ranking the Thunderbolts characters by how likely they are Zemo in disguise
some context: a character being revealed as Zemo in disguise in a genuinely unexpected twist is somehow hilariously common for the character in the comics (if i had a nickle for each time i’d have at least four, and that's almost a whole quarter!). most notably however it’s in the very first introduction of the Thunderbolts team. the Thunderbolts are kind of synonymous with a Zemo related twist at this point. basically, with the DC not-alive-anymore-by-choice squad you can count on the team having their implanted neck-bombs and with the Thunderbolts you can count on Zemo being hidden somewhere like a murderous purple Where’s Waldo.
SO, while everyone is like “where is Zemo?” and “why isn’t Zemo in the Thunderbolts movie?”, i remain steadfast in certainty that he’s going to show up in the third act,,, despite there being literally no evidence to the contrary. also this is just for fun so don’t take it seriously unless i’m right then i told you so.
these rankings go from least to most likely
-because Zemo knows better
-he would have to dress up in an American propaganda outfit
-Zemo might have to intimately deceive Walker's wife and child and that's creepy
-he has the Super Soldier Serum
-even Zemo wouldn't ignore Walker's crying child like that, comeon man
+surprisingly not completely unthinkable???
+like maybe as a gag it could play?
+i think it’s because they both have that tiny stabby assassin energy
-obviously it would be super weird, confusing, and narratively unsatisfying for both characters
-Yelena and Florence deserve their spotlight and i wouldn't want anything to detract from that
+only slightly above Yelena in believability simply for him being more expendable narratively (so the character not actually being himself in the movie wouldn’t be as much of a let down)
-he’s not particularly similar to Zemo in any way
-like Walker, he has the Super Soldier Serum, so it’s unlikely Zemo would disguise himself as Alexi by choice
-it seems exhausting just being Alexi for any length of time, even for Alexi
+bonus: in the trailer, Alexi b-lines for the bar the instant they exit the elevator in the former Avenger's tower. total Zemo behavior
+non-powered (if you don’t include mimicry but i think Zemo could fake it for a short amount of time)
+wears a mask and doesn’t talk much, making for easy impersonation
+scarred face is similar to Zemo’s scarred face in the comics
-their builds don't match up to a passing glance and unlike Yelena, with her more baggy clothes, Antonia is wearing a fitted outfit, making it more difficult to pass (i don't need it perfect mind you, just enough to suspend believability juuust a little)
-mostly it's just the vibes tbh
-idk man im not feeling this theory anymore and i used to be a Zemo in the Taskmaster suit truther
-maybe it's the suit redesign 🤷♂️
now we’re getting to the ones where i start to vibe with, but also would need a whole lot of exposition
basically, if you wanted to give a guy like Zemo brain scramblies, make him forget who he is, do some experiments (possibly à la Hydra on Wanda/Pietro? finally pulling on that dropped thread of Sokovians having a higher rate of manifesting powers -specifically Wanda’s reality warping powers- when exposed to the Mind Stone than the average human?) and try to corrupt him into an American branded superhero with a mild-mannered personality, you usually give him a three letter name. like Bob. or Jim.
turning to a comic that i can't believe more people dont talk about in relation to Zemo and the Thunderbolts: Welcome to Pleasant Hill
there's a lot in this comic that gives precedent to the twist of Zemo (and the audience) believing they're just a common, good-natured, all-American before finding out it's a lie in an elaborate supermax prison system. (this will definitely come up in almost all other thoughts and theories i have, including the character on this list that i'm most interested in. i'm kind of obsessed with this comic tbh) the story even involves Bucky, the Thunderbolts, the Cosmic Cube (which is the Space Stone in the MCU - related to the Mind Stone) and reality warping/memory altering similar to the Sentry’s own comic twist. and yes, it’s basically the plot of WandaVision before WandaVision except that the warden wasn't a grief stricken Wanda but a surprisingly Valentina Allegra de Fontaine-ish Maria Hill (put a pin in that similarity). there's also the fact that the MCU loves to merge characters into one, like the upcoming Doom-Stark combo.
