Captain America’s longtime foil Red Skull has traded blows with the stars-and-stripes hero countless times over the years but does he have any upper hand when it comes to superpowers? Is the Hitler apprentice anything more than a Nazi lackey, or does he have some innate abilities?
One of the scariest supervillains in the Marvel universe is the blood-red-headed Nazi with a lust for power. In the first run of Captain America, Red Skull wears a horrifying high cheek-boned mask to strike terror into people and to hide his various identities, his most-used being Johann Schmidt. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Red Skull gained the moniker thanks to a Nazi experiment that left him disfigured. Skull’s grotesque face has also been retconned in the comics as a disfigurement. Cap has incredible strength on par with Olympic level athletes and has gone toe-to-toe with titans like Thanos. But did Red Skull need powers to take on Cap?
While Red Skull has no superpowers in the comics he used his brilliance and cunning to hatch diabolical plans, often with the goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and/or enriching himself. Skull is one of the few villains to utilize political power to subvert superheroes instead of just duking it out. Though Red Skull has gained superpowers, typically on a temporary basis, throughout Marvel’s history. Skull inhabited the cloned body of Steve Rogers and gained all the super soldier serum-induced strength that entailed. He also adopted the American ideology that capitalism is king and used the political realities of the time to manipulate himself into powerful positions such as the Commission on Superhuman Activities and was able to rob Captain America of his hero status.
But instead of brute strength, Skull more often used his rhetoric and radical ideology to gain a strong following of goons he could use at his disposal. In the Ultimate universe, Red Skull is Captain America’s illegitimate son and the villain cuts off his own face in defiance before gaining abilities from a cosmic cube making him invulnerable. Though Cap found a way to kill him as he often defeats the supervillian.
Red Skull’s aptitude has always been in stealth and trickery. He often used poisoned cigarettes to fire a gas dubbed the “dust of death” at unsuspecting victims, killing them shortly after contact. Or he infiltrated top government organizations via espionage. He was instrumental in getting the Superhero Registration Act passed. But superpowers are not off the table. Red Skull once fused his mind to X-Men’s Charles Xavier and gained powerful psychic abilities, influencing hearts and minds across the world to fill people with violent hatred toward mutants. In the MCU, Skull has similar powers to Cap as he took the same super soldier serum but wound up with the unlovable mug.
Both during World War II and when he was revived from suspended animation years later, Red Skull was typified by using guns, bombs and scientific contraptions/mystical objects to achieve his goals. While Skull never had powers for long, his political will and cunning put him in positions to exert “soft power” over much of the word in the realm of politics. Similar to other non-powered villains such as Kingpin and Lex Luthor, who used their wealth and ambition to exert power over the stronger superheroes, Red Skull is just as powerful without powers.
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