One thing that disappointed me about this film is the fact that the parallels between Captain America and Red Skull are mentioned by Red Skull himself, but not very well looked into. In fact, my favorite scene of the movie was the separation of the bridge that held both the hero and the villain. I really looked forward to the movie becoming sort of a character study in itself, analyzing, comparing, and contrasting Cap and Red Skull like The Dark Knight did with Batman and the Joker, and Thor did with the titular hero, and Loki. Unfortunately, that ended up not being the case. The Captain continues to do selfless acts, and makes Red Skull look more selfish, and a bit cowardly in comparison. That aside, Red Skull shouldn't look cowardly. Greedy, yes, I can see that, but he has a modified body to equal that of the Captain. He shouldn't be running from battle. Minus the scenes where he shot and killed prisoners, Red Skull only fights twice. I understand that he's being portrayed as a self-righteous officer, and his megalomania makes that believable, but I just really think he should've had more of fighter's presence. At the same time, however, a big part of Red Skull's modification from the serum worked on his mental capacities, so this could be what the movie was aiming for. Honestly, I think it can go either way, but the point is, the film was lacking a little something between these two men that would have made it even better.
Esther isn't an OC. She is a character from the Captain America comics. I'll admit it, I didn't read the comics, but I did some research on Schmidt to better understand his character.
For Captain Rogers, it wasn't so much the conclusion of the journey, but the journey itself, that was worthwhile. It was the victory that was always spoken of in times of celebration, but it was not given like a present. It was achieved through much struggle, bravery, and bloodshed. The healthy dose of reality as to the fact that not every man would always make it back served as a bittersweet flavor to the win. The Howling Commandos had yet to observe a single casualty, and Rogers was determined to keep it that way. On the other hand, however, death surrounded them. Broadcasts over the airwaves signaled the deaths of soldiers and civilians alike just about every day, it seemed. Even after a win was garnered, and his men expressed their jubilation in the form of war whoops, raising their weapons and fists to the sky, and joking among each other, the damage still remained.
HYDRA had not isolated itself to mere factories; Rogers would be kidding himself if he thought otherwise. It had occupied large towns and settlements, places where people had lived and grown up. In the end, however, the homes had been reduced to rubble, or otherwise highly damaged, barely structurally sound shells. The result was due to a combination of HYDRA's weapons testing experiments, and the crossfire from the battle. Rogers knew it could be rebuilt. The former dwellers were long gone, having evacuated. At the same time, however, it was hard for him to turn his back on the crushingly silent battlefield. The civilians would return to this devastation, and they would have to somehow replace everything. Even then, their homes wouldn't be fully recovered. The scar of forced vagrancy would remain on each and every one of them, and the fear of such uprooting happening again would always hang over their heads. They, unfortunately, were in good company of the extreme sort due to the scale of the war. No matter the antagonist, the innocents were faced with four options: fight, flee, collaborate, or die. What humanity perceived as civilization broke free of its cage, and delved into madness as the death toll rose ever higher and higher.
As selfish as it sounded, Rogers was incredibly grateful for not experiencing any of this turmoil in Brooklyn. The war's presence had been felt in the fear of his fellow citizens, and in the disappearance of a large majority of the population. Still, it had been nothing in comparison to this. It angered him, and strangled him with helplessness, but his hands were tied. He was kept too busy with HYDRA. Rogers had been deemed the perfect soldier, but he couldn't be in all places at once. He not would consider himself a hero when the bullies he had sought to defeat were still having their way. Even when the threat, the members of HYDRA and their weapons, was removed, a bitter taste remained in the Captain's mouth. Doctor Erskine had once told him that Johann Schmidt's followers had considered him a savior. Rogers could never fathom that sort of mindset. Torture…Killing… How could someone not question Schmidt on what he was doing, let alone follow him so closely?
