Johann Schmidt
Colonel Johann Schmidt (aka the Red Skull)
Johann Schmidt was born in a village in Germany to Hermann and Martha Schmidt. His mother died in childbirth, and his father blamed Johann for her death. Johann's father tried to drown the baby, only to be stopped by the attending doctor; he later committed suicide, leaving Johann an orphan. The doctor took Johann to an orphanage, where the child led a lonely existence. Johann ran away from the orphanage when he was seven years old and lived on the streets as a beggar and thief. As he grew older, he worked at various menial jobs but spent most of his time in prison for crimes ranging from vagrancy to theft.
As a young man, Schmidt was from time to time employed by a Jewish shopkeeper, whose daughter Esther was the only person who had treated Schmidt kindly up to that point. His fixation upon her kindness turned deranged, and Schmidt tried to force himself upon her. She resisted, and in unthinking fury, Schmidt murdered her. Schmidt fled the scene in terror but also felt ecstatic joy in committing his first murder. In killing Esther, he had given vent to the rage at the world that had been building up in him throughout his young life. He was quickly tracked down by agents of the old order of HYDRA, who revealed his life had been engineered to lead up to that moment. HYDRA wanted a scientists' brain with a sociopaths' lack of morality. Schmidt fulfilled both of those directives and rose swiftly through German aristocracy thanks to the influence of this secret society. When he was introduced to Hitler, the two men found an instant and deep connection and Hitler took Schmidt under his wing almost immediately.
Under Hitler's auspices, Schmidt would uncover a late-blooming talent for science. Particularly fascinated by the concept of the Ubermensch, he would recruit various scientists and researchers into the Nazi's science division (the Schutzstaffel). The advanced weapons department was given a new codename: HYDRA. This would obfuscate the identity of the ancient society by hiding them in plain sight. HYDRA became a rival faction to the Ahnenerbe-- the Nazi SS division of occultists, and their backers, the shadowy Thule Society.
Frighteningly loyal to Hitler, his ambition led to him being recruited to Hitler's inner circle in 1934 as the final member of the Harbingers. In an attempt to prove his worth to that group, Schmidt forced Abraham Erskine to administer a still-experimental serum designed to trigger a metagene crisis. Derived from Terrigen Mists, the serum pushed him to the peak of human physical ability and sharpened his already razor intellect. However, it magnified his glaring personality disorders into megalomania and paranoia, and all subcutaneous fat disappeared from newly sanguine-stained skin. Calling himself the Red Skull, Schmidt would be a persistent adversary of Captain Steve Rogers in particular, the only other beneficiary of Erskine's efforts.
In 1945, Schmidt launched a last-ditch effort to gain control of the lost Kree weapon called The Cosmic Cube. The tumultuous battle with the Justice Defenders over the Arctic Sea would result in Schmidt and Rogers both lost and presumed dead.
