Nazi-Punching Captain America's Nazi Status Is Still Ambiguous

Captain America is a member of HYDRA … sort of. DC comics writer Nick Spencer and artist Jesus Saiz revealed that bombshell soon after Steve Rogers returned to his original form. Clearly, however, Steve Rogers being a Nazi is just the tip of the iceberg as previews for Steve Rogers Captain America #7 will officially begin his “Hail Hydra!” arc post-Civil War II.

Thanks to some memory tampering from the Red Skull and the Cosmic Cube, Steve Rogers was able to regain his youthful body again after the super serum finally took its toll on the soldier and aged him into an old man. Now Rogers is back, but unfortunately, he came back with some iffy memories about secretly being a Nazi. It wasn’t great.

Since then, Rogers’s HYDRA affiliations have taken a back seat amid all the Civil War II drama, but his allegiances to the evil organization have shown themselves, like when he subtly sabotages the Avengers. One things is clear though: Rogers might still be HYDRA, but he’s definitely no fan of Red Skull.

Red Skull, the occult-obsessed leader of HYDRA, is currently marching through Europe with a new army. Steve Rogers might be putting on a show in fighting them, but he’s still a HYDRA operative, though as the preview reveals, he might have some plans of his own for the future of the organization.

It is an interesting choice to tie Red Skull’s European campaign to some real-world conflicts. This certainly looks like something from Eastern Europe, either currently or in the recent past, but here’s hoping the story doesn’t try to fictionalize real-life tragedies too much. That doesn’t always work out well for Marvel.