At the same time, as he stared down at broken helmets and crushed weaponry, Rogers couldn't help but wonder about his own men. Each individual had his own talents to bring to the table, and his own reasons for joining the squad. At the same time, however, their minds were quite often thrown into a collective mentality while they opted to complete their objective, and it all occurred with the guidance of their faithful Captain. Rogers wouldn't say he ever felt squeamish when he looked over the corpses, their armor sheathing them in conformity, but he couldn't deny a sort of creeping feeling that manifested itself at those points in time. He trusted his men with his life, but at times, that comfort was cold. It was thoughts like these that gave a sort of darkness to the days of battle as they came and went. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing; it kept the Captain on edge, and mentally readied him somewhat more for what may come.
The problem, however, was that readiness couldn't compromise a malignant variable. The prevalence, although ironic, was the staggered nature of the enemy. The difficulty to determine from where the enemy was going to come never failed to provide a challenge. Hiding places were numerous to the point of ridiculousness, and flushing out one only seemed to generate a greater problem, with the dust clouds raised from the rubble making it very difficult to see. When every moment counted, this was a serious problem, even when Rogers' squad had not yet incurred any losses. One of their enemies could have surely gotten away in the confusion and lack of visibility, and that made the Commandos livid. Let the aggressor live another day, and who was to know what he would do. When this issue was dragged to the forefront in the latest skirmish, it proved to be even more unpredictable than before.
The current battlefield contained a rather large town surrounded by a forest. The majority of the fighting took place in the town itself due to its coverage of area. The forest, then, served as somewhat of a boundary fence. Due to the area's man-made topography, the style of fighting was sporadic. Cap and his men found themselves crouching behind buildings, or what remained of them, as well as chasing assailants up and down flights of stairs and platforms. In addition, the members of the squad, save for the Captain, sometimes had to conceal themselves in the shadows between the gap of a wall or a recess beneath the stairs of a building. Rogers, on the other hand, sometimes had to take the more trying tasks of jumping from roof to roof, and climbing into the guts of HYDRA's heavy artillery.
Not to say that the others had failed to demonstrate larger-than-life acts. Jones and Dernier had literally gotten the drop on a rather well-armed HYDRA squad by leaping out of a two-story window. The leap admittedly had been more out of self-preservation than anything else, as the building they had been inside of was structurally unsound. The two had been investigating the building's interior for any potential threats when one of HYDRA's tanks had caught sight of their entrance, aimed, and fired, significantly damaging the building. Nonetheless, they had taken their opportunity, and their efforts had paid off. Breaking apart after landing on the ground below, Dernier and Jones were able to fire on the group from both sides, causing a large amount of confusion. They hadn't immediately brought down the entire fighting force, but they had managed to scatter the men, cutting down on its strength. The enemy had retreated, with the two following.
Dum Dum had also demonstrated his own sense of heroics by the power of his physical strength. When he had run short of ammo, he found himself without the sufficient amount of time to reload. With three HYDRA soldiers in his face, his empty rifle had quickly become a club. Rather than attacking in blind fury, however, he had strategized, disarming one end man with enough strength to send him into the man beside him. As a sort of domino effect, their helmets crashed together, stunning both. The middle man's gun hit the third man's, effectively jostling it. The result had given Dum Dum the edge he had needed to overpower the final man.
Rogers was currently facing his own difficulties. Taking on the task of eliminating the artillery was at least easy in the fact that the tanks moved so slowly. The problem, however, was that the HYDRA foot soldiers were hounding him while he was trying to destroy the artillery. Whenever he got on a tank, he would have to jump right back off, and fight. As a result, the destruction of the artillery had slowed down significantly. Rogers knew his men could take care of themselves, but if this continued, one of the Commandos would be seriously wounded.
He had already thrust the hatch of one smaller tank open, and eliminated the driver. Taking a grenade from his pouch, Rogers was ready to pull the pin, and thrust it inside when a flash of blue whizzed just by his head. Swallowing a cry of frustration, the Captain spun to find a cluster of soldiers, their black uniforms and bug-eyed masks making them resemble an ugly cloud. He wasn't sure of the explanation for this increased number, but there wasn't time to think on it. Taking care to hold his shield out for protection, he propelled himself into the fray, his form framed by three misplaced shots.
Cold metal banged up against him as the guns were quickly swiveled around for purchase, and hands grabbed all parts of his upper body in an attempt to keep him still, and take away his weaponry, if possible. To Rogers, it felt more like bodily violation than a simple assault in how the hands rifled through his fatigues, grabbing and tugging at whatever they could. He wanted to get them off without losing hold of the grenade.
