“And there came a day when Earth’s Mightiest Heroes sacrificed their lives to stop a threat no one hero could hope to win against…”
The threat was Onslaught – the heroes? The Fantastic Four and the Avengers. Through that magic of cable news, many viewers witnessed the battle that ended in the middle of New York’s Central Park, and when the dust settled – many heroes, including Captain America, would be missing, all presumed dead. Others rose and tried to fill the void created by the seeming loss… and out of this tragedy, Natasha, the Black Widow was devastated, and being the current chairperson of the Avengers, decided to disband the group.
After a seeming year’s time had passed – many of Earth’s heroes returned to welcoming arms of a public that despaired in their supposed loss of so many heroes against a monster in New York’s Central Park. Amongst this list of returned heroes was Captain America.
Steve Rogers realized that nothing much changed – though their absence made the world less negative and more appreciative of their heroes (and more distrusting of mutants). It also showed a world where new heroes stepped up to cover the vacuum created with so many heroes missing… new teams such as the Thunderbolts made a name for themselves, and though it was a welcome return, the Avengers soon found themselves selectively being attacked.
Cap, the Wasp and other founders started calling in all Avengers, including the reserves, as it was realized that they all were being selected as targets. The villain turned out to be Morgan, but she was quick to take her actual prize – Wanda, and convert the world into one of her preferred image… medieval (like in the time of Camelot) with the Avengers acting as her honor guards – keeping the peace, or should I say, her tyranny, intact.
Naturally, some Avengers would be loath of how things were, and this would wake them up to the reality of who they were and how things should really be. First to feel this awakening would of course be Steve Rogers – a champion, advocate and strong defender of human rights against oppression, Steve’s subconscious rebelled until he had awoken, and he chose his next Avengers carefully – awakening Clint, Janet and Monica. As they were continuing the plan of carefully, and stealthily jolt everyone back to reality before Morgan notices, Steve makes a mistaken consideration of trying to awaken Tony Stark, who it seems was too embroiled in the mock reality of Morgan that he failed to awaken – thus forcing the freed Avengers to battle openly and escape.
I guess, despite all their differences, Steve hoped that Tony could be convinced – an apparent blunder that Clint saw… but not Steve. Maybe Steve had a soft spot for Tony, hence he wanted to risk approaching Tony. Despite their differences, Steve obviously still saw Tony as a friend, or we could say that he definitely needed the tactical advantage of having the power of Iron Man with them and was willing to risk exposure if he hadn’t awaken Tony.
Needless to say, Morgan was eventually defeated, but it took the collective effort of the Avengers to do it, after which, Steve once again stuck around to create the new core of the newly reformed Avengers. It was definitely clear to everyone that having too many heroes would, in itself, be chaotic, and Steve was at the forefront with the other founders in the selection process.
Naturally, a new team – one that had many of its members hardly ever having run through missions together, would be bound to make errors, miscues and other possible lapses in judgment… ones that would end up with villains escaping or the Avengers getting their collective butts kicked. Not only that, the Avengers were about to be embroiled in another crisis of image – this against an enemy that was more media savvy and one that used a belief system, working it into a religious flavor.
The Triune Understanding definitely had other things going on, and for the better part of its existence, its face as that of a seeming religious order (a sect really, possibly derived from our reality’s Scientology) was what the public could see and appreciate, so it was with some disbelief to the Avengers when they were seemingly openly accusing the Triune of being something else entirely, that plus the penchant for Thor to go over react to media paparazzi and Steve Rogers had a logistical and image nightmare in his hands.
What was worse was that the New Avengers’ political liaison – no matter how good he was and how dedicated he showed his work to be, was equally a believer of the Triune, so Steve had a hard time accepting the man as a trusted colleague, not while they were up against said same organization. It was plain to many that Steve could not trust Dwayne Freeman (ironically the best government liaison that the team has had), even if he wanted to, and would jump at the most innocent comments of the government liaison in a defensive manner.
Apparently, Cap was getting affected with everything that was happening that he had no time to schedule training sessions for members that had not worked together with each other as teammates – a fact confronted to him by Wanda, as the reason why they were not able to fight cohesively against the villains they’ve been encountering lately.
