Neither, and both, of the Steve's are/were real.

That's how Quantum Mechanics, alternate universes, pocket universes and reality manipulation works.

Both of the Steve's created by Kobik are constructs - but it's not even that simple - because ALL OF REALITY has become a construct as well!

When Kobik had Cap A and Cap H fight, to determine who would be the real Steve Rogers, reality was in a flux - they were both, essentially, the "cat" in the famous "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment/hypothesis.

Once Good Steve had beaten Bad Steve, Kobik then changed the Universe into one where THAT Steve had then always been the real one.

Please try to remember... the first Steve wasn't young, he was old - he was entirely rewritten on a subatomic level, the quantum states that make out his "blueprint" in the universe, was replaced. Entirely.


The fact that people aren't prepared to do the mental gymnastics required to understand how the story worked, and what Spencer intended, is but one of many permanent marks on the comic-book readership... I see the same thing repeated with other writers in mainstream superhero comics whom use non-mainstream elements in their writing - it's the same old song and dance whenever stories by Grant Morrison and Jonathan Hickman are discussed as well. People are wilfully ignorant to plot-points and the basic ideas in the stories at hand, because its different from their usual fare...