One of the most vile villains of the Marvel Universe gets his very own twisted Secret Wars series! Red Skull should be dead but his legend grows, so a team that includes Winter Soldier, Magneto, Electro and Lady Deathstrike are sent on a dangerous odyssey to the Deadlands to prove it...but no one ever comes back alive from the Deadlands! Forced to overcome zombies, Ultron drones and the Annihilation Wave, the rag-tag team of villains will fi nd that they may bitten off more than they can chew.
What collective brain trust at Marvel picked which distinctive Battleworlds to get the Secret Wars treatment? For me, so far, only a few have been books I would recommend. Most have been just average, a few terrible.
Here’s one to add the latter category.
It seems that the Red Skull, a villain that’s been around since Galactus was only a Stan Lee wet dream, has become a thorn in the side of Lord Doom. In order to put the rumors that the Red Skull’s still alive to rest, Doom sends a commando squad beyond the Shield (where it’s just zombies, robots, bug creatures and indoor plumbing is just a fantasy). Either bring back proof that he’s dead or bring back his head.
So far, it’s promising – a weird mix of characters that has potential to be fun, sent into the dangerous hinterlands of Battleworld, but then:
Zombie chow.
And I know what you’re thinking:
Jeff, because Jack ‘O Lantern was feasted upon, it’s perfect timing because we are right upon the pre holiday season here in Murica where everything is pumpkin flavored – cookies, crackers, gum, soda, pancakes, luncheon meats, pumpkin-flavored Schnapps, “Sir, can I interest you in a pumpkin flavored latte.” “No, I’ll just stick with my $5 cup of coffee, barista shrew.”
You weren't thinking that, Mr./Ms Goodreader?
*takes a long breath*
So that just leaves, the Red Skull (He’s alive. Shocking? No?) and Magneto, who get to re-enact their hate-hate relationship.
The rest is some predictable harsh words and daggers and plans of revenge and some moronic plot developments.
And don’t get me revved up about the asinine ending.
Because this volume was mercifully only three issues, Marvel reprinted two other Red Skull-themed comics.
The first is Captain America #367 in which Magneto and the Red Skull get teamed-up in a super villainous way and Magneto uses this as a reason to take revenge on the Red Skull for his Nazi past. Which is fine and dandy except Magneto has plenty of blood on his hands as well, so knock yourself out ya mooks.
The second reprint is Captain America #14 (Mark Waid’s run), where the Skull is trapped in a warped reality courtesy of the Cosmic Cube.
Bottom Line: Another pumpkin flavored Secret Wars title to avoid!
Red Skull was part of the Battleworld series. Dr. Doom has become a god. He is opposed by the Red Skull. So he sends a squad of Hunters (Winter Soldier, Magneto, Electro, Moonstone, Jack O Lantern and Lady Deathstrike) led by Crossbones to take out the Red Skull.
The rest of the story is rather a mess. Red Skull has gone native in the jungles of..not really sure where, Annihilus is also involved, zombies, etc. I really won't go much into this weird Battleworld story-since none of the things that happen on the Battleworld are "real". The artwork is atrocious. The story not much better. But I did finish it and there were a few interesting parts-so 2 stars and I will never likely see/hear or speak of this sorry title again.
Red Skull was sent over the Shield to die in the wastelands after leading a failed insurrection against Doom. Even though nobody’s seen him since and no-one survives the wastelands for long, Doom wants Crossbones to lead a group of supervillains - there’s half a dozen picked out but only Magneto is relevant - over the Shield to find and bring him Red Skull’s head in a box.
This Secret Wars tie-in was completely pointless. Nobody was asking what Red Skull was up to during Secret Wars (not much as it turns out), his plan to topple the Shield and fight Doom again was stupid and irrelevant (especially given that it falls to someone else), and at no point is any of it in the least bit entertaining. I liked that the supervillain burg of Battleworld is called Killville though.
Full of crap art and even worse writing, if you want to read a slightly better version of a very similar storyline, check out the Planet Hulk tie-in. Red Skull is red shit.
Entirely superfluous Secret Wars tie-in which follows some villains doing bad stuff because they're villains. Williamson normally gives great monster (cf his own chilling Nailbiter) so fuck knows what went wrong here. Like many of the slimmer crossover miniseries, the collection is filled out with a couple of old issues bearing some connection to the lead story. However, where normally they're either old and crap or else something everyone's read already, the two Skull-centric Captain America issues appended here, written by Gruenwald and Waid respectively, offer far more dramatic and psychological interest than the main event.
Odd Battle World story. And odd is better than I expect. Also better than I expected were the backup stories. These are reprints with garish colors and typically awful writing. Either my tolerance of this kind of thing has increased or this was a better one. And then a truly weird backup story in which Red Skull was living as a poor person in a Captain America dominated post-war Germany. Black and White with just a bit of red - it came off as kind of an Noir twist - and though it was kind of reaching - I basically liked it - definitely a nice surprise. 3.5 of 5.
this was mostly completely pointless. some secret wars tie-ins don't really add much (or nothing really) to the main plot and storyline but at least they are good and/or somewhat interesting.
and while reading this i did find some good parts they were counted and not enough to make this a good book. uhm yeah no, this is not it...