The frustration reached a high when several reserve Avengers or heroes with known ties to the team (Ms. Marvel, Ant man, Silver Claw) were tricked into a covert mission that ended up infiltrating and destroying a Triune property, only to be exposed by the Triune using the full power of the media at their disposal – this forced Steve to rethink his current position as chairman for the team and willingly stepped down for someone else who could better deal with the Triune problem. My take here is that Steve did not know how to fight a media war – a war of images, and he was honest enough to give way to someone more adept at such.
To Steve, image was supported by how his and the Avengers’ actions spoke for themselves, yet against a media-savvy person As Jonathan Tremont, Steve was grasping at straws… a better person to fight the Triune battle would have been waged by Tony, though the man was somewhat distracted with his own set of problems – foremost being an alcoholic Ms. Marvel.
Unknown to others, however, Tony had requested their two younger members – Vance (Justice) and Angel (Firestar) take a leave of absence from the team, then covertly join the ranks of the Triune, to see if there was something they could dig up that was out of the ordinary – a step that others (when they found out) felt to be slightly leaning towards paranoia. When Steve later learned of this, after the fact and in the middle of a larger war, he voiced his disapproval.
Before we continue, remember one thing, Steve – despite his Super Soldier Serum, is still mostly human – near perfect, but human… so he can still be miffed, frustrated and yes angered. Steve grew up in a ‘fair-is-fair’ environment, and never considered doing anything in an under-handed manner, no matter how helpful it might be, no matter if his enemy was eagerly applying it against him – and Tremont was indeed applying it against the Avengers… hence Cap’s frustration and stepping down, rather than making the team suffer for his, err… ‘straight-shooting’ style.
Captain America would, however, feel a sense of failure with one particular incident. One in which all he could do was – like the rest of us, lend a hand like so many others, who with or without any power collectively volunteered to lending their time, effort and lives during New York’s September 11, World Trade Center aftermath.
For whatever reason, Steve was one of the many volunteers, tirelessly sifting through the rubble in search of trapped life – and he was doing this as Steve Rogers, just one of the many civilians out to help. Though some people might have known, or others not really caring – and were just thankful for any assistance to allow a civilian near ground zero. Maybe it was out of guilt – a helplessness of having not been better capable of stopping such a problem – considering the world disasters he helped stop or prevent, it would be ironic that this disaster caught everyone (S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers, etc…) flat-footed.
Whether it was indeed this guilt for not being able to stop what had happened, or some form of shame – Steve opted not to wear the uniform while he was helping at ground zero. Whatever it took, Steve would not relent in finding survivors – and this would be where Nick Fury would find Steve, and talk to him – asking him to stop his current work to help with a S.H.I.E.L.D. sensitive assignment.
Along the way, Steve would see the ugly reaction of some people against anyone with seeming middle-eastern features – innocent people, likewise affected by the actions of a few terrorists, now on the receiving end of the fury and frustration of many normally peaceful, though now seemingly misguided citizens.
For this action, Steve confronted these erring individuals as Captain America – he had to stand up against the demons of prejudice and fear – he had to show everyone what America is and not what it was being manipulated to be by terror and war-mongers. He needed to show everyone that they were wrong in suspecting and attacking their neighbors with middle-east descent. To Steve, Captain America had to represent what is the best of America – and he used his clout and name to give people pause – let them think of what they were doing… let them realize that they were working on certain assumptions… and wrong ones at that.
Cap also stopped terrorist cells and extreme-right reactions to 9-11, and to avoid retaliation to more innocents, he revealed his identity to the public – in from of a camera, daring any terrorist planning said possible retaliatory attacks to see the face of their true enemy. Steve gave the terrorists a face to focus on, a target to handle, not an anonymous identity behind a mask.
It would also be at around this time that Steve would also start overseeing some changes in the Avengers – but not out of a stricter sense or manner of handling emergencies, but adapting a more pro-active manner of handling problems. This was done by way of having a global watch – complete with a virtual display of the Earth, and its monitoring certain personalities (both heroes and villains) at the Avengers’ mansion – with hopes of being possibly pre-emptive with their actions in helping secure the world.
