While Arnim Zola and the Red Skull watched from a surveillance room, Doughboy engulfed one of Frag’s men. After the creature proved impervious to his explosive arrows, Frag leapt atop the monster and tried to pull his comrade free. The remaining mercenary blasted away at Doughboy, but with little effect. Both men were subsequently engulfed.

Impressed by Frag’s ferocity, the Red Skull asked Arnim Zola to spare the mercenary. Zola commanded Doughboy to create an air pocket around its victim, and Frag was brought into the castle as a captive. Even under torture, however, Frag refused to talk, except to challenge the Red Skull to a man-to-man fight.

At this point it is important to know exactly how and why the Red Skull happened to be at Arnim Zola’s castle. Not too long ago, the Red Skull was shocked to learn that the effects of an experimental gas that had kept him from aging while he was in suspended animation were reversing themselves: he began to age at great speed, making him so elderly that he would soon die of old age.

With the help of Arnim Zola, the Red Skull devised a plan that would possibly save his life, and hopefully end the life of Captain America. The Red Skull brainwashed Nomad, Captain America’s ally, then forced Nomad to dose the hero’s food with a chemical that caused Cap to age rapidly. The chemical also neutralized the effects of the Super-Soldier serum, which is what gives Captain America his enhanced abilities.

After the Red Skull captured the elderly Captain America, Arnim Zola extracted samples from Cap’s body. However, the weakened Avenger overpowered the Red Skull, who finally expired due to his old age. After being cured of the effects of the chemicals, Captain America returned to normal.

Although Captain America did not know it, Arnim Zola had preserved the Red Skull’s consciousness using his advanced technology. From the cell samples he had previously taken from Cap, Arnim Zola created a clone of Captain America and used his machines to cause it to rapidly reach adulthood. Arnim Zola then placed the Red Skull’s consciousness in the cloned body. As a result, the Red Skull was reborn in a duplicate of his hated rival’s body, complete with the full effects of the Super-Soldier serum.

Intrigued at the prospect of fighting Frag in single combat, and eager to test his new clone-body, the Red Skull accepted the mercenary’s challenge. After a fierce bathe, the Red Skull proved victorious, and was about to crush Frag’s neck when he suddenly changed his mind and decided to ask the mercenary to be his bodyguard. The Red Skull offered to have Frag trained by the best people in Europe and to teach him new disciplines in order to help him attain his ultimate fighting potential. Frag gladly accepted the offer, revealing that since his early childhood he had always admired the Red Skull as the “baddest of the bad.” Pleased with his new pupil, the Red Skull gave Frag the name Crossbones.

When his training was complete, Crossbones soon came into conflict with Captain America, a man he would grow to hate. During Captain America’s mission to keep Baron Zemo from getting the five mystical fragments of the Bloodstone, Crossbones kidnapped Diamondback, Cap’s partner. Crossbones took the woman to Madripoor, a small metropolis on an island south of Singapore. He planned to use Diamondback as bait in a trap for Captain America. He forced her to call Cap on the telephone in order to lure the Avenger to Madripoor.

Not long after Cap arrived in Madripoor, he encountered Crossbones, who immediately fled, leading the hero into a trap. With his foot caught in a bear trap, the Avenger fought off Crossbones’s ferocious assault. Once again, Crossbones fled, leading Cap into yet another trap. This time the super-soldier found himself in a rundown building standing upon a rug that concealed a pressure-sensitive plate connected to a bomb—if he moved his weight off the plate, he would be blown to bits. Gloating, Crossbones left Captain America in order to radio a message to the Red Skull.

In the meantime, Diamondback escaped her captors, but she was cornered in a toy factory by a brutish goon named Mister Phun. Diamondback defeated Mister Phun, who fell into a vat of boiling plastic.

After Crossbones spoke with the Red Skull, he watched from outside the building as the bomb he had planted to kill Captain America exploded. He left Cap for dead. However, the Avenger had placed his shield under his feet before leaping off the pressure sensitive plate, and survived the blast. Drawn to the site of the fiery explosion, Diamondback found Captain America, and the two left the city together.

Crossbones has continued to serve as the Red Skull’s right-hand man. Recently, Crossbones was defeated by Captain America in single combat, even after Cap had been deprived of the Super-Soldier serum due to a total blood transfusion. Crossbones managed to escape, and will most likely seek revenge against the mighty Avenger in the near future.