Captain America's Weird Tales #74
The Red Skull Strikes Again!
In Hill, the Red Skull has managed to gain access to Satan's book of damned souls, writing in the name of his hated enemy Captain America in the hopes of trapping the hero in the afterlife forever. On Earth, Captain America is awoken from his sleep by a knock at the door. Answering it he is shocked to find a demon waiting at his door. The demon informs Cap that his soul is now forfeit to his realm and teleports Captain America to the afterlife.
Waiting up in the afterlife, Captain America is given a ride across the River Styx by Charon. Captain America is brought before Satan who is surprised to find Captain America in his domain as he never expected such a noble soul in his realm. However, the demon who brought Captain America to Hell soon informs Satan of the Red Skull's interference. The Red Skull then appears and informs Satan that mistake or not, the rules state that Captain America must stay in the afterlife forever.
After much deliberation, Satan decrees that the Red Skull and Captain America must fight to the finish. The winner gets to return to life in the world of the living while the loser is vanquished for all time. The two agree and the battle begins. The Red Skull attacks Captain America with the Grim Reaper's scythe, warning Cap that the slightest touch of the blade will end the match in the Skull's favour. However, Captain America quickly disarms the Red Skull and lands a punch that sends the Red Skull reeling over the edge of the cliff they are fighting on. Cap reaches out and tries to save his foe, but the Skull's shirt rips in his hands and the villain plummets to his demise. With Captain America victorious, the Devil agrees to let Cap go, erasing his name from his book of the damned.
Captain America suddenly awakens in his apartment and believes the entire experience was only a dream... Until he realizes that he still has a swatch of the Red Skull's shirt in his hand.
Recurring Characters
Captain America, Red Skull
Continuity Notes
This Captain America is Jeff Mace per What If? #4
This is the last Timely appearance of Captain America. The character will not be seen again until 1954’s Young Men #24.
The identity of this Red Skull is unknown due to later continuity. By this point in time, the original Red Skull (Johann Schmidt) had been placed in suspended animation since 1944 as seen in Tales of Suspense #66. There are two possibilities here, this Red Skull could be George Maxon who posed as the Red Skull until his death in Captain America Comics #3 or (more likely) the unidentified Red Skull who Jeff Mace fought in Captain America Comics #61 who died during that encounter.
A number of so-called Hell Lords have used the name Satan while manipulating individuals. Is this Satan one of the more common Hell Lords? (Mephisto, Marduk Kurios, Satannish etc.) Marvel doesn’t have any official word one way or the other. However, the Unofficial Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe believes that this is some unrelated individual. Since the guys at the Appendix usually help right the official Marvel handbooks, that’s good enough for me.
This is the last Golden Age appearance of Jeff Mace in the role of Captain America. His retirement and later life is chronicled in Captain America: Patriot #4 and Captain America Annual #6.
Hey Aren’t There More Stories in this Issue?
There are! But here’s the thing dedicated reader, at this time superhero stories are being phased out, which you’d know if you read my Primer to this series. You really should read those before diving into the index. Anyway, for some reason they thought combining Captain America with horror stories was a great idea, as such the rest of this comic are horror stories. They aren’t that compelling and are not part of continuity (so far) so I’m not going to waste my time indexing them here. If you want to know what kind of horror stories these are, try listening to ghost stories being told at a slumber party. If those giggly tween girls aren’t grossed out by you creeping their ghost stories that’s the type of stories here.
