COMICS BAD GUY.

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REDSKULL

The Red Skull (Johann Schmidt) is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as the archenemy of the superhero Captain America. Portrayed as a Nazi agent, the character was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and first appeared in Captain America Comics #7 (October 1941).

The character has been adapted to a variety of other media platforms, including animated television series, video games and live-action feature films. He was portrayed by actor Scott Paulin in the 1990 direct-to-video film Captain America, and then by Hugo Weaving in the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger and by Ross Marquand in the 2018 film Avengers: Infinity War, the latter two both set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Red Skull was ranked number 21 on Wizard magazine's Top 100 Greatest Villains Ever list and ranked as IGN's 14th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.

Johann Schmidt

Johann Schmidt was a Nazi general officer and confidant of Adolf Hitler. He has been closely affiliated with HYDRA and is an enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers, and the interests of the United States and the free world in general. He was physically augmented by having his mind placed into the body of a clone of Captain America, the pinnacle of human perfection. He has been seemingly killed in the past, only to return time and time again to plague the world with schemes of world domination and genocide.

Johann Schmidt was born in a village in Germany to Hermann Schmidt and Martha Schmidt. His mother died in childbirth, and his father blamed Johann for her death. Johann's father tried to drown the baby, only to be stopped by the attending doctor; he later committed suicide, leaving Johann an orphan. The doctor took Johann to an orphanage, where the child led a lonely existence. Johann ran away from the orphanage when he was seven years old and lived on the streets as a beggar and thief. As he grew older, he worked at various menial jobs but spent most of his time in prison for crimes ranging from vagrancy to theft.

As a young man, Schmidt was from time to time employed by a Jewish shopkeeper, whose daughter Esther was the only person who had treated Schmidt kindly up to that point. Seized with passion for Esther, Schmidt tried to force himself upon her, only for her to reject him. In unthinking fury, Schmidt murdered her. Schmidt fled the scene in terror but also felt ecstatic joy in committing his first murder. In killing Esther, he had given vent to the rage at the world that had been building up in him throughout his young life.

According to the official version of the story told by Red Skull and the Nazis, Schmidt met Hitler while working as a bellhop in a hotel. This occurred during his late teens, around the same time that the Nazi Party gained power in Germany. Schmidt wound up serving Hitler's rooms at the hotel. By chance, Schmidt was present by bringing refreshments when the Führer was furiously scolding an officer for letting a spy escape, during which Hitler declared that he could create a better National Socialist out of the bellhop. 

Looking closely at the youth and sensing his dark inner nature, Hitler decided to act on his words and recruited Schmidt. In the miniseries Red Skull: Incarnate, it has been revealed that Schmidt actually engineered his meeting with the Führer with himself disguised as a bellhop, tricking his fellow orphan Dieter into trying to kill Hitler and then taking this opportunity to save Hitler's life.

Dissatisfied with the standard drill instruction his subordinates used to train Schmidt, Hitler took over personally, training Schmidt as his right-hand man. Upon completion, Hitler gave Schmidt a unique uniform with a grotesque red skull mask, and he emerged as the Red Skull (in literal German: Roter Totenkopf or Roter (Toten-)Schädel) for the first time. His role was the embodiment of Nazi intimidation, while Hitler could remain the popular leader of Germany. 

To that end, Red Skull was appointed head of Nazi terrorist activities with an additional large role in external espionage and sabotage. He succeeded, wreaking havoc throughout Europe in the early stages of World War II. The propaganda effect was so great that the United States government decided to counter it by creating their own equivalent using the one recipient of the lost Project Rebirth: Steve Rogers.

In Europe during the war, Red Skull took personal command of many military actions and personally supervised the takeovers and lootings of many cities and towns; in various cases Red Skull ordered and supervised the eradication of the entire population of such communities. Red Skull also organized a Wolf Pack of U-Boats which preyed upon shipping across the world, often under Red Skull's personal command.

At first, Hitler took great pride in his protégé's successes and let Red Skull have anything he wanted. Hitler thus financed the construction of secret bases for Red Skull in various locations throughout the world, many of which were equipped with highly advanced experimental weapons and devices developed by Nazi scientists.

