriotic hero did Simon and Kirby create for Prize Comics in 1954 after leaving Timely?

Fighting American started out deadly serious, but Simon and Kirby soon turned it into a superhero satire.

In the comics, which US president personally handed Captain America his famous round shield?

Franklin Roosevelt hands it over in a 1981 retelling of the origin. The comics credit the unbreakable disc to a metallurgist who dozed off mid-experiment and could never repeat the result.

The small wings on Captain America's helmet were designed as a nod to which Roman god?

Mercury, the swift messenger, lent the wings. Joe Simon pictured the rest of the costume as the outfit of a modern-day crusader, right down to the chain mail.

Which New York mayor phoned Captain America's creators to promise protection from Nazi sympathisers?

Fiorello La Guardia made the call himself. Members of a pro-Nazi group, the Bund, had been loitering outside the publisher's office, so police were posted to guard the staff.

What did the makers of The Winter Soldier change from country to country, guided by fan polls?

Rogers's notebook list of things to catch up on got five local entries in each market, picked in online polls. The other five entries stayed the same in every print.

How did the makers of The First Avenger mainly create the frail Steve Rogers seen before the serum?

Digitally shrinking the star handled most shots. Every such scene was filmed at least four times, and co-stars had to act to marks on his chin where his eyes would end up.

Which actor, already Johnny Storm in two Fantastic Four films, portrays Steve Rogers on screen?

Chris Evans declined the part three times before signing a six-picture deal with Marvel.

After a reader poll opposed it, Marvel declined to send Captain America to fight in which country?

Vietnam stayed off-limits. A 1971 editorial reported that most readers wanted him kept out, and added that he no longer suited the John Wayne type of hero he once was.

Bucky Barnes's full first and middle names match those of which nineteenth-century US president?

James Buchanan Barnes is the full name. Joe Simon said the nickname itself honoured a friend, Bucky Pierson, a star of his high school basketball team.

At the end of The First Avenger, Steve Rogers bolts from a fake 1940s room into which landmark?

Times Square is where he learns that he has been asleep for almost 70 years. A radio replay of a 1941 baseball game he had attended in person gave the fake room away.

In the Marvel films, scrawny Steve Rogers grows up in which borough of New York City?

Brooklyn was borrowed from Marvel's Ultimate comics rather than the original stories. The same source made Bucky a childhood best friend instead of someone met later.

Which inventor, father of a future Avenger, gives Steve Rogers his round shield in The First Avenger?

Howard Stark supplies it along with an upgraded uniform. Rogers first sees him on stage at an expo of future technology, on the night he tries yet again to enlist.

Which S.H.I.E.L.D. director fakes his own death partway through Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

Nick Fury lets the world believe he is dead, then turns up at a safehouse with a plan to sabotage the launch by swapping control chips.

Which fellow Avenger teams up with Steve Rogers in Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

Black Widow was written as a contrast to him. The screenwriters saw her as incredibly modern and not very reverent, set against a man of the 1940s.

Which hero enters Captain America: Civil War hunting the man blamed for killing his father, a king?

Black Panther vows to kill Bucky Barnes after security footage appears to show him as the bomber at a UN conference in Vienna.

Which hero suddenly grows into a giant to turn the airport battle in Captain America: Civil War?

Ant-Man reverses his usual trick and becomes Giant-Man. Marvel's studio chief called it a way to turn the tide of the battle in a huge, shocking, unexpected way.

In Avengers: Endgame, Steve Rogers makes one last trip through time in order to return what?

The Infinity Stones go back to the moments they were borrowed from. Rogers then chooses to stay in the past and live out a life with Peggy Carter.

Which villain surrenders to Captain America and his allies in Stuttgart early in The Avengers?

Loki gives up after facing three Avengers at once. On the way to custody his adoptive brother Thor arrives and frees him, hoping to take him home to Asgard.

Which actor first played the Falcon, a pararescue veteran with a wing pack, in The Winter Soldier?

Anthony Mackie signed on without being allowed to read a script. Marvel had picked him for his energy and sense of fun.

Which Men in Black star plays the gruff Colonel Chester Phillips in The First Avenger?

Tommy Lee Jones plays the colonel who heads the project to create super soldiers. In his other franchise he is Agent K, the grizzled investigator of aliens.

Which Breaking Bad star plays the mercenary Sidewinder in Captain America: Brave New World?

Giancarlo Esposito joined late, added to the film during its 2024 reshoots. He said the physical demands set the part apart from his drug lord Gus Fring.

Which newly found metal do rival nations race to claim in Captain America: Brave New World?

Adamantium turns up on an island formed when a Celestial emerged in the Indian Ocean. A treaty to share its mining is thrown into doubt when Japan's first refined samples are stolen.

By what name is the squad of freed prisoners that Steve Rogers leads in The First Avenger known?

Howling Commandos is the name in the script, though nobody says it aloud on screen. Rogers forms the unit from Bucky Barnes and the other captives he frees.

Who wrote the music for 'Star Spangled Man', the stage-show song in Captain America: The First Avenger?

Alan Menken, the composer of Disney's Aladdin, wrote the tune to lyrics by David Zippel. It is the one original song on a soundtrack otherwise given over to Alan Silvestri's orchestral score.

Which actress plays Sharon Carter, the agent secretly guarding Steve Rogers in The Winter Soldier?

Emily VanCamp plays her as Agent 13, living next door to him under cover. The actress said the film only introduces the character without touching on her famous name.

Which former UFC welterweight champion plays the kicking mercenary Batroc in The Winter Soldier?

