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Captain America's recent bombshell has been in the works for over a year

cap-bombshell-thumbnail Marvel

For decades, Captain America has been a paragon of heroism: self-sacrificing, dedicated, and extremely moral. That all came crashing down with the release of "Captain America: Steve Rogers #1," when the hero was revealed as a double agent for Hydra, an underground network of assassins and saboteurs dedicated to creating chaos.

It was a breakneck turn for the character, and The Daily Beast spoke with Nick Spencer, the Marvel writer behind the twist. Spencer revealed the Hydra bombshell had been in the works at Marvel for 16 months.

"I was really surprised," he said. "I thought for sure it would be ruined."

Revealing that Marvel took "a lot of special measures" to prevent leaks, Spencer broke down the process of turning America's hero into a double agent. He said that the idea came during a retreat with other Marvel writers and artists. He laid out the story arc for them, building on previous storylines that hinted Hydra had a plant working within one of the superhero teams.

"Rick Remender was the previous writer on the book and when I took over, he had had some plotlines that were outstanding. Tom [Brevoort, his editor] ran through them with me, and one of them was that Hydra had infiltrated all the various teams and organizations in the Marvel universe and we were gonna be weeding out the various Hydra clans. So I started to kind of drill it down a bit and I started wondering, what if there’s just one Hydra plant?"

From there, Spencer began narrowing down which singular hero could do the most damage as a Hydra agent. Decades of fighting against Hydra made Cap the leading candidate – his record is beyond reproach. No one would suspect him. Which makes him the most dangerous.

"He’s the leader of the Avengers," Spencer explains, "he has a relationship with the U.S. government, and he works closely with SHIELD. Not to mention just his status in the Marvel universe—he’s a symbol, everyone trusts him, everybody looks to him as an authority. "

As he told Daily Beast, this storyline is more than a simple fake out or shock tactic to pull in readers. Fans can expect these revelations to echo throughout the Marvel universe for a very long time.

“I’ve seen a lot of people say things like, ‘Oh, it’ll be wrapped up in the arc,’ or ‘Give it six months,’" he said. "And I can tell you, that’s not the case. This has real lasting repercussions that are gonna be with us for a while.”

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