As seen in yesterday’s June solicitations, the Marvel Universe is running at full speed towards Secret Empire, the event that will see Captain America lead Hydra on the path to world domination.
However, even Steve Rogers can’t conquer the world on his on. He needs friends or at least allies, men and women he can trust to enact his will across Earth.
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Captain America: Steve Rogers #14 provides Cap with exactly the allies he needs. A new Hydra high council has been formed and it has some familiar faces, some new recruits, and some surprising omissions.
Keep reading through the slides to see who the new top players at Hydra are.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: STEVE ROGERS #14
NICK SPENCER (W) • JAVIER PINA (A)
Cover by ELIZABETH TORQUE
“THE END OF THE LINE” is reached, and there’s no way out for Sam Wilson, Captain America!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
Madame Hyra
The new Hydra High Council has been formed by the new Madama Hydra, Elisa Sinclair.
Elisa was inserted into Captain America’s memories when Kobik restored Cap’s youth. She is the woman responsible for putting Steve Rogers on the path to joining and leading Hydra.
Elisa opposed Hydra’s decision to join forces with the Third Reich during World War II. She was later branded a spy by the other members of that era’s high council.
Madame Hydra has recruited Taskmaster and Black Ant, who discovered the truth about Captain America’s Hydra allegiance, to become her personal bodyguards.
Following that, Madame Hydra set out travelling to world to recruit the other members of the new high council, offering each of them something different.
Hive
Hive is the product of intense experimentation by Hydra to create a being that fully embodied their ideals and philosophy, that each individual is only a part of the greater whole.
Hive was part of Hydra’s High Council during the Secret Warriors series and merged with Viper’s dead body after she was killed by triple agent Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
Norman Osborn later had Hive removed from Viper. Viper lived through the process, but Hive’s fate was unknown.
The new Madam Hydra finds Hive’s many individual parts scattered throughout a cave. They come together so that Hive may take his humanoid form.
Madame Hydra offers Hive “violence.”
Viper
Viper is a former Madame Hydra herself and when Elisa Sinclair arrives Viper is initial, not pleased to see someone else wearing what she still thinks fo as her suit.
Viper was also a member of Hydra’s high council during Secret Warriors and has worked with them since then. More recently, she’s mostly been competing for control of the underworld in Madripoor. She was also involved in the events surrounding the death of her old rival, Wolverine.
Madame Hydra senses that Viper is adrift and searching for something more from life, even as she guns down some criminal rivals, and so she offers Viper “belonging.”
Doctor Faustus
Johann Fenhoff, a.ka. Doctor Faustus, is the powerful hypnotist that can control others with the power of hypnotism and suggestion.
Kobik’s alterations to Captain America’s mind include Steve Rogers spending much of his youth at a Hydra boarding school that was run by Doctor Faustus’s father, Sebastian Fenhoff.
When Madame Hydra finds Faustus, the doctor is treating a young and wealthy girl and is clearly planning on taking whatever fortune she may have from her.
Madame Hydra invites Faustus to bigger thing, offering him what someone who hypnotizes other people to get what he wants would probably want most for himself, “influence.”
Gorgon
Gorgon, Tomi Shishido, is a master swordsman and former member of the mutant death cult called the Dawn of the White Light, gifted with the mutant power to turn anyone who looks into his eyes into stone.
Gorgon helped brainwash Wolverine and pit him against his former allies. Wolverine eventually killed Gorgon by using Gorgon’s own powers to turn him to stone and then shatter him.
The hand later pieced Gorgon back together and resurrected him to take a seat on the Hydra council, though Gorgon’s eyes could not be salvaged. Nonetheless, Gorgon is still a highly deadly combatant who battle Ares’ son, Phobos, with swords made for gods.
After the fall of that incarnation of Hydra, Gorgon impersonated Wolverine as a member of Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers. When the Dark Reign ended, Gorgon began a crime empire in Madripoor.
Madame Hydra offers Gorgon “vengeance” as a gift for his return to Hydra.
Arnim Zola
Arnim Zola was once a man and a scientist who worked for the Nazis during World War II. Now his consciousness is stored in a robot body.
Arnim Zola has long been one of Captain America’s greatest foes, a ghost of World War II that continues to haunt Steve Rogers in the modern day.
However, with Captain America now an agent of Hydra, it seems that old enemies can now make for strange bedfellows.
However, Zola’s primary concern has always been his work. He is a biochemist who will let no ethical concerns hold back his work.
To that end, Madam Hydra makes him an offer of “discovery.” Zola was seen in the final story in Amazing Spider-Man #25 making an offer of his own to Otto Octavius, which led to the former Doctor Octopus joining hydra as the Superior Octopus.
Kraken
The Kraken is practically a legend within Hydra. He is known as a mentor and guide to some of Hydra’s greatest agents and leaders, including Baron Wolfgang von Strucker himself.
The Kraken was originally Daniel Whitehall, but the conclusion of Secret Warriors revealed that Nick Fury had long ago had his brother, Jake Fury, take Whitehall’s place as the Kraken so that he could spy on and control Hydra from within.
However, this new Kraken appears to be someone different. The issue does not show his face, but there is a conversation with Madame Hydra, who was romantically involved with Whitehall.
Madame Hydra refers to the new Kraken as “family.” Kraken seems concerned about a certain “he” knowing that whoever he is is still alive, but Madame Hydra tells Kraken it is better that his person not know who Kraken truly is, that he was supposed to have perished long ago.
Madame Hydra calls Kraken “the ghost of worlds lost, the keeper of secrets” and then offers him “meaning.”
