In Marvel Comics, the Super-Soldier Serum that courses through Captain America’s blood is amazing, but with Cap being its only real recipient in the MCU, its true potential hasn’t been fully shown on screen. In the comics, offshoots and recreations of the serum have created some of the most compelling heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe.
First seen in Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Captain America Comics #1, the Super-Soldier Serum was created by Dr. Abraham Erskine, a Jewish scientist who had defected from Nazi Germany. Erskine was the scientific mind behind Project Rebirth, the U.S. government’s attempt to create a super-soldier who could help them win WWII. With the creation of Captain America, Erskine succeeded, but his death at the hands of a Nazi spy meant that the formula itself was lost. Since then, many in the Marvel Universe have dedicated their lives to trying to recreate the Serum, but few have succeeded. Of these, the closest to success is Isaiah Bradley, who gained the powers of Captain America after being forced to take a recreation of it as shown in Robert Morales and Kyle Baker’s Truth: Red, White & Black. In the MCU, Steve Rogers’ and Isaiah Bradley’s peak human condition is known extent of the Super-Soldier Serum’s abilities, but in the comics there’s a lot more to it than that.
The results of Super-Soldier Serum variations and recreations shows that its potential for creating superhumans goes far beyond Captain America’s powers, though this almost always requires modifications to the Serum. For instance, Captain America Vol 7 #15 by Rick Remender and Carlos Pacheco shows that during one of the government’s attempts to recreate the serum in the 1960s, SHIELD scientist Horace Littleton created an LSD-laced version of the serum that he tested on himself. This turned him into the super-soldier Dr. Mindbubble, who has the ability to create a virtual reality within his psychic bubbles, which he can trap people inside.
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
Several offshoots of the Serum were also created by Weapon Plus, and many produced their own brands of superhero. As first seen in Grant Morrison and Igor Kordey’s New X-Men Vol 1 #128, the Weapon Plus program was the larger series of numerical programs that most of the U.S.’s attempts at recreating Super-Soldiers and/or the Serum fell under. The programs that directly attempted to recreate the Super-Soldier serum included Weapon IV, which created Man-Thing, and Weapon VI, which empowered Luke Cage.
In the Ultimate Universe, attempts to recreate the Serum went even further. Ultimate Origins #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Jackson ‘Butch’ Guice reveals that in fact, all mutants in the Ultimate Universe are the result of an experiment to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum, with the first mutant in that universe being Wolverine. No matter the universe, what all these experiments have in common are that they are based in some form on trying to replicate the Serum. While Captain America may have been the baseline success, Dr. Erskine’s Super-Soldier Serum truly holds the potential for almost infinite superpowers and abilities, and all it ever needs is someone to try something new with it.
