Captain America

In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve tries to enlist again and again and is always turned down for health reasons. Dr. Abraham Erskine sees something else in him: courage without any desire to hurt anyone. Steve gets the super-soldier serum and steps out of the chamber tall and strong. Minutes later, a HYDRA spy kills Erskine, and the formula is lost.

At first, the government uses Steve as a mascot in shows to sell war bonds. He only becomes a real soldier when he single-handedly raids a HYDRA base to rescue his friend Bucky Barnes and hundreds of prisoners. He forms a squad, gets the vibranium shield made by Howard Stark, and grows close to Agent Peggy Carter.

Bucky falls from a train in the Alps and is presumed dead. Steve fights the Red Skull on a plane loaded with bombs aimed at the United States and brings it down in the Arctic. Before the crash, he makes a date with Peggy to go dancing. He wakes up almost 70 years later, in New York.

In The Avengers, Steve is still trying to fit into a world he doesn't understand. He butts heads with Tony Stark, but in the Battle of New York he's the one who organizes the team and hands out assignments in the middle of the invasion.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier puts Steve to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. and introduces him to Sam Wilson, a veteran who runs every morning in Washington. After an attempt on Nick Fury's life, Steve discovers that HYDRA has been growing in secret inside S.H.I.E.L.D. itself since the end of the war. The plan is to use three flying helicarriers to wipe out millions of people deemed threats.

The assassin working for HYDRA is Bucky, alive and with his memory wiped. With Natasha and Sam, now the Falcon, Steve brings down the helicarriers. In the final fight, he drops his shield and refuses to fight his friend. Bucky pulls him out of the river and disappears.

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, during a party game, Steve makes Thor's hammer budge slightly, and Thor notices. After the battle in Sokovia, he and Natasha take over training the new Avengers lineup.

In Captain America: Civil War, governments want the Avengers under UN control. Steve doesn't sign the Sokovia Accords. When Bucky is blamed for a bombing in Vienna, Steve protects him and becomes a fugitive. The real culprit is Helmut Zemo, who wants to destroy the Avengers from the inside.

In Siberia, Zemo shows Tony that Bucky killed his parents. Steve knew and didn't tell him. The fight ends with Steve dropping the shield and walking away. Later, he breaks his jailed allies out of the prison called the Raft.

In Avengers: Infinity War, Steve shows up bearded, on the run for two years, without his Captain uniform. He rescues Wanda and Vision in Edinburgh and takes everyone to Wakanda, where he fights Thanos with his bare hands. He witnesses the snap and watches Bucky turn to dust.

In Avengers: Endgame, Steve spends five years trying to help survivors move on. In the time heist, he goes back to 2012, fights his own past self, and then goes to 1970, where he sees Peggy from a distance.

In the final battle, he lifts Thor's hammer and takes on Thanos. His shield breaks, he stands alone in front of the army, and then the portals open. Steve finally says it: Avengers, assemble.

After it's all over, he travels to return the stones to their points in time and doesn't come back the same way. He stays in the past and lives his life with Peggy. He reappears as an old man, sitting on a bench, and hands the shield to Sam Wilson.

At the start of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam doesn't feel he has the right to be Captain and donates the shield to the government. Soon after, the government introduces a different Captain America: John Walker, a decorated soldier. Sam and Bucky also find out that a Black man, Isaiah Bradley, received the serum in the 1950s and was secretly imprisoned and used as a test subject. Walker, under pressure, takes the serum and kills a man in public with the shield.

Sam and Bucky take the shield from Walker by force. Sam talks with Isaiah, hears from him that no Black man would ever be accepted as Captain, and decides to take it on anyway. He trains, gets a Wakandan-made suit from Bucky, and debuts as the new Captain America in the final episode, saving hostages in New York and speaking directly to politicians about who gets left out of their decisions.

In Captain America: Brave New World, Sam is already Captain, without the serum, with Joaquin Torres as the new Falcon. Thaddeus Ross, now President of the United States, asks him to rebuild the Avengers. At a White House ceremony, Isaiah Bradley and others open fire on Ross under mind control. Sam investigates and finds Samuel Sterns, the Leader, who had been manipulating the president for years.

Ross turns into the Red Hulk and wrecks part of Washington. Sam takes him on, manages to calm him down, and Ross turns himself in. Isaiah is cleared, and Sam walks away ready to form a new team.

Chris Evans (as Steve Rogers) and Anthony Mackie (as Sam Wilson) are confirmed for Avengers: Doomsday, which opens December 18, 2026.

Captain America debuted in Captain America Comics #1 in 1941, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with Steve punching Hitler on the cover before the United States entered the war. Sam Wilson was created in 1969 by Stan Lee and Gene Colan and first took up the shield in the comics in 2014.