This maxi-series is a wide ride through the history of the Avengers and the Marvel Universe as a whole. As with most event series, even those focusing on the Avengers, Captain America plays a significant yet limited role, so my discussion of his ethically relevant moments will be sporadic, and will definitely not do justice to the storyline itself, despite my attempts to give context to the bits I present.
Issue #1 begins with several pages showing a future in which a descendant of Rick Jones leads an Avengers-styled army in imperial conquest (which will be revisited later). When the narrative returns to 1999, we see the Avengers bringing an ailing Rick to a S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost on the Blue Area of the Moon (following the scene we covered from The Incredible Hulk #470).
After recounting how Rick summoned the original Avengers to confront the Loki-manipulated Hulk in the very first issue, the next page surveys his long and complicated history with the team and explains what happened recently to bring the Avengers to his aid. (Of particular importance to this story is his role in the culmination of the Kree/Skrull War.)
After examining Rick, Tony detects energies similar to what the Kree Supreme Intelligence brought out of him during the Kree/Skrull War, so the Avengers come to him again for help. Cap makes clear what they need and what their conditions are, but the Kree leader just laughs, pointing out the team’s desperation to help their friend.
In response to Cap’s continued bluster, the Supreme Intelligence admits he has little bargaining power either, and insists that they trust each other—which is understandably difficult for Cap and the other Avengers who remember when he tried to wipe out most of his own Kree race.
Once the Avengers leave, things really gets crazy: First, a mysterious robed figure visits the Supreme Intelligence and Rick, warning of the coming catastrophe, then Immortus (a older version of Kang) sends his muscle Tempus to kill Rick, but Kang (a younger version of Immortus) shows up to save him.
After the Supreme Intelligence restores Rick’s life and powers from the Kree/Skrull War and explains that they have to help Kang fight Immortus, the robed figure reaches into Rick’s mind to assemble an ersatz new Avengers team from across time:
Issue #2 gradually reveals who each of these Avengers are and from what time period, and the first clue about Cap comes when the rest of team look to him for leadership but he seems hesitant, leaving it to the Wasp to take charge.
Janet picks up on another clue about this version of Cap when she notes his super-strength…
…and after they learn the robed figure is Libra, a reformed former member of the criminal organization the Zodiac, Cap’s words to him tells Janet the rest.
Janet lays out her conclusions about everyone: She and Giant-Man are from the current time (after bringing Rick to the moon); Yellowjacket is the twisted alternate personality of Hank from Avengers #59; Clint comes from after the conclusion of the Kree/Skrull War, when he is still known as Goliath but no longer has growing powers; Songbird is from the future by which time the current Thunderbolt becomes an Avenger; and also from the future is Genis, the guy in the Captain Marvel outfit and the son of Mar-Vell. And Cap? He was drawn from one of his lowest moments…
…which Janet helpfully recaps before thinking what bad shape he’s in at this point in his life and sizing up the rest of the team.
By issue #3, the Avengers have made it to Chronopolis, Kang’s headquarters outside of time, which is under siege from Immortus. Cap is protecting Rick, unsure of what else he can do, and Rick gently urges him to action, silently mourning how low his former mentor has come.
During a pause in the battle, Kang explains that Immortus is after the “Heart of Forever,” which allows Chronopolis to exist outside of time and which Immortus will use to destroy the timeline in which Rick regained his powers. Later, Jan checks in with Cap and asks him, despite all he has recently been through, if he’s ready for what coming, but he doubts his usefulness, just as he did in his own time (which leads him then to abandon the Captain America identity).
Unlike Janet, this Clint had never seen Cap like this and can’t believe it, but Hank knows all too well the pain of doubt and irrelevance.
As the battle resumes, Genis admires Cap, who is unbeatable even when not at his best.
Immortus’s armies are too strong for Kang’s forces and the Avengers, who are forced to retreat, which Rick (who has regained the use of his legs) dislikes but Cap understands as a strategic necessity.
After Libra and the Avengers flee into the timestream in Kang’s Sphinx-shaped time machine, Immortus claims the Heart of Forever and destroys Chronopolis. In issue #4 the team licks their wounds, with Cap now allowing himself to feel remorse over those they left behind—feelings presumably heightened by his current state of mind.
After Hank identifies three “temporal balances” created by Immortus, Janet splits the group into three smaller units, with Hank and Cap teaming up to travel to New York sometime in the mid-2000s, based on the “War of the Worlds” feature that began in Amazing Adventures #18, meant as a sequel to the famous novel of the same name by H.G. Wells (symbolized by the street sign below). Despite his shock at the sight and his general malaise, Cap is motivated as usual to save lives.
Cap and Hank join the battle for New York, inspiring the other residents to fight as well, and are soon joined by… these folks.
We recognize the Black Panther, of course, plus Jocasta, the Crimson Dynamo, Thundra, the Living Lightning, and Killraven (with Cap’s energy shield), a version of the lead character from the Amazing Adventures story (drawn by Don Heck, hence the “Heck Av.” sign above).
