Red Skull could have been one of the MCU's greatest villains. So why did Marvel waste him?
Introduced back in Captain America: The First Avenger, Johann Schmidt had almost everything Marvel would later look for in a great recurring antagonist. He was powerful, memorable, ideologically opposed to Captain America, and played brilliantly by Hugo Weaving.
But instead of becoming a major force in the MCU, Red Skull slowly disappeared from the franchise. And when Red Skull finally returned nearly a decade later, it wasn't quite the comeback fans had been waiting for.
Because Marvel didn't just have a great villain on their hands. They had a villain who could have become more relevant with every phase of the MCU.