Strange Comic Books: Questprobe

Normally I blog about interesting or unusual comic books from the 1990s. Today’s entry actually concerns comics from the previous decade, the 1980s… but all of this will eventually lead to another “It Came from the 1990s” piece. So bear with me and enjoy the ride.

Back in the early 1980s Marvel Comics partnered with Scott Adams – no, not the cartoonist who eventually went full right-wing crazy, but the computer programmer & game designer – to create a series of text adventure computer games featuring Marvel characters. Adams, working with acclaimed writer & artist John Byrne, developed the concepts for the Questprobe series. In conjunction, Marvel Comics began publishing a Questprobe comic book series that was projected to run for approximately 12 issues, with a new issue coming out each time Adams released a new installment of the computer games.

Keep in mind that in the early 1980s personal computers were still very much in their infancy. The options available to programmers were extremely limited. I think this is very well illustrated by the letters column from Questprobe #3. Danny Bertinato of Gloucester, Ontario writes in to ask if the Questprobe games will be available for Commodore Vic-20. Adams responds with some bad news:

“QUESTPROBE requires a computer with a minimum of 16k of memory to run. The standard Vic-20 has only 5k of memory. Since very few people ever get the memory expansion to 16k for the Vic-20, I doubt we will ever put QUESTPROBE on the Vic-20. Sorry.”

Yeah, let that sink in. There used to be PCs with only 5 kilobytes of memory. And I make that observation while writing this on a brand-new laptop I purchased last month which has 8 gigabytes, a laptop that will, give it a decade or so, undoubtedly one day be just as much of an antiquated dinosaur as a Commodore Vic-20. It’s simultaneously amazing and frightening the lightning speed at which technology can develop.

Speaking of antiquated dinosaurs, my father’s first PC was an Apple 2E. Back in the mid 1980s I was 9 years old and just starting to get into comic books on a semi-regular basis. I saw the ads for the Questprobe games in Marvel books and I asked my father to buy it for me. I ran Questprobe featuring the Hulk on that Apple 2E… and I found it almost impossible to play. I just ended up going around in circles for hours, barely getting anywhere. It was definitely a frustrating experience.

I recently found a Walkthrough for Questprobe featuring the Hulk and looking at it there’s no possible way nine-year-old me would have been able to figure out the majority of this 38 years ago. Perhaps I was too young… but I also think the game was hampered by the sheer primitive nature of the PCs at the time.

UPDATE: There’s a website where you can play the text version of Questprobe featuring the Hulk online. I just spent half an hour going in circles. Almost four decades later this game is STILL impossible!

But enough about the computer games; I’m sure you came here for the comic books.

The Questprobe comic from Marvel only ran for three issues and was canceled when Adams’ company Adventure International went bankrupt in 1986. Each of the three issues corresponded to a released game, with the first issue featuring the Hulk, the second Spider-Man, and the third the Human Torch and the Thing. Adams was working on a fourth Questprobe game featuring the X-Men when Adventure folded; a corresponding fourth Questprobe comic book story starring the X-Men was completed and saw print in the anthology series Marvel Fanfare a year later.

The concept behind the Questprobe comics actually has a certain potential. In a far-distant region of the universe the mysterious alien Black Fleet is ravaging through space, destroying world after world. A utopian planet of scientists sees the Black Fleet inexorably approaching and wonders what, if anything, they can do. This civilization long ago abandoned violence, and most of its members have resigned themselves to destruction by the Black Fleet. But one of their number, Durgan the Philosopher, is determined to fight back, a stance that causes him to be labeled a mad heretic.

Undaunted, Durgan resolves to find a way to save his planet. Having studied the far-distant Earth, he has observed the numerous super-powered beings who populate the planet. Durgan creates the Chief Examiner, a dome-headed, cloaked construct that he dispatches to Earth to locate the most powerful super-beings, study them, and replicate their powers by getting them to pass through a black portal. (John Byrne apparently designed the Chief Examiner.)

There’s also some stuff going on with these mysterious, cosmic-powered “Bio-Gems” that are apparently parts of a larger entity, one that’s even more evil than the Black Fleet, but it’s fairly confusing how all of this was supposed to tie together. Perhaps if the games & comic books had lasted longer it would have become clearer.

The first issue of Questprobe, featuring the Hulk, was released with an August 1984 cover-date. It was written by Bill Mantlo, definitely an appropriate choice. Mantlo had previously done a stellar job taking licensed properties such as the Micronauts and Rom Spaceknight and developing them into highly intriguing ongoing comic book series for Marvel. He had also been writing The Incredible Hulk series since 1980, so was intimately familiar with the character.

Questprobe #1 has pencil layouts by Mark Gruenwald. Although he was much better known for his writing & editing at Marvel, Gruenwald did occasionally also draw, and he had a solid grasp of storytelling. The inking / finished artwork on issue #1 was by the legendary John Romita, who at this point was synonymous with the Marvel house style. Letters were by Joe Rosen and colors by George Roussos. The series editor was Bob Budiansky.

The first issue is a fairly basic story, one that is competently done and which establishes the premise in economical fashion. I’m sure that if I had bought it when it first came out in the Summer of 1984 it would have been perfectly geared to my eight-year-old sensibilities and I would have enjoyed it.

By the way, having seen on Wikipedia a photo of Adams taken in 1982, putting it side-by-side with Gruenwald & Romita’s art from this issue, it’s very obvious that Durgan’s appearance was modeled on the computer programmer.

And, yes, white guys really did used to wear their hair like that.

One last noteworthy item: The cover of the first issue features the blurb “by Bill Mantlo, Mark Gruenwald and John Romita” which was practically unheard of in mainstream comics at the time.

Moving on to Questprobe #2 (January 1985) featuring Spider-Man, this one is written & penciled by Al Milgrom. That’s another apt choice, as Milgrom was the writer & artist on the Spectacular Spider-Man series at this time. I’ve always found Milgrom to be a good, solid, underrated artist, and I think he did quality work on the Spider-Man character. Looking at some of his layouts & storytelling for Questprobe #2, some of it is reminiscent of Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko’s work.

Inking this issue was Jim Mooney, another talented artist who, among his numerous credits, had a lengthy association with Spider-Man during the Bronze Age. Milgrom & Mooney make a good art team. One of my all-time favorite letterers, Janice Chiang, worked on this issue, and George Roussos is back on colors.

Milgrom has always had a very offbeat sense of humor, which no doubt suited him to writing an irreverent character like Spider-Man. In this story he gets a lot of mileage out of the fact that the Chief Examiner has a remarkable resemblance to Spider-Man’s old enemy Mysterio. Hijinks ensue.

By the way, this story also gave me a newfound appreciation for Mysterio. I used to think he was a pretty stupid character, a special effects artist who wears a fishbowl on his head. But reading this issue Milgrom really sells the idea that Mysterio is highly intelligent and a master planner, and that he very effectively uses psychology & trickery to keep much more powerful adversaries like Spider-Man off-balance.

