| “ | My father lived outside the city, and I thought we would be safe there. My son was excited. He could see the Iron Man from the car window. I told my wife, "Don't worry. They're fighting in the city. We're miles from harm." And the dust cleared and the screaming stopped. It took me two days until I found their bodies. My father still holding my wife and son in his arms. And the Avengers? They went home. I knew I couldn't kill them. More powerful men than me have tried. But if I could get them to kill each other. I'm sorry about your father. He seemed a good man. With a dutiful son. | „ |
| ~ Zemo's tragic backstory to the Black Panther, moments before attempting to kill himself over his actions. |
Baron Helmut Zemo is the main antagonist of the 2016 Marvel Cinematic Universe film Captain America: Civil War and a major character in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
He is a Sokovian colonel who lost his family in the Battle of Sokovia caused by Ultron and blamed the Avengers for this. So he plots to break them apart in revenge by framing the Winter Soldier as an international terrorist, to which he successfully accomplished so and unintentionally resulting indirect responsibility for the events that unfolded in Avengers: Infinity War.
He was portrayed by Daniel Brühl.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
- He tortures HYDRA colonel Vasily Karpov for information, coldly leaving him to drown when he doesn't talk. Although he was a HYDRA agent, this doesn’t justify his killing.
- He bombs the UN during the ratification of the Sokovia Accords, killing numerous people including King T'Chaka while framing Bucky for the crime, resulting in a task force being sent after Bucky and T'Challa nearly killing him in revenge.
- He murdered a psychiatrist who was sent to evaluate Bucky, stealing his identity in order to get access to him.
- He reactivates Bucky's brainwashing and sends him to get evidence of him killing Tony's parents, resulting in Bucky massacring a number of guards while making his escape.
- He executes the other Winter Soldiers in their sleep due to his dislike of supersoldiers.
- He lures Captain America, Iron Man, and Bucky to the HYDRA facility and reveals Bucky killed Tony's parents, turning them against each other in the hope that they would kill each other.
- Due to successfully breaking up the Avengers, he's indirectly responsible for them being unable to band together to stop Thanos, which results in half the universe dying.
- While he dislikes the Flag Smashers and helps Steve against them, it's more rooted in his desire to wipe out super-soldiers and it's also hypocritical since he considers them irredeemable for their acts of terrorism despite having committed similar acts himself, such as bombing a building and killing innocents.
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- While his actions had a massive effect on the Avengers and is above standard villainy despite being a normal human with no superpowers, they suffer from far too much Fridge Horror since he wasn’t even aware of any of the consequences that would happen if he successfully split them up such as them fighting each other, Erik Killmonger invading Wakanda without King T'Chaka in place and Thanos being able to enter Earth, making him fail the standards of the franchise to other villains.
- Not to mention, most of the people he killed or tried to kill (e.g. King T'Chaka, Vasily Karpov, Wilfred Nagel, and the Flag Smashers) arguably deserved it.
- He holds back on his resources, as he is an extremely wealthy baron with genius-level intellect and a vast array of resources, meaning he has more than enough resources to commit crimes much worse than the ones he committed, so he doesn’t make the most of his high resources. It could even be argued that Crossbones out-heinouses him as he has less resources yet managed to kill dozens of people and then attempted to kill millions of people despite being a simple mercenary.
- He has a legitimate tragedy that motivated his actions due to losing his family because of the Avengers, attempting suicide after accomplishing his goal, and it is too sympathetic for NPE.
- He has genuine standards against HYDRA's actions.
- He is genuinely affable as he apologizes to T'Challa for killing his father, willing to let him kill him in retribution, and shows respect to Steve Rogers for his incorruptible nature.
- He is on & off since he teams up with the Falcon and the Winter Soldier to defeat the Flag Smashers.
- Him dancing in the crowd as synthwave music was playing and offering kids candy is played for laughs.
- His defeat as well as his nihilism is played for sympathy.
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 Villainous Benchmarks
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