It seemed, however, that despite this seeming upgrade of their capabilities, the Avengers, and the world would face another crisis, one that the global initiative would not help them with. Kang the Conqueror would choose this particular time to arrive, announce himself with the stylized manner of showing everyone his capabilities by blowing up the U.N. building – without injuring anyone, and inform everyone – Avengers and Earth’s U.N. delegates alike – that he is the world’s best hope and line of defense against what will be transpiring soon.
He then shows all gathered the problems about to happen – and offers his protection, in return for making him the ruler of this world. Rather than fight Kang, however, the Avengers are thrust into handling all these emergencies, with Steve nearly suffering a fatal – but thankfully reversible fate, but not before seemingly shocking Thor into realizing that he has grown too attached with his Avenging comrades… a curse felt by immortals towards having too close ties with mortals.
Though the Wasp was obviously the chair-person of the Avengers, Captain America called the shots in the field, and was even the person the generals talked to when consulting with the Avengers about how to deal with Kang. They were given a deadline, and brought the assault to Kang’s ship – but they were outclassed, and their ship destroyed – fortunately, Quasar was nearby and they were picked-up by the Triune’s space arc, enroute to stop another evil in space… hence Cap had to leave the battle against Kang, to tackle this seemingly more important threat.
Thus, Steve was not around for Earth’s defeat and surrender, and it would be tempting to speculate if his absence had indeed affected the course of the war – but when he did return, he fought Kang one-on-one – rightly guessing how Kang thinks and what action he would take / what weapon he would use, and with the help of Triathlon (now a part of the space pyramid, after they had stopped the threat that once lingered inside it – oh, and in the process, expose Tremont for the glory hound he was), Cap countered Kang’s strategy and weapon. Kang’s ship, appropriately named ‘Domocles’ (as it was shaped like a sword) was finally defeated and came crashing to Earth, with Kang riding in its blaze of glory upon re-entry into Earth atmosphere.
Kang, of course would survive the fall, and he readily challenged the Avengers. Steve, readily approached Kang to battle, and when Ms. Marvel too was starting to approach, Thor stopped her in mid-stride. When asked why Thor did not let the others help Cap take Kang down, Thor replies that Cap alone, is enough to defeat Kang.
True to from, Cap does defeat Kang in a one-on-one duel and while doing so, gives his two cents worth of how he feels about Kang’s ‘honor of being defeated by Cap’ – simply put, War is never honorable – as its aftermath would show… one that Steve knows all too well, being a witness to the damage done from the European front in WWII to Kree-space in the present-time, oh… and a good deal of Washington too, courtesy of Kang. Thus ends the siege of the planet Earth.
There would be another time, though, that Steve would once again be seen as inflexible – this in connection to the incident with the Thunderbolts’ plan to save the Earth by helping rid it of their hot spots… dictators and nuclear energies. It would seem apparent that the Thunderbolts plan would have worked had it not been for the Avengers intervention, starting with Steve’s shield crashing into sensitive equipment.
The problem revolved around trust… not all the Thunderbolts fully trusted each other, nor did they fully trust Zemo’s plans - in fact, Songbird had arranged coded email correspondences with Abner Jenkins (currently serving time in jail) and he, in turn told Captain America, who showed obvious disdain for the Thunderbolts – no matter how seemingly altruistic their actions seemed to show.
The Avengers not trusting the Thunderbolts, even after their joint battle against Graviton were still understandable – since fro most of them, the memory of having the mansion under siege was still a strong reminder. Even Jarvis would voice this notion to Clint – who was trying so hard to show his co-Avengers that the Thunderbolts could be trusted… yet likewise keeping an eye on them as well.
Steve would constantly battle Zemo, who constantly taunted him… but despite their animosity towards each other, Zemo would do something unexpected – he jumped in front of a blast by Moonstone, meant for Captain America… thus saving Steve, and likewise opening his mind to the possibility that the Thunderbolts may indeed be serious with their reforms.
Unfortunately, the entire event had opened many old wounds – and the result would be the Thunderbolts’ disbanding, and despite an invitation by the Avengers for Songbird to join, she obviously felt unwanted… and not trusted, hence her turning down their offer… though keeping the option open for the future. It also made a (once again) facially-deformed Zemo realize that he had been better off doing things alone – his way. On a bright note, Abe would plan to regroup the Thunderbolts, and this time, Steve would congratulate Clint for his ‘role’ in helping make these reforming villains strive for a better way.
