First Official Look At Chris Evans As Captain America

We've seen some shadowy images and concept art to give us an idea of what to expect, but today is the day we finally get a real, unfiltered look at Chris Evans as Captain America. It comes via Entertainment Weekly where Cap is this week's cover boy, looking sternly off into the middle distance, holding a shield that looks like it's been through some battle, and seeming, well, pretty damn superheroic.

The accompanying article, which is available in segments before the print edition hits later this week, has Evans talking frankly about his decision to take on the role: “I can’t believe was almost too chicken to play Captain America.” It also includes a plot description that's pretty much what we've already heard, but also the most official set of details to hit so far:

The movie — which also serves to set up Marvel’s 2012 superhero team-up, The Avengers -- hews closely to Captain America’s WWII-era origins. The year is 1942, and Steve Rogers is a scrawny lad who desperately wants to fight Nazis for his country but can’t because he’s been deemed physically unfit. His fate — and his physique — is radically transformed when he signs up for Project: Rebirth, a secret military operation that turns wimps into studs using drugs and assorted sci-fi hoo-ha. There’s a love interest (Major Peggy Carter, played Haley Atwell), there’s a sidekick (Bucky Barnes, played by Sebastian Stans), and there’s the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Hitler’s treacherous head of advanced weaponry, whose own plan for world domination involves a magical object known as The Tesseract (comic fans know it better as The Cosmic Cube).

The image you see above is pretty much all we've got so far, but click over to EW for every detail from their article, and look for scans of the print edition to show up online starting tomorrow with more information and, hopefully, more images. The First Avenger: Captain America hits theaters next summer on July 22nd.