Like with any superhero franchise, there has been a steady stream of bad guys to make its way through the world of Marvel. One of the most infamous evil organizations has been the HYDRA organization. While Hydra has been around since ancient times as a cult, the more commonly known interpretation of the group has been around since the rise of the evilest powers to have come out of Europe before the outbreak of the second World War. The modern version of Hydra is highly involved in scientific research, advanced technology developments, and of course, working towards their lofty goals of world domination. Another thing that is pretty well known about Hydra is they tend to fail at their objectives. Even so, they have millions of members across the globe that will pr꧒oudly follow the highest ranks of the organization.
With all the failures, it’s hard to imagine that they’d have so many members, but I guess the temptation of taking over the world and all the spoils that go along with that are just too tempting. Since this is an incredibly large global organization, they have got to have some rules, right? Right, well, sort of. Of course, there are some rules, but some of the rules are more so things that are expected of the members of the🐻 Hydra organization. Some of these rules and expectations are reasonable, but others are downright scary! Let’s just say more than one involves some form of human experimentation. These members must have been incredibly loyal to have put up with these things. Check out the list below to see what rules and expectations mem♋bers of Hydra had to endure.
20 Failure Warrants A Loss Of Life 🧜
One thing that is incredibly common for the Hydra organization is failing in their missions. It is expe🌊cted really — the bad guys typically lose. With how normal this is, one has to wonder if there is a strict punishment for the Hydra members if they fail to complete their objectives? The answer to that is yes, very much so, yes. While the use of this method of punishment varies, one of the rules for Hydra members is that if they are unsuccessful in their mission, their life may come to a swift end.
This was a policy in effect during the early era of the von Strucker reign of Hydra (before and after his fir𒊎st time passing away). As one may expect, this policy has resulted in a lot of infighting among members, and a lot of instances of them offing each other more often than their intended victims. I wonder if this is part of the reason why so many Hydra members go into hiding? If failure is a typical mission outcome, I sure would be going into hiding! I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather go hide out somewhere instead of possibly meeting a brutal end.
19 Even Hydra Members Haveꦚ To Go To School
Just because you’re a bad guy, or more specifically the child of a bad guy, doesn’t mean you get to skip school! The Hydra Preparatory Academy was an old decommissioned military bunker hidden within the Appalachian Mountains that was turned into a boarding school. The school was the pl♕ace where the children of Hydra members were sent so that they be pretty much brainwashed into the beliefs and ideology of the organization. Not only were the students taugh🍌t the ways of Hydra, they would eventually be given their future roles within Hydra towards the end of their time at the preparatory school.
Some of those that have stayed within the halls of the school were at some point rather infamous within Hydra. This includes Daniel Whitehall, Steger, Wolfgang von Strucker, Werner von Strucker, Jasper Sitwell, Hale, and Ruby. Eventually, the school was used by Captain Hale as her personal base though. Within the academy/base, there was also a prison, which at one point held Phil Coulson. Of course, being Captain Hale’s daughter, Rꦰuby became one of the Hydra operatives that worked within this newly formed base. I suppose being the daughter of a high-ranking member has some perks after all!
18 Sometimes Members🥃 Were ꦐTrained Just To Be Ended
Aside from being known for their constant failings and experiments, high ranking Hydra officials would sometimes go beyond just messing with its’ members. There have been instances where recruits would be trained (and very well, mind you) just so they could be subject to an awful fate. One prime example of this is of Red Skull and Taskmaster. Red Skull not only helped Taskmaster escape a prison sentence, he started funding Taskmaster’s own activities. One of these included having train students in🅠 the fighting style of Captain America.
The purpose of the would-be Hydra members being trained was pretty nefarious.