Next: Dell Rusk, Friendship strained and Disassembled
The threat was Onslaught – the heroes? The Fantastic Four and the Avengers. Through that magic of cable news, many viewers witnessed the battle that ended in the middle of New York’s Central Park, and when the dust settled – many heroes, including Captain America, would be missing, all presumed dead. Others rose and tried to fill the void created by the seeming loss… and out of this tragedy, Natasha, the Black Widow was devastated, and being the current chairperson of the Avengers, decided to disband the group.
After a seeming year’s time had passed – many of Earth’s heroes returned to welcoming arms of a public that despaired in their supposed loss of so many heroes against a monster in New York’s Central Park. Amongst this list of returned heroes was Captain America.
Steve Rogers realized that nothing much changed – though their absence made the world less negative and more appreciative of their heroes (and more distrusting of mutants). It also showed a world where new heroes stepped up to cover the vacuum created with so many heroes missing… new teams such as the Thunderbolts made a name for themselves, and though it was a welcome return, the Avengers soon found themselves selectively being attacked.
Cap, the Wasp and other founders started calling in all Avengers, including the reserves, as it was realized that they all were being selected as targets. The villain turned out to be Morgan, but she was quick to take her actual prize – Wanda, and convert the world into one of her preferred image… medieval (like in the time of Camelot) with the Avengers acting as her honor guards – keeping the peace, or should I say, her tyranny, intact.
Naturally, some Avengers would be loath of how things were, and this would wake them up to the reality of who they were and how things should really be. First to feel this awakening would of course be Steve Rogers – a champion, advocate and strong defender of human rights against oppression, Steve’s subconscious rebelled until he had awoken, and he chose his next Avengers carefully – awakening Clint, Janet and Monica. As they were continuing the plan of carefully, and stealthily jolt everyone back to reality before Morgan notices, Steve makes a mistaken consideration of trying to awaken Tony Stark, who it seems was too embroiled in the mock reality of Morgan that he failed to awaken – thus forcing the freed Avengers to battle openly and escape.
I guess, despite all their differences, Steve hoped that Tony could be convinced – an apparent blunder that Clint saw… but not Steve. Maybe Steve had a soft spot for Tony, hence he wanted to risk approaching Tony. Despite their differences, Steve obviously still saw Tony as a friend, or we could say that he definitely needed the tactical advantage of having the power of Iron Man with them and was willing to risk exposure if he hadn’t awaken Tony.
Needless to say, Morgan was eventually defeated, but it took the collective effort of the Avengers to do it, after which, Steve once again stuck around to create the new core of the newly reformed Avengers. It was definitely clear to everyone that having too many heroes would, in itself, be chaotic, and Steve was at the forefront with the other founders in the selection process.
Naturally, a new team – one that had many of its members hardly ever having run through missions together, would be bound to make errors, miscues and other possible lapses in judgment… ones that would end up with villains escaping or the Avengers getting their collective butts kicked. Not only that, the Avengers were about to be embroiled in another crisis of image – this against an enemy that was more media savvy and one that used a belief system, working it into a religious flavor.
The Triune Understanding definitely had other things going on, and for the better part of its existence, its face as that of a seeming religious order (a sect really, possibly derived from our reality’s Scientology) was what the public could see and appreciate, so it was with some disbelief to the Avengers when they were seemingly openly accusing the Triune of being something else entirely, that plus the penchant for Thor to go over react to media paparazzi and Steve Rogers had a logistical and image nightmare in his hands.
What was worse was that the New Avengers’ political liaison – no matter how good he was and how dedicated he showed his work to be, was equally a believer of the Triune, so Steve had a hard time accepting the man as a trusted colleague, not while they were up against said same organization. It was plain to many that Steve could not trust Dwayne Freeman (ironically the best government liaison that the team has had), even if he wanted to, and would jump at the most innocent comments of the government liaison in a defensive manner.
Apparently, Cap was getting affected with everything that was happening that he had no time to schedule training sessions for members that had not worked together with each other as teammates – a fact confronted to him by Wanda, as the reason why they were not able to fight cohesively against the villains they’ve been encountering lately.
