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You know, it's getting harder for me to find characters I care about, these days. It sometimes seems that comics are leaving me behind. I find it harder and harder to keep up with the changes to the Marvel and DC universes. I started on one track, this month, but couldn't get anything completed in time for this month's column.
I don't like to revisit characters I've worked on before, but I was reading about the return of Captain America (Steve Rogers) and I decided to have another go at Cap's arch-enemy the Red Skull.
Looking back at my original take on the character, as well as looking at some of the recent versions in the comics, I realized there was a better way to visualize the character. Better, in the sense of not glorifying him or his philosophy in any freaking way.
My idea is to bring him back as the total opposite of Cap. Where Cap is athletic and seemingly ageless, I thought it'd be a good idea to make Red Skull a wizened, twisted old schemer. He'd never be able to stand toe-to-toe with Cap, but then, he never should. Philosophically, Red Skull would see his henchmen as expendable elements in any of his schemes. His kind always think there is an endless supply of minions to send into the guns of his enemies.
I can't claim to know all the twists and turns the character has gone through in recent years, so if it was up to me, I'd take the simplest approach. The Red Skull we've known all these years, the one who squared off with Cap and matched him blow for blow, was some kind of imposter. Another clone, or something. The "real" Red Skull would be a homeless drunk, wallowing in depression from some great defeat. Maybe following the first Cosmic Cube event. It'd be pretty depressing to become a god-like entity only to have your power and vast awareness stripped from you by the actions of an insignificant sack of meat and bone.
Even after his fortunes turn and he's back to super-villainy, I'd have him shown hunched and twisted. Physically weak and always muttering under his breath. Quick to anger and paranoid.
But, for my illo, I decided to draw him in his patched rags, his boots duct-taped to hold them together. All the accoutrements of the super-villain lost, over the years, except for a strange, long-barreled pistol hanging on a lanyard under his right arm.
I think this makes him what he was always intended to be. According to his origin, Hitler chose young Johann Schmidt to mold into the perfect Nazi. A twisted, paranoid, morally bankrupt man for a twisted, paranoid, morally bankrupt philosophy.
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Copyright © 2009 Joe Singleton
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