Every MCU Villain Ranked Worst To Best

looking over the mcu's blockbuster history it's pretty clear that the franchise has a villain problem but despite that we've actually seen some fairly compelling criminals cause trouble for our heroes here are all the villains in the marvel cinematic universe ranked from worst to best in the dark world curse leads a prison riot helps malekith sack asgard and kills thor's mother friega he also leads the battle against thor in the film's climax beating the thunder god senseless with his brute strength but even with all that curse is little more than a forgettable monster with no personality fenris hello's enormous wolf is an undead beast who tries to finish off the asgardian refugees toward the end of thor ragnarok to the wolves credit the menacing green-eyed monster definitely looks cool but sadly veneris really doesn't do much after hella animates her beloved familiar he just sort of hangs out and looks mean while the death goddess interrogates a crowd of scariness guardians in the final battle fenris tries and fails to kill the hulk on the one hand it's nice to see another bad guy from thor's rogue's gallery fit into the film on the other hand it seems like the only reason fenris is included is because the hulk needed something to tussle with during the climactic final battle laffy is a powerful force in thor's corner of the mcu but we never really see much of him in action king of the frost giants is the biological father of loki he has super strength and ice powers but he's still no match for the sneakiness of his own son loki manipulates events to get lauffy to attack asgard and thor but just as laufey is about to kill odin loki takes out laffy instead killing the frost giant king and making himself look like a hero in an unceremonious end aldrich killian turned out to be the a-list bad guy in iron man 3 with brant and sabin shaping up his little more than b-list versions with the same powers both are given their superheating and healing powers by the extremis virus and they both attack tony stark throughout the film but neither is a match for iron man even when he doesn't have a suit scorpion is a pretty big deal in the comics but in spider-man homecoming not so much his most notable actions are complete failures first when an arms deal is interrupted by spider-man and then later when he tries to get the sinister six going in prison before being shut down by the vulture basically he's just there to make adrien tombs look cooler by comparison and when you're not as cool as the vulture it's safe to say you screwed up pretty bad somewhere along the way it's easy to forget but yes batroc the leaper is part of the marvel cinematic universe we meet the french mercenary during the opening ship hijacking sequence in the winter soldier we get a breathless fight scene between captain america and batroc with cap accepting batroc's challenge for a hand-to-hand fight without a shield batrock holds his own though cap eventually knocks him out but hey at least he's a little cooler than this version spider-man homecoming gave us not just one but two shockers we meet the first shocker jackson bryce as he's wielding a shocker gauntlet but after the vulture kills him the weapons pass to hermann schultz schultz looks to be our main shocker in the mcu and he gets one epic fight against spidey before being sidelined shocker jumps peter as he leaves the school dance attempting to follow the vulture the villain sends spidey flying through a school bus knocking his web shooters off in the process so why does shaka rank so low because it wasn't even spidey who took him out it was pete's pal ned who grabs a web shooter and hits shocker distracting him long enough for spidey to web into a school bus baron von strucker led the experiments on loki's scepter that created quicksilver in the scarlet witch so he's definitely important but all anyone really remembers about him is his immediate surrender to the avengers during the opening of age of ultron no surrender i'm going to surrender in the end strucker was just another hydra goon cut off his head and nobody really noticed when the destroyer shows up in thor it makes full use of every moment the destroyer's giant powerful arms and legs can crush or stomp just about any opponent and if they don't kill you its laser blast probably will we saw the destroyer kill a few frost giants then laid waste to a small town in new mexico and loki sent it to earth hunting thor still it was no match for thor when the god of thunder regained his power and overcharged the destroyer ending the attack credits sam rockwell's unending charisma for iron man 2's justin hammer not showing up at the very bottom of this list as far as credible villains are concerned justin hammer is an absolute joke he runs an arms manufacturer that's a rival to stark industries except everything hammer builds falls apart the first version of the war machine armor is basically a bare bones iron man suit outfitted with a ton of hammer weapons which works just about as well as duct tape and accessories