Captain America

Few characters in Marvel's vast history can match the sheer staying power of Captain America, a Golden Age icon who first charged onto the page in 1941 — created by Carl Burgos in The Human Torch #3 — and has never really stopped running. With 3,440 catalogued appearances spanning an extraordinary 85 years, Cap is one of the most enduring figures in American comics, anchoring landmark series like Captain America and The Avengers through every era the medium has known. Collectors have flagged a staggering 157 of those appearances as key issues, a testament to how often this character lands at the center of the stories that matter most. Sharing pages with the likes of Iron Man, Thor, Spider-Man, and their alter egos Tony Stark and Peter Parker, Captain America has long been woven into the very fabric of the Marvel universe — a living through-line connecting its Golden Age roots to its modern mythology.