The frustration reached a high when several reserve Avengers or heroes with known ties to the team (Ms. Marvel, Ant man, Silver Claw) were tricked into a covert mission that ended up infiltrating and destroying a Triune property, only to be exposed by the Triune using the full power of the media at their disposal – this forced Steve to rethink his current position as chairman for the team and willingly stepped down for someone else who could better deal with the Triune problem. My take here is that Steve did not know how to fight a media war – a war of images, and he was honest enough to give way to someone more adept at such.
To Steve, image was supported by how his and the Avengers’ actions spoke for themselves, yet against a media-savvy person As Jonathan Tremont, Steve was grasping at straws… a better person to fight the Triune battle would have been waged by Tony, though the man was somewhat distracted with his own set of problems – foremost being an alcoholic Ms. Marvel.
Unknown to others, however, Tony had requested their two younger members – Vance (Justice) and Angel (Firestar) take a leave of absence from the team, then covertly join the ranks of the Triune, to see if there was something they could dig up that was out of the ordinary – a step that others (when they found out) felt to be slightly leaning towards paranoia. When Steve later learned of this, after the fact and in the middle of a larger war, he voiced his disapproval.
Before we continue, remember one thing, Steve – despite his Super Soldier Serum, is still mostly human – near perfect, but human… so he can still be miffed, frustrated and yes angered. Steve grew up in a ‘fair-is-fair’ environment, and never considered doing anything in an under-handed manner, no matter how helpful it might be, no matter if his enemy was eagerly applying it against him – and Tremont was indeed applying it against the Avengers… hence Cap’s frustration and stepping down, rather than making the team suffer for his, err… ‘straight-shooting’ style.
Captain America would, however, feel a sense of failure with one particular incident. One in which all he could do was – like the rest of us, lend a hand like so many others, who with or without any power collectively volunteered to lending their time, effort and lives during New York’s September 11, World Trade Center aftermath.
For whatever reason, Steve was one of the many volunteers, tirelessly sifting through the rubble in search of trapped life – and he was doing this as Steve Rogers, just one of the many civilians out to help. Though some people might have known, or others not really caring – and were just thankful for any assistance to allow a civilian near ground zero. Maybe it was out of guilt – a helplessness of having not been better capable of stopping such a problem – considering the world disasters he helped stop or prevent, it would be ironic that this disaster caught everyone (S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers, etc…) flat-footed.
Whether it was indeed this guilt for not being able to stop what had happened, or some form of shame – Steve opted not to wear the uniform while he was helping at ground zero. Whatever it took, Steve would not relent in finding survivors – and this would be where Nick Fury would find Steve, and talk to him – asking him to stop his current work to help with a S.H.I.E.L.D. sensitive assignment.
Along the way, Steve would see the ugly reaction of some people against anyone with seeming middle-eastern features – innocent people, likewise affected by the actions of a few terrorists, now on the receiving end of the fury and frustration of many normally peaceful, though now seemingly misguided citizens.
For this action, Steve confronted these erring individuals as Captain America – he had to stand up against the demons of prejudice and fear – he had to show everyone what America is and not what it was being manipulated to be by terror and war-mongers. He needed to show everyone that they were wrong in suspecting and attacking their neighbors with middle-east descent. To Steve, Captain America had to represent what is the best of America – and he used his clout and name to give people pause – let them think of what they were doing… let them realize that they were working on certain assumptions… and wrong ones at that.
Cap also stopped terrorist cells and extreme-right reactions to 9-11, and to avoid retaliation to more innocents, he revealed his identity to the public – in from of a camera, daring any terrorist planning said possible retaliatory attacks to see the face of their true enemy. Steve gave the terrorists a face to focus on, a target to handle, not an anonymous identity behind a mask.
It would also be at around this time that Steve would also start overseeing some changes in the Avengers – but not out of a stricter sense or manner of handling emergencies, but adapting a more pro-active manner of handling problems. This was done by way of having a global watch – complete with a virtual display of the Earth, and its monitoring certain personalities (both heroes and villains) at the Avengers’ mansion – with hopes of being possibly pre-emptive with their actions in helping secure the world.
It seemed, however, that despite this seeming upgrade of their capabilities, the Avengers, and the world would face another crisis, one that the global initiative would not help them with. Kang the Conqueror would choose this particular time to arrive, announce himself with the stylized manner of showing everyone his capabilities by blowing up the U.N. building – without injuring anyone, and inform everyone – Avengers and Earth’s U.N. delegates alike – that he is the world’s best hope and line of defense against what will be transpiring soon.