to a car to summarize sam rockwell is great justin hammer still kind of sucks though dr samuel stearns doesn't actually ever call himself the leader which is his villainous identity in the comics but the incredible hulk isn't exactly subtle about the eccentric scientist destiny the last we see of him he's on the ground as the hulkified blood he's just pumped into emil blonsky drips into an open wound on his head if a hulk sequel had come to pass we would almost certainly have seen tim blake nelson return as the psychic and super intelligent leader nelson is perfect as an obsessed scientist who doesn't care much about the consequences of pursuing his goals across ethical lines while he never actually turns green on screen he shows plenty of signs of a moral compass in need of some fine tuning he clones a whole room full of banner's blood without banner's knowledge or consent and he has no problem with the notion of turning blonsky into abomination and of course in his final moments in the movie he's seen smiling when any sane person would be horrified in the incredible hull general thaddeus thunderbolt ross spends the entire film trying and failing to kill bruce banner and for much of the film he's a relatively one-dimensional military bad guy interestingly however ross is one of the few characters from the incredible hulk to resurface later in the mcu he became the u.s secretary of state in captain america civil war pushing for the adoption of the sokovia courts and even made cameos in infinity war and end game setting him up for even bad or bad guy stuff in films to come in an effort to capture the hulk humiliated soldier emil blonsky hits himself with an experimental version of the same gamma stuff that makes hulks and hulks except it doesn't turn him into another hulk instead he becomes the abomination a monstrous one-note creature that looks like a rotting troll yawn he lives through the end of the incredible hulk and is apparently in a jail cell somewhere dark elf malekith had almost no personality and basically existed as a freaky looking dude trying to get an infinity stone and thanos already does that way way better it's a shame because on the surface malikith is extremely formidable he even stages a surprise assault on asgard itself breaching the city's defenses and later sets his sights on earth he put up a heck of a fight against thor in the final act of the dark world though the god of thunder still prevails mickey rorick's whiplash was one of the many problems in iron man 2 despite some admittedly awesome action scenes along the way whiplash never feels all that intimidating at least after that epic attack at the monaco grand prix he's motivated by a vague kind of boring backstory and teams up with justin hammer who we've already established kinda sucks and then there was that odd obsession with his bird tannelier tavonne better known as a collector has a remarkably low-key career as an mcu villain you might understandably question whether he's really a villain at all look carefully and you can see that he's pretty darn evil as early as his first appearance in a thor the dark world mid credit scene we learned that one of his goals is to collect all of the infinity stones but probably just for bragging rights not conquering the universe but a closer look at his expansive collection reveals a whole lot of unwilling prisoners we're fairly certain that if the collector were ever given a more active role in the mcu he'd earn a higher spot on this list there's something intriguing about the way he's been on the periphery of the narrative's most cataclysmic events mystery surrounds tyvonne including the mystery of whether or not he's still alive when obadiah stain decides to take out tony stark while starks on an overseas tour in the first iron man film he contacts the terrorist organization the ten rings led by raza to make it happen raza keeps stark captive and proves an intimidating villain at least until stark builds his first version of the iron man suit and makes short work of raza's soldiers raza was savvy enough to survive and he tracked down straight bits of stark's armor and tried to cut another deal with stain the problem stain was more savvy than raza and used a sonic taser to paralyze him and kill his men despite his unceremonious ending raza is still technically the first villain we met in the marvel cinematic universe and a throwback to the simple days of the mcu korath has a small but memorable role in guardians of the galaxy which provided one of the most memorable moments from the movie's opening scenes hey you know what there's another name you might know me by star-lord who star-lord man though star-lord gets the better of him korres still puts up a heck of a fight he also manages to reacquire the infinity stone along with nebula which sets up rone in the accusers near world-ending attack on xandar without korath ronin would never have had the infinity stone to begin with so he certainly served a purpose even holds his own against drax the destroyer for a while at least until drax rips