Captain America: Reborn #1

History

The series was announced by Marvel in April 2009 and officially confirmed via press release on June 15, 2009 — two days before issue #1 hit shelves on July 1, 2009. Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada's involvement extended to providing a variant cover, and the issue shipped with an unusually large suite of retailer and collector variants including covers by Alex Ross, John Cassaday, and a wraparound by Quesada himself. The series was originally planned as five issues but was ultimately expanded to six, with the story concluding in January 2010 and wrapping up in the companion one-shot Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield? Bryan Hitch was brought in as the event-scaled penciler, replacing the espionage-inflected style of regular series artists Steve Epting and Butch Guice (though Guice stayed on as inker, providing visual continuity); colorist Paul Mounts and letterer Joe Caramagna rounded out the production team, with Tom Brevoort editing.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Released July 1, 2009 (cover-dated September 2009); written by Ed Brubaker, penciled by Bryan Hitch, inked by Butch Guice, colored by Paul Mounts, edited by Tom Brevoort.
• Directly follows Captain America #600 and serves as the opening chapter of a six-issue limited series — originally planned as five issues — that ran through January 2010.
• The issue establishes that Steve Rogers was not killed but instead frozen in space and time by a weapon reverse-engineered with Doctor Doom technology and enabled by Arnim Zola; Sharon Carter unknowingly fired the device at Steve during his assassination.
• Steve Rogers appears in both flashback (reliving key moments from his WWII past, including scenes alongside the android Human Torch/Jim Hammond and Toro/Thomas Raymond) and in the present-day framing story (revealed to be alive but displaced in time).
• Antagonists include Norman Osborn and H.A.M.M.E.R., with Dark Avengers Ares and Mac Gargan (posing as Spider-Man/Venom) operating under Osborn's Dark Reign authority; Arnim Zola briefs Osborn on Steve's true fate.
• Supporting cast in the present-day story includes Bucky Barnes (as Captain America), Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), Falcon (Sam Wilson), Sharon Carter, Vision, and Hank Pym (as Wasp); Nick Fury also appears.
• The issue launched with multiple variant covers, including editions by Alex Ross, John Cassaday (including a 1-in-70 sketch variant), and a wraparound by Joe Quesada, in addition to Dynamic Forces signed editions.
• The full series was collected in a trade paperback (Captain America: Reborn, ISBN 978-0785139980) and later in the Captain America Modern Era Epic Collection: Reborn, which also includes Captain America #49–50, 600–601, the Digital Prologue, and the Who Will Wield the Shield? one-shot.

Cast · 19 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Captain America: Reborn

Variants (6)