15 Best Scientists In The MCU

When we first meet Arnim Zola, he is Red Skull's right hand man and chief scientist of HYDRA, a rogue division of the Nazi regime. Now if Zola's work was considered too extreme for Nazi Germany, describing HYDRA as off the rails would be putting it mildly. That isn't to say he couldn't have accomplished his destructive goals.

Zola harnessed the power of the Tesseract to create weapons in World War 2. Using the cube's energy, HYDRA had what it needed to completely alter the world. It is only with the effort of the Howling Commandoes and sacrifice from Captain America that HYDRA is eventually stopped.

70 years later, during the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Zola is revealed to be alive and doing HYDRA's work through SHIELD. Zola's algorithm assessed people's past to predict whether or not they are or would become a threat to HYDRA, after which they would be killed. Steve Rogers was once again able to stop the plot, but the algorithm was literally a second away from killing millions.

Calling Zola a mad scientist is more than fitting, but his knowledge of computer science and engineering have come dangerously close to changing the world forever.