The Marvel Super Heroes · Season 1 · Episode 6
The Sentinel and the Spy / The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull / Lest Tyranny Triumph
Synopsis
The Red Skull plants an agent inside an Allied prisoner compound. The target is Project Vanish, a secret weapon the enemy would kill to own. Private Steve Rogers and the young Bucky Barnes pull guard duty over the new prisoner. A hidden gas cylinder drops the sentries where they stand. The agent seizes the vanishing ray and bolts for the Red Skull. Steve Rogers becomes Captain America. He runs the thief down as the ray shears through trees like a buzzsaw and swings toward a column of tanks. The weapon was never built to hold a full-intensity blast. Captain America walks off with Project Vanish and a General's thanks.
A second blast catches Steve and Bucky aboard a sinking transport. The Red Skull's men haul the pair from the wreck. Bucky is kept as a hostage while the Skull savors his prize and talks. He recounts the climb from starving orphan and jailbird to hotel bellboy, and how the leader saw his own hatred staring back and forged him into evil personified. A chemist named Schultz then drugs Captain America into an obedient slave. The Red Skull points his new weapon at the Allied supreme commander himself. Bucky rallies the prisoners and trails the killing squad to the general's headquarters. At the trigger-pull the drug breaks, and Captain America turns on his captors instead. Liberty, he tells the grateful general, is its own reward.
Reality Designation
This story takes place outside the main Marvel continuity: 600026
Reality numbers are Marvel's official designations.
Where a universe has no official number we follow the Marvel Database and use its Temporary Reality Number (TRN-1092). Where there is neither — official or temporary — at the time we watch it, we assign a Snark Industries number of our own (SI-001).
Characters in the Episode
Recovers Project Vanish, is captured and drugged into an assassin, and breaks the spell at the last second.
Company mascot. Captured early, then rallies the prisoners and shadows the killing squad to warn Cap.
Schemes to steal Project Vanish, takes Cap prisoner, recounts his own origin, and drugs Cap into a weapon.
In flashback, spots the bellboy and forges the Red Skull. In the present, fears the monster he made.
Administers the chemical that enslaves Captain America to the Skull's commands.
Steve Rogers' platoon sergeant, forever hunting his "gold-bricking yard bird."
In-Universe Dates
Johann Schmitt works as a BellBoy and is recruited by Hitler
In his late teens during the rise of the Third Reich, Shmidt got his most prosperous job, a bellhop in a major hotel. There he served the rooms of Adolf Hitler himself. By chance, he was present when Hitler was furiously berating an officer and swore he could train Johann himself. - https://www.superherodb.com/red-skull/10-1392/history/
Hitler held power between 1933-1945. The 'Rise of the Third Reich' would indicate early years. This places Johann's birth somewhere between 1915-1919.
"when our leader came to power, I was working as a bellboy,"
The US is at war, has troops based in England, and holds Axis POWs. That sets a floor of January 26, 1942.
Comic Roots
Where the episode's people and places come from on the page.
Tales of Suspense #66, "The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull!" (June 1965, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, inks by Chic Stone), rebuilt the villain from the ground up. The masked Skull who first menaced Cap in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby) had been an impostor, the industrialist George Maxon. Issue #66 handed the mask to Johann Schmidt and told the story this block reprises almost beat for beat: the orphan, the jailbird, the hotel bellboy the leader molds into "evil personified." Maskless Schmidt actually predates all of it in Captain America Comics #7 (1941), so #66 is a definitive origin reveal, not a clean first appearance. The fully expanded version waits until Captain America #298 (1984).
On the page the "leader" is explicitly Adolf Hitler, who personally forges the Skull and later comes to fear him. The cartoon keeps every beat and drops the name. The platoon sergeant riding Steve Rogers is the comics' Sgt. Mike Duffy, called only "Sarge" in Tales of Suspense #63 and named Duffy from #64 onward, here left as plain "Sarge." Both are lineage the adaptation carries without flagging it.
Recommended Reading
Where to go next if the episode left you wanting more.
"The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull!", the Silver Age origin this flashback lifts nearly panel for panel.
"Lest Tyranny Triumph!", the mind-control plot from the episode.
"The Sentinel and the Spy!", the Project Vanish theft that opens the episode.
The Red Skull's debut in his masked, impostor form, for the character's Golden Age roots.
"Sturm und Drang: The Life and Times of the Red Skull!", the definitive expanded origin of Johann Schmidt.
The Snark File
Easter eggs, callbacks and technical tidbits.
Photocopy Theater
The segment, like many others, is xerographed near-motion-comic, actual panels from Tales of Suspense #66 through #68 shot with barely a twitch of lip or eye. When Cap "runs," you are mostly watching Kirby art slide across a background.
