Requiem: Part Two

San Diego, 22 Years From Now[1]

Becky Barnes, daughter to Isaiah Bradley — aka Captain America — arrives at the San Diego Omega Con. Incidentally she is arriving on the day the convention is welcoming her father, who is the guest of honor. She heads down to the dealer room where she finds a vendor that has a KreeToyz Infinihedron. However, he initially refuses to sell it to her as there is a law prohibiting the sale of the collectable and he is only allowed to have one for historical display purposes. However, she talks him into selling it when she offers to buy triple what it is worth as well as purchasing his entire supply of Scarebs cleaning insects and his supply of Just Add Villains.

Red Hook, Brooklyn, Now

Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, has returned home after a strange case in Cleveland where a city block disappeared for a few hours. He discovers that his girlfriend Rebecca Quan was attacked by a strange woman garbed in the American flag calling herself Becky Barnes.[2] The woman claimed to be the daughter of Isaiah Bradley, something that is impossible according to Steve, as he has met Bradly and he is severely brain damaged.[3] Although this Barnes woman vanished into thin air, the entire experience has Rebecca afraid for her life.[4] It keeps reminding her of how when she was undergoing chemo therapy for cancer. She keeps remembering the other women who didn’t survive. Their lives were cut short and she fears that her relationship with Steve might mean the same for her and so she has decided that she should break up with him.

That’s when Isaiah Bradley appears in the middle of Steve’s living room by the KreeToyz Infinihedron. He sits down with Steve and Rebecca and explains that he comes from a parallel future timeline. In that reality, Isaiah became Captain America and was even President of the United States for two terms.[5] Incidentally, his successor was Dana Hedayat, the daughter of historian Fernand Hedayat.[6] Steve tries to tell Isaiah about his counterpart in this reality and his wife Faith. Isaiah tells Steve not to reveal too much as he himself is single and doesn’t want to be influenced by this other life.[7] He then turns the subject back to his daughter and asks if they have any recordings of her attack. This is because Becky became addicted to radically changing her appearance and he doesn’t know what she looks like anymore.

Seeing all the photos of this world’s Captain America and Bucky, he tells Steve that his Bucky didn’t die during the war. He went on to look after Isaiah and his indiscretions.[8] When he had no interest in raising Becky, Bucky had adopted her and raised her like his own daughter. During Isiah’s presidentical campaign, Bucky died during a fight with their old foe the Krimson Klansman. Becky blamed her biological father for Bucky’s death and has been trying to destroy him ever since. Although Becky seemingly died it will be undone just like the disaster is Cleveland. When she comes back in her proper timeline, Isaiah will need both Steve and Rebecca’s help to stop her. Placing their hands on the Infinihedron they all concentrate until the device transports them back to Bradley’s future timeline.

San Diego, 22 Years in the Future

They arrive just moments before Becky arrives at the Omega Con to buy the Infinihedron in the first place. When she arrives she refuses to surrender to her father and shoots her way through the crowd to get to the vendor selling the powerful cosmic device. When her father and his new allies catch up, she unleashes a horde of Just Add Villains, which unleashes miniature versions of known criminals. Luckily, Isahai manages to grab the Infinihedron from her daughter’s grasp. While he is busy scolding the vendor for letting such a powerful device get into the wrong hands, Becky disappears.

With the danger now passed, Isaiah thanks Cap and Rebecca for their help and hands them the Infinihedron so they can return to their proper timeline. When Steve asks if he could go back and change history, Isaiah knows exactly what Rogers is hoping to do. Unfortunately, the Infinihedron can only go back and forward in time by 25 years time. When Bradley goes to leave he spots his daughter flying up to the Sky-Destroyer Steranko and follows after her.[9] When he gets aboard the ship he prevents her daughter from imitating Bucky’s death by jumping off the ship. He tells her that he’s not going to let her fall because she might hurt whoever she lands on.

The Present, Some Weeks Later..

Steve Rogers is at the post office waiting to mail a package when he bumps into Rebecca Quan. The two catch up and Steve learns that she is moving back to Seattle in a few months. He tells her that he’s been writing back and forth with Arturo Gutierrez the man they both met in Cuba.[10] Steve allows her to pick out what stamps to put on the package. She has a choice between ones of the Avengers or ones featuring frogs. Still uncomfortable with Steve’s other life, she picks the frogs. Still, she is glad that they are still talking and she suggests they go for a walk.[11]

Recurring Characters

Captain America, Isaiah Bradley, Becky Barnes, Rebecca Quan

Continuity Notes

1. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4, this future timeline takes place in Reality-40727. The exact year should be considered topical (see below).

