The English Channel, April 1945. Rogers and his sidekick Bucky have climbed aboard an attack drone plane that just took off from Baron Zemo’s castle. Steve manages to disarm the booby trap aboard the plane, and he and Bucky manage to turn it around back to the castle. Just before it crashes, taking Zemo and his forces with it, Steve and Bucky dive into the water and survive unscathed.

Berlin, Germany, April 1945. Reporter Edward Murrow is reporting on what happened earlier that day. Captain America and the Invaders led the Allied troops to victory against the Nazi army’s last remaining hold. Though he was not anywhere near the battle, Murrow and his crew could easily feel the blows given between the Sub-Mariner and the Master Man, and feel the heat given off from the original Human Torch. The death of the Red Skull was not recorded, but a picture taken of the Captain standing over the Skull’s fallen form became famous worldwide overnight. The most amazing part of the whole time was Cap and Bucky emerging from a bunker with Hitler himself in tow.

Back in the present, Dum Dum Dugan has now taken the podium and is speaking about the fight between Cap and the Red Skull. Steve happily wonders when the last time he saw Dugan was.

Washington D.C., January 1946. Steve is in the oval office, and the President asks him if it’s true that he will be getting married soon. Steve confirms this, and hopes the President has no problems. The Prez says of course not, but relations with the Soviets are tough, and he may need to call on Rogers time and time again, but Cap says he’ll be there whenever the President needs him. The President is happy to hear this, and asks if his wife to be knows what she’s getting into. She should, she’s a spy, worked with the French. Well, the President wishes them both luck, but now he wants to talk with Steve about these mutants he’s been hearing about.

At the Senate Hearings on Mutant Activity in the United States, 1951, Cap is being grilled by Senator McCarthy about Namor attending his wedding. When Cap wonders why he’s even being questioned at all about any of this, and McCarthy goes off in his trademark ranting, this time, about mutants. When McCarthy then moves on to the Human Torch’s sidekick, Toro, but mispronounces his name, Cap says he will decline answering any more questions, and when McCarthy tells him that wearing his uniform means he has to listen, Cap says he will also resign from his position as Captain America. He will not inform on his friends and watch his country sink into fear while McCarthy gets drunk on his own power, and he removes his mask.

In 1955, Steve has now become the first man on the moon. In a controversial move, his first words are, “This is one small step for man. One giant leap for peace between man and mutantkind.” This quickly makes news around the world, but is quickly covered up by high officials saying that he only meant that it was because of the combined efforts of men and mutants that they made it to the moon before anyone else. However, this does not comfort Steve’s wife Peggy. She asks him if he just had to say it. Does he know what they’re going to say to her at the office now? This begins to anger Steve and he wonders if SHIELD is spying on mutants now. She says they keep an eye on a lot of people, Bucky knows that. He can’t believe that Bucky is a part of SHIELD now, but she says that he could have been too, but no, he had to pull strings to go to the moon.

In 1957, Steve is meeting Bucky in a bar. Bucky says that he’s surprised, he thought Steve and Peggy would go the distance. Steve says she just didn’t like a lot of the things he did, especially giving up the mask. Bucky says that shocked a lot of people including him, but Steve asks what he’d say if he was the one being questioned. Bucky doesn’t really know, but Steve picks up as if SHIELD turned Bucky against mutants. Toro was his best friend. Bucky says that was a different world back then. The mutant issue isn’t black and white and there are some mutant rights supporters that are terrorists. Steve tries to say that there are human terrorists too, but Bucky points out that with mutants, they don’t plant bombs, they are the bombs.

Present Steve remembers Bucky’s words all too well. They stayed with him through the decades as the mutant explosion became undeniable. It was all about shades of gray. There were shades among regular humans, why should mutants be any different? Regardless of how man felt, it was clear they would soon be the minority, and during that change, one mutant rose above all; Magneto.

In the 70’s, after Magneto overcame the Sentinels, humans were overtaken. Magnus became a world leader, and Steve did not like his vision of the future. We see Steve standing at a podium in a public space, surrounded by many people, saying that while he bears no ill will to mutant, what he hears in Magneto’s ideas echoes those of Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler, while many shocked people look on. Steve was forced into early retirement soon after.

He remembers how quickly the world passed, making him irrelevant. The only people who tried talking to him anymore were the human separatists, and he didn’t want anything to do with them. It wasn’t about keeping the different people apart, it was making sure those in charge weren’t selling them out. Around that same time, Bucky was killed in duty during a SHIELD op in Genosha. Didn’t really matter though, as SHIELD would soon be under Magneto’s control. Maybe it had already happened, as Peggy wasn’t even at the funeral.

Now, fifty years after he walked on the moon, he’s still thinking about his ex. He wonders what she would have thought of the dinner they threw for him. Probably wouldn’t have been impressed, but would have at least liked to have met Namor’s son. But him, even after capturing Hitler and walking on the moon, he can’t do much more than thank the people who worked beside him. Everything else is just scattered in the winds of history. A history that no longer matters, he thinks as he enters a subway, only to be knocked into a wall by a couple of teen mutant punks. He gives them a stern look, but just gets in the car to go home, still finding it hard to believe that this is the world they all fought for; where humans are just pushed aside. It may seem naïve, but it doesn’t seem fair. Well, he captured Hitler with his own hands, and walked on the moon: that’s not too shabby, right? What is that his wife used to say? “You got everything you ever wanted, Steve Rogers… If the world didn’t turn out how you thought it would, well… That’s just life.” Still, he thought it would be a lot different than this. As he reaches home, we see Spider-Man, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Emma Frost, and one other person watching him from the roof above.

Review: Another really good stand alone issue. I thought it was a really interesting idea to devote one book towards a look at how the perceived history of this world happened. This may not seem to be the greatest idea one could come up with, but Brubaker tells it in a way that really makes you care. You really get the sense of Cap’s feelings of helplessness as the world changes around him, and he can do nothing about it. It’s really such a big change from the regular Cap we know in the regular universe, but you don’t care about the guy any less. In fact, this could even make some like him even more.

I thought the ideas of placing him in some of the bigger events of some recent history was a really great touch. Capturing Hitler, making the McCarthy trials about mutants, and Rogers's being the first man to walk on the moon all were great to behold, and fit so well within the context of the changed world.

Also, I wonder why it is that the stand alone issues seem to have the best stories? Just a something you can ponder to yourselves.

The art was a good treat as well. Plenty of details and designs to really keep you interested from panel to panel. I especially like some of the smaller touches that Weeks added. Notably having Nick Fury, or at least someone that looks a lot like him, in the panel where Cap and the Invaders were charging Berlin, and the panel where, as the old Steve was walking down some stairs at the end, the shadow in front of him looked like that of him still as Captain America. Perfect touch at a perfect time.