He curled his arms in on himself for a moment, and released, knocking them backwards with the force of his shield and muscle. The men staggered, giving Rogers enough time to put away the grenade. He'd managed to throw a few punches at two of them, bringing them down, when the high-pitched whine of the rest of the squad's advanced weaponry powering up sounded.
Rogers ducked, crouching low with shield in hand, and lined up his shot. The guns didn't follow due to his speed, but he couldn't waste time. The shield sailed the short distance, colliding with the middle sections of his enemies, and knocking them to the ground. Catching his shield off the rebound, the Captain drew his pistol. When the men attempted to rise, bullets to the head and neck took them right back down.
A crack resounded from a good distance behind and above, catching his attention. He looked up, his gun following his sight, and gave a smile at what he saw. The husk of another HYDRA soldier collapsed on top of the tank a few feet from the opened hatch. Standing just behind the body was Bucky, his rifle out, and his head angled down as he checked to make sure the man was dead.
"Bucky!" Rogers called, and holstered his pistol to grab the sealed grenade again. The other man nodded, holding out a free hand before it was thrown at him. Bucky caught it, pulled the pin, and dropped it inside before dismounting. He landed with a cloud of dust, and ran to Rogers' side. The explosion came in the form of a loud burst of sound, forcing the two to cover their ears, a white flash, and a heavy jerk of the tank. A great, billowing cloud of smoke followed shortly after once the tank itself burst into bright orange flames.
"Not bad," joked the Captain, clapping his hand on his friend's back.
Bucky grinned, nudging him. "Someone's gotta look out for you." It was not to say he was ungrateful for Bucky's assistance; far from it. Those words, as good-natured as they were, however, took him back to that alley in Brooklyn. As much as he had denied it, he had needed help in driving off his assailant back then, and Barnes had been there to give it. Rogers knew not to read too much into it. There wasn't time, and it wasn't important.
"Come on!" Rogers exclaimed enthusiastically, taking off with Bucky close behind, his uneasy thoughts falling away. He was the Captain once more.
It wasn't a clean run; a few of the buildings had taken the blunt of this brand of artillery, and their remains had provided treacherous territory to cross over. The dismembered structures lay at a slant, and looked close to spilling themselves across the ground. Fallen pieces of concrete were tricky to avoid tripping over, and the already-collapsed buildings provided places where enemies could hide. It slowed their progress, more so on Bucky's part, but going around would have taken too long. Rogers, on the other hand, was able to go on ahead, and throw a few of these chunks out of the way as he leapt through the junk remains of civilization.
It was due to this constant jostling that it happened. Rogers' hand shot to his fatigues on the right side of his waist. Nothing. His eyes widened as he spun around. His compass had slipped, and fallen. The cloudy sky provided no assistance as he searched frantically for the compass in the midst of dust and fallen chunks of brick and cement. He couldn't crouch down on his hands and knees, and search for it, so he could only rely on his eyes. As a result, it wasn't found right away, and that made him more frantic, glancing around quicker and quicker, but without a positive result.
"Steve, what's wrong?" Called a winded Bucky, who came to a stop before him. It wasn't an important object in any sense, save the aesthetic, but he still considered it worth finding. Rogers rarely saw Peggy as of late due to the frequency of the raids, and as a result, having her picture with him helped to keep her close. Looking for it would take too long.
He shook his head. "Nothing. Sorry I slowed us down." Although Bucky looked more compelled to question them on this, he nodded, and the two continued on.
The compass remained behind, wedged within a crack between a chunk of masonry Cap had previously tossed out of the way, and a collapsed, low-to-the-ground building. Once the Captain and Bucky had disappeared from view, a HYDRA soldier crept out from behind said building. The soldier felt shame weigh heavily upon him. It drove him to his knees, his gun falling at his side as he stared at the ground. He had failed his leader terribly. From that vantage point, he had had the perfect opportunity to kill either the Captain, or one of his squad members. What had stopped him had been his own fear after seeing this being taking out several men like him, not to mention the artillery. He had followed him all this way for nothing.
