S.H.I.E.L.D. was formed shortly after World War II as a successor to the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), an Allied deep science agency which fought against the Nazi sponsored special weapons division HYDRA during the war. The founders of the new agency were Chester Phillips, the director of the SSR, Howard Stark, an industrialist of great wealth and a scientific genius, and Margaret "Peggy" Carter, the former partner of the American war hero Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America.