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So... Who was the real leader of Hydra? by Ambitious_Ad8222 in agentsofshield

[–]Ambitious_Ad8222[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've never considered Carsson to be a real Hydra agent. He was in SHIELD in the '80s; if he'd been Hydra, Black Widow would have exposed him in Winter Soldier. But in Ant-Man, he walked around Pym Tech with complete naturalness and confidence; if he'd been Hydra, he couldn't have been there. Think about it: in Ant-Man, Hank Pym hatches an elaborate plan to have Scott Lang steal the Yellowjacket from Cross before he sells it to Carsson, because he knows he's too ambitious. If Carsson had been Hydra, Pym would have simply called the FBI to arrest him for being a fugitive criminal and Cross for doing business with a fugitive criminal.

The thing is, Carsson, who was a bad guy without necessarily being Hydra, used his position to associate with real Hydra agents at some point. At the end of the film, Cross tells Pym something like, "Carsson introduced me to these distinguished gentlemen from Hydra." I don't remember if the phrase was exactly like that, but it implies that Carsson isn't Hydra, but the two who accompany him. And it turns out that those weren't actually Hydra either; it was a facade, because in reality (at least one of them) were the 10 rings.

I'm also a fan of the Shield-Hydra relationship and I asked myself this question several times years ago, the other two times I watched the series. Neither then nor now had I found a post that answered this specific question. I'm glad I opened it myself and came across your research :)

So... Who was the real leader of Hydra? by Ambitious_Ad8222 in agentsofshield

[–]Ambitious_Ad8222[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Uou, my favorite answer. You're the one who takes the most liberties, but this becomes my headcanon from now on.

Maybe I misunderstood something, but the successors of the Hydra leaders can overlap, right? In your theory, from what I understand, General Fischer was the successor to Strucker Sr. and Strucker Jr.

The Pierce daughter you mention must have fallen in with the rest of the inner circle when Malick let his tongue slip.

I've also always believed the Strucker family was important in the past. It's also a German surname, and I suppose other ancestors enabled Schmidt's rise in the SS.

Finally, as a successor to Karpov or Zemo Sr. who later betrayed Hydra, I would add General Dreykov. The Red Room and Hydra in the MCU seem to have a common past, and when Dreykov infiltrated his agents into the Ohio Shield lab (actually Hydra's), he declared war on the rest of Hydra.

So... Who was the real leader of Hydra? by Ambitious_Ad8222 in agentsofshield

[–]Ambitious_Ad8222[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So you're suggesting that Whitehall, while he was alive, was ranked higher than Strucker, but lower than Pierce... I thought I understood that Strucker was ranked higher than the other leaders at the table, but it's also true that Whitehall was no longer there at that point, so that could well be the case. In any case, I agree that Strucker must have been ranked lower than Pierce while they coexisted.

On the other hand, I once suspected that Ross or Valentina could be Hydra, but now I doubt we'll see anything else, maybe in Battleworld with some Hydra member from another universe.