An oddly-colored patch of dust caught his eye, and the soldier's eyes widened behind his mask as his fingers touched a solid body, round in shape. Tugging it back, he found it to be a small object, like a pendant. Excitement gripped the underling as he remembered seeing the Captain spinning around and looking all around him, his eyes cast on the ground, as if he had dropped something. Perhaps this was it!
A clasp was found on it, and he flicked it open to reveal the object to in fact be a compass, its dial lined with numbers from zero to 360 degrees on one half, and a portrait of a pretty brunette woman on the other. He shut the compass, and stowed it safely away. He couldn't deny that he was incredulous. Was a monster like the Captain, who killed his brothers in arms without a single thought, soft on the inside? Whatever the case, he knew he had to give it to his superior. It might prove to be important.
XXXXXX
"YOU ARE FAILING!" Johann Schmidt roared at Doctor Zola as he stood on the remains of yet another of HYDRA's strongholds. It was destroyed due to Captain America's meddling. He was beyond fed up with these repeated losses, and the person who was causing it. His foe wasn't even a man, but a misguided boy, and he was a capital thorn in his side. "We are close to an offensive that will shake the planet, yet we are continually delayed because you cannot outwit a simpleton with a shield!" Schmidt ranted, towering imposingly over the much smaller doctor.
"It is hardly my area of expertise! I-I merely develop weapons, I-I cannot fire them!" Zola stammered in an attempt to defend himself, backing away from his superior.
Schmidt was growing tired of these excuses. Words equated to nothing while they were standing on top of a completely-blown apart town, with his dead soldiers and destroyed weaponry littering the place. "Finish your mission, Doctor, before the American finishes his," Schmidt ordered sternly, leaving Zola at a loss for words and an offended look on his face.
"Sir!" The call drew both their attentions, and they turned to see two of the men Schmidt had brought with him shoving forward the surviving commander of the unit, his hair and uniform coat greatly disheveled. It was hard for Johann to keep his expression neutral when he felt so compelled to strike this failure. He could at least waive Zola's case on the fact that he was a scientist first. This man, however, had no excuse.
"I'm sorry, Herr Schmidt," he pleaded, "we fought to the last man!"
Schmidt's eyes narrowed as he raised his pistol, his right-hand man turning away with a sickened look on his face. "Evidently not."
"Wait sir!" The soon-to-be-executed man reached into his pocket, and dug around inside. Schmidt's weapon didn't waver. The commander pulled out a small, brass-colored object, and held it out. "One of my men recovered this. He claimed Captain America had been carrying it."
As one of his prisoner's guards took it from the shaking man, Johann couldn't help but feel intrigued. Even if the item had served no consequence as to what plans his nemesis would have next, it would still hold at least a small piece of information about him. Schmidt verbally wrote Cap off as foolish, and his beliefs were well-fostered. The Captain was fighting for a country that only considered him useful for his strength and durability. Schmidt, on the other hand, had escaped that fate, but what he still found questionable was why the younger man didn't do the same. In a way, he found his enemy to be somewhat of an enigma.
"That is all well and good, Kommandant," the pistol's menacing whirring was cut short as a flash of blue burst from it, exploding into the man and wiping him from existence, "but it will not save you."
XXXXXX
Modifications, modifications! It was all about modifications! Schmidt didn't know whether to laugh, or slam his fist as hard as he could on the desk before him. He was leaning toward the second option. Scattered on it were different schematics of new weaponry Zola had presented to him a week before. The good doctor had taken his leave to redeem himself as the leader of the guards on board an important transport train of major artillery to the main HYDRA base, Schmidt's current location. Zola's designs had received his commander's approval in time, and one of them was being implemented for the train. They were rather impressive, with the introduction of larger Tesseract-based weapons, their size being large enough to be carried by not only two hands, but a strap around the back, as well. Fair trade, considering it contained higher amounts of firepower, and the increased protection for the wearer. Another striking design was an improvised flamethrower with extreme reach and heat. Not even the Captain himself would be able to outwit fire. Schmidt didn't care how his antagonist died, as long as the weaponry was efficient.
