GCD credits Mike Esposito for inking the cover.

Super-Villain Team-Up #15, November 1978, 18 pages
“The Invaders!”
Larry Lieber, writer
Wally Wood, artist (part 1)
George Tuska, penciler (part 2)
Mike Esposito, inker (part 2)
Jean Simek, letterer (part 1)
Mike Stephens, letterer (part 2)
Jim Salicrup, reprint editor



Cover by George Perez and Joe Sinnott

Summary:

Starting off with an impressive splash from Wally Wood:



In the ruins of his castle, Dr. Doom reflects on his victory over a recent rebellion. He orders the able-bodied citizenry of Latveria to attend to the reconstruction of his palace (insisting it must be identical to the previous designs) and flies off in his jetpack as the Red Skull observes remotely. The Skull is supported by his own team, The Exiles, a group of international troublemakers that he rescued from Exile Island following his escape from Earth orbit following the events of Captain America #129.

Swooping in to claim Latveria as soon as Doom has departed, fez-wearing Exile Baldini clobbers a handful of resisters using his scarf(?!) as a weapon, Exile Hauptmann attacks with his iron prosthetic hand, and strongman Krushki demonstrates his wrestling expertise.

Where’s Doom been while his homeland is invaded? The French Riviera, where he commands the awe and dread of the society elite and the immediate compliance of the hotel staff! A couple of apparently naïve and under-informed cat burglars make the mistake of attempting burglary in Doom’s suite and are treated with fortunate leniency. But in Latveria, the Exiles are playing a lot rougher with Doom’s palace guard, with Exile Cadavus (“monarch of the Murder Chair”) undoing lots of the recent repair work with his weaponized wheelchair. Controlling the royal palace, Red Skull declares, is equivalent to controlling the country!

Back in France, the casino operator is reluctant to let Doom at the roulette wheel, suspicious of his electronics. Doom doesn’t take the insult kindly, wrecks the gambling tables and heads for home via jet pack. Little does he suspect that the Red Skull has established the Fourth Reich, complete with goose-stepping and swastikas:



George Tuska suddenly takes over the pencils as Dr. Doom returns to an evidently serene Latveria, anticipated arranging “spontaneous outpourings of joy among the peasantry to greet my homecoming!” Instead, he finds himself under attack by the Red Skull’s soldiers, who he mercifully renders unconscious. The Red Skull now has Doom’s own palace defenses to slow Doom’s attempts to breach the castle, and succeeds in gassing the deposed monarch and displaying him in humiliation, trapped in a metal mummy case. Which is no challenge for Doom, as his subjects are rounded up for the concentration camps:



The Skull expects to repeat his success defending the castle from the escaped Doom using Doom’s own arsenal, but Doom’s strategy is to dig beneath the castle and disable the power supply. With the power off, Doom makes quick headway, even after the Red Skull reactivates the flame gun with auxiliary power. He orders Doom to be flamed down, ignoring his own men in the path of the infernal blast. Doom’s armor has instant-freeze capabilities (must have been on the fritz by the time Champions #16 was published!) and destroys the weapon.

And so it comes down to Doom vs. The Exiles, but Doom easily bests the wrestler Krushki, burn’s Baldini’s precious scarf, reverses the charge on the electrified whip of…uh, did they ever name the guy with the whip? Maybe I missed it…Anyway, he drops Cavadus and his Murder Chair down a trap door, and seals the Skull and the last two Exiles in a room where he uses a shrinking gas to take them down to Ant-Man size and rockets them back to their island…where they’ll find the shrinking was all a hypnotic illusion!

Comments:

Completely out of the blue, S-VT-U returned to the stands, labeled a quarterly, one year after its cancellation, incorporating this abridged reprint of the Dr. Doom solo stories from Astonishing Tales #4-5 from 1970-71. Why? I sure don’t know—my best guess is to retain trademark on the term “super-villain”, which I think it was then sharing (along with “super-hero”) with DC. And it’s not a “team-up” by any definition, but it stands out as a much higher quality piece than most of what we’ve seen over the life of this series. It’s no surprise that the work of Wally Wood would be more appealing than that of Bob Hall, but even George Tuska’s half of the story has more pizzazz than the pedestrian pages of the publication’s past.

The story does suffer from its limited page count, cramming the rebuilding of Doom’s castle and the Red Skull’s successful conquest of the country into an unlikely short time-frame; even if it was less compressed than the story implied, we’d have to conclude that Doom ignored the news while he was on vacation, or that Red Skull was able to keep the country so locked down that the news didn’t leak out.

Speaking of which, “Dr. Doom Goes on Vacation” is a cute idea. Originally, this was early in the short attempt to give Dr. Doom a solo series, and they were probably already feeling the pinch of coming up with ways to carry that off. Note that Doom isn’t killing anyone here, even the burglar whom he would be, in the eyes of most, entirely justified in dispatching. Of course, with diplomatic immunity, he could kill someone in broad daylight in Time Square with no consequences.

