In United States of Captain America, Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson face off against the latest villain wearing Captain America’s costume.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The United States of Captain America #1, by Christopher Cantwell, Dale Eaglesham, Matt Milla and VC’s Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson find themselves facing an entire wave of new characters adopting the mantle of Captain America in their own unique way. And while many of these new Captains America follow the example and legacy set by Steve and Sam as a superhero, a character wearing Captain America’s iconic costume has taken a decidedly more villainous turn, stealing the signature vibranium shield and deliberately endangering innocents as he makes his escape.
This mysterious new character comes as the latest apparent supervillain to masquerade around in the Marvel Universe wearing Captain America’s costume. Here is a list of all the major villains to menace Captain America while wearing the superhero’s familiar uniform for their own devious ends.
Grand Director
One of the earliest twisted variations of Captain America began as a genuine superhero and intended replacement for Steve Rogers after the hero was lost to the icy waters of the North Atlantic in the final days of World War II. Obsessively idolizing Steve’s legacy, college professor William Burnside undergoes plastic surgery to resemble Steve and ingests an experimental form of the Super Soldier serum during the Korean War to help with the war effort. The untested nature of the serum drives William insane and he is placed in suspended animation for decades.
Following Steve’s return to the public eye years later, William is revived and brainwashed by Doctor Faustus to take on the supervillain moniker of the Grand Director and lead various white supremacist groups including the National Front and Watchdogs. Obsessed with killing Bucky Barnes after Bucky temporarily assumes the Captain America mantle, William is defeated in a skirmish with the actual Steve Rogers who ensures he is sent to a rehabilitation facility rather than imprisoned.
Red Skull
After the Red Skull’s original body died from old age, the mad scientist Arnim Zola used genetic samples from Captain America to create a cloned body of Steve and transferred Johann Schmidt’s consciousness into it. Taking on the civilian identity of John Smith, the Red Skull orchestrates the events that leads to Steve being replaced by John Walker as the new Captain America, with Steve creating the new alter ego the Captain to continue fighting crime without federal government support.
After revealing himself to Steve and Walker, the Red Skull takes on his classic, deformed appearance when Walker has the supervillain ingest his own poison gas, causing his face to deteriorate. Eventually, the Red Skull’s Super Soldier serum-enhanced clone body was killed by the Winter Soldier under orders from Russian mogul Aleksander Lukin but not before Schmidt uses the Cosmic Cube to transfer his consciousness into Lukin’s body in his dying moments.
Ameridroid
One of the most ridiculous villains ever to confront Captain America in his star-spangled uniform is Lyle Dekker, who took on the robotic alter ego of Ameridroid. A scientist working for the Red Skull tasked with sabotaging a film being produced about Captain America’s adventures, Lyle’s plot was foiled and he fell to his apparent death in the Atlantic.
Lyle reemerges decades later, siphoning some of Captain America’s energy to empower a towering android containing his consciousness that he dubs the Ameridroid. Working with supervillains, including the Red Skull and Baron Zemo, Ameridroid was eventually destroyed by a revived World War II antihero known as Codename: Bravo.
Hydra
The most controversial supervillain to wear the mantle of Captain America was Steve Rogers himself, or at least a version of him, in the 2017 crossover event Secret Empire. As part of an insidious plot by the Red Skull, the Cosmic Cube was used to alter Steve’s memories into believing he was a sleeper agent for Hydra all along, infiltrating the American government and superhero community in a longstanding bid for Hydra to eventually seize power.
The superhero resistance to Hydra’s rule discovers the true Steve Rogers existing as a memory inside of the Cosmic Cube, using it to bring him into corporeal form and fight his evil doppelgänger, toppling the tyrant and Hydra’s rule over the country, using the Cube to imprison the evil Steve Rogers and undo much of the damage he caused.
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