Lying among the schematics were copies of floor and area plans for the remaining HYDRA bases and occupied areas. They were marked in different-colored inks, red, black, green, and blue, detailing the proper security revisions Schmidt had ordered. The originals were on their way to the commanders of those citadels. Johann had kept these extra maps on hand, and meticulously wrote on them again to insure that his demands were being met. Considering the incompetence he had been faced with, he was going to doubly follow the inner-workings of the chain of command beneath him. The side of his mouth curled up in a smirk. His officers would certainly squirm a little, but they would bend to his wishes. The same probably couldn't be said for Rogers, who would have no one but himself to blame if something went wrong.
Speaking of…Schmidt turned, the smirk falling from his face, toward a metal table stacked high on both sides with rolls of film. They surrounded the crown jewel: the open compass. Sardonically, Schmidt viewed this as a "shrine" to Rogers, who was looking more and more the failure with each passing day. The films, pure propaganda at their core, managed to barely scrape the surface of a superhuman being, and still molest that meaning with the use of nationalist imagery and gimmicks. The compass, on the other hand, was a complete and utter disgrace.
Delicately, Johann picked up the compass to cradle it within his gloved hands. It was standard issue, and probably often used by the Captain when mapping out his raids. Its eye-catching piece, however, was the picture. "How cute, he has fallen for his handler," he murmured, tapping the picture of Agent Carter with his thumb, "What a lovely couple they would make." Schmidt's resentment was palpable in the sarcastic hiss of his voice, and the narrowing of his eyes. He knew this woman well; he'd seen photographs of her taken by his infiltrators before Project: Rebirth.
A little girl had wanted to dress up as a soldier, and after throwing an efficient number of tantrums, she had gotten her way. What added to hilarity of the situation was the fact that Carter consistently made a nuisance out of herself, and got away with it. Her troops, as well as herself, had been one of the few remaining lines of defense against HYDRA until Captain America had been spawned. Schmidt had entertained the notion of putting a bullet through her brain more than once, but also removed it from his mind just as soon. Carter and her fellow officers had managed to hold the line, but their collective enemy body counts had been significantly lower than those of the Captain. If it hadn't been for Rogers' transformation, their lines would've been broken. So of course, she nurtured Rogers for the sake of her own survival. Whether or not that building him up had transmitted over to her own returned affections for the Captain, Schmidt didn't know, and quite frankly, he didn't care.
Balancing the compass in one hand, Johann hooked his finger underneath the ring of the glass covering, prying it open. What did concern him, however, were the potential effects this could have on Rogers' psyche. As much as he disliked the unworthy man, Schmidt couldn't help but feel a sort of attachment to him. He wouldn't dare call it father to son; Rogers, even if his mind was changed, would never be a protégé to him. Whatever it was, it was enough to make him wonder about the ill-advised Captain, even though the answers as to his eventual fate were clear.
Rogers had shed that ridiculous costume of a marionette for his country's government, but he was still one at the core of his being. From the photos he had been presented with for a clear before and after effect of the experiment, Johann not only found amusement, but an insight he highly doubted of which the American was aware. Rogers had begun as nothing more than a beanpole with a dream of much bigger things. True, Erskine had provided the majority of the assistance to make that fantasy a reality, but even that would not have been done without the funding and protection of the government that had taken the scientist in. In short, Rogers owed a hefty debt to the powers that ran the Allied Forces, and he was repaying it with his newfound strength. This fact was rather obvious, but Captain America proved his ignorance of it on the bridge back at the HYDRA compound during his rescue of the POW's. Schmidt had told him that he had embraced leaving humanity behind, and he had invited the Captain to break those same shackles. Rogers, however, had inquired as to why he has running.
That had been his inherent mistake. Schmidt wasn't running from anything. He was headed at full speed toward his future as ruler of this planet, and master of its secrets. Medals and flags meant nothing to him, and they were of what the Captain, by contrast, had made himself a personification. That was the reason why he had turned his back on him to climb into the elevator; a few punches, Schmidt could take, but he simply could not reserve himself to having an ambassador from a system he deemed obsolete jamming his idealisms down his throat.
