| “ | HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life. A zero sum. | „ |
| ~ Zola explaining HYDRA's plan. |
Arnim Zola is the secondary antagonist of Captain America: The First Avenger and the overarching antagonist of its 2014 sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
He was formerly a Swiss weapons developer working for the Nazis, before working for Johann Schmidt's SS division called HYDRA, being its top-scientist, which was then fragmented from the Nazis, in order to save his life. While originally thought to just be working for HYDRA for his life, as it is revealed, he was actually fanatically devoted to HYDRA's philosophies and plans, rebuilding HYDRA within S.H.I.E.L.D. and was the developer of Project Insight, to which present-day leader of HYDRA, Alexander Pierce, is trying to carry out. Zola then physically died from a terminal illness, but before his death, he copied his mind into a computer to make sure his plans succeeded.
He was portrayed by Toby Jones, who also played Culverton Smith in Sherlock.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- He developed weapons for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, not caring about the destruction it could cause.
- He agreed to work with Johann Schmidt out of fear for his life by helping him become a superior man.
- In a canon tie-in comic to The First Avenger, he knew Schmidt's copy of the Super Soldier by Dr. Abraham Erskine was ineffective, and didn't tell him, letting him mutate himself into Red Skull and become a worse villain than he originally was out of glee, planning to use this as an opportunity to provide technical solutions so he can be a more trusted minion to Schmidt, and in turn, increase his chances of preserving his life even more.
- He then went to Erskine's cell and taunted him about the failure of the serum and that Schmidt will have his family executed out of rage, and when Erskine said that the serum just amplifies who the person is inside, and that this happened as Schmidt was never human at all, Zola gleefully said that Skull will never believe it to be true, meaning that he is responsible for Red Skull being worse than he originally was and knew he had the power to prevent it, but did so anyway for his own gain.
- He and Schmidt experimented on prisoners of war, including the best friend of Steve Rogers/Captain America, James "Bucky" Barnes.
- While he is horrified by Red Skull's cruelty in multiple occasions, he subverts these standards by the time of The Winter Soldier where Zola becomes as bad as Red Skull; if anything, this was more than out of fear for himself.
- He is not truly loyal to Red Skull, revealing everything about Red Skull and his plan so he can have sanctuary working in S.H.I.E.L.D.
- While it may seem he was forced to comply and work with Red Skull's plans out of fear for his own life, as The Winter Soldier revealed, that is not the case, as even though Zola's life was no longer threatened as HYDRA was disbanded after Red Skull "died", and was in sanctuary working in S.H.I.E.L.D., he still ended up rebuilding HYDRA secretly within S.H.I.E.L.D. and planning to hijack it so HYDRA can succeed in ruling the world, proving that he was actually working with HYDRA not just out of fear for his life, but out of fanaticism of its' ideologies.
- In order to manipulate humanity into willingly surrendering their freedom, he caused multiple crisis and wars, which lead to the deaths of thousands, if not millions, which HYDRA continues to instigate even after his death.
- He had Bucky experimented on horrendously and endure painful mindwipes to brainwash him to HYDRA's control and make him a mindless weapons, leading Bucky's life to be ruined and Bucky to need therapy as the crimes he was forced to do haunted him.
- He ordered Howard and Maria Stark's assassinations during the time of Bucky's brainwashing, giving him personal villainy to Iron Man.
- He developed Project Insight, an algorithm to stalk everyone in the world to see see who are or will end up being threats to HYDRA's plan to rule the world, which are about 20 million people all across the globe, who will all be killed off.
- Behind Erik Killmonger and the Red Skull, Zola and Pierce share the third highest attempted kill count amongst humans in the Infinity Saga, and unlike both of them, who have had more resources for their goals such vibranium and the Tesseract, Zola doesn't have any tools as powerful as them, so he meets the Heinous Standard. Also, unlike Pierce, Zola does not have a noble goal.
- He sent a missile to kill Captain America and Black Widow when they know of his plans.
- According to Wakandan Files, Zola does care about Pierce's position within HYDRA, however, it is because he views him as a valuable pawn to his scheme.
- He is a hypocrite, since he believes humans can never be trusted to be free to make their own choices and plan their own lives, when the one who cannot be trusted with such rights is actually him.
Trivia[]
- He is one of two Pure Evil villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to never be the main villain of the films they appear in, along with Dormammu, whom also has great potential to be a main villain later.
- His What If...? versions don't count as Pure Evil due to different reasons:
- His first What If...? version doesn't count as Pure Evil due to his minimal screen time and lack of heinousness, as he doesn't get to transform Bucky Barnes into the Winter Soldier nor it's shown if he was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. after World War II and still hide HYDRA within its ranks. He's also mildly comedic at times.
- His second What If...? version, however, has done all of his worst actions he did in the Sacred Timeline, but all of them are done offscreen and none of them were given any expansion to make him remotely heinous. He does join Black Widow and Hawkeye to stop Infinity Ultron, but does so out of fear for being destroyed. The worst he does is killing Infinity Ultron just because he ended up foiling HYDRA's plans for the world to be under their rule permanently and trying to steal the Infinity Stones from Prince Killmonger to use them for his own plans which are left vague.
- He is the only incarnation of Arnim Zola alongside his comic counterpart to be Pure Evil.
- His status is opposite to Jane Foster's status, who appeared in the first phase, but wasn't Pure Good until a film in a later phase (Thor: Love and Thunder).
External Links[]
- Arnim Zola on the Villains Wiki
- Arnim Zola on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
- Arnim Zola on the Marvel Wiki
- Arnim Zola on the Marvel Movies Wiki
- Arnim Zola on the Disney Wiki
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 Pure Evils
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