Roger Stevens was an undersized youth who wanted to join the military during the Worldwide Patriotic War of the 1950's. Rejected for his poor physical condition, he kept trying and was eventually accepted into an experimental program designed to create the finest soldier possible. The treatment worked, but only on him, and its creator and the facility used was destroyed soon afterward in an attack on the lab. Despite this attack, experiments in human enhancement would continue and some would succeed, but none as spectacularly as the Kaptain.
The Kaptain spent time training in many forms of unarmed combat, firearms of allies and enemies, languages, tactics, and strategy. He was also equipped with a special and unique uniform and equipped with a shield made of a unique metal, symbolic of his role as "shield of the people" - a protector, not an avenger. Within months he was in action both at home and abroad and the People's Republic of Amerika soon had its first true super war hero.
For fifty years Kap was the symbol of the best part of Amerika. The experiment that created him also retarded his aging process, so that the passing of five decades touched him as though a mere 5 years had passed. Always forthright, always humble, duty pressed him onward. Even as his wartime comrades passed away he stayed true to the Republic and its citizens. Even as new heroes and new leaders sprang up with different values and priorities, he kept to his core beliefs. As the century drew to a close he felt somewhat isolated from the leadership of the Republic, their open greed and corruption grating against his sense of right and wrong and his sense of duty to the people. He kept going though, knowing that this was his place in the world.
Then one day news came that a terrorist organization had acquired a nuclear weapon and was planning to detonate it somewhere in Manhattan. The gravest of threats demand the greatest of heroes and soon Kap was on the case. He pursued and destroyed most of the cell members. Bursting into the underground laboratory of the cell leader, he realized that something strange was in the works here - after all of his years of duty he knew what a nuclear device looked like and this machine was no bomb. As the leader leapt onto the platform, one arm still hanging useless, broken from an earlier hit from Kap's shield, he turned back, grimaced in triumph, pulled a lever, and things...changed.
Kap staggered, feeling a ... shift ... unlike anything he had ever felt before. His enemy yelled at him that it was a different world now, and though they were shielded from the change there was no place for him now. In response Kap bashed the leader with his shield, knocking him out. Feeling a growing sense of unease Kaptain Stevens rushed back outside and into a world much like the one he knew, but clearly not his home.Within a few minutes he realized the People's Republic was no more - he was lost, a man without a country, a hero without a cause.
On the edge of despair Kap acquired civilian clothing and set about learning where he was. He had some hopes of finding a way back home but as time went on he realized he couldn't be sure his home even existed anymore. As he learned more about this new place, indecision, melancholy, and a feeling of helplessness began to take hold of him for the first time in half a century. The language was largely the same, so he could blend in. The technology was quite similar so he was able to function within this strange society. It was not home, however, and he was unable to pull himself out of a spiral of depression.
Headed downward, he drifted to the edges of the city. He saw cruelty and violence here, much as he had seen it at home. One day though, as he saw a young mother and child under assault by some thugs, something stirred within him and he took action, much as he would have if he had seen these things at home. He kept at it over the next few days, thrashing a variety of hoodlums and criminals and finally wiping out a local gang in a one-man war on crime. He realized that despite the drastic differences between his home and this "America" bad things still happened, he still had the means to do something, and the people still needed a champion. Donning his characteristic red uniform and bearing his iconic shield, the last survivor of the Republic took to the streets - Kaptain Amerika, Hero and Protector of the People, would not abandon his duty!
Notes: Kap is extremely concerned for innocent bystanders who might be caught up or injured but is far less particular about the means used to deal with criminals or enemies - due process was more of a goal than a rule in Amerika. He has also been affected by the passage of fifty years of super-duty, not having been frozen in an iceberg for decades so he is not strictly a child of the fifties afresh.
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| The Kaptain tests out a new environmentally sealed suit |
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| Looks like the suit works just fine as Kap kicks a mutant where it counts |
