Post by Helmut Zemo on Dec 11, 2020 12:11:00 GMT -5
Subject Facts
Full Name: Baron Helmut J. Zemo
Codename: Baron Zemo
Age: 70’s (though has the appearance and biology of someone in their 30s)
Gender: Male
Archetype: Super Villain
Aliases: Citizen V
Marital Status: Widowed
Affiliation: N/A
Subject Attributes
Superhuman Abilities:
Slowed Aging - Through the use of Compound X, Zemo’s body does not age as quickly as other men. As a result, Zemo has a wealth of experience in a much younger body.
Standard Abilities:
Genius-Level Intellect - While he is not a scientist or inventor as his father was, Helmut is a genius in the world of mechanical engineering and chemistry. While he hasn’t been able to improve upon the Adhesive X, Formula X, or Particle X, Helmut is able to recreate them and apply them to more modern devices than his father would have had access to.
Master Combatant - While not as great a thinker as his father, Helmut has long surpassed him as a combatant. Growing up and seeing his father easily dispatched by Captain America in hand to hand combat led to Helmut dedicating his life to mastering martial arts. As it stands, Helmut is one of the premier fighters in the world and just barely under Steve Rogers in skills.
Expert Swordsman - One area of martial arts that Helmut trained and mastered was Historical European Martial Arts. Helmut is proficient and considered one of the top swordsmen in the world with rapier, claymores, and European broadswords.
Expert Marksman - Helmut has an Olympic level proficiency with rifles, handguns, semi-automatic, and full automatic weapons. Though he prefers to eliminate his targets up close, Helmut is an accomplished sniper who has racked up a high number of kills.
Master Tactician - Helmut is well-versed in military strategy and tactics, close quarter combat, and long term military campaigns. As a Zemo, his training in these fields began a long time ago when he was just a child. While other children were learning their alphabet, Zemo was planning full scale invasions.
Master of Deception - Helmut Zemo is a master manipulator. Over the years he has made just as many allies out of enemies and reverse depending on whatever his latest campaign called for. Despite switching sides from angels to demons, Zemo prefers to think of himself in neutral territory. What makes Zemo truly dangerous is his ability to convince even his most critical enemy (Captain America, Hydra, the Red Skull, S.H.I.E.L.D., etc) that he is actually working towards a mutual goal. No one every truly knows what Zemo is thinking or who he is truly aligned with.
Influential Expert - Zemo has a magnetic personality that bends people to his will. He has taken good, honest people and turned them into ruthless killers by his influence alone. Then, when they’ve outlived their purpose, they are disposed of.
Wealthy - The Zemo name and heritage extend for centuries with Helmut having inherited his family’s vast fortune and wealth.
Paraphernalia:
Mask - Zemo is rarely seen without his mask, a defining symbol of the Zemo name, and the headband that holds it in place is wired with anti-psychic circuitry to protect Zemo from probing minds. Additionally, it is bonded to his face with Adhesive X and can only be removed with a specialized solvent. Underneath the mask, Helmut is horrifically scarred.
Moonstones - Zemo has in his possession a few of the moonstones that once belonged to former Thunderbolts teammate Karla Sofen aka Moonstone. These alien power gems allow Zemo to manipulate energy, enhance his strength and durability, manipulate gravity and light, and phase through solid objects.
Adamantium Sword - Zemo’s weapon of choice is an adamantium broadsword that he wears at his hip.
Firearms - Zemo typically wears conventional firearms in holsters at his hip and shoulders.
Father’s Inventions - Helmut is also known to employ his father inventions such as mindcontrol devices, disintegrator guns, and traps made from Adhesive X.
Subject Weaknesses:
Mortal - Despite his slowed aging, resources, and training, Helmut is still human at the end of the day and is subject to all conventional means of death.
Subject History
Early Life -
Helmut J. Zemo is the 13th member of his family to possess the title of Baron Zemo - a title of German nobility granted to his family after pledging their loyalty to the German Empire. As a child, Helmut was schooled in the arts of science, engineering, history, and strategy as deemed necessary for his future role of Baron.
Helmut’s father, Baron Heinrich Zemo, was a brilliant inventor and scientist who pledged his loyalty to the Nazi regime when Helmut was still young boy. As a result, Helmut was raised to believe in the Nazi ideal of the master race and that the Zemo’s were the only family who had the ability to rule the world. As a result of his role within the Nazi army, Helmut’s father was an enemy of Captain America and ultimately died in battle against the star-spangled hero.
