- Broken Base: Captain America as an agent of HYDRA became this after it was revealed why he was now with HYDRA. Some are now willing to give it a chance while others are angry it's even happening at all, and/or annoyed that Marvel more or less copped out on the promise Steve was Not Brainwashed.
- Character Rerailment: Baron Helmut Zemo who had, since the end of Fabian Nicieza's Thunderbolts, undergone serious mishandling, with his Heel–Face Turn being negated and his Character Development being swept away, before undergoing severe Villain Decay until he's a caricature of his original self. When introduced in the series he's basically hit rock bottom, but after HYDRA!Cap reveals the past they share thanks to the Cosmic Retcon, Zemo gets some much needed development, restoring some of his Thunderbolts-era characterisation, showing him to have genuine fondness for Steve while also being enough of The Chessmaster to set up his own plans while supporting their's.
- It Was His Sled: Captain America being a HYDRA agent all along became this in record time. The reveal following this that this is the result of Cosmic Retcon and not actually real has to a lesser extent followed this.
- Memetic Mutation: Captain America's Evil All Along reveal has spawned three:
- It has been mocked by many fans◊, editing the panel to have other heroes (and characters from other mediums as well) do something completely opposite of what they stand for, including Superman telling someone to save themselves, Batman shot his parents, Spider-Man shirking responsibility, Deadpool forgoing chimichangas, Daredevil can actually see the whole time, Black Panther declaring he actually cares, Darth Vader declaring he's not Luke's father, Bane getting caught not being part of the plan, Cyclops was wrong, Red Skull declaring "God bless America!", Magneto declaring he hates mutants, Admiral Ackbar declaring it's not a trap, Setsuna F. Seiei declaring that he is not a Gundam, Elsa declaring she won't let it go, Link declaring he is Zelda, Patrick declaring "This is Krusty Krab", and John Cena declaring that you can see him. There's also a related one, with Cap's text box edited to say all kinds of pure nonsense.
- Another one is pointing to the image in Even Evil Has Standards from the Batman & Captain America Elseworlds crossover, where The Joker terminates an alliance with the Red Skull upon realizing that the Skull wasn't faking being a Nazi as part of a gimmick and saying that Steve now has less morals than the man who crippled Barbara Gordon, and killed Jason Todd and Sarah Essen Gordon. Coincidentally, it was later revealed that it was the Red Skull who was responsible for the Cosmic Retcon that made the HYDRA version of Steve
- At least before it's revealed to be Cosmic Retcon, fans tend to dismiss it with "We recognized that Marvel has made a decision. But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, we've elected to ignore it."
- And then Avengers: Endgame delivered a Take That! by having the MCU version of Cap use it to trick a bunch of Hydra agents, earning an appreciative laugh from audiences in the process.
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Hydra Cap himself, at least in some circles. When he first revealed himself, backlash was massive. Death threats were thrown at Marvel over it, memes bashing it went viral, This Very Wiki had editors make (or at least try to) edits throwing snark at it, branding the entire thing a massive Audience-Alienating Era. However, he's won over some fans not only for being a cunning, badass villain but also still keeping some of the morals that made him Steve Rogers. Of course, The Reveal that Steve wasn't Evil All Along helped somewhat.
- Signature Scene: As you can probably guess, Cap saying "Hail Hydra" after throwing someone out of an airplane (for lack of a more neutral listing), outing himself to the audience as an agent of HYDRA.
- Spiritual Successor: Being a Hero whose been affected by a process to turn him into a villain makes this run quite similar to the Superior line of stories after Superior Spider Man and later Superior Iron Man, which was a lot less successful than the first and pretty much ended the titular line.
- WTH, Costuming Department?: Initial reaction to Steve's new outfit was this, as it lacked any, well, white, so the flag theme was basically killed. However, it was later revised to have white.
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