so how does this work? hell if i know. Zemo could be forced to change his appearance with that Black Widow spy mask thing? maybe the only ones who see Bob as Bob are the ones who don't really know him + Walker who's easily deceived?? idk. it's a pretty big stretch (but not as big the next one on this list!) the most probable scenario of this one happening is Zemo somehow being tied to Bob’s alter, The Void. again, not probable at all unless the movie does some trippy stuff, but it’s fun to imagine the possibilities.
+the trailer seems to suggest said trippy identity/mind stuff, which you would need to pull this off
+Loki’s staff that once housed the Mind Stone in Sokovia could be a reference to Kobik/the Cosmic Cube that creates Pleasant Hill in the comics
+uhhh Bob and Joe are both three letter names??
+in the Pleasent Hill comics Zemo kind of looks Bob/Sentry like?
-a major thing that holds this theory waaaaaaay back is the fact that Steven Yeun was going to play the part of Sentry first and its highly unlikely they would Plot Twist him into a white man (or god i at least hope not)
-ultimately, there's just not a lot of places this reveal could go imo so /shrug
Countess Valentina Allegra de Fontaine
look ok hold with me here bc we both know that when those heels started clacking outside the Senate hearing in TFATWS everyone was thinking that it was Zemo rocking them for a whole hot second. I KNOW. I REMEMBER. I WAS THERE.
does this make sense? no, not really. should comedy legend Julia Louis-Dreyfus unmask as Zemo in drag in the third act of a big, multi-million dollar franchise movie made by The Mouse?? absa-fucking-lutly.
i even think it would go over with audiences for the most part. they’d see Zemo, Zemoing about, and go, oh yeah ok that tracks.
+Bucky kind of looks like he’s playing the role of Val’s bodyguard/muscle and his demeanor reminds me so much of TFATWS when he was playing the same role for Zemo
+Bucky knowing this whole time that Val is Zemo and is reluctantly going along with his grift for whatever reason is so funny to me idk why
+Bucky saying “what's the plan” in the trailer just feels better if he is saying it to Zemo
+Bucky is wearing some of his old WS gear and who put him in that last? Zemo
+her line about there being bad guys and worse guys is very on par with Zemo’s pessimistic mentality, maybe justifying an Avengers team up as a necessary evil?
+there should only be one unpowered, tiny, bitchy, manipulative, mastermind serving cunt in a purple jacket in the MCU and Val is crowding Zemo’s throne. solution: Zemo uses Val as his public identity (you know, because of all the war crimes. Val has almost certainly done similar war crimes but they were for the U.S. government so she’s safe to masquerade as) and leads the Thunderbolts with nobody being the wiser
+this also means keeping Julia Louis-Dreyfus around and thats worth like, a hundred '+'s
+the purple. the royal titles. oh, it’s all coming together
+totally think that JLD and Daniel Brühl could pull this off i’m not even joking
+it would delight and entertain me
+Zemo would be leading the Thunderbolts team as he should be
-i fear a shadow of transphobia looming around this idea (with a female character being revealed to be a man in disguise) and that instantly sucks any fun out of it
-Zemo’s ideology would have to do a complete 180 hairpin turn or be a very elaborate plan to sabotage things from the inside, kind of making it difficult to buy into the whole thing in the first place
-its never going to happen
here’s all that twitter stuff abt how there’s reason to believe that the person shooting at the limo isn’t Bucky at all or that he’s being brainwashed again:
She’s right. As soon as I seen that clip from the trailer, of him shooting the car down, I can just feel that’s not Bucky because of the bod
personally, i don’t feel WS here but maybe that's because Seb is doing a little bit of his Judge Dredd scowl and there’s too much going on behind the eyes? it still feels like Bucky still imo, even if his actions are like, a bit extreme. it’s that whole “i had to go to work today” energy that Bucky perpetually puts out lol. basically i didn’t get the vibe that he’s Winter Soldiering, or even that he’s trying to kill the team, i just get the vibe he was tasked with rounding up and escorting the group back to Vale and he’s doing it his usual undelicate way. of course, this is only 3 seconds from a teaser so all those details could be right or wrong in the film, only time will tell.
