The Falcon and The Winter Soldier: Zemo's Mask References Classic Marvel Villain

Ever since Daniel Brühl was cast as Baron Zemo for Captain America: Civil War, Marvel fans were [...]

Ever since Daniel Brühl was cast as Baron Zemo for Captain America: Civil War, Marvel fans were waiting for the day and time that he would put on the iconic purple mask, but that moment never came in the 2016 feature film. With the character left in prison at the end of that film it was unclear when or if he would ever appear in the MCU again so when it was revealed that Bruhl would reprise his part for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and would sport his mask nonetheless, everyone was stoked. Well the time came this week and Marvel found a way to infuse the moment with the possibility of more lore for the MCU.

After breaking out of prison, Zemo reunites with Sam and Bucky as they get their plan straight regarding finding out more about the new Super Soldier Serums that are making their way around the world. As he packs, and recounts some new pieces of his history, Zemo opens the back door to an old (and I do mean old) car to secure a bag. Inside is the classic purple mask which he takes with him and later wears, but the mask simply sitting in this car seems to imply some major comic lore, namely that it belonged to Helmut Zemo's father, or maybe grandfather.

As comic readers may recall, "Helmut Zemo" was just the latest in a long line of purple mask wearing Zemos with his father "Heinrich Zemo" first sporting the mask in the pages of Marvel comics. It stands to reason that this mask was once the property of a relative for the on-screen Zemo and perhaps we'll see more of the Zemo family history in this series, especially since some of it has been implied pretty heavily as well.

"It's all front and center," The Falcon and The Winter Soldier writer Malcolm Spellman told ComicBook.com of Zemo's evolution in the Disney+ series. "And it's funny because as we did different iterations of this, all the stuff you're talking about, who Zemo is, what he did in his past for his country, where that mask came from, all just became tangled into one personal storyline of a man whose country, city, and family were destroyed by superheroes who he views as villains, right?"

He added, "Zemo believes he's a hero in this series. All of that is tethered to something very, very personal for him and I got to say, man, Daniel Brühl, like, you know Sebastian [Stan] and Anthony [Mackie] can take everything out of the park but Daniel Brühl was like I'm going to steal every scene I'm in if I can. He was great."

Watch The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+.

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