out the cybernetic implant in his head killing him hey at least he went out fighting andy circus actually does an extremely entertaining job with ulysses claw in both age of ultron as well as black panther which gives us a believable version of the claw we know from the comics and cartoons a character who still has the potential to come back after his death as a dude made of sound waves hopefully the mcu will resurrect this classic comics b-lister for future super villainous action walter goggins is a genuine delight every time he shows up on screen and his appearance in ant-man and the wasp is no exception sure sunny birch doesn't do much compared to the likes of killmonger or thanos but he might be one of the mcu's most comic bookie villains ever as a dealer in illicit technology birch is a character that like the vulture operates on the fringes of a universe filled with magic hammers and alien technology the difference is birch is the kind of sleazy mastermind who rolls around in a white and gold suv conducts his illegal business in broad daylight and commands an army of nameless motorcycle riding henchmen birch is the perfect character to have around to reinforce the idea that there's more to this world than shakespearean gods and magic space rocks she might not have been the big bad and guardians of the galaxy vol 2 but the golden goddess aisha was able to cause more than enough trouble for star-lord and his team the leader of the powerful sovereign she commands a fleet of remote-controlled warships that come within one shot of taking out the milano following an extensive chase moreover the post-credits scene revealed aisha seems to be responsible for creating adam warlock a major player in marvel's cosmic universe and someone we expect to meet in guardians of the galaxy vol 3. if nothing else that makes her more than worthy of a slot on this list the chitauri basically served as cannon fodder against earth's mightiest heroes in the final hour of the avengers even still they are a massive alien army led by those positively terrifying gigantic dragon ships that tore through manhattan their eventual humiliation notwithstanding the chatauri were more than formidable enough to push the avengers to the brink in their first big screen team-up and when they return for their big final battle and end game their only strength seems to be in numbers and they were defeated just as easily in captain america the first adventure artem zola's appearance is basically just an easter egg in winter soldier however the setup of having zola around for the first movie pays off in a cool way he might not be a robot with a camera for a head and his face on a giant tv screen built into his guts like in the comics but what winter soldier's big reveal lacks in robot bodies it more than makes up for by making him genuinely creepy anyone familiar with marvel comics knew some kind of villainous turn was coming from mordo and doctor strange while he spends most of the film as strange's ally the angry sorcerer abandons his allies after strange makes his bargain with dormammu after the credits we see mordo become the nemesis he's long been in the comics declaring there are too many sorcerers in the world he's bound to be a challenging antagonist in doctor strange in the multiverse of madness plus he's played by chuatel at geoform the oscar-nominated actor is not only a superb performer but he's particularly great in villainous roles the black order are perfectly serviceable henchmen for infinity war they manage to hit that sweet spot of being threatening enough to present the heroes with a challenge but they also provide additional room for the action so that it's not just 40 people trying to punch thanos at the same time ultimately they're not so threatening that they overshadow the actual villain of the piece each of them is distinct and visually menacing especially ebony maw unfortunately most of them don't actually get to do much other than lose so that's a bit of a drawback in guardians of the galaxy ronan was a religious zealot who co-opted the power stone to continue his crusade to wipe out xandar but even without one of those awesomely powerful ball balls he's still a heck of a warrior after all he laid waste to drax the destroyer without even breaking his sweat he also had the guts to stick it to thanos then actually walked away from the mad titan without much consequence the guardians were no match for ronin individually but luckily star-lord was able to actually control the infinity stone with the help of his team his half celestial powers and some sweet dance moves all of those things together and star-lord was able to blast the bad guy into a bolivian ant-man's daring cross spent his entire career trying to duplicate hank pym's shrinking formula but when he did it and created the yellow yellowjacket combat suit he didn't realize his copycat formula was actually messing with his brain making him dangerously unstable that led to a villain who was not only dangerously unhinged but got some really cool fight scenes the best of which was on