He then shows all gathered the problems about to happen – and offers his protection, in return for making him the ruler of this world. Rather than fight Kang, however, the Avengers are thrust into handling all these emergencies, with Steve nearly suffering a fatal – but thankfully reversible fate, but not before seemingly shocking Thor into realizing that he has grown too attached with his Avenging comrades… a curse felt by immortals towards having too close ties with mortals.
Though the Wasp was obviously the chair-person of the Avengers, Captain America called the shots in the field, and was even the person the generals talked to when consulting with the Avengers about how to deal with Kang. They were given a deadline, and brought the assault to Kang’s ship – but they were outclassed, and their ship destroyed – fortunately, Quasar was nearby and they were picked-up by the Triune’s space arc, enroute to stop another evil in space… hence Cap had to leave the battle against Kang, to tackle this seemingly more important threat.
Thus, Steve was not around for Earth’s defeat and surrender, and it would be tempting to speculate if his absence had indeed affected the course of the war – but when he did return, he fought Kang one-on-one – rightly guessing how Kang thinks and what action he would take / what weapon he would use, and with the help of Triathlon (now a part of the space pyramid, after they had stopped the threat that once lingered inside it – oh, and in the process, expose Tremont for the glory hound he was), Cap countered Kang’s strategy and weapon. Kang’s ship, appropriately named ‘Domocles’ (as it was shaped like a sword) was finally defeated and came crashing to Earth, with Kang riding in its blaze of glory upon re-entry into Earth atmosphere.
Kang, of course would survive the fall, and he readily challenged the Avengers. Steve, readily approached Kang to battle, and when Ms. Marvel too was starting to approach, Thor stopped her in mid-stride. When asked why Thor did not let the others help Cap take Kang down, Thor replies that Cap alone, is enough to defeat Kang.
True to from, Cap does defeat Kang in a one-on-one duel and while doing so, gives his two cents worth of how he feels about Kang’s ‘honor of being defeated by Cap’ – simply put, War is never honorable – as its aftermath would show… one that Steve knows all too well, being a witness to the damage done from the European front in WWII to Kree-space in the present-time, oh… and a good deal of Washington too, courtesy of Kang. Thus ends the siege of the planet Earth.
There would be another time, though, that Steve would once again be seen as inflexible – this in connection to the incident with the Thunderbolts’ plan to save the Earth by helping rid it of their hot spots… dictators and nuclear energies. It would seem apparent that the Thunderbolts plan would have worked had it not been for the Avengers intervention, starting with Steve’s shield crashing into sensitive equipment.
The problem revolved around trust… not all the Thunderbolts fully trusted each other, nor did they fully trust Zemo’s plans - in fact, Songbird had arranged coded email correspondences with Abner Jenkins (currently serving time in jail) and he, in turn told Captain America, who showed obvious disdain for the Thunderbolts – no matter how seemingly altruistic their actions seemed to show.
The Avengers not trusting the Thunderbolts, even after their joint battle against Graviton were still understandable – since fro most of them, the memory of having the mansion under siege was still a strong reminder. Even Jarvis would voice this notion to Clint – who was trying so hard to show his co-Avengers that the Thunderbolts could be trusted… yet likewise keeping an eye on them as well.
Steve would constantly battle Zemo, who constantly taunted him… but despite their animosity towards each other, Zemo would do something unexpected – he jumped in front of a blast by Moonstone, meant for Captain America… thus saving Steve, and likewise opening his mind to the possibility that the Thunderbolts may indeed be serious with their reforms.
Unfortunately, the entire event had opened many old wounds – and the result would be the Thunderbolts’ disbanding, and despite an invitation by the Avengers for Songbird to join, she obviously felt unwanted… and not trusted, hence her turning down their offer… though keeping the option open for the future. It also made a (once again) facially-deformed Zemo realize that he had been better off doing things alone – his way. On a bright note, Abe would plan to regroup the Thunderbolts, and this time, Steve would congratulate Clint for his ‘role’ in helping make these reforming villains strive for a better way.
Next: Dell Rusk, Friendship strained and Disassembled
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