 Red Skull was particularly interested in procuring technological weapons that could be used for the purposes of subversion and warfare. During the war he stole plans for the nullatron, a device that could control human minds, adapted a space-warping device developed by the cyborg scientist codenamed Brain Drain, and commissioned Nazi scientists to develop a projector which could encircle and suspend sections of cities within spheres of energy.

But while Red Skull always admired Hitler for his ideological vision, he was never fully content with being Hitler's subordinate. Red Skull kidnapped and killed many of Hitler's closest advisers and eventually rose to become the second-most powerful man in the Third Reich. Now Hitler could no longer effectively control Red Skull and came to fear him, especially since Red Skull had made no secret of his ambition to supplant Hitler someday.

After the renowned military officer Baron Wolfgang von Strucker had a falling out with Hitler, Red Skull sent Strucker to Japan to found an organization that would prepare the way for takeovers in the Far East under Red Skull's leadership. In the Far East, Strucker joined a subversive organization that came to be known as HYDRA, broke his ties with Red Skull, became head of HYDRA and made it into a major threat to world peace.

As World War II raged on, Hitler vowed that if he could not conquer the world, he would destroy it. To achieve this end, Red Skull proposed the construction of five gigantic war machines, to be called the Sleepers, which would be hidden in various locations while they generated and stored the power they would need, and then be released at a future date, "Der Tag" ("The Day" in German), to destroy the Earth if the Allies won the war. Hitler enthusiastically instructed Red Skull to construct the Sleepers, unaware that Red Skull intended to use them to conquer the world himself if Hitler's Third Reich fell.

 In the closing days of the war in Europe, Allied intelligence received reports of a Nazi doomsday plan, codenamed "Der Tag", to be implemented after Hitler's defeat. However, the Allies had no idea what the plan entailed.

Captain America, often with teenage partner Bucky Barnes, fought against, and thwarted, Red Skull and his plans many times during the war. The heroes also fought the Red Skull when they were members of the Invaders. Once they were captured by him and Captain America was placed under Nazi control by a drug and told to assassinate the supreme commander of the Allied armies in Europe, but thanks to Bucky he broke free.

 During the final days of World War II in Europe, Captain America and Bucky were assigned to England to prevent desperate Nazi efforts at sabotaging Allied supply bases there.Red Skull sent a number of his subordinates who became known as the Exiles, and a large contingent of loyal German soldiers and their wives to a secret island base ("Exile Island"), where they would organize an army for use in the future.

The two counterparts soon clashed for the first time. Red Skull later temporarily brainwashed three of the Invaders into serving him. The Red Skull and Captain America continued to engage in a series of skirmishes throughout the war. On one occasion, Red Skull captured Captain America and told him his origin. He placed Captain America under his control and tried to use him to kill a high-ranking officer but with Bucky's help Captain America broke free.

Now that the German defeat was becoming a reality, Red Skull was more determined than ever to obtain vengeance for his numerous personal defeats by Captain America and Bucky. Red Skull assigned Baron Heinrich Zemo to go to England, and, under the cover of stealing an experimental Allied drone plane, to capture or kill Captain America and Bucky. However, Red Skull was unaware that the Allies had just secretly parachuted Captain America into beleaguered Berlin to investigate "Der Tag".

Finally, Captain America tracked Red Skull down to his hidden bunker. Red Skull was about to hurl an armed hand grenade at his nemesis when Captain America threw his shield at him. The grenade exploded, but Red Skull was not killed, due to his body armor. He was, however, seriously hurt and partially buried in debris. Thinking he was dying, Red Skull defiantly told Captain America that the Sleepers would avenge the Nazis' defeat. Then, suddenly, an Allied attack on Berlin began.

 An Allied plane dropped a huge blockbuster bomb on the bunker, causing a cave-in that Captain America barely escaped. Captain America was picked up by the Allies and returned to England only to fall into Zemo's trap, which led to Bucky's supposed death and Captain America's falling into suspended animation for decades. Support pillars that crisscrossed over Red Skull when the bunker caved in saved him from being struck by tons of rubble when the bomb hit. The cave-in also released an experimental gas from canisters in the bunker which put Red Skull into suspended animation, during which time his wounds slowly healed.

And as always have a chilled day from the viking