Questprobe #3 (November 1985) features the Human Torch and the Thing from the Fantastic Four. David Michelinie is perhaps an odd choice for the writer on this one, as he was already much more associated with Iron Man and the Avengers, and I don’t think he’s ever worked on a single issue of the Fantastic Four series. Nevertheless, Michelinie has always demonstrated himself to be a talented writer, and he ably steps in to handle the characters. He does a fair job, especially since he has to work around the inconvenient fact that the Torch and and the Thing never actually meet since at the time Ben Grimm had quit the FF and was hanging out on the Beyonder’s planet from the Secret Wars miniseries.

The artwork, on the other hand, is quintessential FF, with penciling by Ron Wilson, the regular artist on The Thing solo series, and inking by the legendary Joe Sinnot, the man who inked / embellished the Fantastic Four series for a decade and a half, from 1965 to 1981. I guess you could say that Sinnott as much as Romita helped define the look of Marvel Comics during the Bronze Age. Rick Parker lettered the issue and Julianna Ferriter did the coloring.

That brings us to the X-Men story that was originally intended for Questprobe #4 and which saw print in Marvel Fanfare #33 (July 1987). It’s written by longtime, groundbreaking X-Men writer Chris Claremont. “Shadows on the Soul” takes place during the time when the X-Men’s arch-nemesis Magneto was attempting to embrace Professor Xavier’s dream of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants, and the master of magnetism was reluctantly tasked with leading his former foes, much to the X-Men’s understandable skepticism.

Pencils are by one of my favorite artists, Power Pack co-creator June Brigman, and inking is by Terry Austin, who famously embellished John Byrne’s now-classic run penciling X-Men. Brigman and Austin have worked together a few times over the years, and they’ve always made a superb art team. Letters are by Rick Parker and colors by Glynis Oliver.

I’m wondering how far along this story was when the Questprobe series was canceled. “Shadows on the Soul” runs a few pages longer than the typical Marvel comic, so it seems possible that Claremont, having learned that his story would now be appearing in the advertisement-free Marvel Fanfare, expanded it slightly. Certainly the gorgeous wraparound cover by Brigman & Austin must have been commissioned specifically for Fanfare.

At times Marvel Fanfare was dismissed as a dumping ground for inventory stories. Perhaps it was, but it did enable work that otherwise might never have been printed to see the light of day. Besides the fact that Fanfare editor Al Milgrom had previously written & penciled Questprobe #2, giving him a personal interest in seeing the fourth issue finally get completed, it would have been a no-brainer to run this story. Uncanny X-Men was an absolutely red-hot series in the late 1980s, so running an X-Men story, especially one written by Claremont, the writer who helped propel the character to super-stardom, must have been an obvious choice for Milgrom.

And “Shadows on the Soul” is really good, probably the best of the four Questprobe stories, so I’m glad Milgrom got it printed. Claremont does fantastic work with Magneto and the Chief Examiner. In the previous three stories it was pretty much taken for granted that Durgan is doing the right thing trying to save his world, and the rest of his race are fools for wanting to adhere to their pacifism. Magneto, however, has a tremendous amount of skepticism for Durgan’s actions.

Magneto points out that in attempting to save his world by stealing the powers of other beings Durgan is in danger of becoming just as evil as the Black Fleet, and that there is also a nobility to his people being willing to die for their beliefs. And it makes complete sense for Magneto to be saying this because he’s walked the exact same path as the Chief Examiner. Again and again Magneto has done the wrong thing for ostensibly the right reasons, and in the end was left pondering if he actually did make things any better for mutantkind.

The whole Questprobe storyline did eventually, and quite unexpectedly, get picked up again several years later. Mark Gruenwald always enjoyed utilizing obscure continuity, and he was the layout artist for Questprobe #1 so of course he would have been familiar with the series.

In 1992 Gruenwald brought back the Chief Examiner and the Black Fleet in the pages of his series Quasar. Gruenwald even names the Chief Examiner’s world “Scadam” after Scott Adams. It was perhaps a perfunctory wrap-up, one in which Quasar himself plays no direct role, with the girlfriend Kayla Ballentine, the unwitting recipient of the awesome cosmic power of the Star Brand, being the one to finally destroy the Black Fleet.

But that’s a story for another time.

Neal Adams: 1941 to 2022

Legendary comic book artist and forceful advocate for creators’ rights Neal Adams passed away on April 28th at the age of 80 years old. During a career that spanned six decades, Adams had groundbreaking runs illustrating Batman, Deadman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Superman for DC, and Avengers and X-Men for Marvel, as well as working in the horror, sword & sorcery and humor genres.

Batman #227 cover drawn by Neal Adams, published by DC Comics in Dec 1970

I was born in 1976 and didn’t start reading comic books regularly until the late 1980s, so I was not around when Adams made an absolutely seismic impact on comic books, both as an industry and as an art form.

For a very insightful look at Adams’ work from the perspective of someone who was following comic books in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I highly recommend reading my friend Alan Stewart’s blog post on The Brave and the Bold #79, published by DC Comics with an Aug-Sept 1968 cover date, an issue Alan refers to as “one of the most historically significant comics of Neal Adams’ career.”

Even though I wasn’t there when Neal Adams shook American comic books to their core, I nevertheless wish to pay tribute to the man and his work. So here is my own personal experience at discovering his incredible artwork.

Ms. Mystic #1 cover drawn by Neal Adams, published by Pacific Comics in Oct 1982

By the 1980s Adams had mostly removed himself from mainstream comic books, having found the fields of storyboarding, advertising, and graphic design to be much better paying ones. He was releasing some creator-owned projects, first through Pacific Comics and then through his own Continuity Studios.  Unfortunately for me they got lost in the glut of the early 1990s comic book explosion, because I simply did not know to look for them.

With the benefit of hindsight, I wish that I had picked up those comics, and that Adams had been able to do more with those characters, especially Ms. Mystic, who I’ve always felt has a wonderful design. (I did later pick up a few of these as back issues.)

So… three and a half decades ago there were no trade paperback collections reprinting older comic books or digital editions readily available to read. There was no Wikipedia or social media. All that I had as a 13 year old comic book fan in 1989 was letter columns and editorial pages in current comic books. From time to time Neal Adams’ name would be mentioned… and I really had no way of knowing who he was.

Batman #234, written by Denny O’Neil, penciled by Neal Adams, inked by Dick Giordano, lettered by John Costanza and edited by Julius Schwartz, published by DC Comics in August 1971

The first occasion when I ever saw Adams’ work must have been in the collection The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told which DC Comics released in November 1988 ahead of Batman’s 50th anniversary. I bought that book in 1990, and I read it religiously.

