As promised, Marvel concept artist Charlie Wen (h/t ComicBook.com) has shared some decidedly alien concept art from the development of Captain America: The First Avenger.
It’s all about Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull (no surprise there) and Marvel’s original vision for his power-hungry Nazi. The goal here was seemingly to portray the character as an alien entity in order to reflect the gross, inhumane goals underpinning his quest for the Tesseract.
He succeeds, though is ultimately ripped through time and space (more on that later). For his latest reveal, Wen has presented not one, not two, but three pieces of MCU concept art illustrating an “eccentric” version of the classic Marvel villain, which came accompanied by the following caption:
Early eccentric Red Skull! Like Wacky Loki, I usually pushed in early versions to explore character before we settled on the story. He’s grandiose, and his mission is out of this world, which is why he even looks a bit alien here!
As any MCU fan will tell you, Red Skull made a surprise return during the Vormir scene of Avengers: Infinity War, when he informed the visibly distressed Thanos that in order to acquire the Soul Stone, he must sacrifice that which he loves more than anything else in the universe… much to the horror of Gamora.
There’s been chatter that he may return for the untitled Avengers 4, too, as a plot involving time travel will surely lead Tony Stark, Captain America and the gang to Vormir as they attempt to beat Thanos to the punch. Chalk that up as innocent conjecture for now, though, as the core story of Joe and Anthony Russo’s 2019 sequel is still under lockdown, where it’ll likely remain until such time as Marvel is ready to premiere the first Avengers 4 footage. And what a special day that will be.