As of 2015, Captain America has appeared in more than ten thousand stories in more than five thousand media formats, including comic books, books, and trade publications. The character's origin story has been retold and revised multiple times throughout his editorial history, though its broad details have remained generally consistent. Steven "Steve" Rogers was born in the 1920s to an impoverished family on the Lower East Side of New York City. The frail and infirm Rogers attempts to join the U.S. Army in order to fight in the Second World War, but is rejected after being deemed unfit for military service.His resolve is nevertheless noticed by the military, and he is recruited as the first test subject for "Project Rebirth", a secret government program that seeks to create super soldiers through the development of the "Super-Soldier Serum". Though the serum successfully enhances Rogers to the peak to human physical perfection, a Nazi spy posing as a military observer destroys the remaining supply of the serum and assassinates its inventor, foiling plans to produce additional super soldiers. Rogers is given a patriotic uniform and shield by the American government and becomes the costumed superhero Captain America. He goes on to fight the villainous Red Skull and other members of the Axis powers both domestically and abroad, alongside his sidekick Bucky Barnes and as a member of the Invaders. In the final days of the war, Rogers and Barnes seemingly perish after falling from an experimental drone plane into the northern Atlantic Ocean.
Rogers is found decades later by the superhero team the Avengers, the Super-Soldier Serum having allowed him to survive frozen in a block of ice in a state of suspended animation. Reawakened in modern times, Rogers resumes activities as a costumed hero, joining and later becoming leader of the Avengers. Many of his exploits involve missions undertaken for the Avengers or for S.H.I.E.L.D., an espionage and international law enforcement agency operated by his former war comrade Nick Fury. Through Fury, Rogers befriends Sharon Carter, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with whom he eventually begins a partnership and an on-again off-again romance. He meets and trains Sam Wilson, who becomes the superhero Falcon, and they establish an enduring friendship and partnership. After a conspiracy hatched by the Secret Empire to discredit Rogers is revealed to have been personally orchestrated by the President of the United States, a disillusioned Rogers abandons the mantle of Captain America and assumes the title of "Nomad", the "man without a country". He eventually re-assumes the title, and later declines an offer from the "New Populist Party" to run for president himself. He again abandons the mantle of Captain America to briefly assume the alias of "The Captain" when a government commission orders him to work directly for the U.S. government.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Rogers reveals his secret identity to the world. Following the disbandment of the Avengers, he discovers that Bucky is still alive, having been brainwashed by the Soviets to become the Winter Soldier. Later, in reaction to government efforts to regulate superheroes, Rogers becomes the leader of an underground anti-registration movement that clashes with a pro-registration faction led by fellow Avengers member Iron Man. After significant rancor, he voluntarily surrenders and submits to arrest. At his trial, he is shot and killed by Sharon Carter, whose actions are manipulated by the villainous Dr. Faustus; in his absence, a recovered Bucky assumes the title of Captain America. It is eventually revealed that Rogers did not die, but became displaced in space and time; he is ultimately able to return to the present. He resumes his exploits as a superhero, though his public identity is briefly supplanted by a sleeper agent from the terrorist organization Hydra.
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