BARON ZEMO

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Born into greatness and great darkness, Helmut Zemo is a man of terrific and terrible genius. The 13th Baron Zemo has sworn everlasting vengeance against his family’s nemesis: Captain America!”

When Captain America returned to the present day (well, the ’60s, but it was the present day back then), he brought with him a new old foe, Baron Heinrich Zemo.  Heinrich was added retroactively to Cap’s WW2 adventures, and was revealed to be the cause of the incident that killed Bucky and left Cap in suspended animation.  Heinrich rattled around in “modern” times for a bit, before dying in an avalanche caused by himself.  In 1973, his son Helmut appeared (using the alias “Phoenix” three years before Jean Grey would lay claim to it), believing Cap to be his father’s murderer, and swearing vengeance.  Helmut would embrace the Baron Zemo title about a decade later, at which point he went about becoming by far the more memorable of the two Zemos.  And that’s why he gets more of the action figure coverage.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Baron Zemo was originally a Walgreens-exclusive Marvel Legends offering, released as the first in their 2022 Villains theme.  He was offered up for a wider fan channel release at the end of the year, which has been the trend on a good number of the Walgreens-exclusives.  The figure stands just over 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  The last comic Helmut went for more of a modernized appearance, but this one goes for his classic look from the ’80s.  It’s a bit on the hokey side, but it’s still very much his most distinctive appearance, and I very much dig it.  Structurally, he makes use of Dormammu’s arms and feet, the legs of the Bucky Cap mold, and a new head, torso, belt, and boot cuffs.  The head is distinct from the previous version; there are some similarities, as expected, but this one is a bit crisper and sharper in terms of detailing.  The new torso set-up has a really impressive ball-jointed neck, and even the fancy moving shoulder sections like we’ve seen on some of the Black Series and Classified set-ups.  The color work on this guy is pretty solid stuff.  There’s a lot of molded coloring, as per the usual, but there’s also some decent little accenting on the mask, which works so well in conjunction with the sculpted elements.  Zemo is packed with four different hands, as well as the same sword included with the last one.  The hilt on the sword is prone to chipping, which is a little frustrating.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve honestly been pretty happy with the Mandroid Series Zemo since I got him, so when this one was announced, I didn’t feel like I *needed* him or anything, especially not to the level of tracking down and exclusive.  When he moved to wider release, however, and I got to see him in person, I had a much easier time justifying him.  I’m glad I did, because he’s an immense improvement on the last one, and it’s great to finally have his classic design in this scale.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.