Arnim Zola

Revision as of 05:36, 16 May 2020

Arnim Zola in Secret Empire v1 #3.

Arnim Zola is a male supervillain who features in Marvel Comics.

Biography

Origin

Zola commands Primus in Captain America v1 #209.

Arnim Zola

He was the son of a nobleman that wanted Zola to become strong through physical means though Arnim believed in science. In time, he came to inherit the family's ancestral castle that resided in Switzerland. (Captain America v7 #3) Around the early 20th century, the Austrian was a student under the great Polish geneticist Wladyslav Shinsky. In 1928, he and his mentor attended a genetics conference with he among the attendees being Jonathan Drew, Herbert Edgar Wyndham and Noah Black. (X-Factor Annual v1 #3) By 1929, he was involved in secret genetics experiments that he conducted at his ancestral home in Switzerland where he fused the body of a woman with her dog. (Captain America v7 #3) He was involved with a woman named Mary who would not give him children and accidently discovered Arnim's hidden laboratory whereupon she attempted to leave him. She departed in the family car with him seemingly allowing her to leave but then shot the tires out with her dying in the crash with her body being pulled from the wreckage. (Captain America v7 #4)

In 1946, he was operating in the Netherlands where he was tasked with creating a biological doomsday weapon designed to turn the forces of the Allies into Axis weapons. This led to the creation of a contagious disease that transformed people into monstrous creatures that turned against their friends. Tests were made against the inhabitants of a town with Zola’s operations being protected by the superpowered Uberkommandos. The Invaders later struck at this base where they battled the Nazi superhumans. A team managed to infiltrate the castle where they badly injured Zola though the Nazi scientist was recovered by his comrades. His body was then taken to a hidden facility where his consciousness was then transferred into a cybernetic body. (Invaders Now! v1 #2)

Return of the Bio-Fanatic

Arnim Zola the Bio-Fanatic in Captain America v7 #24.

Inside his dimension, he developed a daughter and a son for himself with him spending years in designing them. To improve them, he sought the Super-Soldier Serum and had Captain America abducted to extract it from him. However, he escaped and he took the son from his test tube believing him a captive and unaware of the boy's background. Zola was enraged as he believed that Captain America had killed his son and sent his Mutate hordes to re-acquire him after Rogers escaped outside the city. (Captain America v7 #1)

For years, he began developing his forces and bred an army of mutates with the intention of invading Earth as an act of revenge. (Captain America v7 #23) He was in contact with the Red Skull over their respective plans for the planet. Zola then opened the portals allowing his mutates to assault New York City. (Captain America v7 #22)

Within Dimension Z, he was approached by Madame Hydra Sinclair where he incapacitated her bodyguards Black Ant and Taskmaster. She offered Zola the chance to re-write reality and ensure his own long life in exchange for him joining the new High Council of Hydra. (Captain America: Steve Rogers v1 #14) He later accompanied a group of Hydra soldiers to a base of Doctor Octopus who defeated the troopers with this being a test by Zola to determine his worthiness to become part of the upcoming Secret Empire. (Amazing Spider-Man v4 #25)

Zola with his Hydra forces later broke into the headquarters of Otto Octavius where they attempted to redraft him into their efforts though he refused. This saw Zola dispatch a bio-duplicate of the Gorgon to deal with Doctor Octopus who managed to defeat his foes. Though his base was shielded, he dropped this temporarily so Zola's consciousness could leave his destroyed body and be given a warning that Doctor Octopus would never serve Hydra again. (Superior Octopus v1 #1)

Overview

Personality and attributes

He held the view that science held the key to everlasting human perfection. (Captain America v7 #3)

It was said that the Zola's were master planners and that direct abrupt attack was not something considered in their war plans. Such actions were only done so as part of a deeper game though Arnim was known to indulge in emotions such as revenge. (Captain America v7 #23)

Arnim had said that the only thing he wanted was a family and to be loved with him giving to his children everything in return. (Captain America v7 #6)

Powers and abilities

Arnim was responsible for creating the Zola consciousness virus that implanted his genetic material in another living being where it formed in their bodies and attempted to take over the host that became an extension of Zola himself. (Captain America v7 #4)