Georges St-Pierre, a three-time holder of the title, was cast in March 2013. The character he plays even shares his first name.

What is the name of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s riverside headquarters, wrecked at the end of The Winter Soldier?

The Triskelion sits on an island in the Potomac River. No such building exists, so aerial footage of the real city was shot as a backdrop for the invented one.

The writers of Captain America: The Winter Soldier borrowed the mood of which 1970s film genre?

Conspiracy thrillers such as The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor were the models. The writers felt a man from the 1940s would see a plot in all of modern geopolitics.

By which name do the people of Wakanda come to know Bucky Barnes after curing his brainwashing?

White Wolf is the code name he is given once the princess Shuri has cured him. He had been hidden in the kingdom when the Avengers split apart.

Samuel Sterns, Tim Blake Nelson's schemer in Brave New World, goes by which villain name in the comics?

The Leader is the comics name of Sterns, a villain created in 1964. Nelson had waited since 2008 to play him again, after a planned sequel to his first Marvel film never happened.

The Avengers mission that opens Captain America: Civil War ends in disaster in which African city?

Lagos is where a diverted explosion wrecks a building and kills visiting humanitarians. Its market was really a downtown Atlanta lot known as The Gulch.

Which prison holds Steve Rogers's captured allies at the end of Captain America: Civil War?

The Raft does not hold them for long. In the closing scenes Rogers breaks his whole team out.

Which actor played the US Secretary of State in Captain America: Civil War, a role he began in 2008?

William Hurt insisted his return was a completely new iteration of the character and not a reprise. He kept the part until 2021.

Which fictional island from the X-Men comics appears in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

Madripoor became available only after Disney bought 21st Century Fox, which returned the X-Men screen rights to Marvel. On screen it glows in more saturated colours than the muted settings around it.

Which codename does Lemar Hoskins use as John Walker's partner in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

Battlestar was not his first codename in the comics. He began as a new Bucky, then changed it because of that name's racial connotations for a Black man.

Which actor plays the imprisoned super soldier Isaiah Bradley in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier?

Carl Lumbly plays the Korean War veteran whom the government locked away for 30 years. He took the part to the big screen in Brave New World.

In Republic's 1944 Captain America serial, the masked hero's secret identity holds which job?

District attorney Grant Gardner, not Private Steve Rogers, is the man behind the mask. The serial also dropped the serum origin and left the Nazis out of the story entirely.

Which Dracula star played the villain in the 1979 TV film Captain America II: Death Too Soon?

Christopher Lee plays General Miguel, who forces a kidnapped professor to make a formula that causes rapid ageing. The two TV films were meant as pilots for a series that never came.

What is the name of the Falcon's trained bird, reimagined as a robotic drone in the Marvel films?

Redwing was a wild falcon he adopted and trained in the comics. The two share a telepathic link that later lets him see through the eyes of other birds.

Captain America made his television debut in a segment of which 1966 animated anthology series?

The Marvel Super Heroes was the first TV series based on the publisher's characters. Its segments ran about seven minutes each, and his shared the bill with four other heroes.

Marvel's 2006 Civil War comic pits Captain America against a law that makes superheroes do what?

Register with the government is the demand, and the law classes each superhuman as a human weapon of mass destruction. Rogers goes underground to resist it.

Which writer scripted Marvel's seven-issue Civil War comic, drawn by Steve McNiven and later filmed?

Mark Millar summed the series up as the story of a man wrapped in the American flag who ends up in chains while the people trade freedom for security.

In the comics, which mercenary helps assassinate Steve Rogers in The Death of Captain America?

Crossbones strikes on the Red Skull's orders while Rogers is in custody after the superhero civil war. The character had been created by writer Mark Gruenwald in 1989.

J.M. DeMatteis quit writing Captain America after Marvel rejected an ending that made the hero what?

A pacifist Captain America, renouncing violence in issue 300, was the planned climax of a year-long story. Editor-in-chief Jim Shooter refused, and the writer resigned in protest.

Captain America fights in which wartime team, given its own Roy Thomas series in 1975?

The Invaders gathered Timely's heroes of the 1940s in new stories set during World War II. Thomas, a fan of that era, modelled the team on an earlier squad from 1946.

Which National Book Award winner wrote Marvel's Captain America series from 2018 to 2021?

Ta-Nehisi Coates won the 2015 award for Between the World and Me, a memoir written as a letter to his son. His run on the comic was drawn by Leinil Francis Yu.

Batroc the Leaper, an acrobatic foe of Captain America, is a master of which kicking art?

Savate, the French form of kickboxing, is his speciality. Jack Kirby co-created the villain in 1966, and the character is also adept at Krav Maga.

Which Timely publisher asked Joe Simon for a patriotic hero, then fired Captain America's creators?

Martin Goodman dismissed the pair once he learned they were looking for work elsewhere. They believed he was withholding their promised share of the profits.

What was the name of the official Captain America fan club that Timely launched in the 1940s?

Sentinels of Liberty was the club's name. The US Department of War also judged the comic fit to give to soldiers without screening, one of 189 periodicals so approved.

Which Women's Army Corps member, later Golden Girl, was Steve Rogers's first comics love interest?

Betsy Ross appeared beside him in the wartime comics of the 1940s. Peggy Carter was written into that past only in the 1960s, as a member of the French Resistance.

Which actor plays Brock Rumlow, commander of the S.T.R.I.K.E. team, in The Winter Soldier?

Frank Grillo signed a seven-film deal for the part. He is also known as Sergeant Leo Barnes in The Purge films.