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Loki (Thor, The Avengers): The God of Mischief has certainly been done justice on the big screen. One of the more lesser known comic book characters for those who aren’t fans, Tom Hiddleston’s portrayal as the brother of Thor has resonated with audiences and critics alike.
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Wilson Fisk (Marvel’s Daredevil): Vincent D’Onofrio does it again with his depiction of Marvel’s most powerful crime boss. Depicted as a complex and disturbed individual with fits of rage, he is exactly the kind of villain we need in the MCU.
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Johan Schmidt/Red Skull (Captain America: the First Avenger): The leader of Hydra is well regarded as one of the most sinister villains in all of comics, and you can tell by what we saw in “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Hugo Weaving nails this role, giving us the despicable Nazi we all wanted to see.
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Alexander Pierce (Captain America: The Winter Soldier): The leader of Hydra in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” put a refreshingly modern spin on an organization that was born out of Nazism. Robert Redford’s acting does not disappoint as an intelligent and calculated tyrant.
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Ultron (Avengers: Age of Ultron): The evil robot bent on “the Avengers extinction,” and essentially the annihilation of mankind, was one of the most complex villains in the MCU. Arguably one of the more comic book inaccurate villains, he still gives us a glimpse of a villain that has absolutely zero consideration for human life, which is a truly haunting thought.
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Kilgrave (Marvel’s Jessica Jones): Kilgrave’s charisma and genuine belief that he isn’t doing anything wrong is haunting. He also brings up the political issue of consent, as he forces Jessica Jones and others to do things using mind control. A very important villain for the modern world, and one who is an absolute psychopath.
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Grant Ward (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.): A cunning, backstabbing villain that is so easy to hate. An overall fantastic villain that gave us one of the best plot twists in the history of the MCU. What makes Ward so great is that we all loved him as a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. at one time, but his actions are just unforgivable, no matter how much we want to like him.
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Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger (Iron Man): A villain who many didn’t see coming until the very end, which was certainly an emotional one for Tony Stark. Someone who Tony saw as both a friend and father figure. Many knew that Stane was the Iron Monger from the comics, but the manner in which he was working against Tony was truly shocking and dastardly.
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Helmut Zemo (Captain America: Civil War): Next to Wilson Fisk, he is the villain in the MCU that it is the easiest to sympathize and empathize with. After losing his entire family in the battle of Sokovia, his anger towards the Avengers is very understandable. Although his response is evil and completely insane, his plan to tear the Avengers apart is one of the most brilliant evil plans in the MCU.
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Willis Stryker/Diamondback (Marvel’s Luke Cage): In a similar way to Obadiah Stane, Stryker is a man that has a very long and complicated history with the title hero. Wanting nothing more than to kill Luke or hurt him in some way, his simplicity is very refreshing.
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Ronan The Accuser (Guardians of The Galaxy): Although many feel that Ronan is another very weak Marvel villain, I beg to differ. Admittedly, he is a very one dimensional villain, but his imposing nature and ability to command the screen more than makes up for it.
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Darren Cross/Yellowjacket (Ant-Man): Another underrated villain in the MCU. Yellowjacket’s look was fantastic, and adding that to his cold and methodical nature made him a solid villain.
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Nobu (Marvel’s Daredevil): Nobu was introduced in season one of “Daredevil,” and was pretty cool as a ninja master, wielding his shoge hook. However, the reveal of him as the main villain of season 2 was a bit of a let down, although the introduction of The Hand made it a little better.
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Aldrich Killian/The Mandarin (Iron Man 3): This was one of the bad plot twists in the MCU. After all the build up to Ben Kingsley’s character being The Mandarin, the reveal that it was Aldrich Killian really stunk. I was very excited in the first 30 minutes of seeing the Mandarin as the type of terrorist we are used to seeing in the modern day. Killian wasn’t a horrible villain, as the history between him and Stark and the extremus angle was very cool, but The Mandarin could have been much better with the more classic approach
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Ivan Vanko/Whiplash (Iron Man 2): Mickey Rourke playing a villain sounded like money to most, including myself. Heck, the writing was even pretty good for his motives. The problem was Vanko’s screen time, as he was often overshadowed by Justin Hammer. He had arguably one of the coolest concepts with the electric whips, but his character just wasn’t given enough time to shine.
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Emil Blonsky/Abomination (The Incredible Hulk): Emil Blonsky was a flat out flop as a villain. A trigger happy soldier that bought into all the propaganda he was fed. He yearned for the action of a war, and couldn’t wait to just capture Banner without considering who he hurt in the process. Then, he became Abomination and was just a really bad monster character who looked ugly. “The Incredible Hulk” overall is a subpar film, but Abomination’s one dimensional Hulk foil with no reason for hating Bruce Banner or The Hulk was just off putting.
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Kaecilius (Doctor Strange): Portrayed by a very good actor in Mads Mikkelsen, but even that is not enough to help offset the poor dialogue and writing. The writing is decent for his motive and backstory. It’s his plan and his overall rationale for going against the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. He also has the textbook dialogue that most movie villains have, and just comes off as another one dimensional villain that is evil for the sake of being evil.
- Malekith (Thor: The Dark World): Where to begin with this villain? When it comes to one dimensional characters, it doesn’t get much worse than Malekith. He has little build to his character, the overused distortion to his voice to make him sound more evil, very little dialogue (and when he speaks it’s not very memorable), and a very weird look. He is the textbook bad guy searching for this great power, in the form of the aether, that we have seen time and time again in Fantasy/Sci-Fi movies. Malekith was a big thumbs down, and definitely the low point of MCU villains.
Ranking Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains
February 17, 2017