With great precision, Johann took the photo of Carter out of the compass, careful not to bend or crease it. For as much cruelty as he wished upon her, he preserved her image well for the simple fact that she was an object of value to Rogers. It would be wrong to treat her in any less of a fashion. The truth was, Captain America fought to defend the weak, those he found solace in, for the sheer reason that he had once been just like them. He had been weak physically, and in Schmidt's honest opinion, he still was weak mentally. Fight for those who could not do for themselves, and they would eventually devour their hero. Yet, there were exceptions, such as the Howling Commandos, and this young woman he held in his hand. They could defend themselves, and if it hadn't been for HYDRA, they probably would've been able to defeat the forces of Nazi Germany.
Schmidt closed his eyes for a moment, suppressing a long-buried fury once more. Hitler had branded him as a mere dreamer and a deformed freak, yet it was not Johann who was martyring troops with each passing day with his ludicrous tactics. True, Schmidt's forces were meeting their end due to the Captain, but that was the fault of his commanders. Johann himself was stretched very thin with perfecting his plans of strategically bombing the capitals of the world, training his forces, and keeping his weaponry up to date. He would think that the leaders he had personally chosen would know how to do their jobs, but that was no longer of consequence; he couldn't go back, and change what was. Hitler, however, had no such pardon in Johann's eyes. He was too involved in his generals' battle plans even when they were doing well on their own.
He opened his eyes to bring himself back on topic. Steve had found companionship with more self-sufficient human beings, but that was all they were: human beings. They would eventually wither and die, and that was the horror of it. Rogers invested so much into them, but in the end, he would lose them all due to murder, suicide, accident, disease, or old age. Schmidt grinned as the pathetic image of a sorrowful Captain, his head thrown back with tears running down his face as he held a limp Margaret Carter, her face and chest covered in blood, formed in his mind. He would learn, oh he would learn.
Schmidt snapped the compass shut, and placed it back on the table before ripping Carter's face diagonally in half. Holding each half up before his face, he examined them contemplatively. As much as it would torture Rogers to kill her, Schmidt knew he couldn't do it for that very reason. Carter provided a strong link between the Captain and humanity itself, and taking her life would break that link. As unsatisfactory it was to see what could have been so much more become next to nothing, Johann knew he had to keep Rogers inferior to him, and that inferiority stemmed mainly from their differing mentalities. Schmidt embraced the fact that he was a god, while Rogers did not.
The two halves were promptly discarded into the trash. All the same, Rogers and Carter would eventually have to go, as they posed a threat to him. The only difference was these killings would be objectively, rather than subjectively, inspired. Need would dominate hate. All the same, to say Schmidt was completely without regret was untrue. He was the perfect superhuman, but if the Captain could have fallen into his possession, rather than the Allies, he would've at least been a boon to his cause, and perhaps even someone to talk to in the vein of Dr. Zola; not a confidant by far, but also not a lackey.
Johann's memories took it a step further as he picked up his pen once more. Once upon a time, he had been given the gift of kindness by a young woman, Esther, the daughter of his very first employer. Compared to his previous life with his abusive father and deceased mother in a world he didn't understand, Schmidt had felt a sense of hope, of faith that he finally belonged. His pen dropped back onto the desk. He had been wrong back then. When he had thought his feelings for her to be requited, Esther had retracted his sentiments, branding him lower than her, and perhaps even insane, by societal standards. She had fractured that very same faith she had created in him. Angered and crushed by her words, he had ended her life.
Schmidt's teeth grated against one another. He had been right to save himself from her. The dance of courtship and the tangle of limbs drove men mad, replacing their ambitions, their purposes in life, with flimsy, too-perfect pictures of wedding bands and smiling children. Now that he thought of it, that was yet another way Rogers' relationship with Carter was doomed to fail. If, and this if was rather improbable in itself, Captain America did in fact bed this military woman, the result would be catastrophic. A child, bearing the serum through transmission from its father, would at worst shred its mother's internal organs, and at best drain her due to its uncontrolled strength. Schmidt's jaw relaxed, and opened to emit a humorless laugh. Even if Rogers and Carter escaped alive, their foe would have won in the end.