Has Cap joined Hydra?

Marvel reboots Captain America with cliffhanger

WASHINGTON Two words no one ever expected Captain America to say? “Hail Hydra.”

The new Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 comic book hit stands Wednesday featuring the return of the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, but with a shocking twist: In the final pages, Rogers throws a fellow hero out of a plane to his death and says “Hail Hydra,” the salute of the longtime Marvel Comics terrorist group.

The patriotic hero’s apparent heel turn, after months of sitting on the sidelines, is the highlight of the new No. 1 issue written by Nick Spencer and drawn by Jesus Saiz, and the book’s editor, Tom Brevoort, wants people to know they aren’t falling back on any comic-book switcheroos — a clone, a life model decoy or a Steve Rogers from another dimension — for the reveal.

“That’s the real dude, and you’ll find out the whys and wherefores in the second issue,” Brevoort said.

Captain America has always reflected the era he’s lived in, and adding this level of complexity to the Steve Rogers character just reflects where the U.S. is as a country, Brevoort said.

“In the zeitgeist of the moment that we’re in, in the middle of sort of a very volatile election cycle where there’s a lot of strange things going on in the world of politics, and the world and the country, it feels kind of appropriate, kind of right timingwise, that you could get a revelation like this and it not feel out of step with where the nation happens to be in the moment,” he said.

As a comic book character, Captain America has gone through several changes in the past few years, including Rogers dying in the comic book’s Civil War event and being resurrected, and being replaced by former sidekicks Bucky and the Falcon (Sam Wilson) as the official Captain America.