10 More Smartest Villain Plans In Movies
6. Zemo Destroyed The Avengers - Captain America: Civil War
The Avengers made for themselves no shortage of enemies since first teaming up to fight off Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) invasion in 2012. One of which was the incredibly calculated and utterly ruthless Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl), who swore to destroy Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
After seeing his entire family killed in Sokovia - something for which he blamed Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and co. - and watching the so-called heroes go home and celebrate victory, Zemo crafted a plan to bring down the team. For this however, he had to think smarter than just about every other MCU villain before him.
Zemo was intelligent and self-aware enough to know that he couldn't beat the Avengers in a fistfight. Stronger beings than he had tried and lost. Instead, he sought to plant the seed so that the team crumbled from within, something that worked to devastating effect. Utilising what he knew of HYDRA, and centering around the fact that Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) had killed Tony Stark's parents, he manipulated Cap (Chris Evans) and Iron Man until they were quite literally at each other's throats.
A lot can be said about the intricacies of Zemo's plan, sometimes bordering on the ludicrous and relying too much on what he arguably couldn't control, but he brought the Avengers to their knees just as he had promised.