Dr. Arnim Zola is a villainous character from Marvel Comics and is primarily an adversary of Captain America. He was a brilliant scientist who worked for the Nazis and HYDRA during World War II, but would use his great scientific prowess to preserve his consciousness technologically, long after the death of his body. In the comics, Zola would preserve his consciousness using several robotic bodies, but in the Marvel Cinematic Universe he would survive into the 21st century as an artificial intelligence stored on a vast computer mainframe. He would appear in the flesh in Captain America: The First Avenger and as a digital intelligence in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He was portrayed by Toby Jones.
History[]
Working for Nazi Germany[]
Born in Switzerland, Arnim Zola became one of Germany's top scientists, and joined the Nazis during the rise of Nazism in Germany. In 1934, he worked at Sturmabteilung's Weapons Testing Grounds at Kummersdorf. His newest invention was the advanced exo-skeleton which could make one soldier fight like a battalion. In July, Kummersdorf was attacked by the Schutzstaffel troops led by Johann Schmidt. Almost the entire personnel of the base was killed, and he was spared only because he agreed to work on genetics. Schmidt wanted to use Zola's knowledge to turn himself into a superior man.
Soon, Schmidt organized his own SS division, HYDRA, and Zola became its top scientist. In September 1935, Zola was allowed to resume his work on exo-skeleton battle suits and various high-tech weaponry because Schmidt captured Abraham Erskine, a German scientist who worked on the Super Soldier Serum. By the time of the Spanish Civil War, Zola had created several advanced war machines. His finished exo-skeleton battle suit was used by HYDRA against the Spanish Republicans at Guernica in 1937. Zola also worked on various paranormal and occult sciences.
World War II[]
In November 1940, Zola was at Castle Kaufmann when Schmidt tested the unstable Super Soldier Serum on himself. The serum enhanced his strength, but it also disfigured his face. Two days later, Zola visited Doctor Abraham Erskine in his cell and told him that Schmidt will kill him for failing to give him what he wanted. However, Zola and all guards in the castle were drugged by agent Peggy Carter who helped Erskine to escape.
When HYDRA forces found the Tesseract in 1942, Zola was ordered by Schmidt to study and recreate its power. While Schmidt remained eager to begin the experiments to help his army defeat the Allies and win the war, Zola was more skeptical and insisted that they take their time as he was unsure if his machines would even work.
Eventually Schmidt forced Zola to begin the experiment and despite Zola's warnings, Schmidt pushed for an incautious approach the test the device's power. As a result, Zola accidentally discovered how to transform its energy into advanced laser ammunition and engines to be used against the United States Armed Forces. Zola designed advanced weapons for HYDRA, with his suits, weapons, vehicles and equipment helping HYDRA become more powerful than ever.
In November 1943, the Super-Soldier Captain America, created by Abraham Erskine's successful experiment, arrived at the HYDRA base in Austria to rescue the Allied soldiers they were using as menial labour there. When Schmidt saw this he immediately hit the self-destruct on the base, despite Zola's protests. Zola watched on a monitor as Captain America defeated their guards with ease. With only minutes to spare, Zola ran to his lab where Bucky Barnes was being experimented on; he grabbed his documents for his many designs, including a battle suit. With everything he needed, Zola went back out to the corridor where he was spotted by Captain America. Zola made a run for it and, fortunately for him, the Captain let him go when he became distracted by rescuing Barnes, his friend, from the table where Zola's experiments had taken place.
Before long the base's self-destruct had activated and much of the equipment exploded. As Zola and Schmidt made their escape from the base, they encountered Captain America and Barnes who were also looking for an escape. Both the Captain and Schmidt engaged in a battle where they showed themselves to be equally matched in strength, but Zola quickly separated them by pulling the bridge back. Schmidt then pulled off his mask and revealed his true face. Schmidt and Zola then left the pair to die in the explosions. While the base exploded and began burning to the ground, Schmidt prepared to take off in a single man rocket; upon seeing this Zola questioned how he would escape, Schmidt relented and gave Zola the keys to his coupe, mercifully allowing his top scientist to escape the self-destructing factory, but not before warning him not to scratch the car at all under the threat of death.
Schmidt then left on the rocket to regroup with Zola at another time in their HYDRA Headquarters while Zola made it to the car and, with a smile on his face due to driving such an impressive vehicle, made his escape as the facility was destroyed; however, Rogers and Barnes also escaped and rejoined the army, using the information stolen from Zola's lab to begin gaining an advantage in their war against the Red Skull and HYDRA's plans for world domination.
