Marvel Kills off a Major Villain (And One of the Original Thunderbolts)

Hail Hydra. Hail DOOM. Marvel’s One World Under Doom #1 — the first in a nine-issue series that sees Victor von Doom, Earth’s new Sorcerer Supreme, take over the world as leader of a new United Latveria — kicked off with Doom declaring a new world order: one world under Doom. In a message broadcast across the globe, Doom announced that the leaders of every nation on Earth, from kings and queens to warlords and presidents, each willingly swore fealty to Doom. His first order was to outlaw war between nations that are now Latveria’s provinces, and his second was to bestow upon United Latveria’s citizens privileges like universal healthcare and free elite-tier education.

As Doom dispatched an army of Doombots to quell the rogue elements moving against Emperor Doom and enforce his “Pax Victoris” in America, Canada, Khamiskan, Burunda, and Samovar, he warned, “These provinces will not be punished, for Doom is mercy. But know that even Doom’s mercy… has its limits.”

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When Earth’s mightiest heroes assemble at the Baxter Building — including the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and assorted heroes like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and Squirrel Girl — the spy Black Widow reports she’s been surveilling the terrorist organization Hydra over in Europe. Baron Zemo, the Hydra head who has spent decades overthrowing the world’s governments to install Hydra’s own new world order, overrides Doom’s broadcast with his own declaration: “Neither Baron Zemo, nor Hydra itself, will ever be ruled over by anyone, much less by a rootless degenerate mongrel.”

Zemo and Hydra’s forces march on Doom’s capital of Doomstadt and attack Latveria’s magically protected and impenetrable border, stating that it is now permeable due to Hydra’s superior technology. In Latveria, the heroes discover that the energy dome around Doom’s nation is impervious to Captain Marvel’s energy powers, Vision’s phasing, and the Scarlet Witch’s magic. There Zemo broadcasts a second message: Hail Doom.

“Doom is doing what’s best for the world. And Hydra is going to join him,” he says. “There is a better way, and Doom has found it.” Under this accord, Hydra will use their resources to build schools and hospitals and clear land mines from contaminated areas around the world United Latveria.

The Avengers split into two strike teams — one to break into Latveria’s shield, and another to attack Hydra’s flying island base — as Zemo orders the invading heroes killed. Captain Americas Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson lead the charge, assembling Spider-Man, Storm, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, the Human Torch, Black Widow, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel to fight their way through Hydra’s forces.

Suspicious that Baron Helmut Zemo would submit to Doctor Doom, Steve Rogers asks the Master of Evil: “What do you know of October 1st, 1945?” When he fails to answer, it confirms his suspicions, and Captain America’s shield decapitates the Zemo Doombot: Oct. 1st is the date that Baron Strucker founded Hydra, and it’s a date that the real Zemo would know.

Reed, accessing the Zemobot’s memory recordings, reveals that Doom killed Zemo and had him replaced with an obedient Doombot. Iron Man broadcasts the revelation to the watching world, which sparks a Hydra uprising across the globe. As Hydra says: “Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.”

During a Hydra attack on a village in Europe, Doom — mounting the Tyrannosaurs rex Doctor Doom that he subjugated as his steed — saves his subjects and confesses to lying about Zemo. “I killed Zemo. Months ago, I killed the Red Skull, too,” Doom says, referring to the thunderbolt that struck down Captain America’s Nazi nemesis in Latveria (in 2024’s Thunderbolts #4).

“These men were proud, unrepentant Nazis — and the leaders of a virulent gang of racists,” Doom says. “They were, in short, a problem — one that Earth’s ‘mightiest’ heroes have been trying — and failing — to solve since World War II. But Doom… Doom did it for you in a day.” Doom’s deceptions made it so that he could utilize Hydra’s forces for good, and his manipulations made it so that the heroes played right into his hands.

As Doom and his Doomasaur bring forth doomsday on Hydra, Emperor Doom tells the world: “This was the only chance to bend Hydra to useful ends, and it is now truly dead — by their hands. But I will clean up their mess. You are safe. You are cared for. Doom is wisdom. Doom is power. Doom is prosperity.” Reaching out his iron fist to a woman and her child who were saved by Doom, the mother finishes his sentence: “Only Doom can save us.”

Zemo has died before. Shortly after he established the original Thunderbolts — actually the Masters of Evil posing as new superheroes when the Avengers were unavailable (and thought dead while lost to an alternate dimension) — Zemo was impaled and killed by the assassin Scourge of the Underworld in 2000’s Thunderbolts #39.

After posing as the hero Citizen V while leading the Thunderbolts, Zemo’s consciousness was transferred into the body of a descendant of the original Citizen V, a World War II hero who was killed by Baron Heinrich Zemo, the 12th Baron Zemo and Helmut’s father.

He then later mind-swapped again, this time inhabiting the body of his Counter-Earth counterpart, Iron Cross. Zemo was thought killed again after a battle with Sam Wilson’s Captain America in 2015’s All-New Captain America #6, but he survived and later faked his death. It remains to be seen if Baron Helmut Zemo is really dead, but as Hydra says: “Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.”