HYDRA is a terrorist-military organization bent on world domination and originated many thousands of years ago as a cult to a powerful Inhuman warlord who was banished to a desert planet. It was later revived by Johann Schmidt, otherwise known as the Red Skull, during World War II as a subdivision of the Nazi Party's Science Division. It was later reorganizaed under Schmidt's head scientist, Arnim Zola, and infiltrated SHIELD for over 70 years until it was exposed and forced to reveal itself to wage war upon the world again in the modern era. It is currently led by Grant Ward, one of Zola's hand-picked soldiers, and Gideon Malick, the former head of the World Security Council, with the demise of Schmidt's original council-members and the current rise of the Inhumans into the world.