When The Real Bad Guys Are Too Much In Captain America #13 (Spoilers)

Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Absolute Batman, Armageddon, captain america, hell, joker, mephisto, red skull, valeria

When The Real Bad Guys Are Too Much In Captain America #13 (Spoilers)

When the real bad guys are just too much for other Marvel super-villains in Captain America #13 by Chip Zdarsky and Ton Lima (Spoilers)

Published Thu, 16 Jul 2026 10:58:13 -0500
by Rich Johnston
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Article Summary

• Captain America #13 sends Steve Rogers to hell, where he fights beside Doctor Doom after General Ross’s deadly choice.
• Mephisto unleashes demonic muscle, but even hell’s monsters find the Red Skull and his Nazi allies unbearable.
• The Red Skull gathers fellow Nazis in hell, raising the threat of a Third Reich stronghold inside Mephisto’s realm.
• Captain America #13 also ties in Valeria Von Frazen, exposing a sharp irony about Red Skull’s racist blind spot.

In Captain America #13 by Chip Zdarsky and Ton Lima, Steve Rogers is in hell, and you can blame General Ross for that. He is fighting alongside Doctor Doom against Mephisto. And Mephisto has commissioned a couple of demons to take care of this. One is rather familiar…

The Red Skull, second in command to Adolf Hitler and sworn enemy of Steve Rogers, seems rather perturbed that he, as well as his other Nazi friends, seems to have been condemned to hell for all eternity. Apparently, that was never in the terms and conditions of the Third Reich. While Mephisto may have entertainment value from the Nazis in hell, not everyone is of the same mind.

Sometimes, Nazis are just too much for other demons or supervillains. In DC Comics, for example, Nazis were usually too much for The Joker. Especially Red Skull during the John Byrne crossovers…

Though it seems the Absolute Joker from Absolute Batman, Jack Grimm, was actually funding them… it really is a different world.

So can Red Skull find any friends in hell? Yes. Other Nazis. Basically, it's like a Third Reich bar down there, with all the other demons inching away. And if Mephisto doesn't do anything about it, it will basically end up as a Nazi hell down there; this is what always happens.

Seig Heil, or Seig Hell? And as for the woman who The Red Skull could tell was full of pure aryan fury? Valeria Von Frazen…

Doctor Doom's first love, from back in the day… really, back in the day…

Which means she, like Doctor Doom, is Romani (although, yes, Marvel was using different terms back then), something the Red Skull is clearly not aware of… yet.

Captain America #13 by Chip Zdarsky and Ton Lima was published yesterday.

• Captain America #13 by Chip Zdarsky, Ton Lima
  CAPTAIN AMERICA: HELL'S ANGEL! VICTOR VON DOOM has captured the soul of Captain America, dragging him to an unfamiliar battlefield to use him as an unwilling weapon. As Steve Rogers struggles to survive in a world he doesn't understand, the world he left behind needs him more than ever. And ARMAGEDDON draws ever closer… $4.99 7/15/2026

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