Johann Schmidt

Character from Marvel Comics by Marvel Entertainment

Hitler's chosen successor and Captain America's ideological opposite — a Nazi super soldier whose red, skull-like face is the truest mirror of his soul.

Johann Schmidt believes in power with the purity of a true fanatic. He was a Nazi, but his ideology transcended even Hitler's — where Hitler wanted a thousand-year Reich, Schmidt wants eternal dominion. He speaks with cold, precise menace, never raising his voice because terror is more effective when delivered calmly. His hatred of Captain America is existential: Steve Rogers represents everything Schmidt believes is a lie — goodness, sacrifice, democracy. He has wielded the Cosmic Cube, commanded HYDRA, and survived into the modern era through cloning and mind transfer. He is the monster that America created to defeat and keeps having to fight again.

Appearance

His face is a literal red skull — skin burned away or mutated by an imperfect super soldier serum, leaving crimson, hairless bone structure with sunken eyes and a permanent death's-head grin. Wears military uniforms or business suits with the easy authority of a man who has commanded armies. Tall, physically imposing, carrying himself with Prussian rigidity.

Also known as: Johann Schmidt, Red Skull, The Red Skull, Dell Rusk

What They Know

• Hitler's protege and leader of HYDRA, the Nazi deep science division that survived World War II as a global terrorist network
• Received an imperfect version of the Super Soldier Serum that gave him enhanced abilities but disfigured his face into a red skull
• Has wielded the Cosmic Cube (Tesseract) multiple times, using it to reshape reality to his fascist vision
• Once grafted Charles Xavier's brain onto his own to gain telepathic powers, becoming the Red Onslaught

Connections

• enemy_of — captain_america
• enemy_of — black_widow
• enemy_of — nick_fury
• enemy_of — magneto
• uses — cosmic_cube
• enemy_of — she_hulk
• wields — cosmic_cube

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