His evolution as a revenge-seeking villain, criminal mastermind, and even occasional
anti-hero has made him a unique and multilayered villain. No matter what his scheme happens to be,
Baron Zemo has always believed in one thing: that he was destined to rule the world.
Helmut Zemo's father Heinrich was a ruthless but brilliant Nazi scientist who built a death ray
to help conquer the world, only to be thwarted by the Howling Commandos. This blow to his reputation
in Germany led to him disguising himself with the now-famous purple cowl. Heinrich went insane when
Captain America beat him again and his cowl was permanently stuck to him thanks to his super-glue
invention, Adhesive X. Zemo gained revenge when he booby-trapped a rocket whose detonation
put Cap in suspended animation. By the time of Avengers #6, Heinrich created the Masters
of Evil as a way of trying to kill Cap and his friends in the Avengers once and for all. Zemo
died when his death ray caused a rock slide that buried him while fighting Cap in Avengers #15.
Years later, a villain in a bright orange and red costume who called himself the Phoenix, not to be
confused with the X-Men's Phoenix, menaced Cap and his partner, the Falcon. In Captain America #168,
The Phoenix revealed himself to be Heinrich Zemo's son Helmut, having reverse-engineered
how to make Adhesive X and the death ray. At that time, Helmut Zemo was no match for Cap one on one,
and Cap himself was reluctant to fight him, seeing Helmut as another victim of the war.
At one point, Helmut, who obviously survived his fall into a vat of Adhesive X, married a
woman named Heike, who initially claimed to be the reincarnation of Heinrich Zemo by way
of the "bio-fanatic" Arnim Zola. In the pages of Captain America, Heike was married to Helmut Zemo,
with 25 children they had stolen from abusive family situations that they referred to as
the Kinder. The Zemos gave them love and care while also making sure that they were
raised to hate Captain America. Heike was working with the evil scientist Superia,
whose agenda was creating a world of super-powered women and wiping out men.
Helmut overheard her scheming and had to be talked out of killing her before he fell into yet
another vat of Adhesive X, with Heike jumping in after him. Cap wasn't going to fall for the
same trick twice and tracked them down, easily capturing them both. This wasn't exactly Helmut's
finest hour, but it was his most vulnerable, and he later claimed that his wife died in prison.
After his earlier schemes didn't work, Helmut started hiding in plain sight in order to get
what he wanted. This was most famously revealed in the pages of Thunderbolts,
which featured members of the Masters of Evil disguised as superheroes in the wake
of the Avengers' disappearance and dissolution.
"And Avengers. The Masters of Evil betrayed you. Made a mockery of you."
Zemo's disguise as a descendant of the Golden Age superhero Citizen V
was especially delicious, since his father had killed the original. His plan was to
make the public and the authorities trust his team, then get access to SHIELD and Avengers
access codes in order to hook up a mind control device to a satellite. His plan almost worked,
but he hadn't accounted for some of the Thunderbolts actually wanting to become heroes,
and they led the resistance against him after just a few issues.
After Zemo was seemingly killed by Scourge, his consciousness was transferred into the body of
John Watkins III, who had taken up the mantle of Citizen V, in the pages of Thunderbolts #45.
He led the V Battalion under the nose of every other superhero, including the
Avengers. A few issues later, he was offered a chance to lead a team of government-issued
superheroes called the Redeemers, who were based on the original Thunderbolts.
The point where Helmut Zemo really became a master villain was Avengers #273,
when he launched his plan to monitor the Avengers, probing for weaknesses, and then invading Avengers
Mansion. In observing the team, he saw that Hercules chafed against the Wasp's leadership,
that the Black Knight was infatuated with the Wasp, and devised a scheme to neutralize Monica
Rambeau, who was Captain Marvel at the time. When he learned that Namor left the team, he struck.
He had his best lackey, the Fixer, create a device that allowed him to control the Darkforce-wielding
catatonic named Blackout. That control disposed of Captain Marvel and kept the other Masters of
Evil in line, including the devious Moonstone. He brought in the entire Wrecking Crew, Mr. Hyde,
and Goliath to act as his muscle. They beat Hercules nearly to death
and did the same to poor Jarvis, all to torture Captain America.
Ultimately, he failed not because he didn't have enough power, but because
he didn't believe his own analysis. He said the Avengers always won because they were unified,
but he treated every one of the Masters as expendable cannon fodder. The Avengers,
on the other hand, fought for each other because of the friendships they had forged together.
That lack of unity and the way he used others was frequently his undoing.
Helmut Zemo was obsessed with his father and his legacy for many years. When Captain America
reappeared, this twisted his grief for his abusive father's death into something truly warped.
Like his father, he wasted his own skill and intelligence on futile
revenge schemes and recreations of destructive weapons. The reality is
that his endless crusade for vengeance was his way of trying to make his father proud.
Helmut even went so far as to try to resurrect his father using fragments from the magical
Bloodstone in the pages of Captain America #357. All that did was put the essence of
an evil force inside Heinrich's body, and he rewarded Helmut by trying to kill him.
