Summary

• Red Skull is back, and he has his own Iron Man armor.
• Avengers: Twilight reveals that after Earth's Mightiest Heroes fell, Red Skull disguised himself to raise Tony Stark's son.
• Now, he has the firepower he needs to finally beat Steve Rogers and erase the Avengers' legacy.

Warning: spoilers for Avengers: Twilight #4!A major Marvel villain fans will know from the MCU just got their own ultra-powerful Captain America gathers a new Avengers team to stop them achieving their ultimate victory. With Earth's Mightiest Heroes' legacy on the line, Cap's new team are taking on the dark reflection of everything Steve Rogers represents.

In Avengers: Twilight #4, fans see Captain America finally assemble a future team of Avengers, as Thor, Ms. Marvel, the new Hawkeye, and a drastically transformed Tony Stark get the band back together. However, the new team are opposed by James Stark - the son of Iron Man and the Wasp, who doesn't believe in the idea of heroes and wants to keep this dark future exactly as it is. While the team manage to fight off James, the end of the issue sees him return home to discover that his guardian Kyle Jarvis is actually Johann Schmidt, aka the Red Skull.

For years, James has been using the near-dead Tony Stark to develop new ideas for advanced armor, selling the resulting tech to the now-fascistic SHIELD. However, it turns out Red Skull has been keeping some of James' best work for himself, suiting up to destroy the Avengers as the issue reaches its close.

Avengers: Twilight takes place in a dark future where the Avengers are all but forgotten...

Red Skull Gets His Own Iron Man Armor

Johann Schmidt Raised Tony Stark's Son

Avengers: Twilight takes place in a dark future where the Avengers are all but forgotten. Following an event known as Hero Day, where Ultron upgraded the team's villains and sent the Hulk into a murderous rage, the public lost all faith in superheroes. Without the Avengers' influence to keep it in check, SHIELD expanded its reach, enacting the draconian Watcher Act, which means that all citizens are banned from using recording equipment, even as they're constantly observed by those in power. In this world, Steve Rogers is seen as a relic, while James Stark is the celebrity genius behind the world's new Avengers - government stooges who, it's revealed this issue, are actually holograms that the Red Skull uses to pacify the populace.

Where Ultron or Thanos can vary in meaning from writer to writer, Red Skull represents a very specific type of dark future - one in which Captain America's ideals have failed, and resurgent bigotry, fascism, and authoritarianism have once again reared their heads.

It's in this world that Captain America has struggled to form a new Avengers team, only recently discovering that Tony Stark is being kept alive on the Raft. Rescuing his former friend and assembling a ragtag team, Steve Rogers has discovered the truth of the false Avengers, and now knows the full extent of Red Skull's growing control over America. However, Johann Schmidt is an egotist to the core, and he won't be done until he's rehabilitated his image and been embraced by the public as a hero. Red Skull clearly hopes his new armor will help with that, but exposing his identity could be the way that Captain America wins back public trust.

Red Skull Always Finds a Way to Return

Why Marvel's Future Keeps Bringing Back the WWII Villain

It's notable that Red Skull is the villain lurking behind the scenes of Avengers: Twilight, especially given he's held a similar role before. Old Man Logan also saw Red Skull seize control of America (after leading an uprising of all Earth's supervillains), while Captain America: The End imagines a future where Red Skull is a viral consciousness that can from person to person like a zombie plague. Even when Red Skull loses, he still tends to stick around, famously being trapped on Vormir in the MCU - a dark fate, but still one where he's likely to outlive the Avengers.

This habit of returning is particularly surprising when considering that Red Skull was first active in World War II and has been killed numerous times, reborn first in a clone body of Steve Rogers, then in a robotic husk, and later resurrected by the powerful immortal mutant Selene. While comic villains often find a way to return to life, it's often by retconning their death out of canon with some explanation about a last-minute escape. Red Skull appears to have a particular habit of truly dying but still returning, and of being the villain most likely to outlive the Avengers in Marvel's far future.

This is likely because, unlike many other villains, Red Skull has a specific, enduring meaning as a symbol of fascism generally and Nazi ideology in particular. Where Ultron or Thanos can vary in meaning from writer to writer, Red Skull represents a very specific type of dark future - one in which Captain America's ideals have failed, and resurgent bigotry, fascism, and authoritarianism have once again reared their heads. In the real world, this is an eventuality that democracies must continuously guard against, giving Red Skull's specter-like haunting of the Avengers a very specific meaning. It makes sense that in the world of Avengers: Twilight - where a ive populace accept their authoritarian government's overreach because they're comfortable - the ideas that Red Skull represents would be in resurgence, and so the villain is too.

Despite James Stark's accusations, it's now clear that Captain America isn't fighting the future - he's fighting the very worst of the past as it attempts to corrupt a new generation.

Red Skull's New Armor Transforms the Meaning of Captain America's Return

Steve Rogers Isn't Actually Fighting the Next Generation

However, the full reveal of Red Skull's plan also changes the meaning of Avengers: Twilight. Up until now, there was the uncomfortable sense that Captain America was at least partially in the wrong - he was fighting against a team of new Avengers based essentially on rumors, and enacting his own will on a populace who had rejected him both as their hero and when he ran for office. James Stark threw the accusation at him several times that he was an old man fighting against the future because he didn't feel at home in it, and it seemed like there might be some degree of truth to that accusation.

However, with the reveal that the new Avengers are holograms and Red Skull has been orchestrating events to redeem his own reputation, it's clear that Captain America isn't fighting the future - he's fighting a monster very much of his own time and place. The reveal of Red Skull as the series' chief villain (though Ultron is also implied to be scheming behind the scenes) refutes James' accusations that Captain America is simply a man out of time, and instead positions Steve Rogers as continuing the fight against his oldest and most dangerous nemesis - saving the future from the worst of the past, rather than trying to impose his own worldview on a culture that has ed him by.

Of course, this being superhero comics, these ideas of rewriting history and the specter of fascism over modern democracies still need to be expressed with a blowout fist fight, and Red Skull's new Iron Man armor makes him a significant threat, especially against a Captain America whose best days are behind him. MCU fans have never seen Red Skull like this before, but even in a world that has forgotten what the Avengers stand for, Captain America has yet to meet a version of Johann Schmidt he can't take down - Iron Man armor or not.

Avengers: Twilight #4 is available now from Marvel Comics.