Among his creations included:

• Protoids : former people that were mangled through Zola’s genetic process. (Thunderbolts v1 #43) This transformed them into yellow skinned shapeshifting mindless mutates. (Captain America v1 #276)
• Corpse Corps : consisting of Proto-Husks grown from DNA samples taken from the deceased that recreated the person in a full formed state unlike a clone who took years to develop even with cellular acceleration. Fully created functional artificial life could be made from single strands of DNA. (Deadpool v1 #0)
• Unvengers : a powerful group of hyper-mutates that were bred from genetic material from the Avengers. (Captain America v7 #23)

Zola later bred the Captains of Zolandia that were a number of mutated clones of Captain America who were negatively charged with Gamma Rays. (Captain America v7 #5)

Women breeders were taken to be used as bio clay to produce more Mutates. Zola controlled his mutates with his mind with his creations being directionless and harmless if separated from his telepathic connection. (Captain America v7 #5)

He came to develop a contagious viral weapon that changed people on a molecular level. It shut down the conscious thoughts of an infected person where it stimulated the pain and aggression centers of the brain. Thus, it made the hosts into weapons who turned against their comrades and spread the infection to others. (Invaders Now! v1 #2)

He later had a city constructed for himself in Dimension Z which he referred to as Zolandia. (Captain America v7 #1)

Notes

• Arnim Zola was created by Jack Kirby where he made his first appearance in Captain America v1 #208 (April, 1977).
• Writer Rick Remender on his Captain America run said in an interview, "To me, Zola is equal parts the twisted evil of Joffrey from ‘Game of Thrones’ and the cold amoral brilliance of Hanz Landa from ‘Inglorious Basterds.’ I like his motives a lot because he’s incredibly villainous, but he’s just one of these guys who is fixated on something. In his case, he’s the Bio-Fanatic. He has this unquenchable thirst for knowledge and feels like he should be free to experiment on whomever and how ever he desires... Zola has served the Red Skull and his quest to destroy Cap, but for him it’s always been about earning the time to do what he wants. That way, he can go off and do his ugly mischievous bio-engineering and create whatever crazy things his twisted mind can come up with. Getting rid of Captain America has always been something that’s a necessity to get to that point, but it’s not the case now. I think to address the nature of Zola and Steve’s relationship directly spoils our first two issues. It’s a big reveal."

Alternate Versions

• In Hail Hydra v1 (2015), a version of Arnim Zola resided on Battleworld where he lived as the Baron of the Hydra Empire realm. The mainstream Nomad survived the collapse of the Multiverse through the Infinite Elevator where he landed in this realm and attempted to survive. In this realm, Arnim Zola also had a son that went by his original name of Leopold Zola and served as Captain Hydra in Hydra's Avengers. Upon learning of Nomad, Zola wanted him captured so he could study his body and replicate his regeneration capabilities.