Losing the war[]
In the months that followed, HYDRA suffered setback after setback as Captain America and his Howling Commandos conducted numerous successful raids and destroyed HYDRA facilities all across Europe. As such, Zola was relocated several times, unable to continue his work. Eventually Zola had to be moved via armoured train to the HYDRA Headquarters to continue his work. He conceived of a plan to use the train as the setting for a trap for Captain America along the Danube River. The train was later attacked by Captain America, Bucky Barnes and Gabe Jones who were attempting to capture Zola under the orders of Chester Phillips. Having seen his attackers on the video feed, Zola sent in his soldiers and ordered them to kill them, separating Captain America and Barnes and attempting to overpower them in the unexpected ambush.
Captain America and Barnes soon managed to defeat most of their attackers in the ensuing battle, but while they took a moment to catch their breath, Barnes was seemingly killed when he was shot off the side of the train and fell from the mountain, disappearing from sight into a freezing river. Zola's victory over the Howling Commandos was short lived however when Gabe Jones jumped through the ceiling and captured Zola at gunpoint. Zola was then handed over to Allied forces for questioning about HYDRA's overall plans.
Zola was quickly taken to the Strategic Scientific Reserve's base and interrogated by Colonel Chester Phillips. Phillips noted that his lack of the cyanide pills normally used by HYDRA agents to prevent capture suggested that he did not want to die personally. Zola told them everything he knew about HYDRA and Johann Schmidt's plans.
Rebuilding HYDRA[]
Zola's S.H.I.E.L.D.file
A year after the war's conclusion, Zola was released from prison and recruited by the United States government as part of Operation: Paperclip, a plan to recruit Nazi scientists and use their work to advance the United States while denying assets to the Soviet Union. Zola found himself being recruited by the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.), a global peacekeeping force established as the successor to the Strategic Scientific Reserve. However, from within S.H.I.E.L.D., Zola could go about rebuilding HYDRA in secret, approaching like-minded operatives and convincing them to aid him in his plan. Having learned from their defeat in the war, Zola knew that HYDRA had failed because it tried to take humanity's freedom by force. Using S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence and resources, Zola and the new HYDRA began orchestrating numerous conflicts and terrorist actions around the globe. In time, this period of chaos would push human society to the point where it would be willing to surrender its freedom for the sake of security.
Also during this time, Zola would discover that Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers' best friend and wartime comrade, had survived his supposedly fatal fall over the Danube due to Zola's version of the Super Soldier Serum that he had been injected with during his captivity in 1943. After being recovered by Soviet operatives, Barnes was acquired by HYDRA and Zola began a new series of experiments on him. Over a number of years, Barnes was subjected to numerous brainwashing procedures, his memories of his past life being erased and overwritten with Zola's programming. Barnes would be augmented with a cybernetic arm to replace the one he had lost in Austria and would be ordered to kill anyone that HYDRA viewed as a potential threat. From then on, Barnes would be known as the Winter Soldier and would become infamous throughout the global intelligence community as one of the world's deadliest assassins.
Physical death[]
By 1972, Zola had been diagnosed as terminally ill. Knowing he was dying, he worked to preserve the only part of him he considered worth saving: his mind. Beneath Camp Lehigh, the same base where Steve Rogers had undergone training, Zola built a secret bunker which would contain a massive computer mainframe, 200,000 square feet in size. This mainframe would essentially become Zola's brain, his mind uploaded to its databanks when his body succumbed to its disease.
HYDRA's revival[]
In 2014, Zola had set the stage for HYDRA's return. Alexander Pierce, a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official who was one of HYDRA's undercover operatives, attempted to initiate HYDRA's new global rule by taking control of Project Insight under the noses of the World Security Council and all other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers, in their efforts to stop Pierce, discovered a bunker hidden beneath Camp Lehigh where the mainframe containing Zola's downloaded consciousness was located. Zola revealed to them HYDRA's plans for Project Insight, its infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its long history with continuing to create chaos across the modern world. He also mentioned having written an algorithm to be employed by Project Insight.
However, the entire time he was, in fact, stalling until HYDRA could attack. Shortly thereafter, Romanoff learned of Zola's deception and they attempted to escape, only for Zola to lock them inside. Moments later, the bunker was attacked and destroyed in an attempt to kill Rogers and Romanoff, with Zola's mainframe being destroyed in the explosion.