<p>Just so u guys know, IronManfan1(formerly anonymus user and myself) created this discussion. </p>

<p>In-universe, he's in about the same situation as Schroedinger's cat. He was clearly set up to return, but it can just as well be left unexplained forever, in which case fans will probably retroactively assume that he got killed. Out-of-universe, is there any official word on whether or not Weaving will return to play him? 'Cause the success of the character is mainly due to his portrayal, I think. Otherwise, Skull could well be just another hammy Hydra schmo, which is not the kind that fills theaters... </p>

<p>I do believe he survived. Perhaps he underwent a time-skip making him as young as he was in First Avenger. </p>

<p>He survived, and i have evidence. When he held the tesseract in his hand, a beam of blue light went up into a portal leading to one of the nine realms (probably). At the end of Avengers, Loki and Thor used the tesseract to get back to Asgard, and the same blue beam went up. He is probably gonna be a secondary villian in Captain America Civil War. Please feel free to agree or disagree with me. </p><p>I have a theory: the infinity stones are all over the universe: Orb on deserted planet, Tesseract in Norway, mind stone from thanos, and aether from the dark world. Perhaps Red skull found another in the place he was teleported to. I feel like he may have found the time infinity stone, so he could redo his mistakes from WWII ...just a thought. </p>

<p>though this is off-topic, after the tesseract lost fell into the ocean. it lost its flame making it useless. thus hydra was no longer able to continue making energy weapons. </p>

<p>Wrong the tesseract was used for that in the avengers and as an infitinty stone cannot be extinguished. It became super  heated from teleporting red skull that it just melted through the floor and the cube was cooled. As stated in avengers 2 the cube is just a containment device the actual stone is inside the cube so the containment box, the "cube" became so hot it melted through the metal floor and once in the ocean cooled down to normal where it was taken by howard stark and kept at SHIELD. Which they later used it to try and create their own weapons but then Thor used it to go back to Asgard and Heimdell used it to jumpstart the bifrost as it was the only thing they had powerful besides odin that could jumpstart the generators of the bifrost they were rebuilding during the avengers. </p>

<p>I like the theory that he works for Thanos (similar to Avengers Assemble cartoon). I think he went and retrieved a stone (Time) and probably looks younger now... </p>

<p>http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Hugo-Weaving-Hints-Future-Red-Skull-He-Might-Play-Him-Again-33569.html Maybe he wanted to be in Valhalla after being "killed" by the Tesseract, who knows maybe we might hear in <i>Thor: Ragnarok</i> </p>

dude that article is from 2012... and just speculation

<p>Red Skull is dead. In Guardians of the Galaxy it is said that when a mortal touches an Infinity Stone, it will kill them. Red Skull is superhuman but mortal all the same. As the tesseract also holds teleportation powers, it transported what was left of him to Yggdrasil, and even if he survived the trip, he'd likely be dead of old age by now, unless Yggdrasil has some sort of eternal youth powers. </p>