Every MCU Villain Plot Ranked From Worst To Best
12. Achieving Ultimate Power - Red Skull (Captain America)
Steve Rogers' first solo movie, and the final chapter before the Avengers came together on the big screen saw Captain America square off against the Red Skull. While the likes of some franchises, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, avoided their hero's biggest rival in the their first movie, The First Avenger went straight to the top of Cap's rogues gallery.
The battle between Captain America and the Red Skull was so much more than just two men either side of good and evil, it represented the Allies against the Axis - America against Germany in World War II. Johann Schmidt, Hitler's lead scientist and founder of HYDRA, discovered the Tesseract, a that could put Germany light years ahead of their enemies in terms of an arms and power race.
Such was the villain's drive and belief in his need to become a superior being, he tested the super soldier serum on himself, and though it left him terribly disfigured, it didn't turn him away from his ultimate goal.
The threat posed by this antagonist could have changed the entire face of the world. As a villain, the Red Skull represented everything that is evil, introducing, or re-introducing to the world, things that would continue to leave a path of destruction long after he had passed. Ultimately, the Red Skull succeeding in manipulating his organisation into such a position that his own didn't death didn't really matter that much. HYDRA still managed to successfully survive for decades after.