Captain America #365-367

Captain America #365-367

Originally released in 1989

Written by Mark Gruenwald

Art by Kieron Dwyer (#365 and 367), Ron Lim (#366)

These issues are part of the Acts of Vengeance crossover, where a mysterious benefactor helps to organize the various supervillains of Marvel's Earth so they can switch opponents rather than stay focused on the same person/group and lose over and over again.  As these issues take place in Captain America's book, the Red Skull plays a major role here.

However, the benefactor is seemingly completely unaware of Earth's history, as when he makes the Red Skull one of the ring-leaders, he puts the Skull in the same room as Doctor Doom (a Romani), the Kingpin (an American capitalist), the Mandarin, Magneto (a Holocaust survivor)... In short, this team-up is bound to be short-lived.

The benefactor tries to recruit Namor, unaware that Namor has had a change of heart and is currently one of the Avengers.  However, one of the Red Skull's minions, the Controller, takes control of Namor, forcing him to fight Captain America and leaving Cap to search for a way to remove his control over the King of Atlantis.

This leads to Captain America fighting with the Controller, Crossbones, and a lesser-known Ant-Man villain called The Voice on an airship, leading to a panel with some... questionable sound effects.

Meanwhile, Magneto confirms with the villainous team's benefactor that this is, in fact, the original Red Skull - seemingly the only reason why Magneto hasn't killed him on the spot is because he was under the impression that the original Red Skull was dead. (though being assumed to be dead likely happens every other week for the Red Skull)

Once he has confirmation, Magneto tracks the Red Skull down, where (after futilely trying to have Magneto shot) the Red Skull basically claims that the two of them aren't so different.  To say that this is a horrendous mistake for a Nazi to say this to a Holocaust survivor is a massive understatement, and the look on Magneto's face screams "I'm going to kill you slowly and painfully."

The Skull manages to escape momentarily, giving a Nazi salute as he does so, which makes it seem like he's begging for death.  Not helping matters is that the Skull's base is filled to the brim with robots, and even his escape route is on metal train tracks, meaning that he is woefully unprepared for an attack from Magneto.

The only reason why Magneto doesn't kill the Red Skull then and there is because he wants to show that he's no common killer like the Red Skull, but his ultimate fate for the Skull is chilling and entirely justified.

Honestly, if there was one comic book villain that I'd gladly see killed off permanently, it would be the Red Skull.  I get why he's not killed permanently - he's Captain America's arch-enemy, he's got a distinctive design, and the evils of Nazism are still present in the world.  I'd just love to see it happen; it seems like it would be extremely cathartic.

The premise of Acts of Vengeance is an interesting one, taking a common superhero trope (if the team's fighting opponents who counter them or equal them, they switch opponents) and applying it to the villains.  In some cases, it might be easier said than done (trying to find someone who's never fought Doctor Doom seems like it would take a lot of work), and it seems like it's about as effective as the villain's normal efforts against the heroes. However, it leads to some interesting match-ups, such as Thor facing off against Juggernaut, and from a writing perspective, it seems like it could bring about some interesting scenarios where a hero has no idea what a villain's powers are like (such as Spider-Man vs. the Mandarin, for example), the hero's completely out-matched, and they have to figure out what's going on and how to stop it on the fly.