You see, Red Skull had a newly cloned body of Captain America and wanted to get into prime physical fighting shape so that he himself could take on Captain (Steve Rogers) and Captain America (U.S. Agent, John Walker). Tওhe way he planned on getting into prime fighting condition was to use those unfortunate souls trained by Taskmaster. Red Skull didn’t just fight Taskmaster’s trainees, he ended the life of each one of them for no other reason than to show how powerful his new body really was. While it may be tempting to be taught to fight like Captain America, it could be a set up for one’s demise.
17 ♎ Hydra Members Used To Participate In 🧜Human Sacrifice
Before Hydra evolved into its modern incarnation, it was a religious cult. The cult that eventually became the more modern organization we all know and loathe (or love? I’m not judging here), has been around for a very long time. It all started thousands of years ago, when a rogue Kree faction decided to create the Inhumans on ancient Earth. The Kree, realizing this was a mistake, created the Monolith to banish the Inhumans. However, one Inhuman that was born was ridiculously powerful, and we know him as Hive. He was banished to another planet, and his followers, during ancient times, would make religi🦩ous human sacrifices to him.
This evolved over time, but sacrifices were still made.
Still, before the evolution of our favorite group of bad guys, a secret society had formed in the 1800s that would gather iꩲn England to select a member to go through the portal. While it was a sacrifice, as the chosen member never came back, they were attempting to bring Hive back to Earth. Even though this always (for many centuries anyways) led to the end of the life of who ever was “luck🐬y” enough to be selected to be swallowed up by the portal to another world, it was considered a great honor.
16 Members May Have꧂ To Be A Double Agent
Being an🅰 agent for Hydra in itself must be a mentally exhausting job. You're constantly either in hiding, fighting superheroes, working to build crazy impressive tech, and yet always seeming to fail in the main objective of world domination. And ye🐈t some lucky agents get to be double agents, adding more to the chaos of being a member of Hydra. There have been double agents within the ranks of Hydra, and some have infiltrated some pretty impressive positions. Let’s have a look at some of these.
have included members of SHIELD, various U.S. government positions (the NSA, governors, congressmen, the FBI, just to name a few), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and the GRU and SVR of Russia. However, like with most things concerning Hydra, most members who were double agents would eventually be exposed and taken care of in some form or another, be it imprisonment or by being taken out entirely. While the life of a double agent🐷 had to of been a huge burden at times, most agents ๊(especially those that infiltrated SHIELD) did dig up quite of bit of intel for the Hydra organization, and at one point was even able to turn the world, including the U.S. government, against SHIELD.
15 If You Were A Member During The War, You Might Have Been One Of The Bad Guys ✱
The modern incarnation of the Hydra organization started shortly before World War II. As the enemies were coming into power in Germany, Johann Sc꧂hmidt, a secret member of Hydra, tried to join Germany’s special weapons division. This didn’t pan out, so he joined the SS instead. Schmidt and his crew took over a weapons program and formed his own research division named that was approved by the evilest man of WWII. The research division was in charge of science experiments and occult investigations. As well, they soon would develop highly advanced weapons thanks to Dr. Zola.
During this time, not only did HYDRA create many weapons, they were also heavily involved with some of the fighting and came to obtain the Tesseract and the Obelisk. Hydra did a lot of work to build themselves up during World War II, and before the fall of the bad guys would even have millions of foot soldiers under their command all over the world, from everywhere to small towns to large, bustling cities. Before the war ended, Hydra would begin to disassociate itself with the evil powers of the time, but t🐼hat doesn’t take away from the fact that at one point anyone associated with Hydra was also associated with the villains of the Second World War.
14 🌄 Hydra Members Were Often Exposed To Alien Technology
While maybe not full on Hydra members, volunteers would occasionally allow Hydra to conduct human experiments on them (why anyone would agree to this is beyond me). As well, if you happened to be a prisoner of Hydra (even as a member of Hydra), you were likely to be subject to some crazy science experimenඣtations before your life came to a brutal end. Many of♐ those that fell to brainwashing techniques incorporated by Hydra would end up being experimented on. Some of the more interesting experimentations include the use of Loki’s Scepter, the Tesseract, and the Obelisk.
