“ | What is this mad obsession with freedom? | „ |
~ Red Skull's most famous quote. |
Johann Schmidt, best known as the Red Skull, is one of the main antagonists of the Marvel Comics, serving as the main antagonist of the Captain America franchise and a major antagonist in the Avengers franchise. He is the fascist leader of HYDRA and the archenemy of Captain America (alongside Baron Zemo).
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Despite a Jewish girl named Emmy and her father providing the pre-Red-Skull Johan Schmidt, then a mere orphan, shelter, kindness, and food, he still robbed their money after failing to protect Emmy and leaving her father to bleed in the streets.
- Attempted to grab a gun and kill the director of his orphanage
- Went into a dog catcher truck asking him to teach him how to kill dogs
- Killed multiple dogs (albeit in self-defense)
- He murdered another urchin named Bormann, horrifying the rest of his gang (to be fair Bormann threatened him and attempted to rob Emmy and her father's store).
- When given a gun by an SS officer and ordered to kill a jew, so that he can join the SS so that he can carry a gun. He didn't hesitate instead he immediately pressed the trigger only to realize that the gun was empty.
- He killed one of his superiors at the Sturm Abteilung simply because, to him, nobody is allowed to hit him and get away with it
- Convinced Dieter to attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, only to suddenly stop the assassination, betraying and killing Dieter, as a way to be recruited into Hitler's high ranks.
- Became a spymaster under the command of Hitler and the Nazi Party.
- Turned the terrorist organization HYDRA into a Nazi organization.
- Killed many innocents under the Nazis' control.
- Has killed even his most loyal and competent followers simply for no longer being useful and just for amusement.
- After gaining a clone body of Captain America he brutally kills his sparring partners for kicks.
- He murdered and impersonated a businessman named Cyrus Fenton and used his fortune to finance Arnim Zola experiments.
- Made a duplicate of Bucky Barnes and forced Captain America to fight him, just to hurt Steve.
- Created Genosha, a mutant concentration camp.
- Stole the dead Professor X's brain.
- Brutalized Mother Night constantly while in a relationship with her.
- Raped a woman to produce his daughter, Sin.
- What's worse is that the woman he raped was implied to be Emmy.
- Wanted to kill his daughter Sin for not being a male, and is abusively controlling of her in the present.
- Plotted to take over Earth and transform it into a totalitarian dystopia.
- Used the Cosmic Cube several times to take over Earth, causing thousands of deaths in the process every time.
- Manipulated Scarlet Witch in attempt to kill off the world's entire mutant population.
- Has made attempts to bodyjack his archenemy Captain America many times, as well as trying to replace his brain with that of Hitler's.
- Tried to gain control of New York's drug trade, placing him at odds with Kingpin.
- Used the Dust Of Death to painfully kill his enemies or even his subordinates for failing him or even looking at him funny.
- In an alternate future, he would trigger natural disasters and arrive only to inform people he would not be saving them.
- While his father Hermann tried to drown him after he was born when he accuses him of his wife's death and lived at an orphanage suffering from loneliness and being physically abused by his headmaster, they don't justify his horrendous actions. Even Captain America himself doesn’t feel any sympathy for his backstory.
- Mainly due to his Nazi ties, Red Skull is shown to be so depraved and horrible that even other villains are disgusted by him, such as Kingpin, Doctor Doom (who is of Roma descent), Magneto (who is a Holocaust survivor) and even the Joker, who is also Pure Evil (although their encounter was non-canon).
- In the Secret Empire arc, a clone of him manipulated Kobik (the physical manifestation of the Cosmic Cube in the form of a little girl) into using her powers on himself, creating an altered timeline where HYDRA won World War II and took control of the United States; and worst of all, he turned Captain America into an agent of his elite. Although it was just a clone, it is further proof that Red Skull is extremely evil enough to manipulate a child and indoctrinate him to his ideals, or this case to alter the entire history of a conflict as significant as World War II.
Trivia[]
- Before Red Skull: Incarnate was released in 2011, Johann Schmidt's original backstory (as shown in Captain America #298) involved a 30-year-old Johann beating Emmy (than named Esther) to death with a shovel after she resisted his attempt to force himself on her; this was his first murder. But this was retconned in Incarnate, where Johan instead abandons her and her father to a mob and runs off with money stolen from their store. The only logical/realistic conclusion being that Red Skull was misremembering his past due to being old and senile at the time or intentionally lying to Steve Rogers.
- He has more Pure Evil incarnations than any other Marvel villain.
External Links[]
- Red Skull on the Villains Wiki.
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