PRELUDE: Captain America Comics #3

The Return of the Red Skull

Featuring: Captain America
Release: March 17, 1941
Cover: May 1941
10 cents
By: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
17 pages

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Captain America Comics #1, Story DPreludeYoung Allies #1
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We’ve visited Captain America Comics #3 before. We read the text story, notable for being the first story written by a young Stan Lee.

The issue also contains three other Captain America adventures, a Tuk story, and a Hurricane story.

There’s a cool feature called “Amazing Spy Adventures” which tells a loosely accurate historical story from ancient Greece, about a secret message tattooed onto a bald head, then hidden as the hair grew. Perhaps the world’s first example of steganography. You can read more about the story here.

What interests us today though is the second appearance of the Red Skull. I’m just as confused as you are, because I also remember him dying in his first appearance. Let’s read on. Maybe they’ll explain.

Ah, so it seems that the Red Skull–unmasked as George Maxon– was immune to his own poison. That makes sense. And Captain America and Bucky did just run off leaving the body in the previous story. But then we clearly saw FBI agents at the scene standing over the body. Now, the Red Skull stands up in an empty room and runs off. Hard to reconcile these things.

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