Marvel Fan Mutilates Himself To Become Real Life Villain And It’s Horrifying
There are plenty of people who love to do cosplay to look like their favorite characters from Marvel, DC, anime, video games, and any other fictional universe that they love. However, some people take it to the next level, like the Venezuelan man who became a real-life Red Skull by undergoing numerous surgeries and permanently altering his appearance to look like Captain America’s red-faced Nazi archnemesis. You can see his full transformation on Instagram, and the results are certainly effective, though a bit terrifying.
Henry Rodriguez, aged 37, underwent over 130 hours of work to complete his transformation into the real-life Red Skull. To achieve the final look, he tattooed his eyes to be completely black, got implants under his skin, amputated part of his nose, changed the shape of his ears, and forked his tongue.
“It is important to say that the only thing I don’t have in common with him is his Nazi ideology. As for his physical appearance, I’ve always been attracted to that unique shape, his extrovert personality and uniqueness.”
-Henry Rodriguez on his connection with the Red Skull
Rodriguez also had to take psychological and physical tests before undergoing his various surgeries. The transformation has taken place over the course of seven years, and it seems like Rodriguez has essentially completed his transformation.
While Rodriguez does look like the real-life Red Skull, he made sure to state that he does not share the villainous character’s Nazi ideologies. The Daily Mail reported on Rodriguez’s transformation, in which he said, “It is important to say that the only thing I don’t have in common with him is his Nazi ideology,” adding, “As for his physical appearance, I’ve always been attracted to that unique shape, his extrovert personality and uniqueness.”
While Rodriguez has experienced some prejudice and pushback from his transformation, he maintains that if his three-year-old son loves and accepts him, he doesn’t care about other people’s opinions, saying, “What matters to me is being happy and accepting myself.”
Rodriguez’s real-life Red Skull transformation certainly is fairly close to the comic-book and on-screen iteration of the character. Introduced in 1941, Red Skull was a confidant of Adolf Hitler and a high-level Nazi officer who took an early iteration of the Super Soldier Serum, leading to his disfigurement. Red Skull would go on to become Captain America’s arch-nemesis, with similar powers and a genius-level intellect.
“What matters to me is being happy and accepting myself.”
-Henry Rodriguez
While Rodriguez might look like a real-life Red Skull, the character was seen on the big screen not too many years ago in Avengers: Infinity War, where Ross Marquand played him. However, the character first appeared in the MCU when Hugo Weaving played him in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger.
While he was an appropriately villainous presence in that film, he’s not a character that the MCU has utilized much outside of his original appearance.
The MCU’s Red Skull
The real-life Red Skull might be slightly disappointed that the MCU doesn’t utilize what is clearly his favorite character more, but maybe the multiverse shenanigans of the MCU will give us another opportunity to see the character in some future projects.
The character did have a brief animated appearance in the Marvel What If…? anthology series, so the studio clearly knows it has its character in the back pocket. Red Skull’s Hydra organization has also popped up in the MCU numerous times, most notably in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so there’s certainly a possibility that his actions will continue to have repercussions for the MCU at large.
