How MCU’s Hydra & The Red Room Went From Allies To Enemies

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is home to numerous criminal organizations, and among the deadliest of them are Hydra and the Red Room, who once worked as allies of sorts but eventually became enemies. Debuting in Captain America: The First Avenger and having their origins expanded on in Agents of SHIELD, Hydra has been a persistent threat throughout the MCU, compromising SHIELD from their beginning and continuing to terrorize the world long after their treachery was discovered. The Red Room has been a far more discreet threat, quietly influencing key politicians and spreading their influence across the world through their Widow agents, as shown in Black Widow.

As revealed in Agents of SHIELD, Hydra began as a deadly cult that worshipped the Inhuman known as Hive. Hydra was drastically reinvented in the 1930s by Johann Schmidt (aka the Red Skull), a Nazi SS officer and scientist who refashioned Hydra to his ideology. This modern iteration of Hydra was seemingly destroyed, along with Schmidt, at the end of World War II, but it survived in secret within the SHIELD, thanks to Schmidt’s associate, Arnim Zola. Hydra’s survival was revealed to the world in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but their terrorist activities continued well after that, as shown in Agents of SHIELD and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

As revealed in Agent Carter, the Red Room was first known as Leviathan, a secret division of the Soviet Russian military. Throughout their history, their primary agents were “Black Widows,” female agents who were raised and indoctrinated from a young age for absolute loyalty and lethal skills in combat and espionage. The Red Room’s most famous agent – none other than Natasha Romanoff – kept her title of Black Widow, but used it as an agent of SHIELD and a founding member of The Avengers, becoming one of the MCU’s greatest heroes and helping her move forward from her painful past as one of many brainwashed Red Room agents.

Hydra Worked With The Red Room’s Precursor In Agent Carter

Agents of Leviathan were the antagonists of Agent Carter season 1, with Johann Fennhoff (based on the classic Marvel comics villain Doctor Faustus) seeking revenge on Howard Stark for one of his inventions causing the deaths of numerous Soviet soldiers during World War II. Fennhoff was extremely deadly, using his impeccable skills in hypnosis to manipulate others with his vocal intonations. Agent Carter also showed the earliest iteration of the Black Widow program, with Leviathan’s training facility brainwashing trainees with subliminal messages hidden in cartoons and forcing some to kill each other during training sessions.

One such Widow agent, Dottie Underwood, worked closely with Fennhoff during his mission to the United States, showcasing similar combat and espionage skills to Natasha Romanoff in The Avengers films. The two Leviathan agents failed in the revenge plot, but Fennhoff found an unexpected ally following his arrest. Johann shared a cell with scientist Arnim Zola, who would go on to be recruited by SHIELD during Operation Paperclip. Zola, unsurprisingly, took an interest in Fennhoff’s hypnotic methods and began working with the Soviet agent. Fennhoff hasn’t appeared in the MCU since Agent Carter, but his partnership with Zola brought Hydra and the Red Room’s predecessor together, thanks to a common enemy.

Hydra Used The Red Room’s Technology For Its Winter Soldier Program

As shown in Agents of SHIELD season 2, Hydra employed a highly-effective form of brainwashing called the “Faustus method” to hypnotize even the most loyal SHIELD agents into serving their greatest enemy. The name is an obvious nod to Fennhoff’s comic counterpart, proving that his work with Zola resulted in an extremely effective form of brainwashing for Hydra. One notable aspect of the Faustus method was its verbal cues, used to reinforce its effects. This included the indoctrinator asking the victim if they were ready to comply, to which they’d respond that they’re “happy to comply.”

Hydra’s super-soldiers, the Winter Soldiers, were chemically-enhanced agents who were brainwashed into total compliance. While most of these soldiers were kept in stasis, Hydra’s first and most famous Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, was awakened from stasis numerous times for Hydra’s most important mission, oftentimes assassinations. Captain America: Civil War showed one of Bucky’s brainwashing sessions in detail, which included him listening to a series of codewords, to which he responded with “ready to comply,” indicating that he was brainwashed with a variation of the Faustus method.

The Red Room Tried To Steal Its Technology Back From Hydra

As shown in Black Widow, the Red Room wanted Fennhoff’s brainwashing methods back in their hands, so they sent a team of agents, consisting of three Widows (including a young Natasha) and their super-soldier (Alexei Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian), to steal files on Hydra’s improvements on Fennhoff’s mind control methods. The mission was successful, giving the Red Room the MCU’s most potent form of chemical brainwashing.

It’s unclear how the Red Room became aware of Hydra’s mind control methods, let alone their secret existence within SHIELD, but a potential answer can be extrapolated. Johann Fennhoff might have made his way back to the Soviet Union, either by defection or capture. Given his history with Zola and his work on indoctrination, Fennhoff might have been the one to provide the Red Room with this valuable knowledge.

The Red Room & Hydra Helped Destroy Each Other

The Red Room kept their knowledge of Hydra’s existence secret, though they most likely used it as blackmail. Black Widow’s opening credits showed the vast influence of the Red Room, which continued its operations as a criminal organization following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Red Room manipulated numerous US politicians, with Hydra-affiliated figures potentially being among them. Meanwhile, thanks to their undercover agents, the Red Room possessed a far more potent form of mind control than any of Hydra’s methods, with the only countermeasure being the “Red Dust,” a gas that renders the human brain immune to external manipulations. Although the Red Room had the upper hand on Hydra for a time, the latter organization ultimately outlived the former. The Red Room and its leader, Dreykov are destroyed at the end of Black Widow, set in 2016. Hydra’s ultimate defeat occurred two years later in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the death of General Hale, as shown in Agents of SHIELD season 5.

About The Author

David Miller
(628 Articles Published)

David Miller is a staff writer for Screen Rant, indie comic writer, and life-long lover of all things Star Wars, Marvel, and DC. He was born and raised in New York and has a degree in English from Rider University. He relates to Peter Parker maybe a little too much.

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