The title of this post reminds me, for some reason, of a traumatizing story my cousins told me when I was a little kid where they turned my mom turned old(don't ask), but I digress.
To the point, I understand what you mean in this post. As a LONGtime Cap fan, I too have issues with Remender's current storyline, how the SSS was removed & Steve aged. It seems like Remender has a complete misunderstanding of how the SSS works. He definitely has some misconceptions, & I have some evidence to back up the fact that Remender's current storyline is contradictory to past continuity & the established workings of the serum.
During the "Streets of Poison" arc during Mark Gruenwald's run, Cap had the serum completely drained out of his blood. Steve didn't revert to his skinny self, or anything- he just believed that he would no longer have the physical enhancements the serum gave him & would have to train to keep himself in prime physical condition. Fast forward a lil' bit down Gruenwald's run, issue 384 to be exact, where some months after having the serum drained from his blood Cap is having his annual physical, & Dr. Keith Kincaid told him he was operating at peak human capacity, something Steve didn't understand since the serum was removed. Dr. Kincaid explained the workings of the serum perfectly. The serum is actually like a self-replicating bacteria, or a super-inoculation. His body began to produce its elements naturally in his system. So, just a couple of months after the serum was drained from his system, it replicated in his blood. This is an established fact of how the serum works, & why it can never be taken from him- if drained away, the serum will only rebuild itself in his bloodstream in a matter of months. Makes perfect sense, right? Well, apparently Remender missed this issue.
So, if the Iron Nail did drain the serum out of his blood, it would replenish over time. This is part one of why Remender's story makes no sense. Part 2, the aging factor, comes shortly.
Now in the story referenced at the beginning of this post, from the awesome Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier, the serum was removed from Steve's blood, it was merely deactivated. Meaning it was rendered dormant, but still present- causing him to return to skinny Steve. Once the effect was reversed, the dormant serum reactivated & Steve was his buff self again. Also, in "The Death of Captain America" story arc, Steve's dead body returns to it's skinny state- meaning that the serum will totally become inactive with the cessation of bodily functions. This should be the only time it will be completely gone from Steve's system. Brubaker's stories didn't go against the continuity from the stories I mentioned above, & could actually be worked in, on a scientific level.
Now for pt. 2- the aging factor. Steve's rapid aging makes no sense to me, or pre-established continuity either. In fact, it has been stated on separate occasions that even if Steve wasn't frozen in suspended animation, he would have aged slowly, or hardly at all- meaning that the serum also gave him great longevity. In an issue of the Avengers, Sersi- an Eternal- actually says to Steve something along the lines of: "You are like me- you will always be as you are now." However, the greatest piece of evidence for this comes from the Captain America: Hail HYDRA mini-series. In it Steve was injected with a formula that slowed or negated the effects of aging. This, combined with the SSS, would have meant Steve, even if he had not be frozen, would possibly have not aged at all over the decades. The serum itself didn't preserve his youth- he was frozen in a state of suspended animation where all functions, save life itself- inc. aging- ceased. Why he didn't have long hair, a beard etc. So it makes little sense to me why the years would catch up to him when drained of the serum.
So with these facts in mind, you can definitely see the inconsistencies in Remender's story. The only thing that makes sense at all to me is that perhaps the barbs from the Iron Nail contained a poison that triggered the rapid aging in Steve- but that doesn't explain why the serum didn't replicate in his system, as previous continuity established. It shows a misunderstanding of the way the SSS works on Remender's part, & I'm glad somebody brought it up here.
(BTW: I have the same feeling about classic Nick Fury. It had been established that Fury's body was naturally producing the Infinity Formula- similar to Steve & the SSS- then it was drained away in "Battle Scars"(& should have replenished in a similar manner to the SSS in Gruenwald's run), & now he's rapidly aged & aging in "Original Sin"- the same kind of misunderstanding.)
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