BUT this reasonable talk is counterproductive to this crackpot theory, so…
The Zemo being brainwashed or otherwise manipulated/reality altered into believing (or pretending to be) he’s Bucky/WS theory:
+if i had a nickel for every time Zemo in the comics was brainwashed/tortured into believing he was Bucky/Bucky adjacent and/or the narrative obfuscating which one was which, i’d have at least two nickels
+and that is purposeful btw, in the comics Zemo and Bucky have a strange thematic connection. it’s not a coincidence that when Steve was still grieving Bucky, here came a guy with ties to his past (specifically the son of the man who ‘killed’ Bucky) that would have been roughly the same age as Bucky if he didn’t ‘die’. Steve then commits to saving Zemo time and again, dispite what a complete fuck-up he is. so, Zemo hating Bucky but also kind of having this deep inner desire to be him at least has thematic presence in the comics
this motherfucker literally keeps a shrine of Captain American memorabilia, including putting Bucky’s old costume in a lit glass display case
-on the other hand, MCU Zemo is almost nothing like his comic counterpart and certainly doesn’t hate Bucky or want to be him
+on the other-other hand, there’s far too many similarities to MCU Zemo and the MCU Winter Soldier to ignore and the text of the movies/show seem to continuously remind us of that in little ways
+so in this theory Zemo wouldn’t be impersonating Bucky Barnes per se, he’d be the Winter Soldier
+who, conveniently, has Sebastian Stan’s face so Daniel Brühl wouldn’t have to be on set as much nor have to do any stunt work. good for him
means, motive, and opportunity:
+Val most definitely has access to the raft (and by extension Zemo) as the head of the CIA
+we also know that Val must have access to some form of the Super Soldier Serum if the Sentry is involved, and the clutter of Sentry related branding in the trailer seems to indicate Val/OXE/the U.S. government has been trying to create their own superhero, Homelander style
+Val also has access to all sort of means of manipulating Zemo's sense of identity. chemical memory alteration, use of off-world artifacts, the old fashioned WS programming way, or even all that Stark tech that was confiscated by Damage Control…remember B.A.R.F.?
+the whole choice to use Zemo could even be out of convenience. he’s already had extensive military training, was a successful black ops commander, he literally has nothing left, not even citizenship to a country
+nobody would look for him or wonder where he is or if he’s even still alive
+even if they did, would they care? to most people, he's a super villian. even people who might object morally, like Sam or the Wakandans seem to be too busy with their own shit rn anyways
+Bucky is literally the only one left who might object and if they're using his identity to carry out clandestine missions then they have leverage. keep quiet and you have a job, prestige, perks, etc. without having to actually do any of the dirty work. don't, and we spin this like you went off WS style and there's nobody to keep you from being locked up anymore. plus Bucky hates Zemo right? why would he care if he's America’s Winter Soldier
+this also allows for a built-in deniability for Val/the government if Bucky!Zemo was ever caught on a mission. that can't be the Winter Soldier doing assassinations in Europe if you can see Bucky Barnes at a Congress meeting on public tv at the same exact moment
+as to motivation, other than all the reasons stated above, it's clear that Val doesn't want a Captain America. she said as much to Walker in TFATWS. while it might work to her advantage to have a controlled Avengers team for her public image, it helps her far more to have someone reliable to do her dirty work
+creating a black ops assassin à la the Winter Soldier, but for America, would be her goal
+and sure, she had Walker and Yelena under her payroll already (and we assume Ghost and Taskmaster as well) but they don’t have that living action figure, perfect soldier rizz. in various ways im going to assume they've disappointed her, questioned orders, or just generally was too human
