The movies and some comics i've read; example: Captain America: Man Out of Time suggest that he was a WW2 hero, his plane exploded, Bucky was "killed" and he fell in the sea where he froze for the next 50 years until being discovered by the modern day Avengers. But if thats so, then how come all his other classic series from 1945-2000 contradicted it? He wasnt frozen, he was very much alive at that same time kicking bad-guy-butt. I've never been a huge follower of Cap but I have tons of respect for his character.. I'm just confused, if I'm getting it wrong, let me know.

@ghostrider88: Marvel uses a sliding time scale. Whenever the Avengers found him in Avengers issue 4 in the 1960s, he had only been frozen for about twenty years. Since not that much time has passed in the Marvel Universe comparative to our own, Cap has only been unfrozen for about ten years at most. That means he would have been frozen for sixty years now in the Marvel U. The length of time that he was frozen is just lengthened to accomodate the sliding Marvel timescale.

Its similar to how Iron Man's original was tied to Vietnam but had been updated to the Middle East. I believe Reed Richards was involved in WW2 but that can't be mentioned anymore or it would make him 90 years old now. Cap is one of the few characters that their origin can stay tied to a particular period in time because his suspended animation time can be adjusted to match the current time needs.

@cap10nate: couldn't have said it better myself (not that that's saying much)

Other men filled the role of Captain America while Steve Rogers was frozen. The Grand Director was one.

@cap10nate: Thankyou, great answer