Neal Adams penciled two of the stories in that collection, “Ghost of the Killer Skies” from Detective Comics #404 (Oct 1970) and “Half an Evil” from Batman #234 (Aug 1971), both of those in collaboration with writer Denny O’Neil and inker Dick Giordano. The book also had smaller reproductions of a few of Adams’ covers, among them his evocative artwork for Batman #227 (Dec 1970), a stunningly atmospheric piece that when I finally saw it full-sized years later took my breath away. (That particular cover can be viewed at the top of this blog post.)

While I certainly liked Adams artwork in The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told well enough, I had no way of putting it within its proper context. His penciling was nice, but it didn’t seem all that different from what I was used to seeing in comic books. I liken it to someone completely ignorant of cinematic history viewing Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and having the reaction of “What’s the big deal?” Because just as the innovations Welles had pioneered in his filmmaking eventually became commonplace in movies, the storytelling & stylistic choices pioneered by Adams had become thoroughly suffused in American comic books by the early 1990s.

Batman #244 written by Denny O’Neil, penciled by Neal Adams, inked by Dick Giordano and lettered by jean Simek, published by DC Comics in Sept 1972

I think that I FINALLY began to understand just how important Neal Adams was when in the late 1990s and the early 2000s DC at long last began reissuing his work. I was at last able to read Green Lantern / Green Arrow and the Batman: Tales of the Demon collection featuring the Dark Knight’s first encounters with the diabolical Ra’s al Ghul, both of which Adams did with writer Denny O’Neil.

Likewise, the epic Avengers storyline “The Kree / Skrull War” and the late 1960s X-Men run that Adams penciled with writer Roy Thomas and inker Tom Palmer (with Adams serving as an uncredited co-plotter) were both collected together by Marvel Comics in the year 2000.

Adams’ artwork on all of these was absolutely breathtaking. I also discovered that he drew some astonishingly great covers for DC throughout the 1970s. The more I saw of Adams’ work, the more I grew to appreciate it.

X-Men #59, co-plotted & scripted by Roy Thomas, co-plotted, penciled & colored by Neal Adams, inked by Tom Palmer and lettered by Sam Rosen, published by Marvel Comics in Aug 1969

On Facebook comic artist Scott Williams shared the below two images, along with the following commentary:

“Someone on Twitter posted these two images side by side. One, a page from X-Men #54 by Don Heck, and the other from X-Men #56 by Neal Adams, both from 1969. Same characters and storyline. My point is not to in any way disparage Don Heck, but to demonstrate what a tectonic impact Neal had in comics. Couldn’t be a more stark and clear example (garish reprint coloring aside here) of how Neal changed the game forever.”

For the record, the full credits for X-Men #54 are apparently breakdowns by Don Heck, finished pencils by Werner Roth, and inks by Vince Colletta. Heck and Roth are both good, solid, underrated artists who seldom receive their due. Pencilers such as Heck and Roth were the vital foundation of the American comic book industry, guys who could tell a clear story and hit deadlines month after month.

But, yeah, when you place Adams side-by-side with them, basically drawing the same scene as Heck & Roth , it totally enables you to see exactly what Adams brought to comic books in the late 1960s, and why it was so Earth-shaking.

Compare & contrast: X-Men #54 (March 1969) drawn by Don Heck, Werner Roth & Vince Colletta, and two issues later X-Men #56 (May 1969) drawn by Neal Adams & Tom Palmer

Just as important, perhaps even more important, as Adams’ artistic legacy was his continual fight for creators’ rights in the comic book industry, which has for all-too-long regarded talent as interchangeable, disposable cogs in the machine. Among the creators Adams helped out where Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers and Russ Heath. Over on 13th Dimension former DC Comics writer / editor / publisher Paul Levitz discussed this aspect of Adams’ career…

“What I didn’t know is that as Neal began shaking up the look of comics, he began devoting much of his energy to shaking up the processes. Creative people were treated very poorly in the field in those years, and most of the leaders in the community were afraid to champion the cause because of the likely consequences. The disparity of power between the owners of the comics companies and the creators was an immeasurable gap, and at its base waited carnivores ready to devour agitators. But a modern Don Quixote had no fear…

“Of the many fights won or ignored, the one that was most visible was being part of the team (with Jerry Robinson and Ed Preiss) that labored to restore Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s credit to Superman, and economic dignity to their lives. Jerry was probably the more suave negotiator, Ed the wise lawyer… but Neal roared the loudest. And they won.”

Adams was also a teacher to young up-and-coming artists who hoped to enter the comic book biz. Among the many creators he mentored over the years were Frank Brunner, Howard Chaykin, Larry Hama, Bob McLeod, Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Buzz , Henry Martinez and his own son Josh Adams.

Superman #252 cover drawn by Neal Adams, published by DC Comics in June 1972

Living in the New York City area most of my life, I was very fortunate to have met Neal Adams on several occasions at comic cons and store signing. In spite of the fact that he was a hugely popular creator who was frequently mobbed by fans, Adams always came across as polite and patient to everyone who came up to his table. He always had a smile on his face.

There was one time he was at Big Apple Comic Con about a decade ago when his table wasn’t busy and I had the opportunity to chat with him for a few minutes, and I asked him about something I had been curious about for a while. In the pages of X-Men #62 (Nov 1969) Adams had been the first artist to draw Magneto without his helmet. The features & hair he gave Magneto were very close to those of Quicksilver… so much so that a decade later this became the basis for establishing that Magneto was the father of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

I asked Adams if in giving Magneto that particular visual he had intended for the character to be Quicksilver’s father. Adams gave me one of his smiles and explained that he liked to plant “seeds” in his storylines that he or other creators could then use to develop future storylines if they so choose.

X-Men #62, co-plotted & scripted by Roy Thomas, co-plotted, penciled & colored by Neal Adams, inked by Tom Palmer and lettered by Sam Rosen, published by Marvel Comics in Nov 1969

Adams then smiled again, leaned in conspiratorially, and told me he had something to tell me, but I had to promise not to tell anyone else about it, and I agreed. (Since he’s now passed away I feel comfortable recounting this.) Adams said he had an idea for another X-Men story that he hoped to do one day. Adams observed that the Beast in his furry blue form had the same distinctive hairstyle as Wolverine… so he wanted to reveal that Wolverine was Hank McCoy’s father.

Honestly, it sounded completely bonkers to me! But I am sure that if Adams had ever gotten around to actually doing it then it would certainly have been a memorable story.

Another time I saw Adams at a convention he was penciling a page for the Batman: Odyssey project at his table while talking to fans. Observing him up close laying down this detailed pencil work and these intricate, dramatic layouts while simultaneously carrying on conversations just left me in awe.

Neal Adams always looked a decade or so younger to me than he actually was. For example, when he was in early 70s he didn’t look much older than 60. I guess that’s why I expected him to live, well, not forever, but certainly much, much longer. Still, 80 years is a good, long run, especially as he was still creating quality work right up until almost the end, capping it off with the Fantastic Four: Antithesis miniseries written by Mark Waid that was published in 2020.

