10 Badass Characters Inspired By Ridiculous Things
9. Red Skull Was Inspired By Someone's Dessert
An iconic hero needs an iconic villain to match. And, when you’ve written a hero as grand as Captain America you’re going to need a great deal of inspiration to create his antithesis. But, Captain America creator, Joe Simon, was more than up to the task when he designed the legendary villain, Red Skull.
Red Skull has all the trappings of a quintessential super-villain. Red Skull began as a protege of Hitler, and at the end of World War II, he vowed to destroy the world. He’s matched Captain America's strength, intelligence, and will-power on many occasions.
In his biography, Joe Simon: My Life in Comics, Simon described how he envisioned such a fiendish character. Inspiration struck him, during lunch, while enjoying an ice cream sundae.
“I looked... at the sundae, and I saw the big cherry on top. The cherry looked like a skull. ‘Wow,’ I said to myself. ‘Red Skull ... that sounds good.’”
And, as simple as that, one of Marvel’s most iconic villains was born.