Ed Brubaker is an Eisner Award-winning comic book writer and cartoonist. Brubaker's first early comics work was primarily in the crime fiction genre with works such as Lowlife, The Fall, Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives and Scene of the Crime. He later became known for writing superhero comics such as Batman, Daredevil, Captain America, Catwoman, Uncanny X-Men, and The Authority.

Brubaker’s first work in comics was as a cartoonist, writing and drawing Pajama Chronicles for Blackthorne Comics, Purgatory U.S.A. for Slave Labor Graphics, and the semi-autobiographical series Lowlife for Slave Labor and later Caliber Comics. At Caliber, he briefly edited the anthology series Monkey Wrench.

In 1991, he began contributing to the Dark Horse Comics anthology series Dark Horse Presents, a comic he would continue to contribute to intermittently throughout the decade. Among those contributions was the three part serial "An Accidental Death" (Dark Horse Presents #65–67), a collaboration with artist Eric Shanower, which garnered the two a 1993 Eisner Award nomination.

Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (cover-dated March 1941), from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. As of 2007, an estimated 210 million copies of "Captain America" comic books had been sold in 75 countries. For nearly all of the character's publication history, Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a frail young man who was enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum in order to aid the United States war effort. Captain America wears a costume that bears an American flag motif, and is armed with an indestructible shield that can be thrown as a weapon.

An intentionally patriotic creation who was often depicted fighting the Axis powers of World War II, Captain America was Timely Comics' most popular character during the wartime period. After the war ended, the character's popularity waned and he disappeared by the 1950s aside from an ill-fated revival in 1953. Captain America was reintroduced during the Silver Age of comics when he was revived from suspended animation by the superhero team the Avengers in The Avengers #4 (March 1964). Since then, Captain America has often led the team, as well as starring in his own series.