a child's play table ant-man and the wasp's super powered villain ghost has a lot going for her visually her flickering and phasing through objects is some of the coolest looking stuff we've seen in the mcu it's even better in the fight scenes the shrinking and growing stuff is fun but pitting that stuff against a completely different set of powers makes for some pretty compelling action since she seemingly reforms at the end of the film we're obviously meant to like her she has a sympathetic backstory as a victim of hank pym's egotistical past but at the same time we're also supposed to like hank so his part in ghost's backstory still involves him ultimately being right none of this is too surprising marvel is full of bad guys doing the wrong thing for the right reasons but it does feel pretty clear that ghost was shoehorned into ant-man and the wasp rather than building her more organically still the effects are great and hannah john commons performance captures ava's understandable bitterness and desperation effectively die hard comics fans know surtur is a major villain in thor's world in thor ragnarok however he appears only in the opening act and destructive finale that's not to say he's not important to the story in norse mythology the word ragnarok points to the apocalyptic battle between gods that results in a world destroyed by fire while serger is indeed the monster all asgardian sphere thor and loki summoned him to invoke the ragnarok prophecy this defeats hela but at a price his attack decimates asgard crumbling the city in the sky to dust when marvel asked annette benning to play a villain in captain marvel they probably didn't open with you're going to be a giant green disembodied head with a bunch of gross tendrils floating in some kind of goo that would be an accurate description of the character's physical appearance in the comics but instead of the bulbous floating head captain marvel's creative directors chose to represent the ai that rules the kree empire as a kind of psychic projection everyone who communes with the supreme intelligence sees someone different and in carol's case the intelligence appears as their mentor marvel as viewers we spend a lot of time in captain marvel thinking the scrolls are the bad guys once the truth is revealed it's yawn rog who's the most visible villain perhaps in the future we'll see more of the cree ruler giving the supreme intelligence a chance to get a better spot on this list red skull easily stands out as one of the most original and terrifying baddies in the marvel cinematic universe in the first avenger he commands his own hydra branded nazi division complete with tesseract powered weapons and has his own version of the super soldier serum making him cap's physical equal he vanished while trying to harness the power of the tesseract space stone but his surprise return as the guardian of the soul stone and infinity war only served to remind us how great he was so many years ago he might have just been a disciple of dormammu but casilius was plenty intimidating in his own right a highly trained sorcerer who went rogue left the ancient one's order to try and take out the masters of the mystic arts and nearly succeeded in doctor strange casilius manages to destroy two sanctums put the ancient one's forces on the robes and chose his prowess with magic and a few excellent fight sequences luckily a quick thinking strange manages to turn the tables and win the day the tinkerer is exactly the kind of character that the mcu needed for the same reason that he was exactly the kind of character that the comics needed someone who builds all the gadgets the bad guys used to fight the good guys he's certainly not the focus of spider-man homecoming but phineas mason is the kind of quiet bad guy who makes the mcu feel just a bit more real every great ruler needs someone beside them to carry their melting stick in thor ragnarok that job goes to topaz the sadistic and unforgiving right-hand woman to the grandmaster and she's a perfect match for her eccentric boss while he delights in his games and acquisitions topaz stands nearby ready with his instruments of torture always eager for the grandmaster to melt people unfortunately for the grandmaster topaz does not survive ragnarok and crashes while chasing bruce banner thor and valkyrie during their escape from sakhar topaz's service to grandmaster is clearly not forgotten in one of marvel's shorts we see that the grandmaster has built a modest shrine to his former assistant in his new los angeles apartment of all the impressive things about spider-man homecoming one of the most notable is just how many characters the film pulled in from the comics and the best minor villain appearance by far is absolutely aaron davis known in the comics as the prowler in the film he's hilariously and thoroughly unimpressed by peter parker's enhanced interrogation what happened to your voice what do you mean what happened to my voice i heard you by the bridge i know what a girl sounds like i'm not a girl i'm a boy it's one of the best comedic