In the Marvel Universe, Captain America is one of the greatest heroes in history, having accomplished innumerable feats over his long career. However, one well-guarded secret proves that Steve Rogers is actually not that special, because everyone could become Captain America with the right combination of food and exercise.
Steve Rogers was a normal young man who wanted nothing more than to serve his country during a time of great need. Rejected by the U.S. Army during the Second World War due to his poor health, Steve's life would change forever when he was selected as a test subject for Project Rebirth, where he received the last dose of the Super-Soldier Serum developed by Dr. Abraham Erskine. The substance fused with Rogers' metabolism and permanently enhanced all of his bodily functions to the peak of human efficiency, making him the most perfect human in existence. Before being assassinated, Erskine described Rogers as being "the next step in human evolution," and Captain America is indeed the result of unique circumstances and non-replicable scientific achievements. But what if none of that was actually needed to become a Super Soldier?
Avengers: The Initiative #1, written by Dan Slott with art by Stefano Caselli and Daniele Rudoni, introduced a new character, Michael Van Patrick, who took the codename MVP. Michael has a pretty unique origin story, even for the world of superheroes. During his research into what would ultimately become the Super-Soldier Serum, Erskine theorized that a special Brazilian diet and isometric exercise regimen would create a super-soldier. However, this method required a lifetime to produce the desired results, so it was rejected by the U.S. government which needed super-soldiers immediately. When Erskine was assassinated, his research notes priors to the discovery of the Serum were deemed irrelevant and passed down through his family, ending up in the hands of his grandson, Brian van Patrick who used the research to develop a successful organic food business. When his son Michael was born, Brian decided to test out the diet and exercise regime on him to see if his grandfather's theories were right, and they were. In the span of twenty years, Michael's physiology was naturally augmented, achieving the desired effect of the Super Soldier Serum without the actual serum or exposure to the Vita-Rays.
Michael was not just a very healthy human, he actually obtained superhuman abilities like those of Captain America without the need for special drugs, radiation, or genetic engineering. His body was changed by the biochemical substances contained in the special foods down to the genetic level. According to Dr. Von Blitzschlag, the lead scientist at Camp Hammond, MVP's entire body was composed of perfect, healthy cells, which even gave him a regenerative healing factor. It's true that it took him twenty years of discipline to reach that level, but it's also undeniable that, if Erskine's diet and training regime were made public, the next generations of human beings on Earth would all possess the same powers as Captain America. This could incredibly improve the quality of life on the planet but also have potentially dangerous outcomes (an entire population of super-soldiers could make wars, planetary and interplanetary, more likely and disastrous).
However, what makes Captain America a hero is not just his powers, but his experience in battle and his indomitable will. In fact, poor MVP got killed in a training incident shortly after joining the Initiative (but his genetic material was deemed so precious that he was cloned). Still, the idea that anyone could become Captain America with the right diet, as ludicrous as it sounds, is potentially so revolutionary that it could change Planet Earth's role in the Marvel Universe forever.