+so why Bucky's identity? easy. he's already got a whole brand. i can hear the sardonic lines out of JLD mouth about how hard it is to create something new when you can just reboot it. Bucky has a legend as the Winter Soldier, one that still carries a lot of clout. she wouldn't even need to deploy him for assassin reasons, just use him for negotiations and fear tactics. the Winter Soldier is already a verified threat at an international level, you can't buy that kind of marketing. using Bucky's face and WS identity would be essential to her
+wouldn’t just brainwashing the real Bucky again be easier? well, other than the advantage of having Bucky and the WS be separated people as mentioned above…the last two times Bucky Barnes was brainwashed to be the Winter Soldier and otherwise held against his will, an empire fell (S.H.I.E.L.D./Hydra and The Avengers). so, while i’m sure Val has a fondness of the Rule of Three as much as i do, i also think she’s smarter than that
+i’m sure she’s even approached Bucky directly and has probably tried to manipulate him with a job that looks legit on the outside and gets him a nice private house. but Bucky isn’t going back to the WS role, it’s not going to happen. and he’s already side-eyeing Val pretty hard in that trailer so her perfect soldier he won't be
so Val has means, opportunity, and motivation to take Zemo and turn him into her very own super assassin. but lets take this a step further.
Hyper-analyzing the Thunderbolts* trailer:
I think the reason we see "Bucky" with two different hairstyles, and one looking. Well. Off. Is
this post by magnitothemagnificent brings up a great theory that Bucky here could actually be Jack Monroe, more importantly brings up one of Jack's alter egos, Scourge.
this same guy from the comic page above
(for my theory, obviously, instead of Jack, it would be Zemo as a Scourge-like character)
+we know that there is a version of the serum going around to create the Sentry, and that the Sentry's #1 personality trait in the comics is his mental instability
+we know that, in the comics, Jack Monroe was driven mad specifically by the Super Serum he was given. it messed with his sense of reality and identity in big ways including making him believe he actually was Bucky, instead of just taking up his mantle
+possibly, this version of the serum is responsible for the mental instability of everyone who takes it, creating delusions and hallucinations and this is what affects the Sentry’s mental stability and warps this hypothetical Bucky!Zemo/Scourge's sense of reality
+this could even tie into Walker's story, as it seemed like he escalated in his instability after taking the serum (you know, there's actually a fairly large connection between Walker/US Agent and Monroe too hmm…)
in the comics, Monroe is being controlled (through nanites, so idk maybe Stark Tech?) by a very Zemo-type motivated guy who hates supers and even works for the Commission on Superhuman Activities (basically the same people who created the Sokovia Accords in the MCU, led by Ross and the UN). being controlled by this man, Monroe, as Scourge, is forced to attack and kill super powered people and targets the Thunderbolts. Comic Zemo is literally beheaded by him in a page that definitely tries to make the reader think that it is Bucky Barnes attacking Zemo (this was before the Winter Soldier Brubaker run that brought back Bucky Barnes, so at the time Bucky was still thought to be very dead for over 50 years)
and the Scourge suit would explain other parts of this theory, such as why is that literally Sebastian Stan’s face?
+the suit comes with a camouflage feature and image inducer so looking just like Bucky wouldn't be a problem (in the comics, previous versions of Scourge, one who i actually believe was Jake Monroe, just used latex masks, even disguising himself as a woman more than once -go Val=Zemo theory!- but the most important detail is that Scourge has always been a master of disguise, so that element is already built into the lore of the character)
how would Zemo be able to mimic the Super Soldier Serum?
+if he's not being dosed by Val with a version of the serum, the suit has various means of mimicking increased strength
but unless they really committed to amputating an arm and have a Wakandan prosthetic laying around, how would Zemo have the metal arm?