In other media

Television

• In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Arnim Zola appeared as an antagonist in the animated series voiced by actor Grant Moninger. He made a brief appearance as an in-mate at the Big House as shown in episode "The Man in the Ant-Hill" with him breaking out of prison in "Outbreak". In "Some Assembly Required", it was shown that he had helped stall the effects of Virus X on Baron Zemo and aided his old ally in an attack against Captain America by sending Doughboy after the Avengers.
• In Ultimate Spider-Man, Arnim Zola appeared as an antagonist in the episode "S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy" where he was voiced by actor Mark Hamill. Zola was shown to had operated during World War II where he was a member of HYDRA and an enemy of both Captain America and the Whizzer. At some point, he was defeated and his body disassembled where it was kept in the Triskelion. This became the source of a signal that was detected by Iron Spider Amadeus Cho who accidently left the cell open allowing for Zola's body to activate. He later tricked Cho into bringing him his ESP Box allowing him to reassemble his body. After escaping, he established a laboratory on the lowest level of the Triskelion where he began breeding a Synthezoid army where he battled Spider-Man, Iron Spider, Agent Venom, Power Man and Whizzer. Whizzer told the young heroes to target the ESP Box causing Zola to lose control of his Synthezoid army and causing the laboratory to explode thus defeating the HYDRA scientist. Though defeated, Zola was not killed in the explosion but returned in "Attack of the Synthezoids" where he was shown to had built another laboratory in the Triskelion in secret. Once more, he began creating Synthezoids that he used to replace the various heroes and staff at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base.
• In Avengers Assemble, Arnim Zola appeared as an antagonist in the animated television series where he was once again voiced by actor Mark Hamill.
• In Agent Carter, the Zola from the Captain America movie made an appearance as part of the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe where he was once again played by actor Toby Jones and appeared in the episode "Valediction". It was shown that in 1944 he was within an American prison cell when Leviathan agent Johann Fennhoff was left in the same cell. Zola commented that despite their imprisonment that their shared cell offered them new opportunities and gave him a paper to write on as the Scientific Strategic Reserve placed a lock around his mouth to prevent him from influencing anyone through his hypnotic suggestions.
• In Spider-Man, Arnim Zola appeared as an antagonist in the 2017 animated television series episode "Spider-Island Part 2" where he was voiced again by actor Mark Hamill. He was shown as being the heads of one of the factions of Hydra and had dispatched Crossbones to acquire a Vibranium encryption key that led to a reserve of the precious metal which he intended to use to create a series of advanced weapons for his forces.
• In Marvel Future Avengers, Arnim Zola appeared in the anime television series where he was voiced by Japanese actor Volcano Ota in Japanese and actor Kirk Thornton in the English dub.

Films

Hydra scientist Arnim Zola in Captain America: The First Avenger.

A digital Arnim Zola in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Arnim Zola made a number of appearances in the shared setting.
  • In Captain America: The First Avenger, the character appeared in a supporting role where he was played by actor Toby Jones. He was shown as a Swiss scientist during World War II where he joined HYDRA and served as Johann Schmidt chief science officer. In 1942, the Red Skull managed to uncover the Tesseract with Zola studying its power to create weapons after HYDRA split from Nazi Germany. On November 1943, he would escape HYDRA's base in Austria when Dr. Abraham Erskine's super-soldier Captain America assaulted the facility. Afterwards, he was present on a train convoy that was attacked by the Allied forces where he was captured and taken by the Strategic Scientific Reserve where he offered to reveal many of his technological secrets to them.
  • In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the character makes a minor appearance during the movie. Its stated that he was one of many Nazi HYDRA scientists who defected to S.H.I.E.L.D. This proved to be a long term strategy by these agents where they sought to corrupt the nascent agency into serving them with a secretive HYDRA cabal stirring conflicts with the ultimate goal of world domination. In that time, Zola was diagnosed with a terminal disease and as a result he used his advanced intellect to turn his mind into an artificial intelligence. It was through Arnim Zola's genius that he created the Zola Algorithm that became the basis for intelligence gathering using digital records. With this code, S.H.I.E.L.D. and thus the HYDRA cabal were able to determine the action's of people through their past digital records such as bank statements as well as other such records. His artificial intelligence survived within the databanks of a secret early S.H.I.E.L.D. installation located beneath Camp Lehigh. By the modern age, the Zola intelligence was present on a flash drive that came into possession of Nick Fury and eventually Steve Rogers. Unaware of what was on the drive, Rogers traced the clues to the Camp where Natasha Romanov attached it into a port activating the ancient databanks where Arnim Zola revealed the events following his capture. He also explained that he was simply distracting Rogers in order to allow the HYDRA cabal to destroy Captain America and Black Widow when a missile was launched at the underground bunker thus destroying it. Alexander Pierce commented that this incident cost him Zola as the artificial intelligence was destroyed with the secret installation.

Video games

• In Captain America: Super Soldier, Arnim Zola appeared as an antagonist in the video game tie-in to the live-action film where he was voiced by actor André Sogliuzzo.
• In Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Arnim Zola appeared in the story setting in the Facebook video game.
• In Marvel: War of Heroes, Arnim Zola appeared on a playable card named Bio-Fanatic Zola in the video game.

Appearances

• Captain America v1: (1977)
• Deadpool v1:
• Captain America v7:
• Captain America: Steve Rogers v1:

External Links

• Marvel Database Entry
• Marvel Universe Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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