STEELSKULLS
Membership: At least 16 unnamed armored
mercenaries
Purpose: Mercenaries serving their employer
the Grim Reaper (and, indirectly, Count
Nefaria)
Affiliations: Atlas (Eric Josten), Count
Nefaria (Luchino Nefaria), Grim Reaper (Eric Williams), the Maggia,
Taskmaster, Wonder Man (Simon Williams)
Enemies: Avengers (Goliath/Hank Pym, Iron
Man/Tony Stark, Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff, Triathlon/Delroy Garret
Jr., Vision/"Victor Shade", Warbird/Carol Danvers, Wasp/Janet Van
Dyne), Inner
Guard (Benedict,
Fawkes,
Monmouth),
Madame Masque (Guiletta Kristina Nefaria)
Base of Operations: Presumably prison, but
their first and only major fight took place near Madame Masque's
sanctuary in the Nevada desert, south of Las Vegas
Powers/Abilities: None...every one of the Steelskulls uses high-tech guns and weaponry. They wore body armor and helmets, and they had access to jet-packs.
First Appearance: Avengers III#32 (September
2000)
History:
(Avengers III#32 - BTS) - The men who would form the Steelskulls were
all graduates of the Taskmaster's training academy, handpicked by the
Grim Reaper (Eric Williams) as his personal henchmen. Provided with
stylised skull armor, advanced fire arms and jetpacks, the Steelskulls
trained with the Reaper in preparation for their first mission.
(Avengers III#31 - BTS) - Count Nefaria (Luchino Nefaria) ordered the Grim Reaper to deliver his daughter Madame Masque (Guiletta Kristina Nefaria) to him. In order to draw out the elusive, paranoid Maggia leader, the Reaper went to great lengths to organise a meeting of all the major Maggia figures in Chicago, where he planned to kidnap her. However, not only did the Avengers disrupt the meeting, the Madame Masque who attended also turned out to be a clone that committed suicide as soon as the Reaper tried to capture her.
(Avengers III#32 - BTS) - The Grim Reaper managed to beat the location of the real Madame Masque out of the underlings that had accompanied her clone to the Maggia meeting. Learning of the existence of Sanctuary, a hidden base located in a butte in the Nevada desert, the Grim Reaper assembled the Steelskulls and set off. They used an advanced VTOL aircraft equiped with cloaking fields to ensure they could approach the base undetected.
(Avengers III#32 - BTS) - The craft's cloak wasn't
strong enough to keep SHIELD from detecting the Grim Reaper's
movements. The spy agency informed the Avengers of the Reaper's
destination, figuring the team would be best suited to deal with him.
(Avengers III#32) - Moments after arriving at the base of Madame Masque's butte headquarters, the Reaper quickly ordered the Steelskulls to fan out and surround the structure. He informed them he would tell them where to strike to kill Masque's defences, which was something he had coaxed out of her men before killing them. Steelskulls squad A was about to break out their jetpacks when they were surprised by the Avengers who had been waiting for them. Seeing the heroes momentarily startled the Steelskulls, angering the Grim Reaper who called them idiots and miserable losers for freezing up. The Steelskulls quickly overcame their hesitation and joined their boss in his attack on the Avengers.
(Avengers III#32) - The Avengers tore through the
Steelskulls with a vengeance. Goliath disabled five by jumping on them,
the Scarlet Witch used a single hex to take out four more and even
Triathlon managed to dispatch four of them within seconds. Despite the
Grim Reaper barking rallying instructions, telling them to focus on
hitting Goliath, the Steelskulls were unable to beat even a single
Avenger. Realising he was fighting a losing battle, the Grim Reaper
decided to retreat to the ship and leave the Steelskulls behind to
ensure his getaway. Reaper was stopped by Vision, just as Madame Masque
finally became aware of the fighting going on outside her sanctuary.
She sent out her robotic Innerguard to deal with what she perceived
were invaders. As the remaining Steelskulls tried to hold their own
against both the Avengers and this latest threat, Count Nefaria arrived
on the scene, accompanied by his ionic thralls Wonder Man and Atlas.
The Count had come to collect his daughter personally.
(Avengers III#33) - Bolstered by the arrival of the
supremely powerful Nefaria and his ionic slaves, the Steelskulls got
back in the fight. However, in an attempt to clear the crowded
battlefield somewhat, the Wasp ordered Iron Man and the other heavy
hitters to focus on Atlas and Wonder Man, while Triathlon, Goliath and
herself would take care of the Steelskulls. The threat of the
Steelskulls was ended by Goliath, who used his size control powers to
enlarge a stun blaster that knocked out the remaining mercenaries with
a single volley. Eventually, Nefaria grew tired of what he considered a
pointless confrontation and left with Atlas and Wonder Man in tow. The
Grim Reaper also tried to flee, but was stopped by Warbird who figured
he might try to sneak out waited for him inside his airship and knocked
him out. In the aftermath of the fight, the Steelskulls were lying
unconscious on the battlefield, surrounded by the smoldering parts of
the robots that made up Madame Masque's Innerguard.
Comments: Created by Kurt Busiek, George Perez, Paul Ryan and Al Vey.
Just how many Steelskulls there were is a bit of a
guessing game, considering they all dressed the same, didn't wear
nametags and had their faces covered by a giant skull. One wonders how
the Reaper managed to keep them all apart. Judging from their initial
confrontation with the Avengers, there were at least 16 of them. What
happened to them after the fight is another unanswered question. The
Avengers only took the Grim Reaper back to the Mansion for questioning,
so provided they all survived the fight, it's more than likely a SHIELD
clean up crew arrived to take them into custody (and the hospital).
While they were at least visually interesting, the Steelskulls really
were little more than a sorry bunch of hirelings. It does make you
wonder how good the Taskmaster really is at his job, considering so
many of his graduates perform terribly in the field. Still, a teacher's
only as good as his pupils' capacity... and when you figure he mostly
recruits riffraff from society's underbelly, one can't expect too much.
Still, sending inexperienced, underpowered henchmen like the
Steelskulls to fight Earth's mightiest heroes and a paranoid
crimelord's cybernetic cabal sounds like a sure fire way to end up
dead. Well, at least they were already dressed for the part.
Profile by Proto-Man
and Snood. Massively updated/reformatted by Norvo.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Steelskulls has no known connections to
images: (without ads)
Avengers III#32, p16, pan2 (main)
Avengers III#32, p17, pan3 (shocked)
Avengers III#33, p14, pan6 (defeated)
Appearances:
Avengers III#32 (September, 2000) - Kurt Busiek(writer), George Perez,
Paul Ryan(pencils), Al Vey(inks), Tom Brevoort(editor)
Avengers III#33 (October, 2000) - Kurt Busiek(writer), George Perez,
Paul Ryan(pencils), Al Vey(inks), Tom Brevoort(editor)
First posted: 01/18/2002
Last updated: 05/19/2019.
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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