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Johann Hermann Schmidt, better known as the Red Skull, is the leader of the Nazi/terrorist organization HYDRA and the archenemy of Captain America. Years after the end of World War II, he formed the Cabal. Both groups' goal is global domination.

History[]

Johann Schmidt is the leader of HYDRA, a terrorist organization derived from the Third Reich. A Nazi during World War II, he was injected with an incomplete variant of the Super-Soldier formula. This early version of the serum initially granted him extraordinary strength and speed but rendered Schmidt with a red and horrifically deformed face. He assumed the alias of the "Red Skull".

Since then, he has come into conflict with Captain America for years without ever achieving his goals of global domination. The imperfect Super-Soldier serum eventually began to deteriorate, slowly killing the Red Skull, who, in time, was subsequently assumed dead by many.[1]

Skirmish with the Avengers[]

With his body becoming weaker, the Skull formulated a plan with an associate, M.O.D.O.K., to capture Captain America and transfer their minds.

The Red Skull took a number of HYDRA soldiers to engage Captain America at Ellis Island, using a specialized set of weapons to atomize the Captain behind his shield. Iron Man, who witnessed this, intervened and sprawled into an unexpected frenzy while the Skull mocked that he "had a heart after all." Red Skull, using the Captain's shield, and the assistance of the technopathic M.O.D.O.K. proved more than a match for the distraught and unfocused Iron Man. The two left via a portal to the Skull's base.

Forming the Cabal[]

Red Skull worked with Justin Hammer as part of the Cabal. The latter was able to subdue the Avengers as Red Skull viewed from the monitor in his chest. Being asked by Justin how he was fairing, Red Skull remarked that his performance was impressive and cautioned him to not underestimate Captain America. Justin disregarded the warning, as he classified Captain America as old. Justin was defeated by Captain America and later tried to talk his way into why he should stay in the Cabal, reasoning the defeat as a minor set back. Though agreeing with him, Red Skull told him that his services would not be required. As Hammer tried to give further reasoning, Red Skull cut him off abruptly and acknowledged that his contribution was important, being that of the head of the Super-Adaptoid. Questioning and being confirmed by M.O.D.O.K. that he could indeed fix it, Red Skull told him that all it needed after its repairs would be a better pilot.[2]

Hyperion and Attuma[]

The rest of the Cabal finally forms, with Attuma joining in. They tried to destroy the Avengers, by using their own battle methods against them. They failed, but succeeded at one part of their plans----rescue Hyperion from S.H.I.E.L.D., and have him join the Cabal. Together, they attempted to kill Doom and steal the Tesseract, as of which they succeeded partially.

Betrayal and brief career as the Cosmic Skull[]

The Skull has found the Cosmic Cube and attempted to rule all dimensions, but ended up betraying the Cabal and being humiliated by the Avengers. He briefly became the Cosmic Skull, but lost his armor to M.O.D.O.K., and was flung to another dimension, where he met his true boss, Thanos.

Escape from Thanos[]

The Red Skull betrayed Thanos and escaped back to Earth. However, he was followed by Thanos' droids and crashed in Brazil. The Avengers investigated the scene and found a mentally-unbalanced Red Skull with an Infinity Stone, which he had stolen from the Mad Titan. He was imprisoned by the Avengers to get more information about Thanos. When Black Widow and Hawkeye interrogated him, his only response to them was that "He [would] rise". The rest of his Cabal members would break up as a result.

The Avengers used the carvings the Red Skull made in his cell to locate the Time Stone. The arrival of said stone create temporal anomalies, like the appearance of dinosaurs, robots from the future, or Hydra battalions from WWII which wrecked havoc in Manhattan. In the middle of the chaos, the Red Skull escaped his cell, and tried to get the Time Stone, which had been attached to Tony Stark's arc reactor, and caused him to de-age.

One the Red Skull got hold of a kid Tony Stark, a pulse from the Time Stone barely de-aged the Skull, reverting his mind to a normal state and completely "healing" the Super-Soldier serum inside his body, which returned Red Skull's enhanced strength, speed, stamina & healing factor. Captain America fought the Skull to save Tony, who soon managed to put on an adjusted Iron Man armor for his young body. Tony attacked the Skull with a repulsor ray which blasted the villain out of the tower, the Skull was then caught by one of the pterodactyls which had been brought to the present by the stone, defeating him, but ultimately messing up their chances of information on how to stop Thanos. The episode The New Guy revealed that he escaped to Monster Island and formed an alliance with Dormammu, gaining control over the Mindless Ones. He wanted to cover the whole island in an impenetrable magic force field to protect himself from Thanos, should he come back. He succeeded but was kicked out from the island when Ant-Man uses Fin Fang Foom and arrested him.

Appearance[]

Personality and Traits[]

Red Skull is a manipulative, cruel, arrogant, and egocentric man who seeks power and dominance over everything. He is a skilled orator, able to gave him the power to win people's hearts and minds and strike doubt in the resolute and courageous minds, and use it his advantage where he feigned loyalty and strength to those who followed him.