Helmut learned of his father’s death and took on the identity of the Phoenix to get revenge on Captain America. During the battle, Helmut fell into a vat of his father’s invention, Adhesive X, which horrifically scarred him the same way it had his father. Though he survived the encounter, Helmut realized that he was not prepared to face Captain America and opted to disappear from the public eye to partake in intense training.
Masters of Evil -
While away, preparing himself physically and training himself in the art of combat, Helmut accepted the title of Baron Zemo and his father’s mask to conceal his deformity. He also reconnected with former contact and allies of his father such as Arnim Zola, the Red Skull, and Mother Superior. These partnerships afforded him additional training as well as gave him even more intel on the man who killed his father - Captain America. Even though they all shared a mutual enemy in Captain America, Zemo also knew that he could never trust these people and nor should he. He was a Zemo after all and he was destined to be a world leader.
After he determined that he was ready to confront Captain America, Zemo openly worked with Zola, Skull, and reassembled his father’s old group of supervillains - the Masters of Evil. These efforts ultimately failed when Rogers was able to overwhelm him physically or outmaneuver him but Zemo took these opportunities to better educate himself. With every encounter with Rogers, Zemo was determined to come away a better man for it.
Zemo’s initial goals were purely to extract revenge for his father however this changed when he was afforded the opportunity to be reunited with him face to face. With the aid of a magical artifact called the Bloodstone, Helmut was able to resurrect his father from the dead but was disappointed to realize that his father was not nearly the man he thought he was. Helmut coldly dismissed his father, returning him to the grave, and was now freed from the burden of trying to extract revenge.
Zemo was now free to live up to his potential to try to rule the world just as he had been raised to believe was his destiny.
Thunderbolts -
Zemo proved to be a much more creative person that his father ever was in the art of deception and influence. While his father was a cackling, Nazi mad scientist, Zemo preferred to work with finesse, dignity, and subterfuge.
Perhaps his most creative plan was the formation of the Thunderbolts. When Captain America, Iron Man, and many of the rest of the world’s heroes were believed to have been killed in action, Zemo assembled a new group of the Masters of Evil to pose as new superheroes to fill the void. Taking on the new role of Citizen V, Zemo and the rest of the Masters rebranded themselves as the Thunderbolts. After some initial successes, the Thunderbolts were widely accepted as New York’s newest heroes and given resources that they would have never otherwise had gotten their hands on. Baron Zemo, however, was betrayed by the rest of the Thunderbolts when they decided that they wanted to continue being heroes when it was time for the second stage of their plan.
After having his conscience placed into a new body after being killed by Scourge, Baron Zemo once again acted as Citizen V and temporarily showed a new side of himself when he led the Thunderbolts again. Though his actions and leadership were often questionable, there was no question that the actions were acts of heroism. Zemo’s ultimate goal was the creation of a device called the Liberator that would drain all abnormal uses of energy throughout the world in an effort to stop acts of super powered terrorism, reduce global threats, and stablize the world’s status quo between meta humans and regular humans. Moonstone, one of the more scrupulous members of the Thunderbolts, felt betrayed by Zemo and tried to sabotage the machine. The Thunderbolts and the Avengers teamed up to stop her, but Zemo blamed the Avengers for destroying his vision of a peaceful world before escaping with two of Moonstone’s gems.
Mass Influence and Leading Hydra -
After a brief adventure back in time where Helmut met and encountered the previous twelve Baron Zemo’s, Helmut returned to the present to resume his activities in subterfuge and world domination through instability. One of his first acts was exposing the new Captain America as Bucky Barnes, the one time Russian assassin Winter Solider, to the world. Additionally, blaming Hawkeye for usurping him as leader of the Thunderbolts, Helmut had Hawkeye’s former mentor Trickshot train the archer’s bitter brother Barney Barton to be just as leather as a marksman as him as revenge.
When the Inhumans turned their Terrigen Mist on the planet, Baron Zemo encountered a new Inhuman boy named Lucas whose blood had the ability to sterilize human beings. Baron realized that with this boy he could create a brand new world that he could rule over and took over leadership of Hydra. Zemo’s plot to detonate a bomb containing Lucas’ blood into the planet’s atmosphere to sterilize every exposed human being on the planet was ultimately thwarted by Captain America and his friends.
