Captain America #394

[history79]

Comments

[crinos]

I actually read the John Walker arc of Captain America on Comixology recently (The one where a Government committee, secretly backed by a recently resurrected Red Skull, gives Cap an ultimatum to either work for them or give up the Captian America name, which is the property of the Government, so he does, and the name is given over to the jingoist, violent, mentally unstable John Walker, while Steve merely becomes 'The Captain.')

A lot of the baddies in the Red Skulls council of doom were featured prominently in the Walker run as forces the Skull manipulated to drive Walker crazy. The Watch Dogs were an extremist censorship group who kidnapped and murdered Walker's parents for thwarting their earlier plans, and the Resistants are a group of second rate brotherhood of evil mutant knockoffs (The real Brotherhood of evil mutants were working for the Government at the time as Freedom Force, and were actually co workers of Walker). IIRC The Scourge was also given the job of assassinating the Communist imposter Red Skull from the post WW2 Commie smasher cap stories.

Even Madam Viper showed up in the earlier arc, not working for the Skull at the time, she took over the Serpent Society and enacted a plan to spike Washington DC's water with a drug that turned people into snake men, which ended with Cap fighting a snake man Ronald Reagan.

[tcampbell1000]

I'm not a huge fan of the idea that everything bad in the world can all be traced back to one massive all-encompassing conspiracy, and Mother Night's dynamic with Red Skull here is like classic Harley-Joker without any humor to leaven its brutality. But you gotta love Crossbones, unquestionably the smartest villain in Gruenwald's whole oeuvre, and the way he sees right through everybody else's bullshit like it isn't even there.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

In all fairness, Red Skull's council isn't close to all the evil in the MU ;), and are all foes he faces on a regular basis. They're just most of 'his' guys.

And really, it makes sense for a villain to have a few fingers in a few pies.

[icon_uk]

If it was an "affects every hero directly" I'd be in complete agreement, however all of these characters had had subplots solely within the Captain America title, and given how pivotal a villain Red Skull is for him I quite like that he had had multiple plans in place.

The only one I really have an issue with being there are the Resistants, since I can't imagine why a mutant group would be working for an outright Nazi.

[shakalooloo]

"The only one I really have an issue with being there are the Resistants, since I can't imagine why a mutant group would be working for an outright Nazi."

They mistook the dude with a big, red skull head for a fellow mutant? :D

Red Skull has a habit of managing to recruit mutant lackeys with no explanation; I can't think of any way he could recruit his later S-Men team.

[crinos]

I think the implications are that most of the Resistants are in the dark over who is in charge.

Also this was a period in time when the Mutant Registration act was up and running, and Mutants were being literally rounded up and carted off. Hell the first time we meet the Resistants they are rescuing a young mutant whose only power are growing porcupine quills. So you can forgive them being desperate and foolish enough to trust the Hulk.

Also, the S men were not mutants, they were explicitly an anti mutant group, and presumably they all just hated mutants (I know one of them was Avalanches' daughter, another one was a survivor of a town Magneto destroyed).

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

The road to hell, and all that.

I suspect that he's i the same boat as Watchdog Prime. His organization needs money and resources, and Red Skull provides it. And as with the Watchdogs, Scorcher is the only one who knows who is paying the rent.