scenes in the entire mcu but what really makes it special is davis's mention of his nephew as comic readers know davis nephew is miles morales who eventually takes the name of spider-man as far as villainy goes davis doesn't accomplish much beyond a failed arms deal hinting at a future of the mcu that includes miles though that's awesome sure the ravagers aren't all villains at the end of guardians of the galaxy plenty of them sacrificed themselves to save xandar but in the sequel we see a darker side of these mercenaries when taserface takes over yondu's ravagers everyone still loyal to yondu is rewarded by being injected into space as their former comrades laugh and wait most of them are also more than happy to abuse poor baby groot and of all the survivors only kraglin refrains from trying to kill yondu rockets and groot as they escape as villains the ravagers don't accomplish a lot and without someone like yondu or nebula supporting them they don't provide much of a challenge to the heroes but while they may be cannon fodder they still give us a lot of laughs their well-deserved beatings provide some of the most fun sequences and guardians of the galaxy vol 2. brock rumlow started out as a member of captain america strike team and winter soldier eventually revealing himself as a hydra agent when the attempted takeover began he managed to survive and resurfaced during the opening fights in civil war where he went toe-to-toe with both cap and black widow before blowing himself up in the event that ended up driving the avengers apart for a villain that's a pretty good way to go dormammu is one of the biggest villains in marvel comics and surprisingly the mcu actually kept the extremely powerful ruler of the dark dimension relatively close to his comic's counterpart doctor strange's trip to the dark dimension was practically a steve ditko panel brought to life dormammu is so powerful that doctor strange had no chance of hurting him so he had to outsmart him to save the world trapping the villain in a time loop where dormammu killed him over and over until he was forced to bargain for his freedom it makes for one of the most clever finales in all of the mcu and lands dormammu high on our list of favorites after one final explosive tussle with gamora nebula joins the side of the angels and guarding into the galaxy vol 2 but that's not true of every version of nebula we meet in fact it's indirectly because of nebula that thanos gets to wage his final battle against the good guys in endgame when nebula goes back in time to 2014 to help get the orb the nebula of that time becomes aware of her the 2014 nebula isn't reformed she's still loyally killing anything and everything her father tells her to as well as harboring murderous jealousy towards gamora 2014 nebula is pretty tragic even when she's confronted by her heroic future self the 2014 nebula sees no way out she clearly wants to be different but she ultimately dies because of her refusal to change even though the proof that she can change is literally standing in front of her when marvel signed robert redford for a superhero movie you knew it'd be an interesting role and his turn is alexander pierce delivered he's introduced as the well-meaning secretary of the world security council and old friend of nick fury though it's eventually revealed pierce is actually a hydra agent leading their infiltration of shield pierce shepherded the program designed to create the network telecarrier system everyone is fighting over in the winter soldier he also planted bombs and the name tags of the other security council members which he uses to brutally murder them when they challenge his takeover he stayed evil to the end too uttering hale hydra with his dying breath after nick fury put two rounds into his chest now that's a villain ben kingsley's character in iron man 3 wasn't actually the real mandarin and they all hail the king one shot short suggested the actual bad guy could still be out there waiting to make his move but that faked mandarin still gave us the chills at least until it was revealed that he's really just an out-of-work actor named trevor slattery who can barely be trusted with a six-pack of beer much less a gun still though it loses some luster by the end the mandarin presented in the front half of iron man 3 is one of the scariest baddies in the mcu it might have been a ruse but it was effective and you'll never see me coming when thor is suddenly marooned on the junk planet's car he comes in contact with a grandmaster in the comics the grandmaster is just an immortal dude who loves playing games of any kind but in the hands of jeff goldblum the grandmaster becomes one of the weirdest and funniest characters in the mcu here's hoping we get to see a lot more of him in the future oh maybe not as much as he wants us to on any other world i'd be like millions of years old but here on sakhar you have to respect where it all began and jeff bridges obadiah stain aka iron monger set the tone for the villain to the mcu in the first iron man film bridges stain is positively