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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
When I was originally putting together this
series of articles, I intended to include Zemo in the previous article with
“The Rest.” However, as I considered
further, I realized that there is so much more to talk about with regard to
Zemo, particularly because I think he will come back to become a major player
several years down the line in Phase 4.
After watching Captain
America: Civil War, we now have a very good idea exactly where this thing
is going to be going over the next few years as the MCU ramps up for the
Infinity War in 2018 and 2019. Each hero
who appeared in Civil War received a satisfying arc, and at the end of
the movie each of them had a definite trajectory of where their next
appearances will come from. However, the
presumptive villain, Helmut Zemo, did not get to do quite as much in this movie
as the heroes did—even if he did exactly as much as he needed to do!
Over the last four weeks, I
talked about the members of the “Secret Avengers”
and “Mighty Avengers,”
as well as Captain America’s abandoned shield
and the other heroes who do not fit into the other categories
and a replacement Captain America. This
time around, I will talk about Zemo and how I think he fits into Marvel’s
larger plans moving forward.
This is my last planned article
for Captain America: Civil War; next week we’ll get into Daredevil
season 2 and how it sets up future Netflix series.
Zemo’s Future
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
Captain America: Civil War demonstrated that Zemo is a
mastermind schemer. The way in which he used
the Accords to turn the Avengers against each other was quite brilliant. By understanding them on a psychological
level—knowing how they operate—he was able to predict most of their actions
after the U.N. bombing and use their actions to set them against each
other. And even when it looked like they
could unite against a common threat, he succeeded in setting Captain America
and Iron Man against each other in Russia.
If they had been torn down from the outside, they could have returned. However, because they tore themselves apart
from the inside, it will be much harder to rebuild.
To some extent this plan actually
succeeded: the Avengers did tear
themselves apart. Steve and Tony are no
longer on speaking terms. However, it
did not succeed as well as it perhaps could have. There are now two teams of Avengers
running around and fighting evil (and each other, sort of). And as for Zemo himself, he is sitting in a
box in the basement of the U.N. Task Force building in Germany. At this point it seems that he is out of the
picture. What is Zemo going to do now?
Answer: I doubt that he is completely out of the
picture, but I don’t think he’s going to do anything for now. Instead, he will bide his time and allow the
consequences of the Sokovia Accords to continue pushing the Avengers
apart. And in the meantime, he will
continue his scheming and continue gathering resources for his next big play to
take the Avengers down.
How?
He’s already tried turning the
Avengers against each other. This time, I
think he will try turning public opinion against the Avengers by replacing them
with a “new and improved” team of superheroes:
The Thunderbolts
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| Image Courtesy en.wikipedia.org |
The Thunderbolts
In the comics, Baron Zemo is
closely associated with two different villainous teams which he formed and
led. The first and most recognized is
the Masters of Evil, who really don’t even pretend about their plans to take
over the world. The second, however,
debuted following the disappearance of the majority of the world’s superheroes during
the Onslaught event: the
Thunderbolts. This relatively vanilla
team of superheroes was revealed in their first issue to in fact be a group of
disguised villains masquerading as heroes in order to gain the public’s trust
and execute a coup against the world’s governments.
However, most of the Thunderbolts
roster decided that they actually liked being superheroes and stopped Zemo from
carrying out his plan to take over the world.
The Thunderbolts then went to work with the
Avengers/S.H.I.E.L.D./H.A.M.M.E.R., with other heroes serving as liaisons
between the Thunderbolts and Avengers—both Hawkeye and Luke Cage at various
times led the Thunderbolts on behalf of the Avengers.
Potential Roster
One of the focal points of the
Thunderbolts is the concept of minor villains impersonating heroes. Though Marvel has typically wrapped their
villains’ stories up pretty conveniently in all their movies, there are still
some options out there for villains who could appear in an MCU version of the
Thunderbolts.
- The Incredible Hulk- Abomination, rebranded as “Grey Hulk” or “A-Bomb”
- Iron Man 2- Unlikely, but Ivan Vanko as Whiplash could return; after all, no one actually saw him die, right? He could call himself “Crimson Dynamo” as a hero.
- Thor and The Avengers- The best option from these two movies is to introduce an entirely new character using salvaged weapons from the Destroyer and the Chitauri, perhaps a new version of the Fixer.
- Thor: The Dark World- Well, there’s that Jotun-beast that got pulled through the portal and left behind. Zemo could always figure out a way to tame it.
- Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther- Ulysses Klaue is likely to appear again in Black Panther, and if he survives Zemo could recruit him. Alternatively, Klaue could use vibranium to give sonic powers to Screaming Mimi (who appears in the comic book iteration of the team as the hero Songbird).
- Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp- The best option I can think of from these movies involves the vial of Pym Particles that Hydra stole from Pym Technologies. In the sequel Hydra could recruit its own version of the Ant-Man: either Eric O’Grady as “Black Ant” or Eric Jostens as “Goliath.”
- Doctor Strange- Depending on how the movie ends, Baron Mordo might be in the position of looking for a way to get back at the Ancient One and Doctor Strange by joining Zemo’s team
- Spider-Man: Homecoming- Marvel and Sony may want to save the villain(s) from this movie for a future Sinister Six spinoff (nothing wrong with that as long as the setup movies are good), but it is also possible for Zemo to recruit a villain from this movie for his Thunderbolts first
- Thor: Ragnarok- We don’t know enough about this movie yet to say that any villains will be on Earth at the end, but Amora the Enchantress could make an interesting member of the Thunderbolts if she appears
- Captain Marvel- A Kree version of Moonstone could appear in this movie
So there’s about 9 or 10 villains
who could potentially join the Thunderbolts down the line. Narrowing that down to a half-dozen or so, I
could see a team consisting of:
- Zemo/Citizen V
- Abomination/A-Bomb
- Whiplash/Crimson Dynamo
- Screaming Mimi/Songbird
- Baron Mordo
- Black Ant/Yellowjacket
- Moonstone/Meteorite
MCU Iteration
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| Image Courtesy en.wikipedia.org |
At the end of Civil War,
Zemo is locked up in U.N. custody—the perfect location from which to meet other
super-villains who are captured and imprisoned by the Mighty Avengers. This in addition to his previous research
using the released S.H.I.E.L.D. files would give him a good knowledge of all
the various super-villains in the world and their respective abilities. We know that Zemo is both patient and
manipulative, so it stands to reason that he would patiently wait for the right
moment to make his move by breaking out of custody and putting together a team
to challenge the Avengers.
This moment will come during Avengers:
Infinity War when Thanos attacks the Earth.
During the confusion of the assault Zemo’s super-villain partners will
break him out along with a few other incarcerated villains. While Zemo is gathering his team, the
Avengers and Earth’s heroes will defeat Thanos—but at a heavy cost. As such, following the Infinity War
the Avengers will be substantially weakened and Earth will be left with
something of a hero vacuum.
The perfect moment for a new team
of heroes to storm onto the scene.
The Thunderbolts would then be one of the three
movies which follows Infinity War, and introduces Citizen V and the
Thunderbolts as a new group of heroes trying to replace those who fell or
disappeared in Infinity War.
Thanks to shrewd public relations, the Thunderbolts quickly gain
popularity with the general public, who are still reeling from the Avengers’
near-defeat at the hands of the Mad Titan.
However, unbeknownst to the public these “heroes” are actually a group
of villains led by Zemo. Zemo reveals
his plan to usurp the surviving Avengers in the public’s eye by offering the
public a sense of security—something which the Avengers can no longer do after
being brought to the brink of defeat by Thanos.
And if the public turns on the Avengers in favor of the Thunderbolts,
then the Avengers will be done for, which is all that Zemo ever wanted. And once the Avengers are out of the way,
Zemo and the Thunderbolts will be free to do whatever they want with their
newfound power and popularity.
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| Image Courtesy www.actu-film.com |
Conclusion
Obviously if any of this happens
it won’t happen for a while. They may
plant seeds for it in the Phase 3 movies by introducing villains who do not get
killed off but are instead captured.
Zemo might even appear as an imprisoned super-villain once or twice. Ultimately, however, all they really need to
do to set this up for Phase 4 is suggest at some point near the end of Avengers:
Infinity War that Zemo has escaped from custody.
Personally, I think this would be
a great direction to go with Zemo in Phase 4, particularly in how naturally is
could connect with both Zemo’s character and the new status quo following the
Infinity War. It would also be a great
way for Marvel to solve its “Villain Problem” (the accusation that Marvel just
can’t make a good villain): An entire
movie focused on actual villains pretending to be heroes would be a prime
opportunity to further develop these villains and give them more interesting
and compelling characters—flaws and all.
Then if and when some of them return to crime they would have a better
dynamic to explore with the hero who fights them.
Do you want to see the Thunderbolts in the
MCU? Which villains would you pick for
your Thunderbolts team? Let me know in
the comments!
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