Baron Strucker

**Baron Strucker** appeared in 1963 Marvel Comics called *Sgt. Fury*.

Baron Wolfgang von Strucker was born in the late 19th century to a Prussian noble family who had relocated to Strucker Castle in Bavaria following the Franco-Prussian War. Wolfgang became a Heidelberg fencing champion, and was disfigured by facial scars.

Wolfgang fought for Germany during World War I, during which he first encountered the Momentary Princess in 1916, which was fated to appear and disappear at regular intervals of time. As he touched it, he saw his future as the leader of Hydra.

When Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany in the 1930s, von Strucker joined the Nazi Party.

In 1936, he and Nikolaus Geist allied with the Egyptian mentalist Amahl Farouk a.k.a. the Shadow King, in an attempt to dispute the lineage of England's royal family and install a new king who would be sympathetic to their cause. Their plot was thwarted by the Canadian adventurer Logan and the time-traveling members of Excalibur.

In 1937, Strucker was head of the Reich's armaments command. Later that year, he was sent to America to assassinate Senator Fulton, but he was foiled by brigand-for-hire Dominic Fortune.

As World War II started, Strucker rose through the ranks and became wing commander of the Death's Head Squadron. Von Strucker referred to himself as "wing commander of the Fuhrer's Death-Head Squadron".

Strucker and the Red Skull tried to invade the isolationist African nation of Wakanda during World War II in hopes of recovering some Vibranium. Captain America teamed up with the chieftain Black Panther. The two heroes reluctantly worked together to expel the invading forces.

Sometime before 1941, Strucker created his personal paramilitary force, Hydra, keeping its formation secret from Hitler and the Nazi Party.

In 1941 Strucker was contacted by the cabal of ninjas known as the Hand, which had just broken a longtime agreement with the crime mastermind Romulus and wanted to form new alliances. In order to gain the Hand's loyalty, Strucker approached and captured young Russian operative Natalia Romanova, bringing her to Madripoor as a gift for the ninjas, who were trying to turn the girl into the cabal's Master Assassin. However Strucker was not aware that Natalia was secretly an agent of Romulus sent to kill the Jonin of the Hand, and while she was ready to accomplish her mission during the Master Assassin ritual, Logan, another agent of Romulus and Natalia's friend, interrupted the ceremony and killed the Jonin, avoiding making Natalia a killer again. Captain America and Ivan Petrovich helped Logan fight the Hand, while Strucker escaped in the battle's chaos.

Later in 1941, Strucker conducted a secret Hydra operation in Tunisia, using as a cover another Nazi operation on the same place. After Captain America, his sidekick Bucky, and Logan entered into the Hydra headquarters and killed a Strucker impersonator, the real Strucker's location was discovered by Logan, who was ordered by Seraph, a Madripoor agent of Romulus, not to kill him due to new agreements between him and Romulus. Captured by the U.S. Army, Strucker was later freed by Logan and later rescued by his Nazi ally Baron Heinrich Zemo, arrived in Tunisia with support troops.

Later in 1941, Strucker invaded Latveria, seeking to use the Sturm-Fånger ("Storm-Catcher") to control cosmic energies; the device was wrecked by time-traveling members of X-Force. They found Strucker and his machine, so Rictor quickly destroyed it. Siryn then knocked out Strucker and they headed off to find Doctor Doom's Time Platform.

