The most interesting thing about Captain America isn’t the powers or the shield. The most interesting thing about Captain America is the fact that’s he’s a man out of time. And by that, I mean both that he’s a man who has been removed from the era he grew up in, and the amount of time left to tell a certain type of Captain America story is quickly running out.

When Captain America appears on screen in Joss Whedon’s Avengers in costume, it happens in Germany and Cap saves the life of an elderly man. A man who has lived through war, a man who has seen dictators subjugate a people before. Clearly this is a man who remembers the time from which Captain America comes, and it’s a small moment that provides some context for the character. It’s a credit to the writing skills of Joss Whedon that such a moment isn’t belaboured. We don’t get a lingering shot of a tattoo on the old man’s wrist, we just get a bit of interplay between Loki and Cap, a bit of wordplay on the “out of time” thing and then Loki gets walloped by the shield. It’s a small moment that flows in to a bigger one, but it’s also a moment that’s going to be harder to make happen.

There is at present a gap of about sixty seven years between the time when Captain America got frozen “in the final days of World War II” and the present day. That means that not only is Captain America living in a very different world than the one that he knows, he’s also missed out on the events that have shaped this world, good and bad, for almost seven decades. But more than that, most of the people he knew before being frozen will either be dead or well on their way to getting there. He’s still young Rose DeWitt while everyone he knew has become old Rose Dawson.

Part of the tragedy of the story of Steve Rogers is that he looks and feels the same as the day that he left the world while everyone he knew has lived their lives and have become old. The lives that they shared together only happened yesterday from his perspective but for the people who kept on living, their time together has been distanced by lives and loves and experiences and heartbreaks and good times and bad since the end of World War II. When Captain America was initially revived in the Avengers comic in 1964, the culture shock was due to missing out on an entire generation. Every time that the character has been updated or reinvented since then for a new medium, the amount of time spent frozen has increased and the tragedy of his situation has grown a little bit. But I think that the current Avengers movies are the last chance to tie the character to a specific person from the days of World War II.

The origins of characters like Iron Man and the Hulk and even Spider-Man can be messed with and certain things can be changed to modernise the character. But with Captain America, so much of the character is rooted in the World War II origins that changing it would mean fundamentally change who the character is. The alternative is to lose any connection that the character has to the world. Essentially, within a few years he’ll be Philip J Fry.

I’ve seen Whedon’s Avengers eleven times at this stage and I am anxiously waiting for the Blu Ray release. I can’t wait to hear a Whedon commentary over this movie that I know so very well and I can’t wait to be able to play and replay and play over again the scene where the Avengers stand assembled. But most of all, I am dying to see the scene that Captain America shares with a much older Peggy Carter. A similar scene in the Ultimates from a decade ago is a little bit devastating, and I can’t wait to see how it plays under the direction of Joss Whedon. This is a man who can break our hearts by killing a character, and I’m willing to bet that he can do the same by letting a character live a long life.

When the second Captain America movie hits our screens, I hope that we get to see some of the culture shock that Steve Rogers must be going through. I hope that we get to see lost love and a yesterday that happened seventy years ago. I hope that the solo movie has as much character as the Avengers movie, even if it doesn’t have as many characters. And I hope that the writers have Joss Whedon on speed dial.