Head: Chap Mei
Body: VvV Destro

The Red Skull was born Johann Schmidt in a southern German village, the son of an illiterate, drunken peasant named Hermann, and his long-suffering wife Martha. Martha died in childbirth, and Hermann tried to drown the newborn Johann, blaming him for the death of his mother, and committed suicide the next morning. The infant was rescued by a local doctor, who delivered the infant to an orphanage.

Johann ran away at age seven, and grew up in and out of prison for petty crimes ranging from vagrancy to theft, constantly beaten and victimized by other thugs. His smoldering anger was given an outlet when he first encountered Hitler; Johann was working as a bell-boy in a hotel in which Hitler was staying. Hitler was in the middle of berating his general staff, and boasted that he could make "this bell-boy" into a more effective Nazi.



During the war the Red Skull undertook many different special operations for Hitler, slowly gaining more power within the Third Reich until even Hitler was terrified of his own creation; the Captain America identity was originally created to act as a counter to his successes.

With effectively unlimited authority in Nazi Germany, the Red Skull began to build secret bases around the world, and create untraceable fiscal resources. He built a "wolf-pack" of Nazi U-Boats whose raids were used to fill the Red Skull's personal finances. Making contingency plans in case of the defeat of Nazi Germany, he established a secret headquarters on a small island (called "Exile Island"), and populated it with several top Nazi leaders, soldiers, and their families.

Near the end of WWII, Captain America located the Red Skull in his own bunker. During the ensuing combat, the Red Skull became trapped in a cave-in; trapped by the rubble but not actually wounded; he was subject to a strange mixture of leaking gasses which sent him into suspended animation.