Reprints Battleworld: Red Skull #1-3, Captain America (1) #367, and Captain America (2) #14 (February 1990-November 2015). No one survives outside of the shield…no one. That is the rumor on Battleworld, but a myth that the Red Skull somehow managed to survive is plaguing Lord Doom and his rule. Now Crossbones who was able to return from the other side of the shield has collected a team of Magneto, Winter Soldier, Electro, Jack O’Lantern, Lady Deathstrike, and Moonstone to go to the other side of the shield and bring back proof that the Red Skull is alive. The Red Skull might be alive, but the Red Skull might have his own plans for Doom.
Written by Joshua Williamson and illustrated by Luca Pizzari, Battleworld: Red Skull collects the three issue Secret Wars spin-off series. The collection also contains Captain America (1) #367 (February 1990) by Mark Gruenwald and Kieron Dwyer and Captain America (2) #14 (February 1999) by Mark Waid and Andy Kubert.
Secret Wars was kind of messy. The core title was pretty dense, but there were both bad and fun tie-in series. Red Skull was a rather short tie-in (with only three issues) and feels underdeveloped in that sense…as a collection it is pretty weak as well since some random “Red Skull” issues were shoved in with the series.
The problem with Battleworld: Red Skull is that it flies by. The team is introduced and immediately destroyed by the zombies. I thought there was going to be conflict, betrayal, suspicion, and all the stuff that a story is built around (especially involving Bucky). Instead we a slaughter and Magneto hanging out with the Red Skull for the rest of the collection. It doesn’t seem like the smartest method of storytelling.
I do kind of like that the whole series was about reputation. With Doom ruling the world, everyone still wants to have a name for themselves. Magneto wants to take down the Red Skull. The Red Skull wants infamy and to be a legend…and Crossbones (?!?!) beat the major heavy hitters at their own game.
The back-up stories are also very random. I could understand the first appearance of the Red Skull in Captain America Comics #7 or his relaunch Tales of Suspense #79. I know they wanted a team-up with Magneto and Red Skull story (they selected an Acts of Vengeance story) and a second story that almost feels out of place with the Red Skull’s mind twisted in time by Kang…it feels that there were better Red Skull stories to include since the collection is so short.
Battleworld: Red Skull is a rather “meh” book. With only three real issues, it is a quick read and requires no thinking, but it also feels like it was made with little thought. I feel the book would have been helped with an extra issue and that it could have been filled out with better back-up stories that really tell the tale of the Red Skull. Overall, Battleworld: Red Skull can be missed.
This is the second of the Secret Wars-era limited runs that I've read. While 1872 effortlessly dropped a bunch of Marvel characters into a new genre of comic, and let the plot drive the characters, this book seemed to be letting the nostalgia for characters dictate the plot. As such, it wasn't nearly as much fun.
Of course the interplay between a Holocaust survivor (Magneto) and a Nazi villain (Red Skull) is going to be a downer, but Williamson hits the reader over the head, repeatedly with Magneto agonizing over his scenario. Just one acknowledgement of this would have been sufficient, since their interplay wasn't even the crux of this series. Crossbone's involvement also seemed really forced. Not that he was involved, but the way he was involved. There was no character development, he just shows up early in the story, and then disappears until the end, where he acts like hhe was the protagonist the entire time. It left the whole story feeling kind of hollow, and made me wonder what Williamson's point was.
Author's had pretty much free reign during this era. You could write a ridiculous fun story, you could use nostalgic characters to make bold statements about himanity or politics...you could do anything, continuity didn't matter, and Williamson just sort of placed a bunch of characters in the world, killed them at a brutal pace, and then just walked away.
The reprint of Captain America (1968-1996) #367 so far outshined the content of this book with how to play Magneto and Red Skull of each other that it almost seems mean that they included it in Williamson's collection.
It's not awful. If you're really into alternate world titles, this might be for you. It's just not as exciting as many of the other Secret Wars books. PIzarri's art is fairly pedestrain, too. Again, not bad, but not especially interesting. Though some of that may be the muddied nature of Beredo's colors. In some ways its blandness really matched the content of the story.
Nie wiem czy Red Skull nie będzie największym pozytywnym zaskoczeniem w obrębie Tajnych Wojen. Bo spodziewałem się po ocenach barachła. A dostałem w miarę dynamiczną, zaskakującą historię, która w kilku momentach sprawiła mnie zdumienie.
Crossbones formułuje skład z ludzi, którzy podpadli bogu Doomowi i teraz mają okazję się zrehabilitować poprzez podróż za mur, tam gdzie królują zombie, Ultron i Lord Annihilus. Cel: przynieść głowę Red Skulla, który podobnież żyje i jątrzy spoza muru... Pytanie jak? Pozostaje bez odpowiedzi, bo jakim sposobem naziol miałby to robić, jak stamtąd nie przechodzi, ale...
