The History of the Super-Soldier Program

Super Soldier Serum was the name given to the chemical compound created by Dr. Abraham Erskine. Its exact chemical make up is a nearly complete mystery, the only known ingredient to the Serum is potassium. When ingested and injected in a series of treatments, the human body rapidly evolves, both physically and mentally, beyond the peak of its potential. The Super Soldier Serum is actually only a part of the Super Soldier Process. The initial successful treatment was in three parts. Rogers was required to take the Super Soldier Serum, both orally and by injection. Once the proper dosage was reached he was exposed to several unknown bands of radiation called Vita-Rays. The Vita Rays stabilized the serum and allowed it to affect Rogers at an accelerated rate.

Johann Schmidt (The Red Skull) is an ex Schutzstaffel officer, who has his own branch of the German Army coded HYDRA, under his command. Schmidt is a scientist who is interested in developing armaments and harnessing the power of the Tesseract, also known as the Cosmic Cube. The Red Skull, and his hallmark disfigurement, is the result of the Nazi's failed attempts at creating a super solider of their own. The Red Skull is a genius at military, political, and subversive strategy. His brilliance is comparable to that of Napoleon. The Red Skull is a fine hand-to-hand combatant, although he is never a match for Captain America. The Red Skull is also a skilled marksman with various forms of handguns.

Steve Rogers was a scrawny fine arts student specializing in industrialization in the 1940's before America entered World War II. He attempted to enlist in the army only to be turned away due to his poor constitution. A U.S. officer offered Rogers an alternative way to serve his country by being a test subject in project, Operation: Rebirth, a top secret defense research project designed to create physically superior soldiers. Rogers accepted and after a rigorous physical and combat training and selection process was selected as the first test subject. He was given injections and oral ingestion of the formula dubbed the "Super Soldier Serum" developed by the scientist Dr. Abraham Erskine. Rogers was then exposed to a controlled burst of "Vita-Rays" that activated and stabilized the chemicals in his system. The process successfully altered his physiology from its frail state to the maximum of human efficiency, including greatly enhanced musculature and reflexes. Captain America represents the pinnacle of human physical perfection. He has a very high intelligence as well as agility, strength, speed, endurance, and reaction time superior to any Olympic athlete who ever competed. The Super-Soldier formula that he has metabolized had enhanced all of his bodily functions to the peak of human efficiency. Most notably, his body eliminates the excessive build-up of fatigue-producing poisons in his muscles, granting him phenomenal endurance.

The Serum resurfaced when Bruce Banner was working with Gamma Rays to recreate the Super Soldier Serum, but fails and turns himself into the Monstrous Hulk. It is later seen when General Thunderbolt Ross uses it on a British Royal Marine, Emil Blonsky, who later becomes addicted to the serum and the his enhanced body that he gained from it, Blonsky being a hard and tough nut in the inside starts to show on his outer appearance when his spine starts to grow outwards, but before his body could go through the process Blonsky has Samuel Sterns, inject him with Bruce Banner's gamma radiated blood which turns him in to the hideous Abomination