Fantastic Four: Antithesis written by Mark Waid, penciled by Neal Adams, inked by Mark Farmer, lettered by Joe Caramagna and colored by Laura Martin, published by Marvel Comics in Nov 2020

So much more could be said about Adams; you could literally write books about him. I’ve blogged about him a few times in the past; the links are below.

My sincere condolences to Neal Adams’ family, friends, and colleagues for their loss.

• Denny O’Neil: 1939 to 2020
• Happy 80th birthday Batman: How I became a fan of the Dark Knight
• Summertime with the Amazing Heroes swimsuit special
• Happy 75th birthday Neal Adams
• Comic book reviews: Neal Adams Monsters

Comic book reviews: X-Men Black – Magneto

What if Magneto was right all along?

Magneto, mutant master of magnetism, has been a central figure of the X-Men mythos since the very beginning. Frequently an adversary, but sometimes an ally, Magneto is a figure who has often found himself in the grey area between villain and hero, terrorist and freedom-fighter.

Initially conceived in the early 1960s as a one-dimensional megalomaniac determined to conquer the world in the name of mutant-kind, Magneto was later re-conceptualized by writer Chris Claremont.

It was revealed by Claremont that Magneto was a Jew from Eastern Europe who spent his childhood imprisoned in the living hell of the Auschwitz concentration camp.  Having seen his family murdered by the Nazis, and subsequently experiencing further discrimination after World War II ended, Magneto became convinced that humanity would never be able to accept the emerging mutant race.  Magneto was certain that another Holocaust was inevitable, this time with mutants facing extermination.  Resolving to never again be a victim, Magneto believed that the only way to prevent a mutant genocide was to preemptively conquer the world, to crush humanity before they could attempt to wipe out mutants.

Claremont, the co-architect of many classic X-Men storylines, returns to Magneto in the new special X-Men: Black – Magneto.  “The Stars, Our Destination?” is penciled by Dalibor Talajic, inked by Roberto Poggi & Belardino Brabo, lettered by VC’s Joe Caramagna, and colored by Dono Sanchez-Almara.  The cover artwork is by J. Scott Campbell & Sabine Rich.

As the story opens, Magneto is in his civilian guise of “Erik,” sitting in a café near San Fernando TX, drawing in his sketchbook.  The waitress, a teenage African American named Kate, comes over to talk to him.  The two converse, and Kate explains that her family has owned the café for generations.  Her family also has a long tradition of military service; Kate’s mother tragically was killed while deployed overseas.

Their conversation is interrupted by a television news report that the government’s Office of National Emergency has opened a “detention center” outside of San Fernando to house mutant children who “are being detained for their own safety, as well as the security of the general public.”

Magneto is, of course, aghast, immediately seeing parallels to his own childhood imprisonment in Auschwitz.  He is further disturbed by the reactions of the café’s other patrons, who vocally approve of the government’s actions.

Kate is the only one present who perceives the terrible injustice in imprisoning children who have committed no crimes, arguing “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right!”  Unfortunately her protests fall upon deaf ears, with one customer angrily snarling “How can liberals be so stupid?” and another arguing “They’re talking civil rights, we’re talking the survival of the human race!”

Magneto, seeing how ugly the mood in the café has become, excuses himself.  Kate follows him outside to apologize for how the customers treated him, and she accidentally observes him beginning to use his mutant powers.  She isn’t afraid, though, and Magneto tells her “Today, child, I’ll wager you’ve made your mother proud. Never lose those ideals, Kate.”

After a brief stop at his orbiting asteroid base, Magneto returns to Earth, where he approaches the Detention Center.  He is quickly attacked by ONE forces, including a woman in Sentinel armor.  Although briefly caught off-guard, Magneto soon gains the upper hand.  Using his powers, he destroys all of their weapons.  However, in an act of mercy, as well as so they will pass along his message, Magneto does not kill any of the government agents.

Magneto frees the children in the Detention Center, offering them sanctuary on Asteroid M.  The children ask if their parents and families will also be coming, and Magneto has no answer.  One of the children then tells him that they cannot run away, that they need to stay, to fight for the principles the country was founded upon.

Sad, but understanding, Magneto uses his powers to destroy the Detention Center and spirit the children away from the authorities.  Before he leaves, he addresses the prison officials:

“Your actions betray the bedrock ideals of your nation. You should be ashamed. Mutants are not your enemies. They are your friends, your neighbors, your family… Act as oppressors, you’ll be treated like them.”

Regrettably his words fall on deaf ears.  The ONE agents, completely disregarding Magneto’s act of mercy in sparing their lives, instead resolve to fight that much harder to kill him next time, genuinely believing that they are humanity’s first line of defense against extinction.

In the past I have written about Magneto on this blog.  I have expressed the opinion that he is a man who let his childhood traumas and fears completely warp his thinking.  He is so terrified of another Holocaust occurring that he has become the very thing he despises.  As I saw it, Magneto’s good intentions had paved the road into his own personal hell.

But was I wrong?  Was Magneto right?  The events of the last several years have led me to question my certainty.  Chris Claremont’s story has given focus to my doubts.

Reading the X-Men comic books in the 1980s and 90s, I recall thinking that the anti-mutant racism and hysteria shown in the Marvel universe was depicted in a very overblown manner.  It seemed exaggerated and unrealistic, in comparison to our own real world.

Growing up in the 1980s, I believed that racism was mostly a thing of the past.  Yes, I acknowledged that there were still bigots out there, but I thought that they were now the exception rather than the rule.  I believed that so many advances towards equality were being made, that most people in this country had moved beyond racism… or maybe I should say that is what I wanted to believe.

As a middle class white male in suburban New York it was all too easy for me to ignore the widespread, institutionalized racism that still existed in the United States.  It was foolish and naive of me to believe that a nation that was founded upon the genocide of Native Americans and the brutal enslavement of blacks, a country that after the Civil War saw African Americans subjected to nearly a century of segregation and violent oppression, could completely turn away from racism & intolerance in just a few short decades.

It took the events of the last ten years to finally open my eyes.  The election of Barack Obama to President brought to the surface all of the bigotry that had gone underground over the previous 40 years, but which had been quietly, persistently simmering just out of sight.  The idea that a black man was now occupying the Oval Office resulted in an eruption of vile, paranoid hatred, in the peddling of insane conspiracy theories and cries that the “white race” was in danger of extinction.  The Republicans were more than happy to cynically exploit the racism of their base, utilizing that blind hatred to obstruct Obama and the Democrats at each & every turn.

And then came Donald Trump, who wholeheartedly embraced the racist fear & anger of America, riding it straight into the White House.  Trump, a racist and misogynist who praises neo-Nazis and white supremacists.  Trump, whose administration is engaged in ongoing attacks on the rights of blacks and women and Muslims and the LGBT community and civil liberties and science and rational thinking.  Trump, who has separated thousands of children from their parents, and who has put those innocent children in cages, to the enthusiastic approval & applause of his many followers, who hate anyone who is different from them.

