Jack Kirby and Stan Lee gave us a belated origin for Captain America’s archenemy in 1965. It was one well worth the 24-year wait.
After reading Tales of Suspense 66, I remember thinking how much sense it made that the Red Skull began as a nothing, a nameless nonentity bellboy in a luxury hotel who was seething with envy.
That made him a reflection of any number of other nonentities whose disenchantment and lack of moral balance Adolph Hitler could redirect and shape for his own ends, into a malignant mob of fanatics.
“Captain America is taken down (for the moment) to undergo physical torture, and the insult added to injury of the Red Skull methodically recounting his rise to power in this WWII era tale from June 1965’s Tales of Suspense 66,” noted comics historian Vincent Mariani.
“The splash’s design has the very partially shown villain both dominating the scene and providing a window into the background array of Nazi brutes carrying out his orders.
“The clenched right hand provides tension.
Clean inks by Kirby’s main collaborator at the time, Chic Stone. And the monochromatic, shadowy Red Skull in the foreground is in stark contrast to the bright lamp and the hero’s colorful costume.”
The Skull explains that he’d been a homeless, abandoned orphan, working at menial labor, sleeping in barns and stables, and frequently jailed.
The Star-Spangled Avenger’s sympathy is limited.
“Lots of people had tough lives!” Cap replies. “My early years were no bed of roses, either! But I don’t waste time telling sob stories!”
Cap gets slugged for his trouble.
We learn that the person who would become the Red Skull was selected at random by Hitler, just to prove a point.
While lambasting his Gestapo chief for letting a spy escape, Hitler says, “Why have I no one to turn to?? None to depend on?? Must I create my own race of perfect Aryans?? I could teach that bellboy to do a better job than you!!”
Examining the bellboy more closely, Hitler sees promising material. “The way you look at me! The envy, the jealousy in your eyes! The sheer, blazing hatred! I know those emotions! You too hate all mankind!!:
Hitler infuses the bellboy with pure evil just as a challenge to himself. When his training is finally complete, Hitler gives him a mask and swastika-bearing costume and orders him to kill his instructor.
Instead, the Red Skull shoots the buttons off the man’s jacket.
“Dead, he is of no further use to you!” the supervillain explains. “But alive — and filled with fear — he is another slave for you — he will obey your every whim!”
“If you read the book back then, it was likely regarded as an entertaining period piece with anachronistic but repulsive villains,” Mariani observed.
But in the 21st century, the story’s implications can’t be dismissed so easily.
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