Zakim Karzai (Iron Man foe)

ZAKIM KARZAI

Real Name: Zakim Karzai

Identity/Class: Human

Occupation: Terrorist, military leader

Group Membership: Al-Nebuchadnezzar Militia

Affiliations: Andrei Gorlovich, Dennis Kellard, Aftaab Lemar, Karim Mahwash Najeeb, Ara Tanzerian

Enemies: Iron Man (Tony Stark), allegedly Mrs. Yinsen, the "son of Yinsen";
allegedly Ho Yinsen

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed

First Appearance: Iron Man IV#9 (August, 2006)

Powers/Abilities: Zakim Karzai was a well-connected terrorist and military leader with access to vast militia forces and armory.

History:

(Iron Man IV#11 (fb) - BTS) <As reported by the alleged son of Yinsen> - Needing funding for his experiments and lacking the patience to settle for the slow trickle of funds he was getting from university grants, which might take decades, Ho Yinsen "got in bed with government," and placed an implant in promising young weapons designer Tony Stark's head for the Taliban (specifically Zakim Karzai, Dennis Kellard, Aftaab Lemar, Karim Najeeb, Ara Tanzerian). Yinsen allegedly designed a sending unit without which the implant he placed in Stark was useless; Yinsen smuggled the sending unit out of Afghanistan and placed it with his wife.

(Iron Man IV#9 (fb) - BTS) - Ho Yinsen was captured and executed under the orders of Taliban agents Zakim Karzai, Dennis Kellard, Aftaab Lemar, Karim Najeeb, Ara Tanzerian.

(Iron Man IV#11 (fb) - BTS) - Andrei Gorlovich was hired by Karzai, Kellard, Lemar, Najeeb, and Tanzerian to retrieve the sending unit; he confronted and slew Yinsen's wife when she apparently didn't have it, but Gorlovich did not realize Yinsen's son was wearing the sending unit as a necklace and that he was watching his mother's murder from behind a partially closed door.

(Iron Man IV#6-11 - BTS) - Years later, the alleged son of Yinsen, seeking vengeance for his alleged mother's death (although he considered his father to have been "a monster") resolved to use the sending unit to activate Stark's implant and cause Iron Man to murder Gorlovich, Karzai, Kellard, Lemar, Tanzerian, and Najeeb.

(Iron Man IV#9 (fb) - BTS) - Karzai went into hiding with Lemar and took a position with the Al-Nebuchadnezzar Militia, running their training camps. They were constantly surrounded by a few thousand Mujahedeen in Iraq.

(Iron Man IV#9) - Iron Man (Tony Stark), controlled from afar by the son of Ho Yinsen, attacked the training camp and killed all who attacked him. He grabbed Lemar and Karzai and flew them into the upper atmosphere, where they suffocated. He then dropped them to Earth.

Comments: Created by Daniel & Charles Knauf, Patrick Zircher, and Scott Hanna.

This entire story is of questionable continuity for many reasons.

The "Son of Yinsen" storyline in Iron Man IV#7-12 (2006), had Yinsen implant a device into Stark's brain while the two were imprisoned in Afghanistan together. This revelation was crap, crap, and more crap.
(Iron Man IV#11 (fb) - BTS) <According to a young man claiming to be the son of Ho Yinsen; see comments> - Yinsen allegedly discovered that neuro implants could cure depression and schizophrenia and perhaps redefine a man's soul, turning sociopaths into model citizens. Needing funding for his experiments and lacking the patience to settle for the slow trickle of funds he was getting from university grants, which might take decades, Ho Yinsen "got in bed with government," and placed an implant in promising young weapons designer Tony Stark's head for the Taliban (specifically Zakim Karzai, Dennis Kellard, Aftaab Lemar, Karim Najeeb, Ara Tanzerian).
Yinsen allegedly designed a sending unit without which the implant he placed in Stark was useless; Yinsen smuggled the implant out of Afghanistan.
Yinsen placed the sending unit with his wife.
(Iron Man IV#9 (fb)) - Ho Yinsen was captured and executed under the orders of Taliban agents Zakim Karzai, Dennis Kellard, Aftaab Lemar, Karim Najeeb, Ara Tanzerian.
(Iron Man IV#11 (fb) - BTS) - Andrei Gorlovich was hired by Karzai, Kellard, Lemar, Najeeb, and Tanzerian to retrieve the sending unit; he confronted and slew Yinsen's wife when she apparently didn't have it, but Gorlovich did not realize Yinsen's son was wearing the sending unit as a necklace and that he was watching his mother's murder from behind a partially closed door.
(Iron Man IV#6-11 - BTS) - Years later, the Son of Yinsen used the sending unit to cause Iron Man to murder Gorlovich, Karzai, Kellard, Lemar, and Tanzerian. Stark found a means to block the control to some degree and locate the Son of Yinsen as he was being ordered to kill Najeeb. SHIELD agents assassinated the Son of Yinsen to prevent him from further controlling Iron Man.
(Iron Man IV#12 - BTS) - The Extremis slowly dissolved the implant.

