Steve Rogers was a skinny art student who grew up during the era of the Great Depression. His alcoholic father died when Steve was a child, and his mother died of pneumonia after Steve graduated from high school. In the early 1940s, shocked by the horrific atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, Steve attempted to enlist in the military. Failing to meet the physical requirements, he was asked to volunteer for Operation: Rebirth, a project designed to bring American soldiers to the pinnacle of physical excellence through the inventions and discoveries of Professor Abraham Erskine. Rogers readily agreed and became the first test subject. After injections and ingestion of the "Super Soldier Serum", Rogers was exposed to controlled blasts of "Vita-Rays" which activated and stabilized the chemicals in his body. The process successfully altered his physiology from his lean state to the peak of human efficiency, including greatly improved musculature and reflexes. Shortly after the process, Professor Erskine was murdered by a Nazi agent, leaving Steve with the only vestige of Erskine's genius. Renamed "Project: Rebirth", variants of the Super-Soldier serum were then tested, under inhumane conditions, on African-American soldiers. The most successful of these was Isaiah Bradley, and the resources of Project: Rebirth were eventually absorbed into a multinational superhuman research project renamed Weapon Plus. Rogers was assigned to serve in the military as a soldier who served as both a counterintelligence agent and a symbolic figure. American hero to counter the propaganda achievements of Nazi Germany led by the Red Skull (Johann Shmidt). Dressed in a suit based on his own design, fashioned after the American flag, Steve was given a triangular bulletproof shield, a personal udder...... middle of paper ......n #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 in comic book issues #76-78. Atlas's troubled superhero revival proved unnecessary, and the character's title was canceled with Captain America issue #78 in September 1954. Works Cited Daniels, Les (1991). Marvel: five fabulous decades of the world's greatest comic books. Harry N. Abrams. p. 37. ISBN 0-8109-3821-9. Simon, Joe; Jim Simon (1990). Comic book creators. Crestwood/II. p. 50. ISBN1-887591-35-4. Reissued by Vanguard Productions in 2003. Simon, Joe; Jim Simon (1990). Comic book creators. Crestwood/II. p. 51. ISBN1-887591-35-4. Reissued 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