I’m not familiar with the Exiles, but they had apparently appeared before in Captain America. The guys I couldn’t identify are General Ching and Gruning, all of them Kirby creations, each with a combat gimmick and each a stereotype representing a tyrannical government of then-recent history.

In the “sausage-making” department, I noticed that Larry Lieber was stressing that the palace had to be rebuilt exactly matching the original, which enabled Doom to head straight for the power station when he needed to, and ensured that all of the necessary defense weaponry would be in place. You can argue with Doom’s approach to governance, but you can’t argue with Latverian productivity and quality! I think there was some final panel re-writing going on, too: Doom had already been established as having the capability to shrink his foes, in Fantastic Four #16, for example, so there’s no reason he wouldn’t have used it here, but changing it to a hypnotic suggestion would make it easier to use the Red Skull next time he showed up without having to explain why he’s big again.

Detour:
Captain America #103-104, July-August 1968, 40 pages
“The Weakest Link” and "Slave of the Skull!"
By Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Syd Shores, inker (#103)
Dan Adkins, inker (#104)
Artie Simek, letterer


Covers by Jack Kirby, inked by Syd Shores (#103) and Dan Adkins (#104)
Summary:
Steve Rogers is on a date with Sharon Carter when he’s knocked out by a gas gun-wielding assailant, one of a team of villainous agents who then kidnap Sharon, a.k.a. Agent 13, and take her to the Island of Exiles so that their leader, the Red Skull, can user her as bait for Captain America. The Red Skull doesn’t reward them as expected, since he realizes they have unwittingly leaving behind the actual hero himself.
The Skull’s aide Grunning accompanies him to the headquarters on Exile Island, which has been home for 20 years to a hidden troop of Nazis led by the Skull. The Skulls “chiefs of staff” are those we saw in the last issue, not all Nazis, but including stereotypical Communists and fascists as well.

The Exiles enjoy a coerced display of hand to hand combat between unwilling captives who appear highly motivated by the activating device the Skull carries.
Captain America is on his way now via a S.H.I.E.L.D. rocket to Exile Island (Stan forgot to explain just how Steve knew where to go to find his kidnapped girlfriend). Attempting entry via an underwater passageway, Cap is assaulted by electronically-controlled kelp (?!):

Escaping the kelp, Cap opts for an advance on the shore, commandeering a patrol boat which he sets aflame and drives “right up the slope—towards the fortress!” Very advanced maritime maneuvering capability the Skull’s got there in his naval vessels!
In the fortress, Cap gets into some hand-to-hand combat but succumbs to a back-of-the-head pistol whipping after confronting the Red Skull, who places “a small strip of nuclear tape” to the back of Cap’s neck, which he can detonate with the press of a button, explaining the fearful reaction of his compelled gladiators earlier in the story:


Cap’s placed in a cell next to Sharon, and the Exiles begin to bicker and battle between each other. Cap and Sharon escape, thanks to Sharon’s secreted micro-flame thrower, and flee to the island’s airstrip, where Cap engages in fisticuffs with his old enemy before escaping. Or so he thinks…the Skull’s detonator can still work at a distance!
As the next issue opens, we are treated to three pages of gratuitous combat as Cap practices against some “Life Model Decoys”. While cleaning up afterwards, the Red Skull activates his device, which, through some implausible mechanism, also provides the Skull with visual contact. Not only does his neuro-rod affect Steve himself, but it also permits activation of a hidden Hydrogen bomb in D.C. Steve is ordered back to Exile Island for final battle.
In preparation, the Red Skull takes the readers on a brief tour of Exile Island, and meets with his now-more-settled chiefs of staff, who are eager to have their individual opportunities to battle the First Avenger.
Doctors in the States confirm that the nuclear tape is too risky to remove, so Steve returns to Exile Island, where he immediately tries to gain the upper hand directly against the Skull, but the neuro-rod incapacitates him.
Back home, Nick Fury has found the hidden H-bomb and has sent for Tony Stark, the only man he trusts to deactivate it. On Exile Island, the Exiles take turns demonstrating their individual combat talents against Cap, whose Skull-dulled reflexes limit his ability to defend against them. But Cap ultimately draws on his reserves and changes the tides of battle. By the time the Skull decides to use the neuro-rod, he finds it ineffective: no H-bomb, no effect on Cap. I guess Stark has delivered!
In addition, Exile Island is now under attack from bombing planes and the beachhead is secured by advancing S.H.I.E.L.D. forces, including Sharon Carter. The Skull’s soldiers surrender, the neuro-tape can be removed as it is now inoperative, and Nazism has been defeated once again.

