Doctor Arnim Zola was a German scientist working for HYDRA before, during, and after World War II. Originally an employee of the Sturmabteilung, Zola was recruited in 1934 by Johann Shmidt to become a lead scientist for the terrorist organization HYDRA. During the war, he helped design many advanced weapons to aid HYDRA in its quest for domination around the world. During the early days of World War II, Zola was assigned by Schmidt to study the Tesseract to build powered advanced weapons, which Schmidt intended to use to overthrow Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. However, as the war came to an end, Captain America and the Howling Commandos tracked down Zola to his train, eventually succeeding in capturing him. Despite being captured by the Allies shortly before Schmidt's [Battle in the Valkyrie (Reality-199999)|defeat]] in 1945, Zola was offered a position in S.H.I.E.L.D., the newly formed peacekeeping organization, as part of Operation Paperclip.
However, over the years, it turns out that Arnim Zola was actually using his new position to secretly rebuild HYDRA from within the shadows and growing a parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D.. Serving as one of the new leaders, Arnim Zola was able to enable the creation of the Winter Soldier, who survived his apparent death while trying to capture him, leading Zola to recover Barnes and experiment on him, transforming Barnes into the HYDRA operative, as a part of Winter Soldier Program. Eventually, Zola received a fatal diagnosis in 1972 and passed away, but his mind was transferred into a complex computer system on Camp Lehigh, where he remained from that point onward, aiding his fellow HYDRA allies undetected. In 2014, however, when he was discovered by Captain America and Black Widow to still be alive, Zola stalled them by informing them about HYDRA's history and agenda before missiles sent by S.H.I.E.L.D. destroyed Camp Lehigh in an attempt to kill Rogers and Romanoff, causing Zola's "brain" to finally be destroyed.
While leaving his original self destroyed as part of a plan to convince Captain America and his allies of his apparent demise, it turns out Zola's consciousness remained within a different data bank that was kept secret inside an old HYDRA facility for years. About a decade later, a new cell within HYDRA emerged from hiding and had recently been successful in uploading his mind onto a more current network. Now that he has awakened, Arnim Zola was equipped with a robotic body which had been improved over the years from designs that he had created since the end of [[w:c:mcu:World War II|World War II. After the failure of Project Insight, and the major blows to HYDRA's operations, Arnim remained in the shadows, leaving the world to believe he was dead, while he laid the foundation of scientific works that would bring about the return of the power HYDRA once knew.
Biography[]
Discovered by the Hijacker[]
A year after the HYDRA Uprising, Howard Mitchell, who had recently failed to hold on to the briefcase which contained the Pym Particles, traveled to Siberia with a group of men where they found an old facility that belonged to HYDRA. Seeing that the base was abandoned, Howard led the men inside the facility where they managed to find the last analog which held Arnim Zola's consciousness that had supervised the Winter Soldier Program experiments held there.
While unaware that the facility had a group of enhanced soldiers were kept in suspended animation within the Cryostasis Chamber, Howard and his men were able to summon Arnim Zola, who had managed to identify them as members of HYDRA. Arnim asked if the Winter Soldier Program is still in progress, to which Howard explained to him that HYDRA had suffered a critical blow. At first, Zola was disappointed, but told him that HYDRA will always live on and must return to the shadows. Howard complied to Zola's orders and made preparations to have his consciousness uploaded into a more current network.
Relationships[]
Allies[]
Enemies[]
- S.H.I.E.L.D. - Allies turned Enemies
- Elite Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Sayuri Kyota / M-80
- Secret Warriors
- Ben Morse
- Elite Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- S.W.O.R.D.
- Abigail Brand
External Links[]
Arnim Zola on the Marvel Wiki
