Heinrich Zemo

Baron Heinrich Zemo was a scientist, villain, former Nazi, and founder and leader of the Masters of Evil.

Biography

World War II

In the 1940s, Baron Zemo was one of the Nazis' top scientists, and was widely reviled for his cruelty. He developed a powerful disintegrating death ray for the Nazis, but was forced to self-destruct it when it came into the hands of the Howling Commandos led by Nick Fury. Eventually, Zemo decided to wear a red hood over his head to conceal his identity, owing to his remarkable infamy. He developed a material called Adhesive X, an apparently unbreakable adhesive. One day, the American hero Captain America suddenly burst into his lab, tossing his shield to rupture Zemo's vat of Adhesive X. A sample of the adhesive went flying, adhering itself to Zemo's head and bonding the hood to his face. Adhesive X was as strong as promised, and the hood over his face would remain for decades. Zemo was later responsible for the apparent deaths of Captain America and his sidekick Bucky, sabotaging a plane that they had climbed upon. Bucky was long presumed dead, while Cap fell into the icy water below and was soon frozen in place.

Masters of Evil

By 1964, Zemo had fled Europe for a jungle in South America, where he had made himself monarch over a primitive tribe. Living far from civilization, Zemo hired a pilot to make regular trips to bring him supplies, including newspapers and scientific journals in hopes of discovering an antidote to Adhesive X. One day, he learned that Captain America was alive and had joined the Avengers. Zemo plotted revenge against Cap and the Avengers, using his pilot to find the perfect opponents for them: the Black Knight, foe of Giant-Man and the Wasp; Melter, enemy of Iron Man; and Radioactive Man, enemy of Thor. This assembly of villains would be known as the Masters of Evil. He tasked the three with applying Adhesive X all over the Avengers' home base of New York City, bringing the city to a standstill and forcing the issue with the heroes. Black Knight's flying horse proved effective at spreading Adhesive X, while Melter and Radioactive Man also contributed on the ground and Zemo observed from elsewhere in the city. The Avengers soon arrived as planned, but were forced to retreat after being surprised by the Masters' rigorous application of Adhesive X.

Later, as the Masters reequipped themselves with what they believed to be another helping of Adhesive X, they found that what they were spraying across the city was actually having the oppposite effect. The Teen Brigade, in cooperation with the Avengers, had switched the vats of Adhesive X with a super-dissolver developed by imprisoned villain Paste-Pot Pete. The Avengers returned to fight the Masters some more, and Captain America fought Zemo directly. Zemo's armed pilot distracted Cap enough to allow the two to escape via "heli-hovercraft" with a vat of what he believed to be super-dissolver. In fact, the Teen Brigade had actually put a single vat of tear gas, which soon let loose inside the craft, sending it crashing to the ground. Zemo and the rest of the Masters of Evil were arrested. Notably, at no point did Zemo tell Cap that he was responsible for Bucky's death.

But Zemo was able to escape, fleeing back to his jungle kingdom. He was soon visited by mental projections of the Enchantress and the Executioner, a pair of Asgardians who had recently been banished to Earth and sought their own revenge against Thor. Zemo agreed to an alliance to defeat the Avengers, informally creating a second edition of the Masters of Evil. This trio also fell to the heroes, as Thor caught them and their airship in a space warp that sent them to a random location in the multiverse. They drifted between dimensions, but the Enchantress's magical powers allowed them to escape Thor's space warp and land back on Earth, in Zemo's jungle hideaway in South America. There they plotted their coming riposte at the Avengers for weeks. They recruited Simon Williams, an American inventor who was accused of embezzling money from Tony Stark, and promised him revenge against Stark by way of Iron Man. Zemo used advanced technology to turn Williams into the powerful Wonder Man. They used Wonder Man as a spy within the Avengers to bait the heroes into a trap. This worked perfectly at first, but Wonder Man had a change of heart just before Zemo planned to kill all of the incapacitated Avengers, and turned the tide of battle in their favor, forcing Zemo and the Asgardians to flee. Wonder Man perished shortly thereafter of poisoning from Zemo's experiments—Zemo had promised him the antidote on the condition of his loyalty.

Taking refuge once again in his jungle hideout, Zemo sent a group of trained assassins to New York to bring Captain America to him alive. The team failed, as Captain America singlehandedly trounced them in hand-to-hand combat. Several months later, Zemo brought together two versions of the Masters of Evil, enlisting Enchantress and Executioner to break Black Knight and Melter out of prison. Zemo kidnapped Avengers ally Rick Jones to act as bait, ordering him to be brought to his Amazon hideout. The four confronted the Avengers while Zemo observed from his South American base, but wound up defeated. Black Knight and Melter were returned to prison, but the Asgardians escaped. Captain America traveled to South America and confronted Zemo, unintentionally blinding him with the sun's reflection off of his shield and causing Zemo to misfire his weapon, killing himself in the resulting avalanche. Cap buried Zemo's body, finally achieving retribution for Bucky's death.