Two years ago, Captain America (Steve Rogers) and his adopted son Ian were lounging by the river near the Phrox village in Dimension Z. Ian asked Cap whether he missed his old life; Steve replied that he was focused not on what he didn’t have but what he did, and with that he was happy. Ian asked what Cap’s dad was like; Steve summed him up as a good man who was unable to provide for his family and lost his pride, his hope, and was soon lost altogether. And Steve has spent his life trying to be strong—so much so that he was unavailable to those he loved—and he promised to always be there for Ian….Now Cap has breached Arnim Zola’s fortress to reclaim his captured son. He battles mutates and his own weakness and pain but he keeps going, as he learned from his mother. The mutates free the bound Jet Black (Steve couldn’t really bring himself to shoot her last issue) and she reports to her father who is preparing for his grand scheme. As Cap makes his way across the rooftops of Zolandia, he is attacked by one of the giant monsters cloned from his DNA; the two plummet through a glass barrier and the creature is impaled on decorative spikes. Cap keeps going—and finds himself on a bridge over a river of lava, with tubes suspended from the ceiling, each containing a captive Phrox. He faces Jet Black in her skimpy warrior gear who taunts him; he tries to appeal to her better nature but she fights back. As they battle, one of the tubes opens and a Phrox woman drops toward a fiery death. Cap leaps out at the end of a grapple and cord and catches her but they are left dangling over the lava. He calls on Jet to choose between her upbringing and her innate knowledge that Zola is wrong. She pulls them to safety. As they stand pondering the matter of guilt and expiation, the city comes to life, launching itself toward the world Cap came from. There, Zola will unleash his mutates with hypodermic rifles, each containing the liquid essence of Arnim Zola; objective: to infect as much of the populace as possible, transforming superheroes, leaders, and the affluent into Zolas. As Jet heads off to release the Phrox and lead them to safety, Cap goes in search of Ian. As he approaches the labs, he is shot in the back; his assailant is the brainwashed Ian, renamed Leopold by his father Arnim Zola….