Steve Rogers was a gaunt fine arts student growing up during the Great Depression. His father, an alcoholic, died when Steve was a child, and his mother died of pneumonia after Steve graduated from high school. In early 1940, shocked by the horrific atrocities of Nazi Germany, Steve tried to join the army. Failing to meet the physical requirements, he was invited to volunteer for Operation: Rebirth, a project designed to bring U.S. soldiers to the pinnacle of physical excellence with the inventions and discoveries of Professor Abraham Erskine. Rogers gladly accepted and became the first test subject. After the injections and ingestion of the "Super Soldier Serum", Rogers was exposed to controlled blasts of "Life Rays" which activated and stabilized the chemicals in his body. The process successfully altered his physiology from his lean state to peak human efficiency, including significantly improved musculature and reflexes. Soon after the trial, Professor Erskine was murdered by a Nazi agent, leaving Steve with the only remnant of Erskine's genius. Renamed "Project: Rebirth", variants of the Super Soldier serum were later tested, under inhumane conditions, on African-American soldiers. The most successful of these was Isaiah Bradley, and Project: Rebirth's resources were eventually absorbed into a multinational superhuman research project dubbed Weapon Plus. Rogers was assigned to military service as a soldier who served as both a counterintelligence agent and a token agent . American hero to counter the propaganda results of Nazi Germany led by the Red Skull (Johann Shmidt). Wearing a costume based on his design modeled after the American flag, Steve received a triangular bulletproof shield, a personal pea... center of paper... #24. Captain America was called "Captain America, Commie Smasher!" Captain America appeared the following year in Young Men #24-28 and Men's Adventures #27-28, as well as comics #76-78. Atlas's laborious superhero revival proved futile, and the character's title was canceled with Captain America #78 in September 1954. Works Cited Daniels, Les (1991). Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. Harry N. Abrams. P. 37. ISBN 0-8109-3821-9. Simon, Joe; Jim Simon (1990). Comic creators. Crestwood/II. P. 50. ISBN 1-887591-35-4. Reissued by Vanguard Productions in 2003.Simon, Joe; Jim Simon (1990). Comic creators. Crestwood/II. P. 51. ISBN 1-887591-35-4. Reprinted by Vanguard Productions in 2003. Thomas, Roy, Stan Lee's Amazing Marvel Universe (Sterling Publishing, New York, 2006), p. 11. ISBN 978-1-4027-4225-5