Strucker sought to quash the Howling Commandos by utterly defeating their leader, Nick Fury and issued a challenge to meet him in a one-on-one battle on the island of Norsehaven. Fury was determined to battle Strucker, but Captain Sawyer refused to allow him to do so. Unwilling to back down, Fury sneaked to the island, disobeying direct orders not to do so. On the island, Strucker challenged him to a duel with wooden swords. When he suggested a toast before the battle Fury agreed, unaware that his drink was drugged. Although Fury was able to hold his own against Strucker, once the drugs began to kick in, he was quickly defeated. This defeat was photographed by Nazi soldiers to use in propaganda. Fury was then dumped near his base. When Sawyer found out what happened once the battle became front-page news in the Nazi newspapers, he stripped Fury of his rank reducing him to a private. The Howlers were then dropped in West Germany where they were to destroy a Nazi rocket base in the town of Dortstadt. When they attacked the rocket base they found that it was under the command of Baron Strucker. Seeking a rematch, Fury agreed to another duel; but when Dino realized that Strucker was drugging another beverage, he tipped off Fury. This time Fury easily defeated the Baron in combat and his comrades took photographs to counter the propaganda of Fury's defeat before fleeing the ruins of the base.

In 1942, the Red Skull, as part of the Thule Society, attempted to perform a magical ritual involving Atlanteans. Once the ritual was complete, something fell from the sky, but not at the Skull's castle. The Skull and Baron Strucker traveled to Antarctica, followed by the Invaders, determined to have whatever fell. The Invaders were then suddenly attacked by a demon. They defeated the demon with the Skull's unintentional help. The Invaders then left, thinking that they foiled the Skull's plan. The Skull told Strucker that they had the unidentified object in a box bound for the Fuhrer. It was a lie, as the object they were looking for was the Hammer of Skadi, which no one could lift.

Hitler later had Strucker start a new squad based on Fury's own, called the Blitzkrieg Squad, and set a trap for the Commandos. The trap was a fake missile base made to look real from the outside. However, the Commandos escaped, further embarrassing Strucker.

Captain America and Namor battled Strucker and the Thule Society during WWII. The Thule unleashed the Kraken a weapon of Atlantean origin and ungodly power.

He fought Captain America and the Invaders and several other wartime heroes, losing every time.

While on vacation in Berlin, Baron Strucker witnessed Thor's attack on the Chancellery, after which he followed a bandaged man through a portal. Realizing he had traveled decades into the future, Strucker stole some history books about the end of World War II. He encountered the time machine's creator Doctor Doom, who allowed him to return to the past, not believing that Strucker could win the war even with the knowledge he had obtained.

In 1943, angered by the Baron's many losses, Hitler ordered Strucker to destroy the French Resistance in the town of Cherbeaux or, if the plan failed, to destroy the town itself. Strucker wanted to eliminate the resistance in the territories near Cherbeaux, trying to avoid the town's destruction, but the Howling Commandos arrived in time to free the resistance members. Hitler ordered Strucker to set the explosives to destroy Cherbeaux, but he came face-to-face with Fury, who possessed a more powerful explosive that could even kill Strucker himself. He decided to let the Cherbeaux population free, wanting a last battle with his arch-enemy. When the Commandos finished the evacuation, Fury fought Strucker while the town was being destroyed around them. Fury lost Strucker under the ruins, while Hitler wanted him killed by the Gestapo.

At that point the Red Skull, who foresaw Hitler's fall from power, helped Strucker escape Germany, sending him to Japan, where the Skull had secretly created an organization composed by several underground Japanese societies, including the Hand, and fugitive members of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

In Japan, he joined the Skull's organization, renamed it *Hydra*, killed its leader and seized control of the organization. As the Supreme Hydra, Strucker created the Hydra Base Tsunami, better known as Hydra Island.

After having seen the power of Strucker's newborn Hydra, the new Jonin of the Hand tried to unify the two organizations, introducing the occult arts and worship of the Beast inside Hydra. Strucker, who knew that occultism had previously driven Hitler near to madness, fought the Jonin, winning the battle that would keep separated Hydra and the Hand for some time.

Baron Strucker soon came into conflict with Captain Simon Savage and the Leatherneck Raiders. The crew was captured, but they were able to fight their way to the base just in time to rescue their men from a firing squad, but they were all able to escape, with Hydra Island partially destroyed.

At some point, he acquired the Spear of Imhotep.

Strucker later decided to regain Hitler's favor, drugging Fury after having him captured in Africa, and offering Hitler the drug's formula. However, Fury was freed by the Howling Commandos.