His personality is completely based on Nazism, as has many megalomaniac tendencies, and often refers to himself as a superior as he believe that the serum has made him evolve beyond his human condition. He had neither pity nor mercy toward those he marks as inferior. On his own account, he is "a leader of men"[1]. His self-proclaimed nature showed greatly in his encounters with Iron Man. Skull avidly labelled Iron Man as a fool and said the latter's reliance on his suits an attribution to his "cowardly" nature, and would also frequently consider himself to be a sacrificial person, in order to achieve his goals, while he presumed that Stark would make no such actions to accomplish his.[1] Ironically, for all his pretentiousness, he is willing to except his errors in judgement. His observation skills also account for his ability to quickly adapt to any given situation, easily subduing Iron Man and subsequently stealing his armor.[1]

Powers and Abilities[]

Powers[]

Artificially Enhanced Physiology: Schmidt was injected with a prototype variant of the Super Soldier Serum, which enhanced his physical and mental attributes to superhuman levels. However, because his serum was unstable, his body was deteriorating until the effects of the Time Stone stabilized the serum and thus restoring his Super-Soldier conditioning.

  • Enhanced Strength: He can go toe-to-toe on strength levels with Captain America in hand-to-hand combat. He can even overpower him at certain times, likely due to his greater experience and tolerance for damage. Notably, Cap, while in Red Skull's body, was able to send the real Red Skull, who was in his own body, flying through the air with his attacks.
  • Enhanced Intellect: He is a brilliant manipulator, strategist, politician, interrogator, scientist, spy, martial artist, marksman, scientist, and leader.
  • Enhanced Speed: He has shown to have the exact amount of inhuman speed as Captain America. He can react to oncoming attacks instantaneously.
  • Enhanced Endurance: His bones and muscles are denser and harder than normal, to the highest human potential, which makes him very durable compared to a normal human. Schmidt's musculature produces less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of an ordinary human. As such, he tires much slower.
  • Extended Longevity: His increased metabolism has proven instrumental in extending his longevity well into the 21st century as he is still in his prime almost a century later. The effects of the time stone has further de-aged him.

Abilities[]

  • Expert Hand-to-Hand Combatant: He has been rigorously trained by private trainers in hand-to-hand combat, with his skills even rivalling Captain America himself.
  • Master Strategist: Red Skull is well-known for his ability to produce elaborate schemes and his display of strategy. Naturally forming a plan that consists of two or more goals to serve his needs, holding back a hidden plan that wouldn't be revealed until later, and a fallback plan in case his current plan tends to fail.
  • Military Protocols: He not only founded, but lead HYDRA during WWII without any opposition from his subordinates and would have won, if not for Captain America. He has since then led several highly trained and well-equipped militias all loyal to his will.
  • Political Sciences: He is a highly gifted subversive strategist and political operative, having mastered political sciences of Germany, Russia, and the United States. This also shows his mastery over the knowledge of the commonwealth laws.

Paraphernalia[]

Equipment[]

  • Iron Skull/Cosmic Skull Armor: The Iron Skull's Armor contains a variety of offensive weapons that are based on Iron Man's technology such as repulsor blasters. After fusing with the Cosmic Cube, he gained a vast set of new supernatural abilities.
  • Life-Support Systems: The armor's main function was a life support system, which kept the Red Skull's physical state from degrading further and restoring his strength, speed, and durability to their original limits, despite his degraded bodily tissues.
    • Superhuman Strength: The armor increased the Red Skull's degrading super-strength to such a degree that he was able to match Captain America in an equal fight.
    • Superhuman Durability: The armor increased his durability to withstand multiple high-powered ballistic attacks without even a scratch.
    • Superhuman Speed: The armor also helped restore his degrading speed to its Super-Soldier status.
    • Self-Sustenance: With the Armor's life-support systems, he would not need any form of food, drink, rest or possibly air for survival & still operated in peak efficiency.
  • Repulsor Beam: The armor's primary energy weapon is a particle beam weapon, standard equipment in the palm gauntlets that can repel physical and energy-based attacks.
  • Hologram Projects: The Iron Skull can project a 3-dimensional holograms images such as maps.
  • Missiles: though never seen when iron man attacks red skull after the apparent death of captain America he fired missiles at red skull so it is logical to assume that red skull still has these weapons.
  • Uni-Beam: red skulls armor should posses a unibeam because when MODOK is showing him the software of the avengers strategies he fires one at Iron Man's unibeam.
  • Cosmic Powers: After inserting the Tesseract into the center plate of the armor, his Super-Soldier abilities were immediately restored and he gained a vast set on new supernatural abilities.
    • Increased Superhuman Strength: He became so strong that, he was able to hit Hyperion hard enough to injury him.
    • Nigh-Invulnerability: He became impervious to almost all forms of physical harm. He was also able to survive in space without any sustenance and did not need sustenance in general.
    • Flight/Levitation: He was able to fly at high speeds.
    • Cosmic Energy Manipulation: He was able to project vast amounts of cosmic energy to create a variety of attacks. He can even enhance the Hulk's anger with ease.
    • Cosmic Energy Blasts:
    • Portal Creation: The Tesseract made him nearly-omnipresent as he was able to go anywhere in the universe.

Transportation[]

Appearances[]

Season 1[]

Season 2[]

Season 3: Ultron Revolution[]

Season 4: Secret Wars[]

Season 5: Black Panther's Quest[]

Notes[]

Trivia[]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "The Avengers Protocol, Part 1". Man of Action (writer) & Eric Radomsky (director). Marvel's Avengers Assemble. Disney XD. May 26, 2013. No. 1, season one.
  2. "Super-Adaptoid". Man of Action & Ed Valentine (writers) & Tim Eldred (director). Marvel's Avengers Assemble. Disney XD. July 28, 2013. No. 6, season one.

External links[]

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