Although it has nothing to do with Cap, Jan and Genis meet this alternate-universe Avengers team made up of heroes from the 1950s, as shown in What If? #9, similar to the Earth-616 team known as the (original) Agents of Atlas.
Issue 5 returns to the future New York where Cap and Hank help Old Panther’s Avengers fight Martians, a battle which Cap does not appreciate the stakes of, instead lecturing a guy named Killgrave on the difference between justice and vengeance.
But it becomes clear after the Martians are repelled and T’Grandpa tells him how many survivors are left on Earth, at which Cap is devastated.
Watching from the Sphinx, Rick worries about Cap too, especially when he’s recently suffered such disillusionment in his own time.
In issue #6, Jocasta—who you will no doubt notice is with child—finds Cap at a memorial statue for the fallen original Avengers, and tries to assure him that, just by being there, Cap and others have helped.
Soon they head to Wakanda to use the remaining vibranium to power ships to take the fight to Mars, but T’Challa is struck by the devastation. Now it’s Cap’s turn to try to make his friend feel better, but it doesn’t seem anyone is buying it at this point.
In the vibranium mound, they are suddenly attacked by a swarm of insectoid beings, whom even Cap has to admit they need to kill to defend themselves—until their leader, Mourning Prey, reaches out psychically to Cap and explains their plight…
…that she was born on Mars but brought to Earth by Immortus, where she laid eggs in the vibranium Mound, the powerful metal’s energies feeding her children.
At the same time, Jocasta is having problems with her pregnancy and needs vibranium to calm her tremors. Captain Obvious makes the dilemma clear to T’Challa…
…only later mentioning the astonishing coincidence that two competing needs for the vibranium suddenly appeared just as they were planning to use it to attack Mars.
Regardless, Cap and Hank prepare to return to the Sphinx, and Cap leaves T’Challa with encouraging words—which would be unremarkable if not for Cap’s current state of mind.
When the Avengers reassemble on the Sphinx and share the experiences, they realize how extensively Immortus has interfered in their history—including, in Cap’s case, using the Space Phantom to restore his secret identity in Captain America #113, as revealed in Avengers #107—and now seems to be using Space Phantoms (plural) to wreak more havoc.
The team decides to take the fight to Immortus in Limbo, and when they arrive there in issue #7, they find the landscape is constantly changing, leading Cap to make a comparison to the unsettled nature of his life in his actual time, to which Hank adds some commonsense advice.
Inside Immortus’s fortress, each member finds themselves in a room that uses their past against them. In his, Cap is greeted by a familiar voice…
…and face (such as it is), although Cap’s skeptical about who’s actually wearing it, especially because the man seems intent of breaking Cap’s spirit even more.
Although “Nick” keep changing his appearance, he sings the same tune, but Cap isn’t dancing…
…and instead starts to realize that what he has been doing has value, despite setbacks and disappointments, and that he needs to keep it up even if, and especially when, things look darkest.
Eventually Immortus tires of the games and presses the attack, and Clint for one is happy to see the old fightin’ Cap has returned.
The Avengers return to the Sphinx with Immortus’s Synchro-Staff (which Clint “borrowed”) but without Yellowjacket, whom they were forced to leave behind. In issue #8 they discover the magic wand is actually a Space Phantom—the first one the Avengers met, in their second issue, but just one of many unwilling agents of Immortus—whom they threaten into revealing many of the ways Immortus had secretly intervened in Avengers history (and clearing up a lot of continuity gaffes in the process, natch).
For example, he tells the Avengers about the events of Avengers #10, which the Enchantress erased from time afterwards.
The Space Phantom goes on to explain that the power that Rick Jones used during the Kree/Skrull War, the “Destiny Force,” led to a number of disastrous timelines—including the one that started off this series—which Immortus was commanded by the enigmatic Time-Keepers to prevent by keeping humanity from spreading throughout the galaxy. This explains the strange coincidences Cap and T’Challa noted in future Wakanda that kept them from Mars, as well anomalies the others noticed in their own adventures, and now inspires Cap to despair over the inherent tendencies of his own species.
Next the Space Phantom explains how the Time-Keepers feared the power any children the Scarlet Witch might have, so Immortus subtly subtly pushed the Vision together with her, assuming that their union could not result in “issue.” But when she used magic to create children with the Vision, Immortus intervened to mess with her mind while Mephisto tried to claim them, including having a Space Phantom impersonate Dr. Phineas Horton, creator of the original Human Torch, and deny that the Vision had any relationship to Jim Hammond (as previously thought).
In the process of this, Immortus also manipulated the world’s government into disassembling the Vision, the realization of which astonishes Cap, fresh from his own experience with treason at the highest levels of state power.
Genis reveals that Immortus’s interference with the timestream led to there being two original Human Torches, one that was buried and then revived to join the West Coast Avengers and the one who was used by Ultron to build the Vision. (Well that clears that up!)
Even more relevant to Cap is the Space Phantom’s explanation of the Galactic Storm event, in which Immortus influenced Tony’s mind several times, the first one to make sure the Supreme Intelligence’s plan to wipe out the Kree worked…
…and then to drive him to help kill the Supreme Intelligence, which resulted in a massive rift between Tony and Cap (although this is far in the current Cap’s future).
