I’ll let you in on a secret; I love the silly names. Back in my RPG days I had a character called Justin Kase in his civilian identity. Asterix always gave me a giggle with the names they used like Odius Vapas. Will Eisner was the master at it. If you can’t have fun with the comic, then what’s the point? In my book “Fuzzy Ergo Sum” (available on Amazon.com) I almost named John Morgan as John Carter of Mars Colony. I was convinced to change, but I still like the name and the in-joke.

Those would be the Baron’s hat and jacket. You can see him wearing them on the next page. . .

M. Bison’s cap and cape on the hat rack?

Nick Fury, then…?

Hey, not ragging on the guy, just showing off my German. Yes, Johann Schmidt is John Smith, and was intended to be a generic name. In the Red Skull origin story Schmidt’s face was always hidden, as if it mattered. Actually, Johann von Shaedel (how you spell it when you can’t do the umlaut) is a cool enough name. Johann Totdenkopf would have been over the top.

Znidd suddabit!

And in all seriousness, Johann Schmidt is the John Doe of German names. It’s “John Smith”. They practically named him Mr. Anonymous.

Strictly speaking, Wolf, “Johann Schmidt” was the name given to the Red Skull later in the Marvel history. He was nameless and faceless in his first introduction, just a loyal Nazi stormtrooper. We’ve never seen what he looked like before he put on the mask.

It seems to be someone’s eye, but I don’t think Al intended it to be Odin’s necessarily.

Seriously. Or at least, as serious as superhero comics can be. As I said above, you’ll just have to forgive us a couple of silly names.