Red is the Darkest Color

Now

Crossbones has broken Sinthea Schmidt — the daughter of the Red Skull — out of a SHIELD holding facility where she was undergoing re-education. For the past two weeks he has been trying to break her conditioning. Presently he is showing her old footage from World War II of her father fighting with Captain America. However, nothing he is doing has gotten through to her yet.

When he begins slapping her around, Crossbones is disgusted when she cries out and begs for him not to hit her. The Sinthea Schmidt he knew didn’t even feel pain anymore because that was all she practically knew….

Many Years Ago

On the Isle of Exiles, the Red Skull’s mate had produced him what he hoped was a worthy heir. Unfortunately, the baby was a girl and thus — to the Red Skull — was inferior. He is about to toss the crying infant into the ocean to drown when he is stopped by one of his loyal female lieutenants, Susan Scarbo. She pleads with the Skull not to kill his daughter because — even though she is not his preferred gender — the baby’s veins still flow with his blood and she could prove herself worthy. This intrigues the Red Skull and he decides to spare the babe. However, he leaves it in Susan’s care, telling her that the child must suffer as he did growing up so that she will be worthy of being his offspring.

Now

Crossbones is relating this story to Sinthea as he drags her back to her cell. She refuses to believe any of it. She continues to believe the fabricated past that SHIELD conditioned her into believing while in their custody. When Crossbones tosses her into the cell — which is not furnished, nor has any light — he tells her to think about why he’d be so interested in an orphaned girl whose parents allegedly died in a train wreck. As she sits alone in the dark, Sinthea continues to deny the truth until suddenly she has a flash of memory. It is of SHIELD agents trying to sedate her. In this memory she fights back like a wild cat and manages to rip out the throat of one of the agents before they are finally able to incapacitate her. Still, she denies that any of those memories are true and tries to hold onto the idea that she’s really Erika Sondheim, praying that someone will save her.

The following day, Crossbones tries to get Sinthea to remember who she is by seeing how well she can throw lives. He aim is all over the place, prompting Crossbones to say she was better at knives when she was a grown up, but more ruthless as a child. When Sinthea points out that none of that makes any sense, he explains that the Red Skull used genetic science to alter her age to be an adult well before her time. This was as the Red Skull was growing old and was dying and wanted an heir to take his place. Sinthea proved to be a failure and was captured, the Red Skull cheated death by transferring his mind into a cloned body. SHIELD de-aged Sinthea to a teenager while in their custody because they weren’t sure of her real age. She was later freed by Mother Night and fought alongside her for a time before being captured again.

When Sinthea asks if the Red Skull could cheat death this time the same way, Crossbones says that Arnim Zola’s lab got raided recently and the technology was lost or destroyed. Crossbones figures this is a mercy because if the Red Skull could see her now he would be disgusted. His taunts eventually push the young woman over the edge and she tries to attack him. Crossbones figures that this is a step in the right direction and quickly subdues her. He then drags her into a room where he has a man tied to a chair. He orders her to kill him and when she refuses he’ll tells her that he’ll kill her if she doesn’t. Sinthea still can’t bring herself to do it, even to spare her own life. Rather than shooting her, Crossbones kills the man instead.

Getting fed up with her, Crossbones begins dunking her head in a bathtub full of water, only pulling her up for air for the last minute and just long enough to catch her breath before another dunking. This form of water torture seems to do the trick as Sinthea suddenly has a memory of back when the Red Skull was growing old and dying. It was during his “final” battle with Captain America and Cap had just learned about his the origin of the Skull’s daughter. Captain America called the Red Skull sick for experimenting on her, but the Skull said that it was what he had to do to make sure he had a worthwhile heir since Sinthea wasn’t born a girl.[1]

However, Sinthea waits until nighttime before she reveals the truth to Crossbones. In the middle of the night, she breaks out of her cell and sneaks into his bed.[2] She manages to get a knife up to his throat before he wakes up. Convinced that she is back to her old self, the two make love, as the plan to avenge the memory of her father, the Red Skull, by painting the world red.

Recurring Characters

Sin, Crossbones, (flashback) Red Skull, Mother Superior, Mother Night, SHIELD, Captain America, Bucky

Continuity Notes

1. There is a lot of stuff going on here all at once (I’m going to tell all of this in chronological order so it makes sense):

   • The Red Skull grew up in poverty and was abused. While this story makes reference to a story arc where the Red Skull gave an origin story in Captain America #298, that has since been revealed to be allegedly false. A true accounting of his past was given in Red Skull #1-5, however its one that is just as traumatic as the fake story he gave previously.

   • Mention is made as to how the Red Skull had recently been revived in the present and joined up with the Exiles, Nazi war criminals who endured to the present day. The Red Skull was put in suspended animation during World War II and was revived in Tales of Suspense #79. He ended up joining with the Exiles in Captain America #102. Susan Scarbo would later become known as Mother Night, as seen in Captain America #356.

