Popverse's top stories

• The Flash star Grant Gustin says Spider-Man is the only other superhero he could play, and Peter Parker and Barry Allen would be "besties"
• That Avengers: Doomsday "surprise" the Russo Brothers teased seems to actually be a promo for Robert Downey Jr.'s coffee brand
• Move over, Captain America: Magic says Agent Coulson is worthy of Mjolnir too

In case you haven't already heard, Chip Zdarsky is radically changing the history of Marvel Comics' most historical character. His Captain America run has not only introduced a successor to the titular role by the name of David Colton, he's actually shifted Steve Roger's unthawing to a much more recent, post-9/11 America, pushing that character moment back anywhere from twenty to forty years, depending on when you considered the 'canon' unthawing to have taken place. No matter how you see it, that was a pretty big move, and the Daredevil writer recently opened up about how he went about pitching it to the House of Ideas.

Zdasrky was a recent guest on the comics-focused Dom of X YouTube channel, during which he was asked: how hard was it to get Marvel to agree to a post-9/11 de-icing of the Sentinel of Liberty?

"It was both it was both hard and easy at the same time," Zdarsky explained, "I knew the story hinged on it, obviously David Colton's character had to be capturing that time. Steve had to come out of the ice after 9/11. That's what I pitched and that's what I put in my script. My editor, Alana [Smith] was like, 'I don't know if we can do this.' She was like, 'For for a bunch of reasons, primarily the fact that Marvel is a New York publishing company.' They were personally affected by the events of 9/11 in a way that the rest of us maybe weren't. It means something to them in the history of the characters. [There was] that Amazing Spider-Man #36 issue about 9/11; Cap was there, all the heroes were there."

But as Zdarsky pointed out, there was one less tangible part of Cap's story that made room for his idea: Marvel Comic's sliding timeline. The shifting scale of historical events within the Marvel Comics Universe was "basically like a 10-year thing," said the Sex Criminals co-creator, and having Cap back in the "modern" world pre-9/11 didn't line up with Marvel storytelling in 2025.

"It's been well over 20 years," Zdarsky continued, "So I pushed it a bit and I said, 'What are you going to do in five years? What are you going to do in 10 years? What are you going to do in 30 years? It's not going to make any sense at that point; it makes almost no sense now. So the conversation just went up the chain."

Finally, said Zdarsky, his pitch made it all the way up to Marvel Comics president Dan Buckley.

"He just went, 'Oh yeah, that makes sense. That sounds like a good story,'" the author recounted, "That's the big thing, right? If you have that kind of back and forth with Marvel, in the end, for the most part, they'll side on the side of, 'Is this a good story?' If it's a good story, then they'll move heaven and earth to make it happen, right?"

Plus, as Zdarsky concluded, he did have one other major element on his side: corporate syngery.

"I don't think it hurt the fact that, in the MCU, Steve Rogers comes out of the ice after 9/11," he said. "I think that also kind of helped me make my case."

Chip Zdarsky and Valerio Schiti's Captain America #12 comes to comic shops everywhere June 24.

Want more? Make sure you've read our list of all the best Marvel Comics stories of all time, and get ready for all the free Marvel comics coming as part of this year's Free Comic Book Day 2026 / Comics Giveaway Day  2026 events.