Captain America faces past and present in the form of Barons Heinrich and Helmut Zemo.
When a few Avengers arrive as backup, they are sent to the past and must find their way back, with help from pre-Cap Steve Rogers.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Joseph Rogers in the comics is often an abusive drunk. None of that here, where he's just a stand-up guy, to contrast with the emotionally abusive Heinrich's treatment of his son.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Hawkeye tries pulling one on Past Steve Rogers. It temporarily works on him, but not the MP who spots him while Nat and Sam are looking for equipment.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: The episode takes place on Steve's birthday, and he has to fight two Zemos at once.
- Brick Joke: At Steve's birthday party, Hulk tries taking some (or just all) of the cake, only for Nat to stop him. At the end of the episode, when everyone's partying, Hulk's chowing down on a large slice of cake.
- Call-Back:
- Zemo has learned entirely the wrong lesson from forming (and then betraying) the Thunderbolts.
- His time travel device is cobbled together from Kang's. Later on, Hawkeye asks Falcon if he can work with it, and Sam admits that studying it doesn't mean understanding it.
- Canon Foreigner: The older Baron Zemo summons a Zemo from 2099. No Marvel title set in 2099 has ever shown a Zemo.
- Family-Friendly Firearms: The soldiers at the 40s base use laser guns.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Even after Steve gets him out from under the rubble his dad left him under, Helmut still tries to attack him.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Zemo turns on his father, kicking him back to the 40s, and the episode ends with Steve declaring he doesn't think the man is utterly irredeemable.
- Hollywood Cyborg: The Zemo of 2099, a giant monstrous amalgam of man and machine. Heinrich's far more impressed with him than he is Helmut.
- Improvised Weapon: Past Steve grabs a trash can lid and uses it as a weapon.
- Kick the Dog: Heinrich's a complete jerk to his son, repeatedly talking him down and insulting him, and eventually leaving him behind when a crane falls on him.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Feeling bored and angsty on his birthday, Steve asks FRIDAY to find some crime for him to fight. A small break-in turns out to be Zemo building a time machine.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Heinrich's constant stream of abuse toward Helmut leads him to literally kick him back to the 1940s, having finally realized he's never going to get the praise he wanted, and even if he didn't it wouldn't be worth it from a man that vile.
- Mythology Gag: Heinrich cites how the Zemo lineage goes back to Harbin Zemo of the 15th century, first established in Avengers/Thunderbolts issue #1.
- Newspaper Dating: Nat learns she, Clint and Sam have wound up in 1943 by reading a copy of the Daily Bugle discarded by a man who saw their appearing.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: One of the points of disagreement between the Zemos. Helmut wants Cap to live long enough to suffer. Heinrich, meanwhile, just wants him dead immediately.
- Politically Correct History: Admittedly, they only have a conversation with one person, but there's no problem with Nat (a Russian woman) or Sam (black man) wandering around a military base in 1943.
- Stable Time Loop: The missing photo of Joe Rogers, which Steve mentions at the beginning of the episode. Hawkeye steals it... so he can give it to Cap as a birthday present, which he probably wouldn't have needed to do if he hadn't stolen it.
- Unexplained Recovery: When last seen, Zemo had merged with Ulysses Klaue and exploded into a thousand pieces. Steve isn't surprised to see him back, and Helmut doesn't even mention it.
- Ungrateful Bastard: There is nothing Zemo can do to get even the tiniest sliver of dad praise. Not even jerry-rigging a time machine gets any acknowledgement.
- The Voiceless: The Zemo of 2099 doesn't say a word. It's not even clear if he can speak.