   • The circumstances surrounding Sin’s birth were originally told in Captain America #298. Per the chronology in Official Index to the Marvel Universe: Captain America, Sinthea was born sometime between the Red Skull’s appearances in Astonishing Tales #5 and Captain America #143. Based on the Sliding Timescale, Sinthea was born about 9 years prior.

   • Years after awakening from suspended animation, the Red Skull discovered that he was now rapidly aging. He tried to set up one last battle with Captain America, but it ended before he died, as seen in Captain America #293-300. The Red Skull cheated death by having Arnim Zola transfer his mind into a body cloned from Captain America’s DNA as seen in Captain America #350.

   • How can Sinthea be a teenager in this story when she’s supposed to be 9 years old? Well when she first appeared in Captain America #290 she was a full grown adult. As explained in issue #298 of that series, the Red Skull used technology to artificially age his daughter. He later regressed her age to that of a teeanger in Captain America #355. Sinthea was captured again in Captain America #357.

   • More recently, the Red Skull was seemingly killed by the Winter Soldier in Captain America (vol. 5) #1. What Crossbones doesn’t know is that his boss cheated death by transferring his mind into the body of Aleksander Lukin, as revealed last issue. Crossbones and Sin won’t learn the truth until Captain America (vol. 5) #21.

   • There she remained in SHIELD custody until Crossbones broke her out in Captain America (vol. 5) #9.

2. Sinthea notes that Crossbones’ face looks different to which he says, “Your father’s surgeons fixed it up a while back.” This is an odd scene since (a) prior to his busting her out of prison in issue #9, there is no recorded prior meeting between the two, and (b) Up until he first appeared as Crossbones, we never saw his face, nor have there been any stories where we see his face being scarred or disfigured (as the conversation implies). More over, Sin hasn’t been recorded working for her father since he faked his death in Captain America #300. However the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence so there is no avenue of how they could have met. Perhaps Sinthea learned about Crossbones’ existence while in SHIELD custody but before her mental conditioning. Perhaps they interrogated her when he turned up on the scene and she saw a mugshot photo of him without the mask. How Rumlow scarred his face is likely an untold tale.

So How Old is Sinthea Schmidt?

For someone who has had her aged changed by artificial means it is hard to keep track of how old she is supposed to be, and how old she physically appears. In the usual Marvel fashion, they are incredibly vague about it so my assessment will, admittedly be making some assumptions.

According to the chonologies available, Sin was born sometime between the Red Skull’s appearances in Astonishing Tales #5 and Captain America #143. Both stories were published in 1971, or “Year Three” of the Sliding Timescale. This story was published in 2006, or “Year Twelve” of the Modern Age. Based on this measurement, Sinthea was born about 9 years prior to this story.

When the Red Skull realized that he was rapidly growing old, Crossbones recounts that Sinthea was “like nine years old or somethin’.” The chronology states that this scene of “nine year old” Sinthea in this story and her aging up process shown in Captain America #298 all would have taken place between the Red Skull’s appearances in Captain America #263 (November, 1981) and 290 (February, 1984). Per the Sliding Timescale it would have been about a year and a half to two years from her birth and that it took about a year to age her up to adulthood. If Crossbones’ assessment is to be taken at face value, perhaps she was already being slowly aged up from the moment of her birth because otherwise she couldn’t have been older than 2 or 3 years old when they increased her age to adulthood.

How old was the adult Sinthea? This is where we would have to make an assumption. The human brain reaches full maturity by age 25. I tried to find a date for mental maturity in women, and didn’t find any actual scientific studies or professionals opining on what that was. Google says women are emotionally mature by age 32. Since Sinthea is referred to as being somewhere between her teenage and full grown adult self, I think placing her as being biologically being in her early 30s makes sense.

She appears in Captain America #290-301 (February, 1984-January, 1985) or the later part of “Year Six”. When see her again in Captain America #355-357, which were published from July to September 1989. a little less than a year later. By this time she’d have been alive for about 4 to 5 years old. This was when she had her age reduced to that of a teenager. Although they are unclear as to how old she was. In this story arc, Captain America also has himself de-aged temporarily and chooses to reduce his age to about 15 years old. I think it’s safe to assume that Sinthea was about the same physical age at the time of this story.

Based on the narrative here, Sinthea was encarcerated by SHIELD again and was allowed to age naturally from that point on. The reason this age of 15 works for me is that the story above ends with Sin and Crossbones raw dogging each other. Although Crossbones is an amoral character that I don’t think he would give having sex with a minor much thought, Marvel as a publisher would be very much against that kind of depiction appearing in one their comics. That said, If she was 15 in Captain America #357, that would make her about 20 at the time of this story which basically crosses the age of conscent thresholds in the United States.

Since this story was published in April, 2006, Sin would have been alive for around 9, 10 years tops. Biologically she is around twice her actual age based on my assessment, your milage may differ.