The idea that Magneto was wrong is predicated on the idea that another Holocaust would not, could not occur here in the United States.  However, the last several years have demonstrated that the institutions of democracy & liberty in our country are alarmingly fragile, and that we could very easily follow the evil path that Nazi Germany took 80 years ago.  Some would say that is exactly what we are doing right now, and perhaps they are correct.

And if that is the case, perhaps Magneto was right, and Professor Xavier was wrong.  Perhaps peaceful coexistence is not possible, simply because there are too many willfully ignorant, hateful bigots in this world, people who will not be swayed by appeals to reason or pleas for empathy, people who will happily see their neighbors sent to the death camps.  If that is so, then a man such as Magneto, for all his flaws and zealotry, might actually be a necessity.

In any case, X-Men: Black – Magneto is an effective utilization by Chris Claremont of real-world contemporary issues to tell a compelling comic book story.  To anyone who wants to argue that in the past comic books were not political, Exhibit A for the defense could be Claremont’s original 17 year run on X-Men, which was frequently political, with mutant-kind serving as an allegory for any number of persecuted minorities.

Marvel Comics has been very reluctant to openly address Trump and his followers in their stories.  I am not surprised, given that Marvel is now owned by Disney, which has always endeavored to avoid controversy.  Certainly the recent firings of James Gunn and Chuck Wendig, both of whom have been extremely vocal in their criticisms of Trump on social media, demonstrates that Disney has no desire to overtly wade into politics.

Under those circumstances, the allegorical approach favored by Claremont is probably the best, at least if one is writing at Marvel, or DC Comics for that matter.  I have often commented that science fiction is an effective vehicle for addressing contemporary political & social issues, because the genre enables writers to utilize analogues for real-world controversies.  Claremont is certainly adept at this.  If he submitted a plot concerning the government putting young Hispanic children in cages it would undoubtedly be rejected flat by Marvel.  Instead he writes about a fictional government agency imprisoning mutant children, but it is very obvious what he is really talking about.

If there is one message that we can take from X-Men: Black – Magneto, it is that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.  Democracy is not easy.  It requires active participation from its citizens.  We must vote in every election.  We must contact our government representatives to let them know how we want them to act.  Like both Magneto and Kate, we must loudly, angrily protest whenever injustice occurs.  If we do not, our freedoms will certainly be taken from us.

Magneto vs. the Red Skull round three: Axis

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” – John Steinbeck

At long last here is the third and final part of my examination of the conflict between Magneto and the Red Skull, between the Holocaust survivor turned mutant revolutionary and the Nazi terrorist.  For those who have not already read them, here are links to Part One and Part Two.

Previously the Red Skull, who’d had the brain of the deceased telepath Charles Xavier grafted into his own, was brutally killed by Magneto.  Unfortunately, rather than ending the Skull’s threat, this caused him to transform into a new incarnation of Onslaught, the being originally created years before from the combined subconscious darkness of Xavier and Magneto’s minds.

(Or perhaps Onslaught was actually Rob Liefeld… I forget exactly.)

The Avengers and X-Men’s battle against the “Red Onslaught” and the terrible aftermath is seen in the Axis miniseries by writer Rick Remender and various artists.  Magneto’s perspective of these events is depicted in issue #s 11 and 12 of his solo series, written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Roland Boschi, with covers by David Yardin.

In Axis #1, illustrated by Adam Kubert, the reborn Red Skull / Onslaught is spreading a psychic hate plague across the globe.  Havok, Rogue, the Scarlet Witch and Magneto attempt to stop the Skull.  It seems a hopeless task, especially as the three members of the Avengers Unity Squad want nothing to do with Magneto.  Havok, perhaps under the Skull’s psychic influence, attacks the master of magnetism, shouting at him “You damn murdering hypocrite! You’re just like him, Magneto!”

The Avengers and X-Men, alerted to the Red Skull’s threat, arrive in Genosha.  After long months of tense relations between the two teams, they finally realize that they need to join forces against this common foe.  The towering Red Onslaught, however, is unimpressed, and he summons a pair of immense Sentinels constructed out of near-unbreakable adamantium.  The Skull reveals that he previously used his mental powers to manipulate Tony Stark into constructing these robot monstrosities, programming them with the data needed to defeat Earth’s heroes.

(Side note number one: Was any of this previously seen or even hinted at before the events of Axis #1, maybe in an issue of Iron Man?  Because the reveal by Remender seems to come completely out of left field, with no build-up or foreshadowing.)

Between the Red Skull and the Sentinels, the heroes have little chance, the blame for which Magneto is more than happy to lay at Iron Man’s feet.  In the midst of battle, Magneto flees.  The Avengers and X-Men are defeated and imprisoned by the Sentinels.

Back in his sanctuary, away from everyone else, Magneto finally engages in self-reflection, and acknowledges his own role in causing this crisis.  “All that I have done… it was for nothing. I have committed unspeakable acts. I have hurt people. I have taken lives as easily as I might draw breath. All so my people, so mutants, might thrive.”

Briar Raleigh, Magneto’s human ally who sympathizes with his goals, argues that he could not have foreseen the results of killing the Skull.  Magneto disagrees, informing her “After all this time, after so many atrocities committed in the name of mutants, after so many bitter failures, I was blind not to anticipate something like this.”

Attempting to spur Magneto out of his despondency, Briar plays old video footage of his brutal attacks against anti-mutant forces.  She then shows him an interview with a young girl he once saved, who says “People say he’s some sort of monster, or maybe a terrorist, or that he’s insane. But I’m just glad mutants have someone like him, someone who can be angry, who can do bad things, so that we might survive.”

Grimly resolved that he is the one who has been forced into the role of making the difficult but necessary choices, Magneto sets out to recruit allies against the Skull.  If the Skull’s Sentinels are programmed to defeat heroes, then he will ally himself with criminals and villains.  Among those he approaches are Doctor Doom, Loki, Carnage, Sabretooth and Mystique.

Deadpool, who is not, strictly speaking, a villain, but who is certainly nuts, gets wind of all this and decides to find out what is going on.  The merc with a mouth tells him “I kinda want to know what the hell you’re trying to pull. I mean, I thought you were supposed to be a good guy.”  Magneto somberly responds “Not even you are foolish enough to think me a hero. Such distinctions are for those who can look at their own reflections and not despair.”

Magneto and his group of ne’er-do-wells engage the Red Skull and his Sentinels in Genosha.  During the battle, they manage to free the Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange, and Magneto tells them to attempt an “inversion spell” to revive the suppressed remnants of Xavier’s consciousness in the Skull’s mind.  Before it can be completed, Strange is knocked out.  Doctor Doom steps in and forces Wanda to complete the spell with him.

The inversion is seemingly successful.  Onslaught is banished, and the Red Skull is returned to human form, unconscious.  Immediately, though, there are problems.  The Avengers want to imprison the Skull ASAP before he re-awakens.  The X-Men, however, want custody of him, to see if now they can fully restore Xavier to life.  The disagreement causes the two teams to once again find themselves at odds with one another, neither side willing to budge.  Their fragile alliance is shattered.  Even in defeat, the Skull achieves a dark victory, once again driving apart humans and mutants.