+from what i can tell, we don’t actually see Bucky’s metal arm in this scene? i believe it’s covered up with a jacket. and even if some of it shows, that could be a CGI misdirect. otherwise the Scourge suit would answer this too, specifically the metal-looking high-tech gauntlets that he wears could be made to at least look like Bucky’s arm and do the same things Bucky’s arm can do
but what about real Bucky?
+we have to first buy into the two Bucky’s theory, which i don’t actually hate. there’s Bucky trying his best in the trailer and then there’s an impersonator out there doing his best Winter Soldier. this way we don’t run into the same problems of a third act reveal like with the others (not actually following the real Bucky Barnes). we would be, hopefully with a confrontation between the two in the climax, getting almost an out of body visual of Bucky’s inner turmoil. him vs the winter soldier identity and everything that represents to him
even having Bucky wearing the Winter Soldier gear would have a cool call back to the Scourge suit:
+the suit in the comics has two gauntlets that can access various tools and weapons by simply voicing a code. they appear as if from thin air but in reality it is a clever use of pym particles
+these weapons aren't even just regular ‘ol things but rather he has a whole arsenal taken from other heroes and villains
+so a suit that carries the whole Winter Soldier arsenal, despite us having every reason to believe Bucky wouldn't have those things anymore, could be a fun way to reference that
speaking of the WS arsenal:
+I know its just a coincidence, but its worth noting that, as others have pointed out, Bucky is predominantly carrying the Škorpion vz. 61 (also known as the Sa vz. 61 Skorpion) in the trailer and in the poster. which was the gun that used to attach to the harness on the WS suit
+Zemo's paramilitary team from Sokovia, EKO Skorpion, was, at least partially, named after the Serbian Skorpion paramilitary force. the real life Serbian Skorpions named themselves after their favorite gun, you guessed it: the same Škorpion vz. 61 that is used by the WS
+additional fun(?) fact: the real life Serbian Skorpions had a secret relationship to the CIA and the CIA might have had a hand in the Yugoslav wars (shocker). if we follow this trajectory, it's possible that Val could have had connections to Sokovia and Zemo as early as the 90s/early 2000s, working as a CIA agent involved with the Sokovian Civil War
+if Hydra was involved with instigating the civil war in Sokovia (as they almost certainly were as it gained them a great advantage in establishing their base there) and Val truly is Madame Hydra, then that would establish pretty strong connective tissue between Val, Sokovia, Zemo, and the WS/Bucky
taking us to Pleasant Hill again:
i love this panel in relation to the Thunderbolts bc this is everything that Yelena is struggling with and seems to be the central theme of the movie, these broken people finding purpose in a world that they’ve been alienated by
+now the major twist in the comic wasn’t just that Zemo is really mild-mannered Jim, but rather the readers were manipulated through various means into believing that Jim was actually Bucky until the end reveal
+combining these things (the Pleasant Hill comic run and the Jack Monroe/ Scourge comic run) creates a story where the audience is led to believe Bucky is Winter Soldiering about, attacking and possibly trying to kill the Thunderbolts team
+but in reality it is actually Zemo, being manipulated and controlled by Val thru various sci-fi means to make Zemo just appear as Bucky
+the last person to imitate the WS specifically? Zemo
+and he literally did it with just some prosthetics and theater kid energy
+their height difference is concealable with some heels and Zemo would know how to run in them
+this might even explain Bucky's bad hair:
+like ok hold with me here but Daniel Bruhl had this same exact hair cut for his role as Karl Lagerfeld
did he keep the hair during Thunderbolts filming? i have no idea. but its fun to imagine
+the popular Bucky/WS left hand theory. while i’m not necessarily convinced just by this trailer (even tho i really like the theory and the visual importance of Bucky using his metal/left arm), this would gain added legitimacy if it’s actually Zemo impersonating the WS
+because, while Bucky may not be left handed,
+100% Zemo, he’s not even in disguise here that’s just Daniel Brühl on set
