Warning: contains major spoilers for The United States of Captain America #2!
The energy shield that Captain America is using in his newest series has a major design flaw, despite having been built by Tony Stark. The United States of Captain America #2 pits the hero against the Super Soldier impostor he has been chasing down. While in a fight, his photon shield fails him for the most obvious and ridiculous reason.
This new series is introducing a network of freedom fighters across the United States. Captain America is fighting for his identity and witnessing the birth of new dreams within America. But despite the hope offered by this new generation of Caps, an impostor is trying to destroy his image, not to mention stealing his iconic shield to try and tarnish its legacy by using it to hurt innocent people. To fight back, Captain America gets his old photon shield out of storage... and immediately discovers it could use some tweaks that should have been taken care of during the design process.
Created by the team of Mohale Mashigo, Christopher Cantwell, Dale Eaglesham, Natacha Bustos, Matt Milla, and Joe Caramagna, The United States of Captain America #2 shows Captain America in action in a new era. He is chasing down the fake Super Soldier while wearing his Secret Avengers costume and rocking the rarely seen photon shield. Adapted from existing technology by Iron Man, the shield has some cool tricks Cap's usual projectile doesn't, but it also has some unique flaws, as Steve discovers when he's kicked into some water and the shield shorts out. Muttering, "Hey, Tony, it ever occur to you an electric shield might need to be waterproof...?" Captain America is forced to resort to hurling some nearby debris.
Cap's energy shield is electric and while it glows and looks cool, it is useless once wet. This shield is generated off of an armband that shorts out once water damages the mechanism. The craziest part about this flaw is that Tony Stark is responsible for creating the shield. With all of the technology that he has created as Iron Man, including suits that can operate underwater, this seems like a very strange oversight, though it could be blamed on the fact that Tony first adapted the energy shield tech from the villainous Raiders.
Captain America's traditional shield never had this problem and there are some comics where he is able to throw it at enemies underwater effectively. Iron Man has had numerous water-specific suits across different media, such as the "Hammerhead" deep sea suit from Iron Man 3, the "Rubber Ducky" armor from Marvel's Avengers Assemble, and the Hydro Armor from way back in Iron Man #218 from 1987. Iron Man is no stranger to needing to fight underwater, so it is very peculiar that he wouldn't take it into consideration when designing a shield for Captain America. While water battles are not the norm for Captain America, Iron Man has no excuse for not being able to create a waterproof shield since he's demonstrated an ability to design much stranger equipment. Instead of being a showcase for Tony's talent, the photon shield just makes it clearer than ever that Captain America needs to reclaim his shield to be at his best.