Comments:
Since both the previous (all-reprint) issue of S-VT-U and the upcoming (all-new) issue both reference the two-part story in these issues, it seemed worth taking a quick look back at these. The Exiles played a big part in our previous reprinted story, and the next will open on Exile Island and include yet another victim of the Red Skull’s neuro-rod.
The story itself is pretty awkward, what with Cap escaping Exile Island and then immediately heading back the next issue, and, typical for the series then, massively padded with action scenes of little consequence. The idea of the Red Skull operating from a secret island of Nazis and other deposed tyrants is a cool one, but Kirby’s Exiles are not among his more inspired concepts. Cavadus, in his Murder Chair, is visually interesting, but Baldini and his deadly scarf is just ridiculous.
But there’s still enough meat on the Red Skull to hold some promise for him as the lead character in the next era of Super-Villain Team-Up: unquestionable villainy, visual appeal, interesting base of operations, and a long history in the Marvel Universe.

Super-Villain Team-Up #16, May, 1979, 17 pages
“Shall I Call Thee Master?”
Peter Gillis, writer
Carmine Infantino, penciler
Bruce Patterson, inker
Jim Novak, letterer
Bob Sharen, colorist
Jim Salicrup, editor
Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief



Cover by Al Milgrom and Frank Giacoia

Summary:


The Hate Monger and the Red Skull are feasting over a clear floor, beneath which throng dozens of pleading, chained captives. They raise a toast to “the new era” (I’m not sure how HM drinks with that hood on, though), and the Skull retires before an abrupt transition to his morning workout routine of pushups, pistol firing practice, and gymnastics, crediting his ally the Hate Monger as “a vital part of a grand design” to his aide. The Skull goes immediately from the workout to his partner, and the reader is treated to the Skull’s boast of pride in “the virile scent of [his] Aryan sweat” (ecch!) that offends the Hate Monger’s nose. But appearances do matter, and he dons his uniform before the team of super-villains review the day’s parade of “Seig heil”-ing Nazi soldiers, here on Exile Island.




We turn now to Yousuf Tov, a pampered prisoner held in a luxurious wing of the residential mansion. Tov is a commando of the Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency responsible for counter-terrorism activities. Tov has one of the Skull’s neuro-detonators planted in his neck, the likes of which we saw in the Captain America stories previously reviewed, controlled by his “valet”, one of the Red Skull’s men. The half-naked and enslaved captives perceive Tov as a collaborator, apparently strolling free in fine garb. In particular, his partner Rachel (once a lover, but now married to another man), who has received no such VIP treatment, lambasts him as a traitor. But the “valet” has the neuro-plunger to keep Tov quiet about his true status as a prisoner himself, but the reader is informed that Tov is still seeking to carry out his mission.



Tov joins the Skull, pleading to know the Skull’s intent behind the charade. Tov is not there to be tempted, the Skull explains, and leads Tov directly to the secret complex Tov was sent to investigate: an effort to create a second Cosmic Cube.



The Cosmic Cube, an object of immense reality-molding power, has been in the Skull’s grasp before, the second time melting away before him. Tov’s role is two-fold: to use his skills and security clearances to obtain needed information from SHIELD and AIM, and to kill the Hate Monger when the appropriate time comes, since the Cube can only be wielded by one.

Killing the Hate Monger? Tov’s fine with that, but the other stuff? No dice! A taste of the neuro-rod’s power makes coercion appear more plausible!

The Skull next joins the Hate Monger, who is busy painting a studly Aryan model posing with a sword and fur loincloth. In flashback, we learn that the Hate Monger rescued the Skull from his predicament on the moon, where Dr. Doom left him in issue 12, and recaps all of the Skull’s later recent exploits before revealing himself to the reader as Adolph Hitler.



Tov outwits his guardian while relaxing in the “guest wing” (reading a magazine that Carmine has slyly labeled “FLASH”!) by faking a neuro-rod attack. The panicked plunger-wielder neutralizes the implant, fearing that the apparently malfunctioning device will kill Tov—and the Skull would be merciless if his plans for Tov were upset.

Tov decks his guard, escapes his suite, arming himself with a rifle taken from his easily defeated squad of guards, demonstrating impressive agility as he makes his way to free the prisoners. The prisoners, though, refuse to fall for the tricks of this “collaborator”, and will not leave their compound for fear of being shot.

The disgusted Tov leaves the hapless, reticent slaves, but is then shot, himself, by the approaching guards. This awakens the rebellious spirit of Rachel, and the captives are willing to follow her into combat against the Skull’s army.

Tov, it turns out, is not mortally wounded, and flees to the docks to take the only boat, knowing he cannot be pursued. He reaches a US cutter on patrol, pleading with the crew to return immediately to assist the uprising on Exile Island.

