1942 CE | Snarklet | The Marvel Super Heroes: The Sentinel and the Spy / The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull / Lest Tyranny Triumph (S1E6)

Got a theory, thought, or just want to say some Marvelous? Drop a voicemail! You may just hear it on a future episode! Jon and Remy dust off another 1966 relic from The Marvel Super Heroes, and this Captain America outing may be the wildest yet. The Red Skull, stabbing a knife into the table and pointing at a map of what appears to be open ocean, sends a spy into a POW camp. A prisoner gets shot mid-escape, the spy takes his seat on the supply truck, and a suspicious stick tucked in an armpit turns out to be gas rather than dynamite. With the guards snoozing, the enemy makes off with a ray cannon that erases whatever it touches. Steve Rogers peels off his fatigues to reveal the full Captain America ensemble, shield somehow strapped underneath, and squares off with a spy who shrugs off a clang from the shield and a direct hit from a tank shell. The ray gobbles up the front half of a tank, taking only the important bits, until a little reverse psychology from Cap gets it cranked to full intensity, which apparently just makes it explode. Moments later, the sarge goes hunting for Steve Rogers while Captain America is helped to his feet five feet away, and nobody notices a thing. Packed off for some R&R, Steve and Bucky are knocked cold when their ship is shelled, then fished out and delivered to the Skull himself, who gasses Cap and holds Bucky hostage. The villain pauses for an origin story: an orphaned thief turned bellboy, handed a costume by Hitler and told to become evil personified. A chemical dose turns Cap into a saluting, sharpshooting puppet programmed to kill the Supreme Commander. Meanwhile, Bucky faces a firing squad still in full costume and mask, survives a cruel practical joke, and turns teenage tornado on his would-be executioners. Disguised as an enemy soldier, he tails Cap on a paratrooper drop to the general's headquarters, where the mind control fades at the last possible second, leaving the boys to wonder why no other soldier in the room just pulled the trigger. Once the credits roll, the Red Skull's origin lands with a thud for both of them, the MCU's deeper takes on the Skull and Bucky get some well-earned appreciation, and it's decided that nobody needs to see Captain America throw a Nazi salute ever again. A tally the boys lost somewhere in the six or seven range. Still, it is so incredibly awful that it loops right back around to great, and they cannot help marveling at how gloriously bad these vintage segments are. Dive in further at https://www.snarkindustriespod.com/episodes/the-marvel-super-heroes-s1e6-the-sentinel-and-the-spy-the-fantastic-origin-of-the-red-skull-lest-tyranny-triumph Join the conversation at https://discord.gg/mJBCuxffF5