The Star-Spangled Flying Wallenda

Beats me how the Captain America in the movies doesn't hesitate to leap out of planes--even without a parachute!--with no thought of the consequences. Because the Cap in the printed page usually finds himself in dire straits when he's plunging at high altitude:

But, somehow, despite all these dizzying descents, Cap is still in the land of the living, and still fighting the good fight, even though you or I would be laid up somewhere and hooked up to a respirator if we took these kinds of plunges. We've all see Cap make impressive landings from heights and come up swinging--but hundreds of feet above the ocean is another matter:

I suppose if I had a shield capable of withstanding high-impact forces, I might make use of it in a situation like this to cushion the impact with the water. Cap's solution, however, is to mimic the form of a high diver. If it works for cliff divers in Acapulco, I guess I can believe that a super-soldier can survive the impact of a "dive" from a much greater height. (Even though cliff divers are only dealing with a dive of 125 feet.)

Cap, however, hasn't always opted for a diving form when faced with such a plunge. Let's see what happens when the Super-Adaptoid puts him in an impossible situation:

Apparently Cap is under the impression that a 300-foot fall into the water is preferable to a fall over land. Maybe Cap has taken a few too many blows to the head, because it's a safe bet he'd be just as dead either way--even if he tried again to hit the water like Greg Louganis. But this time he's chucked his diving stance, convinced that he should hit the water in a different way in order to save his life:

Cap finds himself in a similar predicament when he's in pursuit of Dr. Faustus, and the rickety plane he's flying in lurches while he's attempting to leap onto the villain's dirigible:

It looks like Cap is going to try his skydiving moves again, to try and reposition himself to intercept the dirigible. Let's see how he does this time:

Whoops! It looks like it's curtains for Cap--unless Daredevil, who's piloting the plane, can make a pitch that even Nolan Ryan would drop his jaw at:

I guess we can't argue with success, can we? Though by this time, it looks like word has gotten out that if you're in battle with Cap in mid-air, your best bet is to still send him flying and hope that the fall does your work for you:

Dr. Faustus seems to prefer murdering his victims in the air just as much as on the couch, doesn't he?  In this case, though, this cover image is taking a tiny bit of license with the story inside, where it's instead Faustus meeting this fate and not Cap:

Fortunately, at times Cap has the Avengers watching his back when he finds himself in a deadly fall, which has come in handy a time or two:

Take this battle with the Swordsman, where Cap was at a distinct disadvantage and plunging to his doom. Each member of the team springs into action to save him:

And when the Man-Ape attacks Cap at Avengers Mansion and hurls him over the roof at the ground--hurls him, mind you--the team still manages to save him. Even when it's a fall of only three stories, and all of these measures only have two or three seconds to play out:

I hope it doesn't take Cap falling from orbit to convince him that a serum in his bloodstream isn't necessarily going to keep him from going SPLAT one of these days when he makes landfall. If I were Cap, I'd stick to a hovering helicopter in close proximity to a pool and a diving board:

Where he'd probably even get a glass of lemonade out of the deal.