Captain America's Life Was Saved By His Own Worst Enemy
Very few feuds in the Marvel Universe are as bitter as the one between the Sentinel of Freedom, Captain America, and the Nazi villain, the Red Skull. The two have been fighting without quarter since World War II, and they represent polar opposite values. However, in one story, when Captain America was about to die due to the side effects of his own Super Soldier Serum, it was the Red Skull who saved his life.
The origins of the Red Skull are closely tied with those of Captain America. As a Nazi special agent, Johann Schmidt was in charge of sabotage and subversion in the United States before they entered the war. The U.S. Government sponsored the Super Soldier project because it needed a «special agent» of its own to counter these subversive activities, and so Captain America was born. Steve Rogers foiled Schmidt's plans in the States, and later they met many times during the war. In the final days of the conflict, Cap and the Red Skull fought in Berlin and after an explosion Schmidt was buried underground and put into suspended animation after inhaling an experimental gas. Once again the stories of the two enemies mirrored each other, as Rogers would also end up in suspended animation shortly after.
Related: Captain America's Healing Factor Is More Extreme Than You Think
The Red Skull and Captain America both emerged in the post-war world, the first one joining the terrorist organization HYDRA and the second the heroic Avengers. The two clashed many times in the modern age as their destinies seemed inevitably entangled. When Schmidt died due to the aftereffects of the gas he inhaled at the end of the war, Arnim Zola preserved his mind and downloaded it into a clone of Steve Rogers' body. Thus, the Red Skull had the body
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