Red Skull

Johann Shmidt (Earth-616)

Powers

Psionic mind transference = immortality. The Red Skull's mind has survived his physical bodies' death several times by being transferred through differing means to new bodies. Presently his mind resides in a robot body.

Artificially Enhanced Clone Body: The Red Skull's consciousness was once transferred into a cloned body of Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, which has been enhanced with the super soldier serum. While in this Rogers' clone body, the Red Skull's physical and mental functions were enhanced to the absolute pinnacle of human potential and perfection.

Some of the Red Skull's physical senses were only above average due to his face and head being damaged by his own Red Dust of Death which deformed his cloned body's face to resemble his "Red Skull" mask/helmet which lacks an external nose and ears.

Peak Human Strength: This body allowed the Red Skull's physical strength to be enhanced to the very peak of human potential, allowing him to military press around 800 pounds. See "Strength" below.

Peak Human Speed: This clone body allowed the Red Skull to be able to run at a speed of approximately 30 miles per hour.

Peak Human Agility: This body allowed the Red Skull to have agility superior to that of any Olympic athlete that has ever competed.

Peak Human Stamina: This clone body allowed Shimdt to eliminates the excessive build-up of fatigue-producing poisons in his muscles, granting him phenomenal endurance. He can exert himself at peak capacity for an hour without rest before showing any signs of fatigue.

Peak Human Durability: This clone body allowed Johann's ability to resist or recover from injury and disease are superior to those of ordinary humans. This explains how he has survived the physical punishment during his career.

Peak Human Metabolism: This clone body allowed the Red Skull an enhanced metabolism allows him to heal faster than normal when recovering from injury. Gunshot wounds and broken limbs heal within days, and lesser injuries can heal in just a few hours. This metabolism also renders him virtually immune to most poisons, including intoxication by consuming alcohol.

Peak Human Mental Process: This cloned body allowed the Red Skull's mental performance to be greatly enhanced, allowing his mind to operate in the most efficient and rapid manner possible. One manifestation of this is his tactical genius; the ability to quickly process multiple information streams (e.g., threat assessment) and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations.

Peak Human Reflexes: This cloned body allowed Johann Shmidt to possess reaction time superior to any Olympic athlete that has ever competed.

Peak Human Perception: This cloned body allowed the Red Skull to have exceptionally keen eyesight and hearing. Captain America once stated that he is able to dodge bullets because he "sees faster than them" Making it likely that the Skull is also able to accomplish such feats.

Since the loss of his cloned body, the Red Skull no longer has these abilities. It is unknown if he will transfer himself into yet another cloned body of Rogers.

Abilities

Strategic Genius: The Red Skull is a master of political, military, and subversive strategy, as well as a brilliant planner and organizer.

Hand to Hand Combat: In his original body the Red Skull was a fine hand to hand combatant, although not to the level of Captain America. He was also a brilliant fencer and skilled marksman.

In his cloned body he was an exact match of Steve Rogers.

In his current robot body he has superhuman combat abilities.

Strength Level: In his original body, the Red Skull possessed the normal human strength of a man his physical age, height, and build who engaged in intensive regular exercise.

In his cloned body, the Red Skull has strength matching or near matching Steve Rogers as he did not exercise as intensely or regularly as Rogers does.

In his robot body, the Red Skull possesses superhuman strength.

Equipment

The Red Skull used many other weapons; many of these were conventional but others were advanced beyond the scope of contemporary mainstream science. The Skull also employed artificial living beings created by Arnim Zola.

Transportation

Various

Weapons

The Red Skull's most infamous personal weapon was his so-called "dust of death." The chemical composition of this powder is unknown, but it kills a victim within seconds of making contact with his or her skin, causing the skin on the victim's head to tighten, shrivel, and take on a red discoloration, while causing all the hair on the victim's head to fall out. As a result, the victim's corpse appears to have a "red skull" for a head. While committing murders with this weapon, the Skull often hummed, whistled, or played a tape recording of Chopin's funeral march, which was also the Skull's trademark music when he committed murders in the early 1940's. The Skull could fire his "dust of death" from a special handgun.