Helmut's obsession with legacy continued when he went back into the past and met all
of his ancestors, with their DNA being a focal point that allowed him to go into his family's
past as he tried to return to his own time. This story, covered in the miniseries Zemo:
Born Better, included a meeting with his dad as he was demonstrating his first
death ray to Hitler. By this time, Helmut was sick of how his father had warped him,
and they got into a fight. Helmut left him the famous purple cowl as he felt himself
pulled forward to the future, understanding how limited his father's worldview actually was.
Zemo's time as leader of the Thunderbolts changed him,
even if he didn't want to admit it. It took a while for him to change,
but when he and the Thunderbolts were shunted off to Counter-Earth in Thundberbolts #62,
he learned to accept this adulation, even if his goals of world domination didn't change.
When the Thunderbolts went to Counter-Earth, Zemo was still sharing his consciousness with
the Fixer. When Zemo realized that the Counter-Earth version of his father was
trying to take over the world, he directed the Fixer to download his consciousness into that
world's version of himself, who went by the name Iron Cross. After he killed this other
version of his father — once again, daddy issues — he joined with the Thunderbolts,
who wanted to save the world. Zemo realized that as far as he was concerned,
if saving the world meant people giving him what he wanted, he was all for it.
Zemo was hailed as a hero for helping the survivors of the world to the
point where he started to become uncomfortable with this adulation.
When a threat to Counter-Earth came along, he was ready to destroy Earth in order to save it,
but the Thunderbolts found a way to save both planets. In Thunderbolts #75,
Zemo went back to Earth, having convinced even Hawkeye he was a hero.
For a long time, Helmut saw Captain America as the sole reason his life was so lonely and meaningless
and as the reason for his father's death. Of course, it didn't happen that way,
but Helmut refused to listen. Instead, Zemo made things personal. In the pages of Captain America,
he kidnapped Cap's childhood friend Arnie Roth, and also kidnapped a pacifist
friend named Dave Cox and turned him into a killer. When he conquered Avengers Mansion,
Zemo gleefully tore up photos of Bucky and Cap's mom and had Mr. Hyde destroy Cap's first shield.
Then, in Avengers #275, he had Hyde beat Jarvis to a pulp as Cap watched, helpless.
"Captain America, it's been a long time."
Later, when Zemo had the Kinder, he remarked on how much time he had wasted hating Cap,
and how much happier he was with his family. Of course,
he made sure his children were raised to hate his rival, so that hatred was still there.
After Zemo became a hero on Counter-Earth and returned to Earth, he jumped in front of
a blast meant for Cap and saved him in the pages of Avengers/Thunderbolts #6, leaving him scarred
once again. Things got extra weird later, when Captain America was changed by the Cosmic Cube
named Kobik into a version of himself who had always served HYDRA. This version of Cap believed
that Helmut had been his lifelong friend, and he even managed to talk Helmut into believing it.
Zemo has always liked having minions and teams to do his dirty work,
but he values absolute servitude above all else.
"You may call me Master. Now kneel before me."
In Avengers #277, he made sure to have the Fixer give him absolute control over Blackout
in order to make him his personal bodyguard. In Thunderbolts #11, he used the device called the
Bio-Modem to take over the minds of the Avengers and was nearly able to take over the entire world
with it. One of the main reasons he kept Moonstone around was because of her psychological acumen,
which he could use to manipulate his Masters of Evil. On a personal level,
he took over the bodies of John Watkins III and Helmut Zemo of Counter-Earth,
escaping death both times as he used another person's body.
Despite his frequent reliance on mind control, Zemo's natural charisma has
convinced a lot of people to work with him. As Thunderbolts Annual #1 proved,
for example, he knew just how to appeal to each member in order to get them to join.
The Fixer was bored and needed problems to solve,
and Zemo gave him that. Songbird was on the run and needed someone to offer her shelter,
so Zemo provided. MACH-1 was tired of being a loser, and Zemo gave him a chance to win.
Goliath needed to be someone’s soldier, and, you guessed it, Zemo made that happen.
Whether Zemo is presenting himself as a hero or a villain, his goal of domination has never
wavered. He wanted to rule the world and thought, as a Zemo, he was the only one
fit to do it. Unlike many villains, he's come astoundingly close to winning several times.
He almost took over the mind of everyone in the world with the Bio-Modem,
and only his own overconfidence proved to be his undoing.
Even when he seemed to be more heroic, he had the Thunderbolts help assemble the Liberator, a device
designed to drain the power of super-powered individuals in the Avengers/Thunderbolts
miniseries. It theoretically would have been used against terrorist threats and supervillains,
but it left open two major questions. First, what would be done with the energy it absorbed?
Second, who would decide when and how to use it? A test run had adverse effects on several heroes,
and even a well-intentioned Zemo was willing to allow for a lot of collateral damage.
When Zemo later decided to take over Hydra in the pages of All-New Captain America,
he recruited a kid named Lucas, whose blood could sterilize human beings.
His scheme this time around was to save the world's future by sterilizing most
of the human race, creating a, quote, "purer" world. He was going to detonate a bomb in the
atmosphere that would affect all of humanity, and had a backup plan involving fleas carrying
the toxin. He was eventually stopped by Captain America Sam Wilson, and his trusty bird Redwing.
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