And what has happened to Magneto?  Wounded, watching all of this from afar, he hears the Scarlet Witch ask “Where are the villains?”  Magneto bitterly thinks to himself, “After everything we did… everything I did… these Avengers… even my own daughter… would still see me as another threat to be eliminated or contained.”

As we soon find out in Axis #4, however, the inversion spell by Wanda and Doom worked much too well.  It caused everyone who was in Genosha to turn 180 degrees on the moral compass.  All of the heroes who were present are now ruthless, violent and selfish.  All of the villains are now moral and altruistic.  Sam Wilson, formerly the Falcon and now the new Captain America, wants to lead all of the inverted Avengers in taking over the world, creating an ordered society that they control.  The mutant Genesis is transformed into a reborn Apocalypse who leads the X-Men into war against humanity.  They construct a bomb that will wipe out all non-mutants on Earth.  Oh, yeah, and Tony Stark becomes an arrogant, greedy, hedonistic asshole.  If you thought regular Iron Man could be a jerk, well, inverted Stark is about a hundred times worse.

The now-elderly Steve Rogers and the few non-inverted heroes who managed to escape being captured by the corrupted Avengers are forced to ally themselves with Magneto and the other inverted villains to stop the X-Men and Apocalypse.  These events play out over the remainder of the Axis miniseries.

(Side note number two: Did Remender really need nine extra-sized issues to tell this whole story?  The whole thing would very comfortably have fit into a mere six issues.  I liked Axis, but it definitely suffered from being padded out with tons of fight scenes that played out over a bunch of splash pages and double-page spreads.)

Finally coming to Axis #9, with Jim Cheung artwork, Rogers and the inverted villains attempt to recreate the inversion spell.  Doctor Doom manages to summon Doctor Voodoo and his ghostly brother, and they take possession of the inverted Scarlet Witch.  Doom and the possessed Witch catch up with Rogers, who has located the Red Skull.  The man who was once the personification of human evil has been inverted into the remorseful White Skull… seriously, even his mask turned white.  How did that happen?

The White Skull begs Magneto not to once again resort to murder, to not kill Iron Man, and allow the new inversion spell to undo the damage.  Magneto reluctantly agrees.  Doom, the Skull, and the possessed Witch re-enact the inversion, turning everyone back to normal.  Well, almost everyone.  Iron Man, who refuses to go back to how he once was, is able to shield himself, and both Havok and Sabretooth are caught in his energy field.  That means Havok is still a violent fanatic who hates humans, Sabretooth still has a conscience, and Stark is still a douchebag.  Oh, well, can’t win ‘em all!

In the closing pages of Axis #9, Rogue and the Scarlet Witch form a new Avengers Unity Squad, hoping to bridge the gap between humans and mutants so that a disaster such as this never occurs again.  Magneto, however, is in no mood to celebrate, realizing that Doctor Doom, the Red Skull and Iron Man have all escaped.  We see that the Skull is now the prisoner of Doom, a potential weapon to be used by the Latverian tyrant in the future.

Hopefully Magneto and the Red Skull will meet again.  Theirs is a dramatic, powerful enmity driven by mutual contempt & hatred.  They are simultaneously alike and as different as night & day.  Much can be revealed about Magneto through the comparing & contrasting of him to the Skull.

Magneto, as re-envisioned by Chris Claremont to be a survivor of the Holocaust, is undoubtedly a complex, complicated and morally ambiguous individual.  One can certainly see Magneto as the personification of Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous warning “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” Likewise the character appears to embody the old saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

I have often regarded Magneto as a tragic but dangerous figure.  He is a man who experienced horrific losses in his childhood & early adulthood, and who is unable or unwilling to let go of the past.  All of this has led him to fanatical extremes.

The Red Skull commits evil acts because he is a psychopath.  Magneto, on the other hand, is driven by fear and guilt, by a burning obsession to never again become a victim.  Unlike the Skull, it is certainly possible to understand, even sympathize with Magneto.  But if in the end by his actions Magneto arrives at exactly the same place as the Skull, as an unrepentant monster, than all the rationalizations in the world are meaningless.

Magneto vs. the Red Skull round two: March to Axis

This is the second part of my examination of the enmity between the mutant revolutionary Magneto and the Nazi war criminal the Red Skull.  For those who missed it here is a link to the first part.

After their confrontation during “Acts of Vengeance,” it would be years before Magneto and the Red Skull would again encounter one another. They would finally come face-to-face once again in the prologue to the Avengers & X-Men: Axis crossover.

Although he has gone by several aliases during his lifetime, Magneto’s real name is Max Eisenhardt.  A Jew, Max was born in Germany in the late 1920s. After the rise of the Nazis, Max’s family faced severe discrimination, and they were eventually imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp.  There the young Max saw his entire family murdered.  Max himself became a Sonderkommando, a Jew who under threat of death was forced to remove the victims of the gas chambers and place them in the ovens to be cremated.

This nightmarish existence was made all the worse by the abuses heaped upon Max and his fellow prisoners by a sadistic Nazi officer named Hitzig. At the time Max’s mutant powers were gradually beginning to manifest, and he sought to use them to kill Hitzig.  But between his young age, and his severe state of malnutrition, Max’s control of magnetism was much too weak, and he failed in the attempt to slay his tormenter.

The unimaginable horrors which Max endured left lasting emotional scars upon him. Years later, after he was prevented by a bigoted mob from saving the life of his daughter Anya, his traumatic memories were re-awakened.  Looking upon the gradual emergence of mutants and humanity’s resulting fears, Max became convinced that a new Holocaust was all but inevitable.  Determined to prevent this, he adopted the ruthlessly proactive identity of Magneto, a figure who would crush humanity before they could perpetrate genocide against mutant-kind.

In the ongoing Magneto series, writer Cullen Bunn has portrayed the title character as a driven, brutal individual. In his quest to protect mutants, and to avenge crimes against them, Magneto has regularly utilized violence and torture.  He has maimed or killed his adversaries with scarcely any remorse, fanatically convinced of the necessity and righteousness of his actions.  Bunn very much captures the extremely fine line that can exist between freedom fighter and terrorist.

In issue #9, by Bunn and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta, with a cover by David Yardin, Magneto finally learns that the Red Skull has grafted Charles Xavier’s brain to his own, gaining immense telepathic powers. The Skull, with his S-Men and Ahab, has relocated to the island of Genosha, where they have constructed a “mutant reeducation camp” i.e. a concentration camp for the extermination of mutants.  Magneto’s greatest fear given concrete form, he sets out to destroy the Red Skull.  He was never ever able to kill Hitzig, but perhaps he can expunge the guilt he feels for his failure by slaying the Skull.  “After all this time, I’ll get some reprieve from my disgrace.”

