Helmut Zemo

[4] Daniel Brühl portrays the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,[5] appearing in the film Captain America: Civil War (2016)[6] and the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021).

[17] Zemo later hired Batroc's Brigade and psychic detective Tristram Micawber to help him locate the five fragments of the Bloodstone in hopes of restoring his father to life.

Fighting Captain America and Diamondback, Zemo's plan backfired, as he instead turned his father's corpse into a vessel for the demonic forces that lurk inside of the Bloodstone.

The reanimated corpse was destroyed by Crossbones (who sought to steal the Bloodstone for Red Skull) and a distraught Zemo fell down an inactive volcano in Japan trying to retrieve it.

Superia and the Baroness (who revealed that she had pretended to be Heinrich Zemo reborn in a clone body during a fight with Silver Sable and Spider-Man) mocked Helmut and his newfound domestic househusband status as they plotted to kill him.

The plan failed and Zemo (now wearing his trademark hood) fell into the container instead, with the Baroness (hoping to curry favor with her husband), falling in after him.

After overhearing the Beetle (Abe Jenkins) and Goliath talk about who would replace the Avengers and The Fantastic Four, a distraught Zemo soon found a new purpose for his team: the Masters of Evil would take on new heroic identities as the Thunderbolts.

When the missing heroes returned, Zemo had the Thunderbolts' true identities leaked, forcing them to flee with him into deep space to assist his plan to conquer the world through mind control.

[23] After another of Zemo's plans was foiled by Captain America and a new Citizen V (Dallas Riordan),[24] Helmut was killed by the new Scourge of the Underworld,[25] though his mind was transferred via bio-modem technology into the comatose body of John Watkins III.

[volume & issue needed] Zemo now seems to be motivated by a twisted altruism rather than his original selfish desires; he feels he has grown beyond his father in that regard.

[volume & issue needed] Zemo had been manipulating the United States government, the New Thunderbolts, the Purple Man, the Squadron Sinister, and a host of other relatively obscure Marvel characters.

[volume & issue needed] His goals are unknown, but he is clearly still motivated by a desire to save the world by taking it over, or at least manipulating it towards what he perceives as a beneficial future.

[volume & issue needed] The group resides in what Zemo calls his "Folding Castle", a structure that he has connected to various other places around the world by dimensional portals.

[volume & issue needed] He also gave Captain America all his old mementos, destroyed by Zemo in 'Avengers Under Siege', which he had gone back in time and rescued with the help of the Moonstones.

In the past Helmut sees Hilliard and Elsbeth in love, realizing that the residual energy of the Moonstone is drawing him into the present, but forcing him to stop and live every key moment of Zemo's lineage.

[28] Following the events of The Siege crossover as seen in the Heroic Age storyline, Luke Cage assumes control over the Thunderbolts and has Fixer impersonate Zemo as a test to see which of his new teammates would betray the team if offered a chance to escape.

A chance encounter at the Thunderbolts' former base in Colorado with the Ghost led to him learning Bucky Barnes was the current iteration of Captain America.

Zemo confronted his rival and discovered how the man had survived his father's death trap only to become the Winter Soldier, a trained Soviet assassin who killed scores of people for several Russian handlers.

But most alarming was the fact that Zemo discovered the original Captain America had not only forgiven his successor for the crimes, but had actively covered them up even after Winter Soldier blew up a huge chunk of New York, killing several dozen S.H.I.E.L.D.

[31] Zemo recruited Jurgen "Iron-Handed" Hauptmann (of Red Skull's Exiles), as well as Fixer and a new female version of Beetle to expose the current Captain America's sins to the world.

This included drugging Bucky with nanites that caused Captain America to behave irrationally and attack police officers and leaking to the media, not only detailed files revealing Winter Soldier's acts of terrorism committed as a mind-controlled pawn of the Russians, but video footage as well of him being trained by handlers.

There Zemo confessed that he did what he did, not out of a desire to finish the job his father started, but out of jealousy over how Captain America and his allies quickly forgave Bucky for his crimes, yet continue to scorn the reformed Helmut who had saved the world on numerous occasions.

[36] Using the toxic blood of an Inhuman boy named Lucas, Zemo plans to sterilize the human race and distribute a cure to only a small portion of those infected, thus forcibly solving the planet's problems with overpopulation and lack of resources.

cadets watching this to be the future of supervillain incarceration where they are turned into mild-mannered civilians using reality-warping technology derived from the Cosmic Cube called "Kobik".

[41] After leaving the Himalayas, Zemo begins to form his "New Masters" group, he starts by recruiting Firebrand, Flying Tiger, and Plantman II.

[47] During the Underground's battle with HYDRA in Washington DC, Zemo goes to awaken the Army of Evil from their stasis as Winter Soldier arrives in time to free Black Panther.

[52] The Moonstones grant him a wide array of abilities, including gravity, light, or molecular manipulation, superhuman strength and durability, as well as flight.

He fosters a hatred of minorities due to his father having had an affair with a black woman as well as the irrational belief that Jewish doctors killed his mother with poisoned water.

[66] Daniel Brühl portrays a heavily modified incarnation of Helmut Zemo in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

This version is a Baron of Sokovia and former special operations soldier who seeks revenge against the Avengers for the death of his family at the hands of Ultron, who was created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner.

Helmut's original Baron Zemo costume
Helmut Zemo as Citizen V. Art by Mark Bagley .