I have my own theories about this, but I'd like to know for sure. It was stated in The First Avenger that Steve's metabolism burn 4 times faster than the average person's,but does that same ratio apply to the rate at which he heals? And,consequently,does the speed of his healing in any way affect his ageing process, or can his slowed ageing be attributed only to the time he spent frozen in a block of ice?
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I added the marvel-comics tag because I suspect this has been answered in the comics. If you want to limit answers to the movies only, feel free to remove the tag– Jason BakerAug 3, 2015 at 22:36
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2Part of this involves the mind of the writers. And on that meta level, you might think of Wolverine, who heals so fast that he does not age. This is not an answer, but this comment might make up for the sporadic nature of real evidence.– CodeMedAug 4, 2015 at 11:23
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Captain America represents the best possible human. So you can assume he's going to live as long as naturally possible unless he is killed prematurely. He didn't age in the ice. A regular human can't be cryogenically frozen, but it is stated that the serum helped preserve his body while frozen. Other than that, there's no information given. In a SNES game, Marvel Superheroes: War of the Gems, it says he has the "aging process of a turtle" but this isn't officially canon.– Race BannonAug 4, 2015 at 15:01
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2 Answers
If you're talking about the movies, these questions aren't answered, so I'm going to concentrate on the comics.
As seen here, Captain America does have advanced healing, and in another comic(which I can not link as I do not have enough reputation), he says "They'll heal," in response to very burnt hands, which means he can recover from injuries that would not heal on normal humans. You can see yet again from Captain America's Wikipedia page, which says his "strength, endurance, agility, speed, reflexes, durability, and healing are at the zenith of natural human potential.", although it is not specified exactly how fast he heals.
As for your aging question, the fact is comic book characters don't usually age in real time, as that would mean some of the current characters such as Superman and Batman would be more than 100 years old!
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This is a great start! I would love more information about aging, in addition to healing. I can see that they might tie in, but is there anything to back such an idea up? Aug 4, 2015 at 1:19
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To borrow from the X-men world, Wolverine's advanced healing is said to be the reason why he ages so slowly. Although they come from very different sources (mutation vs super-serum), Marvel could be using the same rationality for Captain America's perpetual youth. Aug 4, 2015 at 14:03
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@raumkrieger Wolverine actually has beyond-human healing properties. He can return to life from a single living bone. Steve is different - he's just the best humans can naturally achieve. Optimal natural healing can slow ageing due to externally caused damage to DNA (stress, radiation etc), but it shouldn't have any impact on programmatic ageing: ageing kicks in deliberately once you reach a certain biological age. It's an evolutionary mechanism to free up the resources keeping you alive for a younger member of the species when nature considers you no longer worth it. Jun 3, 2016 at 5:41
The main Marvel continuity (Earth-616) seems to consistently portray the Super-Soldier Serum as slowing the normal aging process by nearly half.
The Red Skull and Steve Rogers, both of whom received the serum, have the physical bodies of men in their mid-to-late 30's despite being nearly a hundred years old. Also, in both cases, when the serum was neutralized or removed from their bodies, their physical condition quickly deteriorated to reflect their actual age. This happened with The Red Skull back in the early 80's (Captain America Vol. 1 #293-#300), and again with Rogers in Captain America Vol. 7 #21:
However, in both cases, some form of stasis was used to prolong the aging even further. In the case of Captain America, this was being frozen in ice for several decades. Without that interruption - as seen in the "House of M" timeline - the 100-year-old Steve Rogers still aged, albeit slowly enough to have a body 30 years younger than it should be.
Note that in some continuities, such as the Earth-460 reality, Rogers is depicted as being nearly immortal. The 460 version has outlived most other superheroes by decades, yet still appears to be in his mid-30s. This is most likely due to a difference in that reality's serum formula.
answered Aug 4, 2015 at 15:54
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If anyone can find anything about this in the MCU, I'd love to hear it– AriannaAug 5, 2015 at 4:19