It was believed that Zemo had died in the encounter but ultimately had been arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D. Instead of a prison like the Raft, Zemo was detained in an experimental prison called Pleasant Hill where his memories and appearance was alternated by a sentient cosmic cube. Zemo believed that he was a young man named Jim who enjoyed a quiet, pleasant life in the city until he was approached by a man who promised to show him who he really was thanks to a device. The man, revealed to be his old ally and Thunderbolt teammate The Fixer, reminded Baron Zemo who he truly was. Zemo, offended that he had been manipulated in such a manner, promised to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. Zemo eventually led a coup that brought down Pleasant Hill but was teleported to the Himalayas by the cosmic cube after it felt hurt by Zemo’s intentions of using it to conquer the world.
Subject Interview
Helmut rolled the pommel of his broadsword in the palm of his hand, letting the point of his sword twirl in response like a ballerina. The first time he ever saw a ballet was the Nutcracker back... how many years ago? The decades all merged together as time went by. He was just a boy then, though. He sat in their family’s private box of the theatre that looked over the stage. That was back when the Zemo name inspire awe just as much as it had inspired respect and fear. He remembered the looks on the children’s faces in particular. They always looked up at him wistfully. Jealous, his father said. Every child wished they could grow up in Castle Zemo.
Helmut stared into the decrepit remains of Castle Zemo now. Those same children were all likely dead now but Castle Zemo still stood for the most part. Sure, it may have been nothing more than rubble in some parts and completely blasted apart in others but this was his childhood home and birthright.
Zemo watched the legion of Hydra soldiers pick through what remained of his father’s lab. The German government had no clue they were there and if they dd the Avengers would have likely been called. It was shameful. This was is home but alas he was here for business anyway. Inside this laboratory would be another of his father’s journals that allegedly contained the chemical formula for a new, stronger Adhesive X that could be useful. Heinrich Zemo... a man he loved and admired so much when he was a boy... was a fraud and a joke to him. He died because he was weak. His dedication to science and not bettering himself in every sense of the word was his true downfall. If he had been a stronger man than Captain America would have never stood a chance. It was a pity that the old fool was ever associated with the title of Baron Zemo but one does not get to choose their family.
Zemo sheathed his sword and moved down the old, iron stairs that led from te catwalk of the lab to the massive, rusted out tanks that had contained some diabolical sole ant of some variety. Helmut ran his hands over the tank, looking at his yellowed gloved hand at the decades worth of dust and grime that now covered it. “Time has not been as kind to you as it has for me, has it old friend?”
When he first started down this path, he was dedicated to his father’s name and legacy. It was tunnel vision on his path, as if avenging his father’s death would somehow make him feel whole. It wasn’t until he looked into the sniveling fool’s eyes that he saw just how much of a waste he had been. Castle Zemo was rubble. There is no point in living in the past or being stuck in nostalgia. All that mattered was moving forward and adapting. “Sir, I believe we had found it.”
Zemo turned on the heels of his boots and faced the man. In his hands was a decrepit, leather bound journal that was wrapped in an ornate metallic strap. Zemo took the diary away from the Hydra solider. “And where did you find this?” The man stayed standing at full attention, not allowing himself to waiver. The bravery of the Hydra recruits was always amusing to him. It was important to have loyal soldiers who could follow orders no matter how futile they were. “It was secured in the leg of one of the chemistry tables. There was a hidden compartment that was being thrown off by metal x-ray scanners due to a lead lining. “Father was always rather clever.”
Helmut ran his hand over the Zemo crest that was embedded into the leather of the journal. When he looked up the solider was still standing there expectantly. Zemo stared at the young man and gritted his teeth. “You are dismissed, solider.” With a small salute and a click of the heels, the soldier turned and walked away to return his companions. “So, what have you been hiding from me you old fool?”
Helmut removed the wrap and cracked the book open. The leather was still and the pages were brittle from age but he turned each page carefully. What he found wasn’t the lab notes of a brilliant creator... but the diary of a man who chronicled the growth of his son. “A disappointment.” Zemo snapped the book shut and tossed it down on a dust-covered table.
Zemo turned and motioned the soldiers to follow him. This has been a waste of time, just like every other nostalgia trip.
Author's Notes
Player Alias: Six
Other Characters: U.S. Agent
How did you find MFT?: Already here
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