In a bitter last-page twist, the “US cutter” is in fact under the control of the Skull and Hate Monger, who are both on board. Yousuf Tov is marched back into captivity, but this time, the slaves look on him with pride and defiance, and Rachel looks on him with renewed love.

Comments:

Completely unexpected, Super-Villain Team-Up returned to the stands with this one-shot, about a year after its also-unexpected reappearance as a reprint book. Now, the indicia declares the series to be published “annually”. This has got to be for trademark preservation, right? I can’t think of any other justification for putting this on the schedule.

For once we have a genuine super-villain team-up, but it’s one in which one of the partners does virtually nothing to advance the plot except to reveal himself as Hitler. While that revelation would certainly garner the Red Skull’s trust, I don’t think it would motivate him to do anything beyond what he would already do in this story. I guess it inspired him to think bigger? Or that revealing himself as Hitler to the public at large was being reserved for some future moment (the army on Exile Island doesn’t appear to know, although the model for his painting would have seen his face)? Really, though, neither of the super-villains do anything in this story other than be responsible for the situation that the story’s protagonist finds himself in.

The story itself is more engaging than the typical SVTU has been. The fantasy of slaves in a concentration camp overpowering the less numerous Nazi guards is one that has surely crossed the mind of many trying to envision conditions of captive Jews in WWII. With that in mind, Gillis’s implication that the captives are complicit in their situation if they don’t take every opportunity to rebel is a little uncomfortable, but that’s swept away as the prisoners are quickly inspired to act. (They do have an advantage over their real-life kin during the war, in that Infantino draws them all as fit and muscular from their hard labor.)

The Cosmic Cube angle is essentially superfluous. We don’t even get any idea of what the cube can do in the brief flashbacks; it’s just there for a brief bit of visual interest in a story that otherwise wouldn’t have a lot of flair. It doesn’t even work that well as a justification for Tov’s imprisonment, since his ability to contribute to the project doesn’t seem plausible: this is surely a man who would submit to death at the neuro-rod before obtaining secret information from SHIELD and AIM. It does make a bit of sense that the Skull would need an accomplice to kill Hitler—even a super-villainous Nazi would have to balk at pulling that trigger himself.

Reading this again for the first time after decades, the last minute twist worked on me. It’s not explicitly indicated whether this is a phony American ship and crew or whether the Nazis have secretly infiltrated and recruited part of the US Navy. I must assume that Gillis intended to imply the former, but this is a grim tale, whatever the case. It represents quite a change in tone from the earlier issues, a tonal change reflected across the superhero landscape in that half-decade transition to the 80’s. I don’t think we’d have had the Red Skull specifically and explicitly imprisoning Jews in 1975, even though always characterized as a German Nazi still fighting for their goals.

I was never a fan of Carmine Infantino’s work at Marvel, but he acquits himself well here in a story that’s much more plain clothes drama than superhero dynamics. I do get a kick out of his unique approach to machinery, looking rather more like crystalline growths than manufactured equipment, but the panel depicting that sure would have benefited from some more thoughtful coloring: that blank background really blunts the impact.

Although I certainly didn’t take the “annual” publication frequency seriously at the time, Marvel did. We’ll be back for one more issue picking up with this Super-Nazi Team-Up and adding Arnim Zola to the mix. After that, I’m moving on to yet another team-up comic review thread; between this, the MTU/MTIO thread codystarbuck is heading up, my recent Brave and Bold overview, you’d think we had most of the classic team-up comics covered, but there are a few left under-examined, and I’ll be taking aim at one of them…and I bet it’s not either of the two you’re thinking of!

One of the earliest Marvel comics I found early on was a Fantastic Four #21 with the Hate Monger's introduction, so the big reveal repeated in this issue is not so dramatic as it might've been. The various spare clone bodies in the background adds that bit more explanation to him though I suppose.

The Carmine Infantino Red Skull seems a bit kooky looking in places, especially with that cigarette holder; he seemed a bit more ludicrous, not that the initial page of having dins on a glass floor with prisoners below was exactly subtle. A particularly memorable slice of late '70s Marvel nonetheless. It does set you up for wanting the next issue to see the baddies plotting against each other come to fruition and hopefully victims freed, but having to wait a year for that? That can be a long stretch in young comic book reader time.

They could have had it where anyone that puts on the Red Skull mask becomes the Red Skull. I did see a scene where a lot of his henchmen all has Red Skull masks on. That would be kind of like 'The Mask' then.

The origin I remember had something to do with him being hideously scarred in an accident I think.

Marvel could've sold a few Red Skull nightlights I imagine...

Maybe that's what I saw somewhere, and I had a lot of Captain Americas at one time but so few now. Or maybe I even have Red Skull mixed up with another scarred villain.