By MTHarman 5 Comments
If you haven’t read the Captain America storyline known as Streets of Poison, you would probably be surprised as to how this seven issue storyline has a little too much of what a fanbase would probably want.
Streets of Poison is a Captain America storyline that took place right after the Acts of Vengeance. With Red Skull making his return from the grave (again), Streets of Poison shows us how much of a pain in the ass he could really be for other major villains.
Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime once had an issue with the Red Skull when he was duped into believing that he ran a Hydra branch in Las Vegas. Little did Fisk knew that Red Skull was the true leader the entire time and only used Fisk to gain Captain America’s attention. Making the notorious crimelord look like a complete dumbass after realizing what happened, Kingpin would find himself troubled by Red Skull once more when the Red Skull decided to take up drug dealing on Kingpin’s turf. Adding fuel to the fire, Red Skull obviously had no idea what the hell he was peddling and was only doing this for “experimental” purposes. So with the combination of Bullseye, Crossbones, Daredevil, Captain America on Red Skull’s experimental crack, his assistant Diamondback, and Black Widow, you can guess as to what happened from there within the seven issues that became the build up to the fight between Red Skull and the Kingpin.
So after causing several fights (some pointless and some interesting) and pointless chaos, both Kingpin and Red Skull decided to settle score in hand to hand combat.
So question is, why are they doing this in their undies?
Answer to that question would rely on their character during the time this fight took place, the fact that both men acted like serious James Bond villains because of the gimmicks and traps that they set up for their enemies (mostly the Red Skull). So with both men wanting a “fair” and “even” fight, this resulted with both men being stripped down to their undergarments and locked inside a huge dome to fully ensure that both Red Skull and Kingpin would keep their bargain of a fair fight.
Sadly this wasn’t a fight to the death, but more like a submission fight. What’s unique about this fight besides that it’s both Red Skull and Kingpin being one step away from nude fighting is that this is the first time we get to see a revived Red Skull use his new clone body on a serious opponent. Outside of the dome also shows the first time we get to see both Captain America and Crossbones in a fight as well.
But despite how many ninja kicks Red Skull could offer, Kingpin would prove victorious by doing the unthinkable… by falling on him (no joke).
Unable to bear Kingpins massive weight, Red Skull cried “uncle” and stopped his experimental drug peddling on Kingpins turf.
With Streets of Poisoning offering a handful of one-on-one fights, I would say that the Red Skull vs Kingpin undie fight really made itself an unbelievable highlight. Despite how tricky both of these criminal masterminds can be, being stripped down to their undies for a fair fight just doesn’t seem to be in their character, mostly with a man like Red Skull.
As anticipating and well-deserved this fight may be, seeing two of Marvel's most dangerous villains settling their problems in their undies isn't really necessary and obviously wasn't needed for these two criminal titans to successfully go toe-to-toe. In my personal opinion, I strongly think that this fight was focused on the shirtless fighting fade where we see two men show off their flex before sharing a series of un-called for "HAH's" and "YAH's", something that obviously belongs in a watered down 80's Action Flick.