BIOGRAPHY- page 5
Viper continued with her terrorist activities, and eventually wound up back in federal custody. She was eventually rescued by the Sweat Shop on behalf of the Red Skull. The Skull had become tired of normal super-villainy, and was seeking new evils to inspire him. He saw Viper as a kindred spirit, and offered to fund her activities for his own personal amusement. Initially hostile to the idea of being a “kept woman,” Viper came to appreciate the Red Skull’s resources and his personal interest in her. They spent several months together plotting new schemes in his Rocky Mountain retreat. [Captain America (1st series) #394-397]
While Viper played the long game, preparing the Red Skull’s resources for one major strike, she kept her Pit-Viper doppelgangers publically active in her place. The Pit-Vipers continued on in Viper’s name with acts of assassination, kidnapping and forays into organized crime. One Pit-Viper in particular manipulated the Punisher into attacking several of her rivals at a Las Vegas gathering to carve up the deposed Kingpin’s territory. [Dead Man’s Hand crossover] This Pit-Viper failed to achieve much, however, and even ended up feeding information to S.H.I.E.L.D. about the real Viper’s activities, nearly getting her captured by Nick Fury while running a nuclear arms theft in Russia. [Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2nd series) #45]
With the Skull’s resources, Viper finalized her latest scheme to spread anarchy. She concocted a transmission signal that would be broadcast to every television set in America, blinding anyone in view of the monitors. Unfortunately for Viper, this scheme did not meet with the Red Skull approval, as it would jeopardize his own long term plans for the country. When Viper cut ties to the Skull and ceased informing him of her activities, he surreptitiously hired Silver Sable to capture Viper and deliver her to him. Sable’s Wild Pack shut down multiple Pit-Viper operations while trying to locate the real Viper, as the doppelgangers were out in force to distract the authorities from the real Viper’s plans.
While waiting for the final preparations to be made, Viper indulged herself by personally seeking out the rogue Pit-Viper who fed information to S.H.I.E.L.D. She executed the Pit-Viper, but ended up a captive of the Wild Pack and their ally, Captain America. Cap informed Silver Sable she was unwittingly working for the Red Skull, and they conceived a plan to use Viper to draw out the Skull. They deposited a bugged Viper at the rendezvous point indicated by Sable’s “mystery employer.” The Red Skull dispatched his agent, the Iron Monger, to retrieve and interrogate Viper. When she refused to disclose the details of her blindness plan, the Iron Monger shattered the bones in her leg with his boot.
Before further interrogation could continue, the Viper’s hand-picked team of mercenaries, the Fangs, arrived and executed the Monger. Captain America and Silver Sable tracked Viper and the Fangs back to the transmission center for her attack. Viper’s broken leg kept her out of the fight, and the Wild Pack succeeded in destroying her transmitter array moments before the signal went out to blind all of America. Back in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, Viper attempted to gain some measure of revenge on the Red Skull by alerting Nick Fury to his Rocky Mountain hideaway, but the Skull was already gone by the time S.H.I.E.L.D. forces raided the chalet. [Silver Sable & the Wild Pack #15, Captain America (1st series) #419-420]
Still recovering from her broken leg, Viper next turned up free and in control of a Secret Empire installation in the Canadian Rockies. She took control of the genetic experimentation research being performed there, and severed ties with the Empire’s Council of Ten. Her plans were ultimately scuttled by the Avenger named Hawkeye and one of the escaped test subjects, however. [Hawkeye (2nd series) #1-4] Next, Viper forged a brief alliance with the time-dancer Spiral. She hired the Body Shop’s mistress to warp Leong and Nga Coy Manh into super-powered adult slaves as a small measure of revenge against their criminal uncle General Nguyen Coy for past slights. Her games were undone by the twins’ sister Karma and the X-Men Beast and Cannonball. [Beast #1-3]
[Note: Viper claimed her revenge against General Coy arose from an incident where she confronted his organization on behalf of HYDRA, only to be forcibly enslaved into his harem for weeks thanks to Karma’s late twin, Tran. She further claimed she only escaped with Tran’s death. Those facts place the incident sometime shortly after her assault on the Helicarrier, a point in Viper’s career long after she abandoned HYDRA and where her champion the Silver Samurai would not have allowed her several weeks’ absence to go unanswered for. These anomalies suggest, but do not confirm, that the Viper in this adventure was a Pit-Viper, acting on false information or avenging a wrong that she suffered but the real Viper did not.]