Does Captain America have more than one shield?

Question

I've always understood Captain America to only have one shield, as it's made of the incredibly rare vibranium alloy.

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, during the battle aboard the Lemurian Star, his shield appears to be colored differently. Rings 1 and 3 (outward-in) appear to be blue-gray, while ring 2 appears to be a reddish-gray.

However, later in the film, when Cap is fighting The Winter Soldier, the shield has the more traditional colors.

At first, I thought it may be a trick of lighting, but the skin tones in the Lemurian Star fight scene are all normal, despite all the movement across the deck. The color difference is local to the shield.

Additionally, in the scene where The Winter Soldier catches Cap's shield during their fight at night, the shield has its normal colors.

Does Captain America have more than one shield? If so, where did the new shield(s) come from?

For consideration: out-of-universe, it is specifically a physically different shield, not just a trick of lighting.

Answer 1

TL;DR : No, it is the same shield - just colored differently.

---

Although Rogers does have numerous uniforms, his vibranium shield is a unique artifact within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That said, the shield can be easily modified according to mission parameters. For stealth missions, the bright colors of the shield would be counter-productive, so obviously a way was found to mute those colors.

Using the same image provided in the question, you can see that there are several areas on the shield where the original red color appears to be showing through. These are apparently areas where the shield has been hit during the course of the mission. This indicates that the shield's original red, white, and blue coloring is being covered by something else - possibly paint or some kind of protective laminate film. Since re-painting the shield repeatedly doesn't sound very practical, the most likely scenario is some sort of adhesive laminate similar to the film that protects TV screens or shiny appliances when first purchased.

Such a laminate is already available on the open market but would also be cheap to produce, can come in a variety of colors (blue in this case), and would be easy to apply and/or remove according to need.

Answer 2

No.

It's because of two reasons:

• Vibranium is officially available in limited quantity.

  When it comes to black market Vibranium, they didn't know about it until Age of Ultron.

• Captain America doesn't need more than one Vibranium shield if he carries only one at a time. It's because the shield is indestructible. When it comes to camouflage in stealth mission, a cloth based cover can be used.

When it comes to your detection of different colors, two things are possible:

• We don't know how Vibranium affect light gloss under different circumstances. It's probably caused by alien properties of Vibranium.

• He had his shield re-painted. His shield is a symbol of patriotism, bravery and freedom which can create fear in his enemies. So, it's always good idea to repaint it after a battle.

Answer 3

Steve Rogers definitely only has one shield. It is a unique artifact, created by Howard Stark with the extremely limited amount of vibranium available to the SSR at the time. Considering how jealously Wakandans guard vibranium from outsiders, a fact evidenced by the ritualistic branding of Ulysses Klaw as punishment for him stealing some, it is highly unlikely that SHIELD would be able to get their hands on any in order to make a shield specifically for Steve to use on stealth missions. Furthermore, as it would be impractical and expensive to keep repainting the shield after every mission, it's more likely that SHIELD developed some sort of compound that dulled the usually bright colors of the shield and made it reflect less light and was cheap and easy to remove once it was no longer needed.