He finally returned in Germany, seemingly operating as a loyal Nazi but secretly leading Hydra behind the scenes. Hydra later obtained the Japanese submarine known as the Dragon of Death and used it as its new base of operations; Hydra later tried to build an atomic bomb by using knowledge from the future obtained by Strucker in a time-travel with Doctor Doom's Time Machine, but they were defeated by the Invaders.

Under Strucker's leadership, the Thule Society and Hydra started merging, quickly becoming the one and the same.

As the Thule Society's leader, Strucker worked in 1944 with Dr. Geist to create an army of Super-Soldiers. This project, named the *Infinitas Agenda*, continued also after the Thule Society was absorbed into the modern Hydra.

In 1944, Strucker encountered the Gnobians, a benevolent race of empathic extraterrestrials who had crashed near Gruenstadt. Realizing what their technology could do for Hydra, Strucker befriended the naïve creatures and killed the population of Gruenstadt to cover his tracks. The Howlers arrived, too late to prevent the tragedy, but fatally wounded Strucker. The Gnobians healed Strucker with their powers, but they went insane from absorbing some of his hate-filled psyche in the process. Strucker fled their crashed ship, taking discs of their information to his scientists.

In 1945, as the Reich fell, Strucker placed Master Man and Warrior Woman under suspended animation, trying to preserve them for the future. He also preserved the Red Skull when he was buried alive in his bunker after a battle against Captain America.

Since Hydra needed more finances, Strucker abducted Gabby Haller, who had a map leading to a fortune in lost Nazi gold hidden within her mind, but Haller was defended by her friends, the mutants Charles Xavier and Erik Magnus, and Magnus took the gold for his own purposes.

Satanist and fourth richest person in the world, Elsbeth von Strucker married Strucker and started funding Hydra in 1957, seemingly incorporating her own agenda about the Sickly Ones, entities that had waited for a chosen one for almost four billion years.

Strucker then reorganized and began to diversify Hydra, repositioning the organization towards global domination.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Deathspore Virus:** Von Strucker's bloodstream has been infected with the fatal deathspore virus which, rather than killing him, grants him an array of superhuman abilities:
	+ **Suppressed Aging:** Von Strucker has not aged since contracting the virus.
	+ **Durability:** Von Strucker is invulnerable to minor injuries like cuts, gunshot wounds, and superpowered punches.
	+ **Regenerative healing factor:** Heals at an incredible rate and is possibly also resistant to toxins and disease.
	+ **Death Spore Release:** Von Strucker can temporarily release the virus from his body over short distances. Depending on the intensity, von Strucker can cause his victims to weaken, feel pain, or even die. When von Strucker dies, the Death Spore Virus will be automatically released and "take revenge on [his] killers, and everybody else." The Virus seems to be incapable of killing superhuman or artificially enhanced beings, but is still capable of hurting or weakening them.
* **Expert Combatant:** He is a masterful combatant, surpassing most in physical skill and prowess.
* **Expert Swordsman:** He is a world-class fencer portraying phenomenal skill ability with rapier, medieval broadswords, and possibly other weapons used in Medieval Europe.
* **Expert Marksman:** Strucker is an Olympic-level marksman with firearms.
* **Expert Tactician:** Strucker is a strategic and tactical genius, as well as a brilliant planner and organizer. He also has an impressive scientific and inventive ability, but not at the level his father was. He is very skilled in field tactics, close range combat, and even turning the tide of any debate that he is involved into his favor.

### Arsenal

* **Satan Claw:** This metal gauntlet amplifies its strength and emits powerful electrical shocks. It has also been used to contain knives, plasma blasters, chain guns, and teleportation technology.

### Weakness

Initially, while he is powerful and a brilliant fighter, his superiority complex, and high arrogance is a primary weakness of his. He believes that no one can stand up to his power, and can frequently underestimate his enemies, resulting in his defeat.