RED SKULL Spoiler for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

Rumor, Rumor, Rumor. My friends, if I haven’t said it enough already, this latest story is a rumor, so take everything with a grain of salt.

Alright, now that my obligatory “Shit might not be true” warning is out of the way, let’s dive into the nitty bits.

A hot shot geek blog claims to have some insider info on Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He shed some light on some of the film’s newest characters, but it’s a hornet’s nest of spoilers, so if you don’t want to ruin the latest Marvel Flick, then turn back now!

Again, potential SPOILER SPOILERY SPOILERS!!!

Ok. So this nerdy scribe claims to know the true identity of Robert Redford’s Alexander Pierce. In the comics, after Nick Fury is deposed from his Director’s chair, Pierce feeds the super spy information from the inside of SHIELD. While that identity seems perfectly fit within the meager plot details that have leaked from the set of Winter Soldier, this blogger claims that Alexander Pierce is actually a Red Skull possessed Aleksander Lukin. You know, the Soviet Crazy Pants from volume 5 of Captain America.

Lukin is a Russian nemesis in the comics and yet another of Captain America’s villains who desires the Cosmic Cube (the tesseract in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). In his quest to acquire the Cube, Lukin’s brainwashed assassin The Winter Soldier murders the Red Skull, who possessed the Cube at the time. Skull’s executed his final living desire through the Cube, transplanting his spirit into Aleksander Lukin’s mind. The two continued to co-inhabit Lukin’s body throughout the remaining volume of Captain America.

Now, this rumor could make sense. As we’ve seen with the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3, Marvel has no problem hacking and slashing classic canon. (SPOILERS). They transformed Aldrich Killian, a pre-existing character from the comics, into the cinematic version of “The Mandarin”, and completely parodied the original version with Sir Ben Kinglsey’s performance.

If Robert Redford’s Pierce is actually Lukin, the twist wouldn’t be as massive as the Mandarin reveal, but it’d be comparable in style. After all, Red Skull never really died at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger, he just sorta got sucked into a wormhole, all Bifrost style.

Again, I can’t vouch for the veracity of the report, but the Lukin reveal would make sense. I have no idea how they’d establish that Lukin’s also The Red Skull, as that’d amount to 2 (count that, TWO!!!!) identity twists for a single character, but if anyone can do it, Marvel can.

SOURCE: AN