Italy 1936: musical prodigy Tadzio de
Santis is seized by soldiers and forced to watch as his family is
slaughtered. He is taken to a lab where he is to be subjected to a
new treatment designed to create a super-soldier. The inventor of the
process, Dr. Maria Vasari, is horrified at the use her cure for
disabilities is being put to, and flees the building. Tadzio is
subjected to the treatment despite its horrific side effect….
Seven years later, with Dr. Vasari
having gone to America, polio victim Steve Rogers is selected as the
first subject for an improved version of the treatment. After a
tearful farewell to his family and girlfriend Bernie, he accompanies
Dr Vasari to a secret lab (the entrance is through a diner). The
experiment proves to be a success but Nazi spy Ehrlich murders Dr
Vasari and shoots Steve. The newly-minted hero hurls the assassin
into an electrical grid; the killer dies and Vasari warns Steve about
the Red Skull, revealing that the process dies with her. Steve heals
quickly from the bullet wounds and dispatched by Col. Lewis to stop
the Nazis from launching an experimental rocket at the US. As
Captain America armed with a shield he parachutes into Italy and fight his
way into the enemy base. There, he comes face-to-face with his evil
counterpart Tadzio de Santis, now the horribly disfigured Red Skull.
The two fight but the inexperienced Cap is no match for the villain
and he is knocked out with poison gas. He awakens shackled to the
rocket which the Red Skull informs him is about to be launched at
Washington D.C. Cap grabs the villain’s wrist to take him along but
as the rocket launches, the Skull’s hand is sliced off by the
rocket’s tailfin. In Washington, young Nicky Kimball is taking
early morning photos of the White House when he sees the rocket
coming; Cap manages to kick the tailfins so that the missile swoops
away from the landmark and heads off into the night. Eventually it
crashes into the Alaskan ice where it remains hidden for fifty
years….
In the 1990s Nicholas Kimball is now
President of the United States, elected on an environmental platform.
In Rome, the traitor Millhouse, now a Senator, leads a group of
statesmen and international industrialists whose businesses are
threatened by Kimball’s plans, in a meeting with Tadzio de Santis,
the former Red Skull now altered by surgery to look human. The Skull
proposes capturing Kimball on his upcoming conference visit to Rome
and using a mind control implant to turn him into their tool. In
Alaska a team of international scientists finds Cap frozen in the
ice. The ice thaws enough for the revived Cap to break free, and,
hearing German voices, he hurries out into the cold. Photos of the
mystery man are published in the papers and President Kimball
recognizes the figure he photographed atop the rocket all those
decades ago. He contacts his old pal reporter Sam Kolawetz (the only
other person to see the photos) and Sam goes north to hunt for Cap.
But the news also comes to the attention of the Red Skull who
dispatches his daughter Antonella on the same mission. The baddies
find him first pursuing him on motorcycles but Sam arrives just in
time to help Cap escape. As Sam tries to explain that Cap has been
gone for fifty years and that they need his info on the Red Skull,
now an international criminal, Cap isn’t buying it and takes the
first opportunity to steal Sam’s truck and drive off. Sam is then
waylaid by Antonella and a tracking device is planted on him. Cap
makes his way back to his hometown where he finds a woman who he
thinks is Bernie—but she’s not Bernie but her daughter Sharon.
When he sees the now-aged Bernie he realizes he has been gone longer
than he thought—and learns she waited or him as long as she could.
Sharon helps Steve catch up on the history he’s missed and realizes
it is his responsibility to defeat the Red Skull. Meanwhile, Sam
studies the file on Operation: Rebirth and discovers Bernie’s
address; he heads out there to find Cap but Antonella and her gang
are able to follow him They kill Sam and Bernie but get no lead on
Cap (idiots). When the news comes that President Kimball has been
kidnapped by terrorists in Rome, Steve deduces it is the Red Skull
and heads to the secret lab in search of Dr Vasari’s diary. Steve
finds the diary and a wire recording which sends them to Italy where
they are spotted and attacked by Antonella. They get away after a
silly chase and end up with Antonella’s purse; from it they learn
the location of the Red Skull’s fortress. They are followed to the
castle, though, so while Sharon surrenders to Antonella to gain
entry, Steve dons his Cap outfit and climbs the castle wall.
Meanwhile, Kimball is about to undergo a brain implant which will
allow the villain to control him and destroy his ecological agenda
which threatens the Skull and his financial allies. The President
escapes from his cell and, cornered, he throws himself from the
battlements—only to be rescued by Captain America! Cap whups the
baddies and squares off against his nemesis. After a violent ruckus
the Red Skull escapes and makes his way to the highest battlement
where he arms a nuclear weapon. During the standoff Cap plays back
the tape of the attack on the de Santis family which causes the Red
Skull to crack. He sits at his piano and completes the Chopin prelude
he began all those years ago—and then he leaps to his (apparent)
death. The ecological conference goes on to adopt the President’s
proposals, and Steve and Sharon live happily ever after.