Not only is Tony partially absolved in the execution of the Supreme Intelligence, but the Space Phantom also clarifies who manipulated him into committing murder in “The Crossing” (which we’ve all tried so far to forget), although he credits Tony with fighting Immortus’s influence long enough to sacrifice himself at the end.
Ouch… sorry, Hank. To make matters worse, the other Hank (Yellowjacket) arrives with Immortus, betraying the team for leaving him behind in Limbo, and together they subdue the entire team.
Cap does not appear in any meaningful way in issue #9, which is dedicated to Kang’s life story, ending with Rick Jones arriving to tell him Immortus abducted the Avengers, leaving it to Kang, Rick, and the Supreme Intelligence to take on Immortus and the Time-Keepers.
In issue #10, the Avengers find themselves on the future Earth that issue #1 began with, but the Avengers-themed army doesn’t see them as their inspirations, but rather as…
The six Avengers have little trouble with the army, but Cap is disturbed by what they have inspired.
Eventually Immortus reveals that he brought the Avengers to this world to demonstrate what can happen if humanity is left unchecked, and also argues to the Time-Keepers that his program of subtle manipulations throughout time to prevent such an outcome should be maintained. But they judge it a failure, countering that humanity has prevailed against universal forces like Galactus and the Celestials, and have decided to eliminate most of the timelines containing humanity to order to guarantee the Time-Keepers own survival (and eventual creation at the end of time).
If it pleases the court, Cap demands to know in how many timelines humanity is a destructive force…
…and finds their answer wanting, committing two offenses against justice. First, it punishes everybody for the wrongdoing of some (collective punishment), and second, it punishes them on the basis on what they are expected to do, not what they have done (pre-punishment).
For some reason, the Destiny Force suddenly manifests itself in the Avengers, allowing them to free themselves from their restraints, at which point Yellowjacket rejoins the side of the angels, returning Cap’s best friend to him and eliciting a proclamation of optimism from the man recently incapable of one.
Yellowjacket also summoned “the cavalry,” consisting of Rick, Kang, and the Supreme Intelligence, who arrive to help battle the Time-Keepers in issue #11. Meanwhile, Libra (who’s back) reflects on why he chose these particular versions of these seven heroes—and regarding the two shown below, he chose the modern Wasp because of her flexible leadership style and the distressed “Secret Empire”-era Cap so he wouldn’t interfere with that (by controlling the team too firmly).
To counter the Avengers, the Time-Keepers summon every version of every Avenger from every timeline in which they “broke bad” (including the Kree Captain America from Fantastic Four, vol. 3, #16, and “Captain Assyria” from New Warriors #11)…
…to which Rick Jones and his future self—who swaps places with Genis, as Ricks often do with Captains Marvel—respond by using their Destiny Force together to summon all the good ones (including the Cap from Earth X #1 and American Dream from A-Next #4 and the Captain America Corps miniseries).
(Yes, all of the characters in both images have appeared before, as pointed out in the annotations in the trade paperback.)
Finally, the climatic battle ends in issue #12 after Rick jumps in the way of the Time Lords’ Chrono-Cannon, apparently sacrificing himself. (It’s not as simple as that, but you can read the issue to learn more.) While Kang the Con-Gloater celebrates, Cap finds the Forever Crystal and ponders all the good he could do with it throughout his life, not only saving Rick and Bucky but preventing the rise of Hitler and the Secret Empire as well.
But as he does every time he is tempted by absolute power (see: Cosmic Cube), he rejects it, feeling that no one person should wield that much power or control over other people’s lives.
Kang is incredulous, no surprise for a self-styled conqueror…
…but is assured that such a powerful item cannot be so easily destroyed. (No spoilers as to who said it.)
Thankfully, Rick is still alive, and Cap has good news and bad news: They won, but they must be forever vigilant to prevent mankind’s baser instincts from creating a dark future. (So what else is new?)
Cap shows he has come a long way from issue #1 when he speaks with cautious optimism regarding mankind’s potential to do what’s right….
…which we would hope he remembers after he is returned to the end of Captain America #175, aware that he had the chance to prevent what happened (at least until his memories of the time-crossed adventure fade with everyone else’s).
ISSUE DETAILS
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #1, December 1998: Kurt Busiek (writer), Carlos Pacheco (pencils), Jesús Marino (inks), Steve Oliff (colors), Richards Starkings and Albert Deschesne (letters). (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #2, January 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #3, February 1999: Kurt Busiek and Roger Stern (writers), Carlos Pacheco (pencils), Jesús Marino (inks), Steve Oliff (colors), Richards Starkings and Albert Deschesne (letters). (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #4, March 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #5, April 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #6, May 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #7, June 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #8, July 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #9, August 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #10, September 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #11, October 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Avengers Forever (vol. 1) #12, December 1999: Same creators as above. (More details at Marvel Database.)
Collected in: Avengers Forever.
THE VIRTUES OF CAPTAIN AMERICA 
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