Warning: Spoilers for The Avengers (2023) #14 ahead!

The Blood Hunt event has descended upon the Marvel universe, but Captain America is more than ready to take on the hordes of vampires besieging the world. When the time comes to rally a new team to take on this bloodsucking menace, Captain America’s new gear shows that he’s capable of tangling with supernatural threats – courtesy of a callback to one of his strangest 1990s adventures.

The Avengers (2023) #14 establishes its dire stakes from the very beginning, with Captain America forming a team of himself, Hercules, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Hazmat to strike back against the assaulting vampire forces. During one skirmish, Quicksilver notices that Captain America’s shield is not behaving as it usually does, prompting Cap to reveal that he has an entirely different shield for handling supernatural threats.

“It’s edged in silver,” Captain America explains. “I had it made after I was turned into a werewolf,” he adds, referencing the infamous “Capwolf” comics of the 1990s.

Captain America’s Anti-Magic Shield Has Its Roots In His Werewolf Days

Superheroes are no strangers to odd plot contrivances, but 1992’s “Man And Wolf” storyline might be one of the strangest Captain America arcs ever published. Beginning with Captain America (1954) #403 and spanning seven issues, what starts as a search for the missing John Jameson (“Man-Wolf”) culminates with a werewolf Captain America leading a team of other bestial Marvel heroes to take down a cosmic lupine entity known as “Starwolf.” While the storyline itself saw relatively little canonical impact (Captain America is cured of his lycanthropy shortly after), the image of “Capwolf” remains a fan-favorite piece of Marvel lore.

With this experience in mind, it makes sense for Captain America to have a silver shield contingency. Not only does the metal provide the (relatively) mundane Captain America with some means of fighting back against mystical threats, it also serves as a check against him in the event that he succumbs to lycanthropy again in the future (with silver being effective against werewolves, according to folklore). A silver-lined shield is an excellent tactical move that demonstrates Captain America’s resourcefulness, turning a past misadventure into a solution to multiple potential problems.

Captain America Is Ready For Whatever the Blood Hunt May Bring

It’s an excellent time for Captain America to show off his preparedness for magical threats; not only is there the Blood Hunt, but Captain America (2023) (by J. Michael Straczynski et al.) pits Steve Rogers against demons and more, placing him at the center of the battle between Life and Death personified. As such, it’s good to see that Captain America isn’t just squaring off against evil made manifest with little more than his fists and American idealism on his side; taking cues from his werewolf past, Captain America’s newest shield is the perfect tool for standing against the darkness.