10 Times Captain America Outsmarted Everyone
Fighting Richard Nixon so you don't have to.
In terms of Marvel's superhero roster, Captain America isn't the hero you think of when the topic of smart superheroes comes up. Between Iron Man's technical genius, Mister Fantastic's quasi-omnipotence, and Professor X's psychic knowledge, the star-spangled man comes nowhere near the ranks of heroes you'd expect to be outdoing others.
But being underestimated like this is exactly how Cap manages to outsmart people so often. Nobody expects America's perfect golden boy to be capable of getting the better of them, and he uses this again and again to his own advantage. As such, Steve Rogers has managed to one-up people you'd never expect he could - with the likes of Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and even Iron Man among these ranks. He's no Batman or Bruce Banner, sure, but he's also far smarter than many people think he is - and more than capable of turning any situation in his favour.
While he isn't always the perfect standard of human intelligence, Steve is good at what he does, which is making the world a better place - and he's willing to outdo just about everyone on Earth in order to do so.
10. Discovering Nick Fury Had Wiped His Memory
Uncovering that you've had your mind-wiped is a pretty difficult matter regardless of how you look at it. Discovering you've been mind-wiped, working out why, and then confronting the terrifyingly resourceful person who did it is an entirely more difficult matter, and yet Captain America pulls it all off with aplomb at the closing of the Secret War comic.
Steve manages to uncover that he and several other superheroes were recruited by Nick Fury in order to arrest Lucia von Bardas, the prime minister of Latveria - in a plan that actually involved them secretly overthrowing the country, killing untold numbers of Latverians, and then having their memories of the event wiped before any her could get too furious about them not being told about the true awful nature of their mission.
The discovery of this act leaves Fury a full-time war criminal, and in the bad books of the vast majority of the superhero community - who would have otherwise been totally unaware, if not for Cap's uncanny ability to realise when he's had his memory toyed with.