In the mid-1940s, Reinhardt did many experiments using the Obelisk, which he saw to have potential to be used as a weapon in his quest to take over the world. Unfortunately, all but one of his test subjects succumbed to the fatal effects of the alien Obelisk. This also turned out to be true with experiments concerning Loki’s Scepter, except two had survived instead of just one🌸. While not used in human experiments, the Tesseract was used in experimenting with weapons. Once it was disꦐcovered and retrieved by Schmidt, he brought it to Dr. Zola to see what it could do. Well, it turned out to be extremely powerful and was used in the created of the Valkyrie and its flying nuclear bombs.
13 Taking Co𝕴ntrol Of Minds Is Commonplace
With an organization with insane scientific experiments and technology at their disposal, brainwashing was not so uncommon. Now, don’t get me wrong, plenty of those within Hydra did not need to be brainwashed to go along with the many malevolent plans and tasks dished out by the higher-ups of the Hydra organization. was more so used either to influence actions or as a way to make an intended target on Hydra’s side. Interestingly, a lot of the brainwashing was done by one of the most prominen🌠t members of Hydra, Daniel Whitehall. There have been many cases of brainwashing done on members either in or associated with SHIELD.
Some of the more notable persons to have been brainwashed by the Hydra organization includes Bucky Barnes (for the Winter Soldier program), Agent 33, Brigadier General Glenn Talbot, Donnie Gill, and Carl Creel. Many others were also brainwashed to do the biding of Hydra, including resistant children within the Framework. One of Hydra’s most loyal members, Sunil Bakshi was even subjected to brainwashing later on by Agent ꦅ33 and Grant Ward in an attempt to have Bakshi become loyal to Ward. Even though most of these weren’t originally Hydra members, it was still a very real possibility that anyone within the organization could be subjected to brainwashing if deemed necessary.
12 Some Members Have Been In Cha🍷rge Of Highly Advanced Tech
Considering the modern day version of the Hyd🦄ra organization started out as a science and research branch of the German SS during the second World War, it should go without saying that in their midst was some incredibly advanced technology. This included weapons, airships, boats, and much, much more. You would think with such cutting-edge tech, it would mostly be those in charge of overseeing the developm🐻ent of their technology. However, it really seems to vary. Sometimes you just kind of have to suck up a bit in order to make it to the higher ranks.
While ﷽it was generally higher ranked members that physically oversaw the facilities in which research and tech development would be occurring in, it was typically well-regarded scientists who would be tasked with taking charge in analysis, research and development. One odd case of this was when Jemma Simmons was acting as a double agent for SHIELD and was being promoted within the ranks of Hydra due to her passion for science. Whitehall even gave the order for her and a few others to work to obtain the Obelisk in order to weaponize it. Obviously, most of those in charge of developing the technology wouldn’t hav🗹e been “former” SHIELD agents, but hey, for science, am I right!
11 Members Created A World Of Wars And Threats🍰
It should come as no surprise that members of Hydr💦a, including the higher ranks, were typically labeled as terrorists. As part of their quest for world domination, Hydra operatives would often meddle in world events causing chaos and wars. The best example of this comes from the events of the Cold War. At the time, those not involved with Hydra had thought the terrorist organization had disbanded before the end of the second World War. Obviously, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. During this time, the Hydra organization was still very active within the Soviet Union.
Many of the what could easily be considered some of the worst events during the Cold War were found to be orchestrated by none other than Hydra itself. These ev🎐ents included the Cuban missile crisis, the public ending of JFK, the rise of Muammar Gaddafi to power in Libya, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the global recession of the early 1980s, and multiple more horrible events that had drastic impacts on the world. It was during this time that the American government, among others, realized that Hydra was much more active than they could have ever thought! I guess when you’re tasked by the Hydra leaders to cause global strife, it’s go big or go home (without the actual option to opt out, of course).