1886
A man visits an orphanage in Germany. One boy, Johann Schmidt, takes a liking to
the adult for the first time in his life, which up to this point had been comprised of
nothing but solitude. This man took Johann on a trip to the man's business, where
he received some bad news. To compensate for this, the man caused screams
promising better news moving forward. Then the man showed Johann an artifact
recovered from Latveria with the ability, upon chanting a hymn, to give the holder of
the item any knowledge he wanted.
[
Johann asked for knowledge of his mother and father.
[
Ending up in tears, Johann was comforted by the man who revealed that his father
hated him as well, though the man's father, rather than blaming him for his mother
dying in childbirth like Johann's, had hated him due to his alcoholism, and rather
than throwing him away like Johann's father had, instead tortured him for years,
making him the man he is today. He subsequently recommended Johann take the
same from his father. Take the horror he caused Johann and make it drive him for the
rest of his life.
[
Johann returned to the orphanage at the end of that day determined never to be left
in a position of powerlessness like he was when his father had tried to drown him,
for the rest of his life.
[
[
1907
[
Years later, Johann was a mercenary who refused to work with others, finding many
in the business at the time, remarkably ignorant and closed minded. This was until
he was on a transportation job, moving a target of great importance to his employer,
when suddenly he was attacked by a group of American soldiers. The attack's
quality execution allowed Johann to realize that he would be able to utilize soldiers
of his own, even if they would be of great ignorance.
[
Returning to the business of the man from the orphanage, Johann became the
man's right hand man able to order dozens of subordinates, until he messed up, at
which point he was beaten by said subordinates in order to keep it from happening
again.
[
Johann wouldn't have this.
[
He killed the man that was once his idol, and took his place as the leader of this
group for quite some time. This allowed him access once again to the artifact, but
he quickly discovered it's magic had worn off over the years, only gaining
information regarding the Tesseract's existence, though not it's location. Fascinated
by the power the Tesseract implies, Johann teaches himself in the ways of physics
until he becomes an expert, also picking up knowledge from other veins of
information. One such vein happening to be Norse, Johann developed a theory that
the Tesseract was the same as the Cosmic Cube mentioned in myths he learned
about, implying that once in the history of the universe, Odin decided to store it on
Earth (known there as Midguard). This became Johann and his group's primary goal
for the duration of his leadership over them.
[
[
1917
[
Using it as a way to gain more followers and look for the Tesseract, Johann and
many of his group become a high ranking officials in the military, fighting in World
War I. This is when he was introduced to an ancient order known as HYDRA. Johann
was apprehensive at first, but realized that the members HYDRA lacked the
ignorance he found in most others. Refusing to serve, though highly intrigued by
HYDRA's god, known as Hive, Johann joins them and convinces his group to follow.
[
[
1939
[
By the time World War II hit, Johann led HYDRA, and had been contracted by Hitler
due to the two's shared passion for the exploration of knowledge, to be the Nazi
regime's primary weapons manufacturer as well as research and development, all
despite Johann's uninterest in the Nazi's interests. This collaboration led to the
straw that broke the camel's back, when Nazi leaders sent to communicate with
Johann due to Adolf's busy schedule, disliking him and attacking him instead,
hoping to blame an escaped POW.
[
Instead, Johann ordered his followers to begin an operation he'd been working on
for months with a colleague HYDRA put in touch with him, known as Dr. Abraham
Erskine, so that no man would ever physically overpower him again. This operation
in which he was given an experimental serum, burned off his skin, left his skeleton
with a permanent crimson tint, and gave him super strength. When talking with
Adolf about taking revenge on these leaders, Adolf convinced him to keep HYDRA
apart of the Nazi mission, though Johann, now taking the name Red Skull, from then
on planned to topple the simplistic ideas of Adolf Hitler, and aim for a hydra to be
flying on every flagpole in the world, rather than a swastika.
[
Three years later, when invading a small town, a HYDRA soldier spotted the site
which would be revealed to be the location of the Tesseract.
[
-Badly written, too little knowledge of the source material, too short, all of
-these complaints are totally justified, but hopefully the character development
-was something of note, cause that's what I was trying with this one.
-Oh yeah! The group of Americans that attack Johann when he's a lone wolf
-mercenary in my mind could easily be Nick Fury's father or he himself, and
-his squad, I just didn't want to say that 'cause it was a little flashy for this
-story.