The major contradictions include:

The whole Middle East origin is not what happened in Reality-616.
In Reality-616, it was "Southeast Asia." Too many characters have too much history tied into continuity to just "change" that.
Who knows about Prime Earth or whatever?
Yinsen was already receiving funding from Dr. Midas, so there was no need for him to seek out funding from the Taliban or other governments.

I suppose he could have needed MORE funding...

Yinsen worked on a chest plate to save Tony Stark...he didn't do any surgery, and he certainly didn't implant anything in his brain (or do brain surgery in non-sterile conditions and without shaving Stark's head).
Yinsen couldn't have smuggled anything out of Afghanistan after working on Stark, as they weren't in Afghanistan, but regardless, his only real ally in Wong-Chu's prison was Sun-Tao, meaning Sun-Tao would have been the one Yinsen would have used to smuggle something out.

It is extremely difficult to believe that Sun-Tao wouldn't have shared this information with Stark after their experiences in Iron Man III#46-48.
Improbable, but not impossible...

That same retcon shows Yinsen being ritually executed in a chair, allegedly on order of Karim Mahwash Najeeb.

This completely doesn't fit with him rushing out to sacrifice himself to buy Stark/Iron Man a few extra seconds to charge his armor.
And why would he sacrifice his life for Stark when he had implanted whatever into Stark's brain to gain funding for his research?
Plus, we know Yinsen survived only long enough to be taken away by Dr. Midas, who harvested his brain before eventually selling it Wong-Chu.

I suppose all of that could have been a trick, too, but that involves altering the history of so many existing characters, as opposed to simply discounting the information from the alleged "son of Yinsen" due to the multiple absolute contradictions.

Stark has been evaluated by so much technology, and had major neurologic treatments, like the Bio-Chip and evaluations by Dr. Sondheim, that any chip in his brain would have been detected. It was one of those "everything you know about a character is wrong" stories...which showed that everything the writer knew about the character was wrong.
Yinsen's widow died of a broken heart a year after his death while under the care of Sun-Tao.

This is probably the easiest contradiction to resolve.
Perhaps Sun-Tao was not being truthful for whatever reason.
Perhaps Ho Yinsen had more than one wife.

Despite Yinsen being consistently shown as a peaceful pacifist, the "Son of Yinsen" considered him a "monster."
The whole thing seems like some like some sort of alternate/altered reality...the whole thing took place around the time of House of M, so residual effects of that altered reality would really explain everything...or maybe the "Son of Yinsen" was just lying and used the brain implant (presumably placed at some more recent junction, or perhaps he just knew how to manipulate the Extremis to form such a device) to manipulate Stark's memories.
Based on editorial discussion, the Son of Yinsen information was excluded from Ho Yinsen's profile in the All-New Iron Manual (2008).

However, when we removed that information from the end of the profile, we missed two references to Yinsen implanting whatever he was supposed to have implanted included within the earlier text history...so it is accidentally referenced therein. That's my fault for just truncating the information and not recalling the other references.

Wong-Chu's profile did mention Karim Mahwash Najeeb of Afghanistan as an old ally of Wong-Chu from before he encountered Stark the first time...but that's it.

I'm not sure how you can read Ho Yinsen's other appearances and decide he would be morally/spiritually capable of doing what he was said to have done in Iron Man IV#7-12.
Yes, of course, it's fiction, but a fictional universe relies on continuity.
Barring some revelation that the whole story was House of M-warp distorted, I think what we can conclude is that the story in Iron Man IV#7-12 occurred.
The alleged "son of Yinsen" used a sending unit to activate a control device in Stark's head.
References to the Taliban executing Ho Yinsen, etc. can be considered false.
The timing of the placement of the implant, who placed it, the motivations of the alleged "son of Yinsen" and anything else relating to the past as related by that young man is to be considered suspect.
The Iron Manual entry places the video of Yinsen's beheading before Yinsen meeting Stark.

According to Stark's memory/understanding as he reviewed the video, the beheading video took place after Yinsen survived seeming death at Wong-Chu's solidiers' hands.
If we accept that that timing is false, but don't want to throw out the video, yes, it makes perfect sense that it could have represented someone faking his death as it has been previously noted that his death had been faked before.

The Iron Manual notes that Yinsen entrusted Sun-Tao with the brain implant control/sending device and that Sun-Tao gave it to Yinsen's wife, but it doesn't note anything about how he cared for Yinsen's wife for the next year until she died of a broken heart, nor does it say anything further about any actual son of Yinsen, Gorlovich killing Yinsen's wife.

Profile by Chadman. Updated/edited by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Zakim Karzai has no known connections to

any characters not mentioned in this profile.

images: (without ads)
Iron Man IV#9, p15, pan1 (main)

Other Appearances:
Iron Man IV#9 (August, 2006) - Daniel & Charles Knauf (writers), Patrick Zircher (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Iron Man IV#11 (October, 2006) - Daniel & Charles Knauf (writers), Patrick Zircher (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Tom Brevoort (editor)

First posted: 04/05/2008
Last updated: 03/11/2018

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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