Project: Marvels - the Red Skull: Vicious Idiot

[espanolbot]

Project: Marvels 5
The Red Skull displaying the kind of behaviour that made him so popular with the likes of Magneto and Dr Doom,



Nick Fury and co. return to the town later to find that everyone, including all the women and children, have been killed.

Project Marvels 7
The origin of the British superhero called the Destroyer, caused largely due to the Red Skull having one of the scientists working on the German Supersoldier project sent to a concentration camp because he didn't reveal that his mother was Jewish...






Robert Kirkman made a mini series of the Destroyer, but he was made American and straight for some reason.

Comments

[icon_uk]

Looking through the relevant wiki on this, it appears that Marvels official POV at the moment is that Marlow, Falsworth and his successor, Roger Aubrey were all three of them the Destroyer in WWII.

[arilou_skiff]

I'm kind of distracted by Skulls' expressions, he's so... Grumpy.

I've always wanted to see a what-if where Rogers becomes a nazi and Schmidt a resistance fighter, their backstories have enough points where a switch could work I think.

[psychopathicus_rex]

What - you mean both of them in Germany, or...?

[arilou_skiff]

I was thinking something like this:

Pre-war obviously, Rogers is a struggling artist in New York, he gets involved with an american Nazi group (maybe the Bund, maybe some fantastic alt-version) at this point in time he's a bit lost and national socialism provides him with a sense of belonging, eventually he ends up visiting Germany, he manages to impress some local bigwigs and gets pickd to test one of their super-soldier programs.

Meanwhile Johann in this timeline *isn't* picked up by Hitler and turned into the Red Skull (maybe because he's too busy art with this young american nazi?) and instead gets drawn into the resistance and an anti-nazi fighter...

[psychopathicus_rex]

Hmm - interesting. It could basically be an MU WW2 story that *gasp* DIDN'T INVOLVE AMERICA AT ALL, except as Steve's place of origin.
One wonders, though, what identity Johann would choose for himself. I mean, if Steve became Captain America, would Johann become Captain Germany? (There already IS a character called Captain Germany, mind you, but he's got nothing to do with any of this.) Would he identify himself with the Weimarr Republic and call himself the Republican? Who would he be?

[arilou_skiff]

He could still become the Red Skull (possibly he'd be poisoned with the Red Dust in some kind of operation and take it up as a moniker, the Red Skull, the man who died yet walks...)

[psychopathicus_rex]

Wouldn't it make more sense for Steve to become the Skull, though? I mean, the role-reversal aspect aside, the Red Skull was the identity specifically chosen for Schmidt by Hitler himself. If it's Steve getting chosen this time, wouldn't he logically get the same title?

[arilou_skiff]

Possibly, I just thought the idea of Johann getting deformed by the Red Dust but becoming a heroic figure (kind of an anti-Joker in that sense) would be deliciously ironic.

[psychopathicus_rex]

It WOULD be interesting, but it always seems to be the way these things work out. I mean, seriously, it's amazing how many 'What Ifs' and "Elseworlds' and 'imaginary stories' wind up with such-and-such back in their original identity, albeit changed somehow. I think it'd be more interesting if one explored the way Johann's life would have turned out if the Red Skull had never come into the formula. In the 'normal' MU, Hitler was his mentor - who, I wonder, would be his mentor here? Union Jack, perhaps?

[thehood]

Except Skull was a heartless jerk even before that. He killed people before becoming the Skull.

[lonewolf23k]

The sad thing is, what Red Skull did there isn't even the -worst- of the Nazi's War Atrocities historically recorded.

I know a lot of emphasis is made on how the Skull was Evil even by the standards of the Nazis, but when you compare him to Real-World Nazis like Amon Goeth or Joachim Peiper, Skull seems rather run-of-the-mill...

[espanolbot]

I know that for Goeth's portrayal in Schindler's List, they actually had to TONE DOWN what he was like in real life, as people thought that he was acting too unrealistically.

[icon_uk]

The TV movie "Conspiracy" remains one of the most repellent, compelling, flesh crawling viewing experiences I've ever seen.

Not just because it was effectively Nazi middle management calmly discussed genocide as if it were nothing more than what plays the drama group were going to put on next year, or the advertising revenue for the next fiscal quarter, but the sheer, unimaginable, unspeakable arrogance they had in having their discussion recorded verbatim FOR POSTERITY. The writers were able to work from TRANSCRIPTS

[okkult3000]

The worst thing about it is the end, where the text shows that a lot of those guys walked for their crimes.

[thehefner]

I think Kirkman's Destroyer mini was actually written before Project: Marvels, but it sat on a shelf for awhile before it actually got published. Bear in mind, it was released at least a year or two after he wrote his "write original characters, not established ones for DC or Marvel" manifesto, so I'm guessing that Destroyer was his last unpublished project from them.

[proteus_lives]

I liked Project: Marvels.

[strannik01]

Robert Kirkman made a mini series of the Destroyer, but he was made American and straight for some reason.

I am pretty sure Kirkman's version is not (nor was it ever intended to be) set in Earth-616 Marvel Universe

[darkknightjrk]

"Robert Kirkman made a mini series of the Destroyer, but he was made American and straight for some reason."

What is in these scans that are supposed to imply that he's gay?

[okkult3000]

The Destroyer was revealed to be gay a while ago (obviously not back in the '40s, but within the last 10 to 15 years).

[darkknightjrk]

Like, has it been said now that he was out during the war? Any scans of this?

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, he WAS originally American and straight. It's the British-and-gay bit that's the retcon - maybe he hadn't paid attention to those developments.
I like the detail of his striped camp uniform inspiring his striped pants as the Destroyer. I always thought they made for an interesting design, and now it seems there's a reason for it.

[sinisterlink]

Oh Nazis, you're so easy to hate.