2. Becky’s attack happened last issue. Here we see a couple of noteworthy items seen in Steve Rogers’ display case in this story: A replica of his original triangular shield (used in Captain America Comics #1 before it was swapped with his trademark circular shield in the following issue) as well as the chest plate of the armor he wore from Captain America #437-443.

3. Isiah Bradley was a test subject during the military’s attempt at recreating the Super-Soldier Formula following the death of Abraham Erskine, the formula’s creator, in Captain America Comics #1. The Earth-616 version’s adventures took place in Truth: Red, White and Black #1-7. Unlike his counterpart of Reality-40727, the Isiah Bradly of Earth-616 suffers from mental deterioration because of the experiments conducted on him as explained in Truth #7 (the same issue Steve first met him). It also rendered him sterile and as such he won’t go on to have a daughter named Becky either.

4. Rebecca also mentions the gunmen who shot at Steve back in Captain America (vol. 4) #21.

5. When she hears that Isaiah is a former President, it reminds Rebecca of someone who blew his chance at the opportunity. She isn’t wrong, Steve once turned down the opportunity to run for President in Captain America #250. However, she is likely referring to Captain America (vol. 4) #25 where he turned down the chance to run for Vice President.

6. This is interesting to Steve as, in his reality, he recently saved his reality’s version of Ferdnand. See Captain America (vol. 4) #21-25.

7. Steve incorrectly states that his reality’s Isaiah Bradley was the first Captain America. This is not correct, as seen in Truth: Red, White, and Black #1, Bradley was subjected to experimentation in 1942 following the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Initially, the creative team behind that series intended for Bradley to be the 1st Captain America. The story was originally supposed to be an alternate reality tale, but Marvel editorial decided to incorporate it into the mainstream Marvel Universe instead. This was corrected in the Isaiah Bradley profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #14.

8. At the time of this story, most people believed that the Earth-616 Bucky died back in 1945, as per Avengers #4. He actually survived and was transformed into the Russian assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Cap will learn the truth in Captain America (vol. 5) #14.

9. By going back into the past and preventing Becky’s death, Isaiah has created a divergent reality. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4, this is Reality-40828. The Steranko is named after Jim Steranko who is best known for his work on SHIELD stories in Strange Tales #151-168, Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD #1-5 as well as a memorably three issue stint in Captain America #110-111 and 113.

10. Cap fought alongside Arturo when he went into Cuba to capture some escaped terrorists. See Captain America (vol. 4) #21-25.

11. This is the last we see of Rebecca Quan as of this writing (Feb. 2023), I’d like to think things are going okay for her in Seattle. This story ends with Steve and Rebecca looking out at Manhattan from the waterfront. Here we see the original twin towers of the World Trade Center and a sky full of blimps in the sky. This implies that Steve went back and prevented September 11 from happening and we all became really obsessed with balloon travel for some reason. See below for more on this.

Topical References

• The future timeline that Isaiah Bradley and his daughter Becky Barnes come from is stated as taking place 2026. It is relative to the date of publication and should be considered topical. Modern readers should interpret this to mean that this future takes place about 22 years in the future as opposed to a specific date.

• The present day portions of this story are said to take place in June, 2004. This date should be considered topical as it is relative to the year of publication as well.

• In his native timeline, Isaiah Bradley states that he President of the United States in his reality from 2005 to 2013. This reference could be factual or topical depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, those dates are “in the future” from the perspective of the story, so one could assume that the dates are topical. On the other hand, Bradley has been alive since the early 20th Century and lives in a parallel universe, it’s not impossible to believe that he was actually President in those specific years instead of the actual real life people.

• Likewise the mentioned Trademark War of 2020 that happened in Bradley’s reality. It’s unclear if we should accept this as a topical reference or if this actually happened in the year 2020 factually as this reality is vastly different than our present one.

• Rebecca is collecting money for a breast cancer charity walk. This should be considered a topical reference as medical science has advanced that they are on the first steps of developing a cure for the illness that could be completed within our lifetimes. As such, modern readers should interpret this as a charity of an unspecified form of cancer.

• Steve states that Rebecca met Arturo Gutierrez on New Years Eve. This can be considered a topical reference.

Did Captain America Prevent 9/11 in the Marvel Universe?

In short, no he did not. Remember that 9/11 is now considered a topical reference. Eventually, the Sliding Timecale will push back the Prime Marvel Universe forward in time that the Infinihedron would not be able to go back in that far since we’re are well past the 20 year travel limitation. One could assume that Steve stopped some other disaster and the appearance of the original WTC here is a topical reference.

That said, if Steve went back in time to alter history, as this final page suggests, he would have created a divergent reality just as Isaiah did when he prevented Becky’s death. One reality where Cap and Rebecca return to their own timeline unchanged, and one where they go back and prevent whatever terrorist attack happened.

As of this writing (Feb. 2023) a reality number has not been given to this divergent timeline.