Creepy face reveal. Also, notice how "Dell Rusk" is an anagram for "Red Skull"? That's some good foreshadowing in my opinion.
| “ | Captain America: Destroying me won't stop the Avengers. Red Skull: [laughs] Oh, I have no intention of destroying you. I will enslave you, as I did him [Bucky]. Freeze you, and use you when duty calls. That way, you can both share a long, cold future. Together. |
„ |
| ~ Man what a sadistic bastard. |
My third Avengers: EMH proposal. I'm just gonna be honest, the Red Skull episodes aren't my personal favorites out of the whole 52 but I'm still gonna propose him because his episodes are pretty much necessary in order to get a satisfying conclusion for most character arcs throughout the show (apart from Karma Houdinis like Doctor Doom and a certain fire demon who I'll definitely propose next to finish this short list off).
Who's Red Skull and what does he do?[]
Nearing the end of World War II, Red Skull tried to unleash an army of enslaved mythological beasts against the Allies on the battlefield so HYDRA could then take over the world. Upon being stopped by Captain America and his partner Bucky, Red Skull tried to escape his castle in a rocket but was soon apprehended by the two heroes climbing onboard. Red Skull immediately activated the self-destruct sequence while also fleeing in an ejector seat, killing Bucky in the explosion and leaving Cap frozen in the Arctic Ocean for several decades. However, when Cap used the Cosmic Cube to stop Baron Strucker, Bucky survived the rocket explosion but lost his left arm. Red Skull found Bucky and gave him a new robotic arm, brainwashing him into a professional assassin known as the Winter Soldier while also putting him in cryosleep between missions (one of which Nick Fury lost his eye during) throughout the ensuing decades. Throughout that time, Red Skull renamed himself "Dell Rusk" and became the Secretary of Defense, and at some point brainwashed Dr. Leonard Samson and the Falcon.
During the Secret Invasion, Rusk orchestrates General Ross' transformation into the Red Hulk onboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, killing several agents and framing the real Hulk for it as he gets arrested by the Hulkbusters soon afterwards. Sometime after the Secret Invasion ended, Rusk infects the Avengers and a large portion of Manhattan with a deadly virus from said heroes' own mansion. During this event, Rusk's team—known as Code Red—attack the Avengers in their own home, while Bucky kidnaps Captain America to get beaten to death by Rusk at the Pentagon. Meanwhile, Iron Man creates a vaccine for Rusk's virus and cures everyone, after which he flies over to the Pentagon and fires a sample of his vaccine towards Cap's direction, but unfortunately Bucky catches the sample before Cap can be cured. Rusk continues beating up Cap, who takes off his mask and reveals his true identity: the Red Skull. Upon being unmasked, Red Skull orders Bucky to kill Cap in order to make his death sadistically ironic, but he refuses after remembering who he really is, finally injecting him with the vaccine. Red Skull then tries to shoot Bucky with a pistol, but Cap stops and beats the Skull into unconsciousness. Bucky escapes, but Red Skull goes to prison while Samson and Falcon get treatment for their brainwashing.
Unfortunately, Red Skull had an army of giant killer robots—known as Sleepers—to cause worldwide chaos just in case his mission as Dell Rusk failed. One of the Sleepers break Red Skull out of prison, while Bucky makes it his mission to take out the rest of them around the globe. Red Skull's ultimate plan is to merge all the Sleepers together as one to destroy the U.S. Capitol, which is only stopped by the timely interference of Captain America and Bucky, the former of whom Red Skull states his plan to freeze and enslave into another Winter Soldier alongside the latter so they can "share a long cold future together". When Red Skull's giant Sleeper starts falling apart, he escapes with a parachute only for it to get stuck on top of the Washington Monument. Cap and Bucky both escape with their lives as well, and it can be safely assumed that Red Skull went back to prison afterwards.
Mitigating factors[]
Some of his dialogue implies that he sees the American system as flawed and wants to replace it, but it's pretty clear that he just wants to replace it with HYDRA-style fascism. He only became the Secretary of Defense to get exactly what he swore to get on Captain America in his debut; revenge on both him and the world. Apart from that, though? Nada.
Heinous standard[]
Again, he's just an ordinary human with limited resources, and he does what he can with them. Hell, he doesn't even have any magics to endanger all the Nine Realms like Zemo did; his resources are basically restricted to only effect Earth. Throughout his appearances, Red Skull has enslaved mystical beasts in an attempt to take over the world for HYDRA, killed the teenage Bucky Barnes with an exploding rocket until Captain America retconned his death with the Cosmic Cube (after which he turned him into the Winter Soldier through years of physical and psychological torture and abuse), created the Red Hulk to massacre the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and then frame the actual Hulk for it, infected Manhattan with a toxic gas that makes people look like this while slowly killing them, created the Sleepers to wreak destruction upon the world, and personally tried to destroy the U.S. Capitol. Plus he tried to make Bucky kill his own former friend Cap and then murder the former for refusing, not to mention the above quote.
Final verdict[]
Easy yes. Call me crazy, but I honestly think this Red Skull is much worse than his MCU counterpart. At least there he seemed fairly affable on Vormir (not even thinking about mentioning Hawkeye's abusive drunk dad), while here he's just a sadistic two-faced Nazi who wants to burn the world for literally no reason at all other than to spite Captain America.