Seeing pictures of Dr. Arnim Zola (or just "Arnim Zola") always confused me growing up. I didn't realize his "head" was a camera and that his "face" was actually a screen broadcasting his likeness and not actually some giant, freaky-ass head-in-a-stomach. No offense to The King, but Jack Kirby's art didn't help, so I combined the creepy visual with the bizarre name and wrote him off as some sort of Marvel cosmic villain, which I really wasn't into at the time... curiously, though, Zola wasn't too far off from Krang (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), whom I loved and thought was awesome. I think the difference was that I knew Krang's body was a robot.
Later I learned I how cool Dr. Zola actually is-- I'm always a sucker for a mad scientist, especially when they're bat-shit crazy, German, and possibly evil, evil Nazi scum. They make the best villains. Completed today, April 1st, 2013, Arnim Zola is basically an LBC (lazy bastard custom), based primarily off a GI Joe 25th Anniversary Battle Android Trooper (my favorite GI Joe figure/character). The camera head was kitbashed together from greebles on my workbench.
Finding the right face for Zola took forever, with at least four different images and numerous false starts. Since the good doctor here is from the late 30s-early 40s, the picture is in black & white. At first I went with the Zola from Captain America: The First Avenger... then the one from the video game based on the movie, then I toyed with a bunch of pictures of Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark... then inspiration struck and I knew precisely who would work. My lips are sealed.
One of the main reasons I wanted to use the B.A.T. as the base body (aside from the perfect spot on the chest for the screen) was because of its interchangeable arms. I see this robot minion as a virtually-indestructible avatar for Zola that is highly versatile, armed with a claw hand and particle beam weapon based on energy from the Tesseract (Cosmic Cube). He wears basic khaki coveralls to protect his components, but Zola designed his robot soldiers to be nearly unstoppable.
COMING UP: IF ADVENTURE HAS A NAME..., THE GHOST WHO WALKS, GOTHAM'S MOST WANTED
