Featuring: Captain America
Release: April 12, 1966
Cover: July 1966
12 cents
Script: Smilin’ Stan!
Art: Jolly Jack
Inks: Frantic Frankie
Lettering: Agonized Artie
10 pages
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My oldest enemy! The most dangerous menace to freedom and democracy that the world has ever known!! Then– this must be why fate has spared me so long–?! It’s my destiny to battle him– to stand between the Red Skull and free men everywhere!
Well, that’s a compelling title.
Costumed assassins attack a power plant in the heart of New York.
They seemed to expect Captain America to show up. How do villains set these traps to target a particular superhero in New York. “If I commit a crime in New York I’m bound to attract precisely the superhero I intend!” Green Goblin just had a bank robbery, trusting Spider-Man would show up to foil it. Would Daredevil turning up ruin these plans?
But nobody but Cap saw these villains. Is he going insane?
It seems the Red Skull does indeed live.
Red Skull recalls his final days in Berlin.
The Red Skull already has a complicated history, difficult to untangle. Let’s recall his original history from the 1940s and 1950s, and then remind ourselves of the 1960s stories, which we recognize as canonical. Even though in the old stories he had a cool skull-shaped head, and in the 1960s, his head looks like a potato.
Originally Red Skull was assassinating various military targets, and turned out to be a traitorous American industrialist named Maxon who had been wearing a skull mask; he died. We soon learned he hadn’t actually died, and was back to menace Captain America again; this time, Cap declares him “probably dead”. But he was soon seen not dead and menacing the Young Allies, having moved to Germany and picked up a German accent. Cap and Red Skull would fight repeatedly throughout the years, with Red Skull never quite seeming to stay dead. He went on to seriously injure Bucky and learn Steve Rogers’ identity. There are assorted subtle hints that there may be more than one Red Skull. Even after the end of the war, Cap and Bucky continued as superheroes and their rivalry with the Red Skull endured, though he was now just a common thief. After that adventure, Red Skull seems to have died for real. Because when next we see him, his soul resides in Hell, and he drags Captain America down to him for one final battle. Cap and Bucky briefly returned to action in the 1950s, and the Red Skull returned to menace them as well, now working with the Soviets.
When the first battle was retold in the 1960s, we learned the Skull’s name was John Maxon, rather than George, and that he was actually a German agent impersonating John Maxon, so his real name was still unknown. And in the next issue, they complicate that further: that was not the real Red Skull nor the real Maxon that Cap fought. It was someone pretending to be Maxon pretending to be the Red Skull.
We then learned his origin; he’d grown up poor, but Hitler saw a Pygmalioneqsue project in him, to show he could make anybody a perfect Nazi agent and trained him to be evil personified. He was given the costume and skull mask, and his power and influence grew until he became second only to Hitler in the Nazi regime.
In the modern canon, it seems neither Cap nor the Skull survived the war. Their final battle was in Berlin, May 1945, shortly before Germany’s surrender. Red Skull is caught in the blast of his own grenade, then buried under rubble, before finally being finished off by Allied bombing.
We now learn Red Skull survived and was kept in suspended animation by a gas or something. Was this suspended animation a necessary plot point? Couldn’t he just be a bit older now, like in his ’40s now? Either way, this keeps him on par in age with Cap, who also did the whole suspended animation thing.
It was Them who awakened the Red Skull, and they now seem to be associates.
Captain America sees a psychiatrist over his recent hallucinations. I’m reminded of when Spider-Man did the same for similar reasons.
Nick Fury already had suspicions about connections between Them and AIM. Here we see they have the same manager and the same tailors.
Count Royale appears, and his appearance places this story in the middle of Strange Tales #146. It’s been a bit since we read that issue, but I’m okay with that. The Dr. Strange part of that issue was where it needed to be. And the idea is that very little time has passed since Galactus.
AIM has created a weapon which will become very important: the Cosmic Cube.
It will be the model for the Tesseract in the Captain America movie.
I’m a big fan of scenes where Cap meets ordinary people whom he inspires. I think this gets to the heart of what Captain America is all about. This man had fought in World War II and saw Cap fight at Anzio Beach, the battle in Italy 1944 that led to the liberation of Rome. His son is currently fighting in Vietnam.
By the end, Captain America knows that the Red Skull is alive.
This begins a 3-part saga, which is one of my all-time favorite Captain America stories.
We’ll go onto the next issue of Tales of Suspense, to see the Iron Man/Namor battle, and then the second part of this Red Skull saga. Then we’ll finish up this Red Skull saga before getting back to Namor and Iron Man.
The Them/AIM saga continues in Strange Tales #147, but we’ll need to wrap up some other threads before we get there.
Rating: ★★★½, 62/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
Between the modern introduction of the Red Skull and the Cosmic Cube, I think this justifies a 4-star significance rating.
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Captain America vol. 1.
Characters:
- Captain America
- Horst
- Wolfgang
- Red Skull
- Count Royale
Story notes:
- Only Cap sees the costumed men. The officer does not. Nor does anyone else. The villains escape in an airborne ship. Officer lets Cap go and suggests he call a doctor.
- Villains had used hypno-helmet to mesmerize the crowd into not seeing them. They serve a “supreme leader”.
- Experimental gas released in building collapse preserved Red Skull and two henchmen in suspended animation back in 1945. They were later rescued and awakened by Them.
- Red Skull agrees to join forces with Them, but is his own master.
- The Grand Imperator runs Them.
- Cap visits psychiatrist.
- When he’s attacked in doctor’s office, doctor thinks he is crazy, but Cap knows his enemy is real.
- Grand Imperator also heads AIM, and AIM and Them wear the same outfits.
- Assassin seeks to kill old man and frame Cap, but Cap sees through the plan.
- Cap will get helmet to SHIELD to analyze; SHIELD scientists had hidden a circuit beneath his A to jam hypnotic waves.
| Previous | #568 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales of Suspense #79 | Reading order | Tales of Suspense #80 |
| Tales of Suspense #79 | Tales of Suspense | Tales of Suspense #80 |
