19 Years Later, Even Marvel Knows This Civil War Moment Aged Like Milk

Taking place between the tragedy in Stamford, Connecticut that prompted the creation of the Superhuman Registration Act, and the subsequent clash between Iron Man and Captain America’s groups, Civil War: Unmasked #5 shows the latter, a.k.a. Steve Rogers, going undercover in a new civilian identity set up by Nick Fury. He’s one of many anti-registration superheroes who are forced to keep a low profile after Spider-Man unmasked himself in support of the legislation. At this point in the Marvel timeline, Steve was living as Brett Hendrick, a mall security guard in Queens, New York.

Though Steve’s time was Brett was short-lived, he made friends with his coworkers and viewed this other identity as a way for him to *“get a sense of whether I even still know what the lives of the people I claim to fight for are like.” *Unfortunately, this chapter of his life came to a tragic end when the supervillain Bushwacker attacked the mall he’s working at in an attempt to draw Cap out. Among the casualties was another one of the other security guards.

While Steve defeated Bushwacker after suiting back up as Captain America, he was forced to make a quick exit before S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived on the premises. As he’s leaving with Luke Cage, Cloak, and Dagger, Steve disputed Luke’s claim that what happened at the mall wasn’t his fault. Instead, he countered that this happened because he thought he “could belong with ordinary people,” but what he did instead was bring his “fight to them, without giving them a choice.”

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Whether Steve’s assessment was correct or not, Civil War: Unmasked #5 pushes back against one of Civil War’s most controversial moments. The tie-in series Civil War: Frontline followed journalists Ben Urich and Sally Floyd covering the pro and anti-Superhuman Registration factions of this conflict, respectively. In the 11th and final issue, Ben and Sally are taken to interview Steve after he’s surrendered himself into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody to explain his actions.

Sally called out Steve for supposedly being out of touch with everyday Americans because he didn’t know about things like MySpace, The Simpsons, NASCAR races, YouTube, or who won the last World Series or American Idol season. Sally was attempting to demonstrate how Steve holds America up as “some shining beacon of perfection” despite knowing “next to nothing about it.” However, the scene was poorly received because Sally’s shallow pop culture references failed as an effective counter to Steve’s more antiquated perspective on what America should be.

19 years later, Civil War: Unmasked #5 shows, albeit as a retcon, that Steve does know what living as a normal civilian in the present day is like. In the Brett Hendrick identity, he formed connections with people who don’t deal with superheroes and supervillains on a regular basis, and learned about what was important to them. Steve may not have fulfilled Sally’s requirements (some of which are already outdated), but now it’s established that Man Out of Time is more in touch with the American public than she assumed.

Civil War: Unmasked #5 is now available from Marvel Comics.

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