Magneto confronts the Red Skull, echoing the words he uttered to the fascist mastermind years before when he buried him alive in a bomb shelter. “I told you once before, Nazi… I am your better!  But where I once showed you clemency, this time I have brought you nothing but death!”  Unfortunately Magneto’s powers are on the wane, and he is overwhelmed by the S-Men, who beat him into submission.

As the next issue opens, the Red Skull mocks the now-imprisoned Magneto. Using his mental powers, the Skull conjures up a psychic projection of Hitzig in an effort to break the Master of Magnetism.  This manifestation pursues Magneto through a lifetime of memories, inserting itself into each of them as a monstrous apparition, reminding him of his myriad failures.

Finally back in the real world, Magneto finds that he has been left at the mercy of Mzee, the member of the S-Men who resembles a humanoid turtle. Mzee is ready to make Magneto suffer.  As the S-Man reveals “As a child, I watched your minions slaughter my family.  Those moments… their screams… were endless.  And no one came to help me.  I’ll make sure your misery lasts just as long.”  Here we see the cost of Magneto’s crusade made tangible.  In his barbarous quest to protect mutants by subjugating humanity, Magneto has created yet another generation of victims who learned to hate and who now seek vengeance.  By his actions Magneto has not changed anything, but instead perpetuated the cycle of hatred.

Before Mzee can act, though, Havok, Rogue and the Scarlet Witch intervene. In the pages of Uncanny Avengers #24 written by Rick Remender, the three members of the Avengers Unity Squad had been abducted by the S-Men and brought to Genosha.  They managed to escape, and they free Magneto.  The three mutant Avengers try to convince the weakened Magneto not to continue his fight against the Red Skull, but to lay low with them while they contact the rest of the Avengers for reinforcements.  Magneto, though, will have none of that, and even accuses Rogue of betraying mutant-kind.  “I forgot you abandoned Charles’ dream.  No longer an X-Man, merely another stooge of the human establishment.”  Rogue is understandably outraged by this, as well she should be.  As a member of the Avengers, she played a crucial role in saving the entire world from being destroyed by the Celestials.  But do not bother telling that to Magneto; so long as mutants are safe, the rest of humanity can burn for all he cares.

The argument between Magneto and the Avengers is abruptly halted when they are discovered by the Red Skull, Ahab, and the S-Men. As Uncanny Avengers #25 opens, with writing by Remender and artwork by Daniel Acuna, the Skull has frozen them all in place with his telepathy.  The fascist takes this opportunity to once again poke & prod at Magneto’s insecurities.

Commenting upon Magneto’s state of mind, the Skull mockingly observes “It doesn’t take a mind reader to know why it frightens you so, Magnus. It is not the evil that might be uncovered within – it is the emptiness.  A willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve your means.  Including the gross manipulation of your own daughter.  Tsk tsk.  Oh, dear, she despises you, Magnus.  A hatred that matches my own.  Used by her father.  Driven mad for his purpose.”

As he previously did in “Acts of Vengeance,” the Red Skull is attempting to point out that he and Magneto are more alike than not. And this time the Skull brings Magneto’s daughter, the Scarlet Witch, into his argument.  Remender really hit the nail on the head with this, making a connection I had previously missed.  The Skull used and abused his own daughter, Sinthia, manipulating her into an instrument of his will, a warped reflection of his own sick mind.  As a result, Sinthia absolutely despises him.  And this is all too similar to Magneto’s relationship with his daughter the Scarlet Witch.  On numerous occasions he attempted to utilize Wanda’s reality-warping abilities as a weapon in the cause of mutant revolution, not caring what harm it caused her.  The result is that the Witch would very much prefer to have nothing to do with her father.

Unknown to the Red Skull, when Magneto was freed by the Avengers he took the opportunity to ingest a dose of Mutant Growth Hormone. His powers now restored almost to normal levels, he knocks out the Skull, releasing the Avengers from mental control.  Rogue, Havok and the Scarlet Witch engage the S-Men and Ahab.  Magneto, discovering several lobotomized mutants in one of the concentration camp buildings, furiously declares “This is what they do to our people, Wanda!  And so long as they draw breath there can be no unity.”  Enraged, Magneto uses his powers to seemingly kill the S-Men.  He then proceeds to physically assault the Skull, brutally beating him.  Defiant to the end, the Skull continues to verbally taunt Magneto.  Then, before the Witch’s horrified eyes, Magneto kills the Skull in cold blood, shattering his head with a block of masonry.

The Scarlet Witch, Rogue and Havok are horrified. At first speechless, Rogue finally gasps “What have you done?”  Magneto attempts to justify his act, announcing that he has “killed evil incarnate” and “saved countless lives.”  Rogue mere responds “You – after all your words – you’re no better than him.”

Of course, that is not the end of things. By killing the Red Skull, Magneto inadvertently set loose something that was buried deep within Xavier’s mind.  Onslaught, the psionic entity that was once born out of the combined subconscious darkness of the Xavier and Magneto, lives again.  And it is now controlled by the twisted consciousness of the Red Skull.

Thus is the stage set for “The Red Supremacy,” the first act of Avengers & X-Men: Axis. I will be taking a look at that miniseries, and the continuing struggle between Magneto and the Red Skull, in the near future.

Click here to continue on to round three of the war between Magneto and the Red Skull.

Magneto vs. the Red Skull round one

The current Marvel Comics crossover Avengers/X-Men: Axis sees the Fascist mastermind the Red Skull gaining the devastating powers of Onslaught, threatening the entire world. A key aspect of this storyline has been the conflict between the Skull and Magneto, the mutant Master of Magnetism.  But this is certainly not the first time those two have encountered one another.  For that we must look back to late 1989 and the “Acts of Vengeance” crossover.

It is actually a bit surprising that it took Magneto and the Red Skull so long to meet. In certain respects they have much in common; in others they are complete opposites.

Magneto, the long-time ideological opponent of the X-Men and one of their greatest foes, spent his early years as a one-note mutant supremacist. He was almost a Hitler-like figure, a ranting, sadistic conqueror who wanted to crush humanity and rule the world in the name of mutant-kind, who he saw as their superiors.

Then throughout the 1980s, in the pages of Uncanny X-Men, writer Chris Claremont developed a back-story for Magneto. He was a Jew from Eastern Europe who had spent much of his childhood imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, who lost his entire family in the Holocaust.  At the end of World War II the barely alive Magneto fled to Russia with the gypsy Magda, who he married.

Eventually, as seen in Classic X-Men#12 by Claremont and artist John Bolton, when Magneto’s mutant powers began to manifest, a fearful mob attacked him, preventing him from rescuing his daughter Anya who was trapped in a burning house. Magneto lashed out in anger, slaying the mob.  Magda fled from him in fear, and he never saw her again.

