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marvel cinematic universe - Why aren't there more supersoldiers?


In Captain America: The First Avenger, we see that the Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America was destroyed when the Nazi spy blew up the lab, and its formula lost with his dead creator, just like in most other versions across all of Marvel.


In Captain America: Civil War, however;




The Winter Soldier was sent by Hydra to ambush Howard Stark's car in order to steal multiple vials of Super Soldier Serum so that more Winter Soldiers can be created.



It appears that the formula has been rediscovered. If that is so, why didn't the Americans produce more Captain Americas? That was the original plan back in World War II after all - they wanted an army, not just one Steve Rogers.



Answer



They've tried, repeatedly. But it isn't that simple.


First, and most importantly, it needs to be established that the Super Soldier serum has never been replicated properly. The closest anyone has come is the version that Arnim Zola used on James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, which seems to have bestowed the same endurance, strength and stamina on Bucky as it did Steve, but without the noticeable change in his body.


Other attempts include;



  • The experiment that turned Bruce Banner into Hulk (The Incredible Hulk)


  • The experiment that turned Emil Blonsky into Abomination (The Incredible Hulk)

  • The Extremis project (Iron Man 3)

  • The Centipede program (Agents of SHIELD)


These attempts all failed, for one reason or another.


Furthermore, it's worth noting that the version Howard Stark was working on wasn't great either.



Although it gave the recipients the strength, stamina, endurance etc that was expected, it also seemed to make them nigh on uncontrollable (at least at first), making them incredibly aggressive for seemingly no reason.



So in short, the reason that there aren't more super soldiers running around is because no one has the ability to truly replicate Erskine's original experiment.



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