W skład grupy wchodzą takie badassy jak Winter Soldier, Magneto, Moonstone, Electro, Lady Deathstrike oraz Jack O'Lantern. Każde z nich ma coś za uszami, więc spodziewać się można rzezi. I takowa jest. Więcej nie zdradzę, ale tytuł zaskakuje. Najpierw na początku, potem pod koniec kiedy następuje kulminacja pod Murem. Świetne.
Gorzej sytuacja wygląda z kreską, bo ta potrafi być miejscami szpetna. Ale Red Skull na szczęscie daje radę w innych aspektach, też dlatego że jest dobrze zbalansowany.
I enjoyed the premise of the book. A "squad" goes on a government mandated "suicide" mission to bring back proof of the red skulls demise. The team consists of some heavy hitters. People like Lady Deathstrike, Electro, Magneto, Winter Soldier, and a couple of others. They are thrown into what is known in battleworld as "the dead-lands" which is densely populated by Marvel zombies, ultron robots, and annihilus' army.
Pretty good right? and it is good! up until about the last issue. Its almost like this series was supposed to be four or five issues, but was cut for some reason. Things move very quickly and not in a good way. It feels like the writer is rushing towards the end.
Art is good. Its sketchy but it fits well with the story. Solid art.
Overall, not horrible but isn't mandatory reading in regards to the overall Secret Wars story.
Yeah this is a really odd story. The whole Battleworld thing is weird, come to think of it.
Everyone thinks Red Skull is dead, but God Doom wants proof. So send a strange collection of villains into the Deadlands to get him. And yeah, sounds awesome. There are monsters and zombies in the Deadlands, could be great! But then all the characters die, literally everyone except Magneto because Red Skull saved him.
The rest of the story is Red Skull and Magneto being evil and arguing etc. And yeah I enjoyed it enough. It's alright.
This would be a pretty average 3 stars but the other two Red Skull comics that are included are pretty good so it just scrapes 4.
A strange book. And the back issues included to make it a reasonable size may be even stranger.
The reader is supposed to root for the Red Skull? It kind of maybe almost works for a few seconds. But neither the Skull nor the author ultimately seem to have a plan. The strength of the plan is usually what these "Root for criminal mastermind" books live and die on. (Or there's sometimes sympathy for the subjective motivations (not here) or sympathy for the degradation and delusion (a couple of panels)).
Tantos tie-ins de 5 números que no valen la pena y acá uno de 3 que Williamson logra armar de manera satisfactoria, pero con el claro gusto a más, porque, oigan, hemos leído historias de 5 que son un gran "ñe"
Red Skull es el modelo de los que están contra Dios Doom, y luego de ser desterrado a las Deadlands, es preciso buscar pruebas de su muerte para desalentar a los rebeldes a través de Battleworld y ¿que mejor que un par de renegados para cumplir esta misión?
I'm not sure why other critics on here are so against this book. It's very brief pretty fun. I like books where supervillain team-ups are made the focus of the story, and Red Skull and Magneto are a great combination in a setting like the Deadlands. This isn't close to being the best Battleworld story, but I think it's pretty fun to read and subverts expectations without leaning too heavily on the fact that it's doing so.
I definitely enjoyed this more than most people. There are some fun twists and breaks from what you think the story is going to be, and I loved the last page. It sold it for me. I even liked the art, though others had problems with it.
I'm enjoying the tapestry of Battleworld. Oddly, I haven't read Secret Wars yet, but I think doing it this way will (hopefully) add more weight to the story.
Wish this wasn’t so dependent on Secret Wars and Doom. It would have been much more interesting to showcase the evils of Red Skull while going up against this team of Marvel Suicide Squad, especially Magneto. The covers for these issues are awesome though.
Doom sent red skull over the wall but there have been tales of him being alive. Doom promised freedom to anyone bringing Red Skull' head, which includes Magneto.
The Red Skull is somehow surviving in the Deadlands and is plotting against Doom. I have no idea what this is supposed to add to the overall Battleworld story.
Myth has it that he's still alive deep in the deadlands but no one's seen him. Punk kids still graffiti his name in the streets and still blaspheme against God Doom siding with Red Skull believing in his return to dethrown Doom.
So, Doom sends Crossbones (Skull's lacky) to find a team and send them over the wall to find any proof that Red Skull is still alive, and if so, bring his head back to Doom's feet. And if they DO kill Skull they're to finally live a free life.
So Crossbones finds a team. Among them Villains.. Heroes... and such, like Electro, Magneto, and even Winter Soldier (voluntarily) and others. Things get interesting right from the start when they go beyond the wall, and . Couldn't not say it because oh well, it happens from the start, did put it in spoiler so if you don't wanna find out don't click it. But that character is from now on on the hunt for Red Skull.