The death of his daughter, the loss of his wife, and the actions of the mob brought him right back the horrors of the Holocaust. Magneto became convinced that it was inevitable that humanity would attempt to destroy mutants in a new genocide.  Between his overwhelming fear of a mutant Holocaust, and an unfortunate side effect of his powers creating severe emotional instability, Magneto became a violent revolutionary determined to protect mutant-kind by conquering humanity.  In effect, he became very much like the Nazis who he hated.

The Red Skull’s real name is Johann Schmidt. In the back-story originally set down by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, and developed in detail years later by J.M. DeMatteis, Paul Neary & Roy Richardson in Captain America #298, we learn that Schmidt was born to an alcoholic father and his abused wife in a small German village.  When the mother died giving birth the drunk, angry father attempted to murder his newborn son.  He was prevented from doing so by the delivering physician.  The distraught father committed suicide soon after, leaving the infant Johann Schmidt an orphan.  Although only a newborn when all this occurred, the Red Skull claims to remember these events with crystal clarity.

Schmidt spent his childhood and teenage years as an outcast and a vagrant, ostracized by his peers. One time the daughter of a Jewish shopkeeper showed the coarse man kindness.  Schmidt responded by clumsily attempting to woo her, and when she spurned his violent advances, he responded by beating her to death, taking out on her all the rage he felt at humanity as a whole.  The experience filled him with “a dizzying joy such as I never suspected existed!”

Years past, and eventually Schmidt was working as a bellboy at a German hotel. One day Hitler and his advisors were staying there.  By chance, Schmidt was bringing refreshments into Hitler’s chambers right when the Fuhrer was berating the head of the Gestapo for letting a spy escape.  The fuming Hitler was despairing at ever having anyone competent enough to carry out his vision.  Motioning towards Schmidt, Hitler declared “I could teach that bellboy to do a better job than you!”  Glancing at the young man, Hitler was startled to see the look in Schmidt’s eyes.  Within them Hitler recognized a bottomless capacity for hatred and violence.  The Fuhrer realizes this was someone who he could transform into the ultimate Nazi, a being who would mercilessly advance the cause of the Third Reich.  Thus was born the Red Skull.

It is interesting that circumstances both led Magneto and the Red Skull onto a path of violence and conquest, each driven by the belief in their own superiority, by the desire to punish the world for the harms inflicted upon them. The difference, I think, is that if young Magneto had grown up in a different place & time, and never lived through the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust, he might very well have grown up to be a normal, happy, well-adjusted figure.  In contrast, one gets the feeling that Johann Schmidt, even if he had been raised by loving parents, was of possessed some form of anti-social personality disorder and would have inevitable become a cruel, unpleasant individual.  He simply might have become something slightly more socially acceptable, such as a corporate executive or a politician!

These two men finally come face-to-face during “Acts of Vengeance,” when the Norse god of evil Loki brought together several of Earth’s greatest villains and criminals to organize a series of attacks directed at destroying the Avengers. At first Magneto thinks that this is a different Red Skull, believing the original died some time before, not realizing the Skull’s consciousness was transferred into a new body cloned from none other than Captain America.  Nevertheless Magneto cannot put the matter out of his mind.  In Captain America #367 written by Mark Gruenwald, with excellent artwork Kieron Dwyer and Danny Bulanadi, Magneto breaks into the Skull’s office in Washington DC, demanding to know the truth.  The Skull admits he is the original.  He attempts to convince Magneto that the two of them are in fact very much alike, hoping to trick the Master of Magnetism into lowering his guard.  This fails, and the Skull is forced to flee.  (Click on the below image to enlarge it for the full details of their exchange.)

Despite the fact that the Skull now resides in a body that possesses the Super Soldier Serum, he has never bothered to undergo the extensive regular training that Captain America himself engages in which has made the Sentinel of Liberty one of the world’s greatest fighters. Instead the Skull still relies on lackeys such as Crossbones and Mother Night, and on the advanced technology & robots developed by the Machinesmith.  So rather than possibly having a chance of at least holding his own against Magneto, as Cap probably would, the Skull quickly finds himself outmatched.

Soon enough Magneto captures the Red Skull. He spirits him away to a subterranean bomb shelter, leaving him with nothing more than several containers of water.  Magneto tells the Skull “I want you to sit down here and think of the horrors you have perpetrated.  I want you to suffer as you’ve made others suffer.  I want you to wish I had killed you.”  With that Magneto leaves, entombing the Skull in darkness.  Dwyer & Bulanadi definitely draw the hell out of this page.  That look on the Skull’s face in the final panels, as he silently fumes in a mixture of defiance and horror, is genuinely unnerving.  And you are really not sure if justice has been served, or if you actually feel perhaps the slightest bit of pity for the Skull for not having been given a quick, clean death.

The Skull spends a lengthy period of time imprisoned in the bomb shelter. Eventually he begins to hallucinate.  In Captain America #369, in an eerie sequence written by Gruenwald and drawn by Mark Bagley & Don Hudson, the Skull sees his father, Hitler, and his daughter Sinthea berating and belittling him, urging him to commit suicide.  We see that beneath the Skull’s belief that he is better than everyone else is a horrible fear that he is an insignificant nothing, and that everyone is looking down at him.  The only way he can prove that wrong is to trample the whole of humanity beneath his heel, demonstrating his superiority.

Eventually of course the Skull is located by his underlings. Weakened and dying, his burning hatred of Captain America gives him the strength to keep living and recover.  Even when Cap attempts to offer him the slightest bit of concern and sympathy, all the Skull can react with is venomous contempt and malice.  As far as the Skull is concerned, kindness equals weakness, and only hatred will keep him strong.

Much time passes by. The Red Skull dies and is resurrected at least a couple of more times.  Presently he has been revived within a copy of his own original body in its prime.  As seen in the events of Uncanny Avengers and X-Men: Legacy, the Skull has stolen the body of the recently deceased Charles Xavier.  He has ghoulishly had Xavier’s brain grafted onto his own, gaining the immense telepathic powers of the X-Men’s founder.

In the aftermath of the “Avenge the Earth” storyline written by Rick Remender, Kang the Conqueror’s sprawling Xanatos Gambit to wipe out all future timelines save for the one where he rules and to seize the power of a Celestial, becoming a literal god, was thwarted by the narrowest of margins. It was also a most pyrrhic of victories: Havok was horribly scarred in his final battle with Kang, the young daughter who Havok and the Wasp had in a now-erased timeline is a prisoner of Kang’s in the distant future, Sunfire’s body was transformed into an energy form, Wonder Man’s consciousness is trapped in Rogue’s mind and, as usual, people still hate & fear mutant-kind.

Uncanny Avengers #23 by Remender and artist Sanford Greene shows that the vengeful Kang, seeking to rub salt into these wounds, has dispatched Ahab, the cyborg slave-master from the “Days of Futures Past” reality, to assist the Red Skull in his plans for mutant genocide. Thus is set the stage for the Axis crossover, and for Magneto to once again confront the Red Skull.  I will be taking a look at that encounter in the near future.  Stay tuned.

Click here to proceed to round two in the war between Magneto and the Red Skull.