Red Skull Jumps Out of the Comics and Into Reality

If Henry Rodriguez had been a huge Wolverine fan and changed his wardrobe to purple and yellow jumpsuits while sporting mutton chops nobody would have taken notice. But Rodriguez chose not to emulate the popular—and by comic book standards “normal” looking—X-man. Instead Rodriguez has dedicated his life to looking like Red Skull, the villain from Captain America: The First Avenger, which has proven to be a monumental undertaking requiring a ton of body modification.

The boldest of these modifications was the nose job that Rodriguez underwent. While some people get plastic surgery to have their nose straightened Rodriguez did the unthinkable—he had the tip of his nose removed. Rodriguez is one of the few that has ever done this modification and the result is a striking appearance that fixates people. When glancing at his face it is almost possible to overlook the dermal implants, red and black facial tattooing and black eye tattoos that Rodriguez has also added to complete the work. Rodriguez has certainly achieved his goal, he looks just like the hated Red Skull.

Rodriguez credits artist Emilio Gonzalez for helping complete his transformation. There are still a few modifications that need to be made before Rodriguez is finished, including having more of his face tattooed red and a few other dermal implants. The look was unveiled to tattoo enthusiasts at the Venezuela Tattoo International Expo last week.

It is interesting that of all the villains in the Marvel universe that Rodriguez has chosen to look like Red Skull. While many comic book villains have a checkered past that allows readers to have at least a little empathy for them, Red Skull is one of the very few that is portrayed as purely evil. Red Skull’s origin story revolves around saving the life of Adolf Hitler, there’s not a lot of grey area that can be construed from there. And as the leader of Hydra many of his villainous schemes revolve around some form of genocide. Marvel has gone out of their way to make the character hated by everyone.

Hopefully Rodriguez isn’t planning on mimicking any thing other than Red Skull’s outward appearance, the world doesn’t need any more villains. As long as he isn’t bent on world domination, and we assume that he isn’t, we have to applaud Rodriguez’s amazing body modifications. Rodriguez and Gonzalez have truly brought Jack Kirby’s comic creation to life.