We’re at the end of this series and now its time to decide how we all feel about Johann Schmidt/The Red Skull.

Read on for full review.

Well, he turned out to be awful.  That is a good thing.  I didn’t want to feel any sympathy towards Johann by the end of this tale.  Now, don’t think I’m a sympathizer for evil or anything like that.  I’m appreciating a good story about a bad man.  When the Red Skull is the focus of five issues, and the main character, something has to be done to make him engaging.  And that something was sympathy.

Johann starts as a boy doing anything to survive and becomes… a man doing anything to survive.  There is a difference.  As a kid he doesn’t know any better.  He has to rob and maim just to be able to eat and live for another day.  As an adult it is clear he only cares about himself.  (SPOILER!) With last issue’s return of Dieter there was someone else in Johann’s life.  Someone to talk to, be friends with, and support.  However, that support falls aside in front of any threats.  There Dieter was, gun in hand, about to kill Hitler.  There is all of time before Johann.  He knew that if that bullet was fired neither of them was going to be able to walk out alive.  Sure Hitler would be dead, but “what about me?”

Johann saw more in his life through Hitler than through his friend.  Sure, he’s destined for hell.  But he will be alive.  No one will strike him, no one can touch him.  This is a soulless man.  The repercussions of the afterlife don’t weigh on a man who doesn’t believe in one.

By opening the past of the Red Skull Greg Pak has made him a more dangerous character.  Spider-Man gets in a good punch on Red Skull?  Petey better prepare for a life of looking over his shoulder as Johann plots the death of one who struck him.  Doctor Doom team up?  If Red Skull sees more to further his life by the side of Captain America than by the side of Von Doom he will jumps sides.  A man with no loyalties and no fear of consequences is the most dangerous man in the Marvel Universe.