For the longest time, I thought he was just some goon associated with the Red Skull, but now I see that he is in fact the heir to the Red Skull. You see, before he met the Red Skull, Rumlow was a troubled, psychopathic youth living on the fringes of society, with a savage streak and a criminal record, angry at the world but with no outlet for that anger. The Skull took him in as his protege, teaching him discipline, to use his anger to serve his cause, and that the world belonged to the strong, who would exterminate or enslave the weak. Sound familiar?
Crossbones' origin parallels the Red Skull's. In the Skull's case, his mentor was Adolf Hitler, who facilitated the transformation of Schmidt the young, dark bellhop into a feared symbol of Nazi strength. Now, Schmidt has an apprentice of his own in the form of Brock Rumlow. Both the Red Skull and Crossbones are symbols of terror, but unlike Hitler, who trained Schmidt to lead the Nazis against the allies, the Skull trained Rumlow (an American) to strike at the heart of the free world as a subversive master criminal and terrorist.
Crossbones has developed a fanatical devotion to his cause that at least matches the Red Skull's. What's more is that, while the Red Skull has stagnated and become increasingly erratic in his goals (from uniting the world under Nazism to global anarchy), Crossbones' resolve has never wavered. Perhaps more than his master, Crossbones is equipped to bring about a collapse of the world order in the 21st century. It may be that, like Skull eventually abandoned Hitler, later describing him as weak and impotent, Crossbones will shed the increasingly senile "dead weight" that is the Red Skull, thus creating a chain of apprentices killing their masters, as with the Sith Lords.
What do you think? Will the Red Skull be a greater foe for Captain America than Crossbones for the foreseeable future, or should Steve (or Sam) be worried about the day that Crossbones seizes control of Schmidt's legacy?
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