slimy betraying tony stark and inadvertently setting his entire hero's journey in action so really we can thank stain for kicking off the entire mcu when his assassination attempt on stark in the desert bales stain eventually dons the massive iron monger suit to try and finish the job himself a lot has changed since iron monger stalked the skies but his final fight with iron man had a brutal messy feel that really let you feel the hate staying head for stark and it still resonates even in a world with heavy hitters like thanos prowling around james spader's chilling voice brought absolute terror to the metal menace that was ultron with a near endless supply of robot bodies and a design that had comic fans geeking out he exemplifies how technology can be our greatest scourge though ultron does it with a wit that only spader can provide verbally sparring with the best of them like any great villain ultron also has a real motivation for his dastardly deeds looking at the facts ultron's final determination that humans and superheroes are what make the world such a dangerous place makes its own twisted kind of sense the most amazing thing about helmut zemo in civil war is that he's just an average guy with no real plans for world domination he's just a man who wants revenge for the death of his family and he's wise enough to realize the best way to take out the avengers is to set them against one another yes his plan does require a few big leaps of movie logic but it was refreshing to see a villain like zemo brought to life in the mcu he's a great reminder that it doesn't take world smashing superpowers to give earth's mightiest heroes a run for their money iron man 3 is one of the most polarizing movies in the marvel cinematic universe featuring an epic fake out that reveals guy pierce's aldrich killian is actually the villain behind a mysterious rash of bombings and terrorist attacks sweeping the globe his secret weapon extremis a versatile technology that first showed up in the iron man comics and is reimagined here as a way to super heat one's body and literally regrow limbs killian's particular skill set makes for one of the most technically ambitious fight scenes in the mcu it's sometimes hard to believe any villain can truly go toe-to-toe with tony stark but killian made a heck of a run peter quill's search for his father was a key part of guardians of the galaxy vol 2 a journey that brought him face to face with kurt russell's ego who's as bad a dad as they come ego is one of the most powerful villains in the mcu right up there alongside thanos himself ego's essentially a god who wants to literally become the universe by replacing all other life and russell sells it so well that you really understand where ego's coming from even if he's a psychopath who's killed hundreds of his own children in his quest for power ego redefined the concept of daddy issues of course i have issues that's my freaking father mysterio isn't the best villain in the marvel cinematic universe but he might just be the cleverest after 10 years of movies inspired by comics the mcu proved with endgame that it was its own distinct version of the superhero universe a series of alternate surprises led to mysterio with a promise of a multiverse that could take thanks to the next level and then we find out that it's all just one big con instead of being the way forward mysterio ties everything back to the very first iron man movie and is one of the many things that made far from home the perfect epilogue to the infinity saga in a universe of world destroying monsters the vulture is decidedly street level in his approach but that's exactly what makes him work the film's writers tweaked his backstory to make adrian toombs the father of peter parker's teenage crush in spider-man homecoming and he takes the girlfriend's angry dad trope to a whole new level the effects team did an amazing job with his armor and appearance with vulture looking positively terrifying and inhuman when he's stalking his prey we've never seen thor face a villain like hella the goddess of death and any of the other mcu films much like loki before her this asgardian villain is someone audiences will immediately love to hate as soon as odin passes away hella appears to the brothers and presents her plan to take her rightful place on asgard's throne to prove her point she easily crushes thor's hammer the truth is eventually revealed that hello once acted as odin's executioner leading the asgardian army to victory over all nine realms this secret history elevates hella to epic villain status eric killmonger essentially has a superhero's origin his father is killed in front of him his royal heritage is denied to him and he uses those tragedies to motivate a relentless dedication training himself to the peak of his abilities before seeking vengeance that setup is a whole lot closer to batman than it is to ultron when you add in the fact that killmonger specifically wants to address a continuing history of racism it's hard not to admit that he makes some pretty good points even if he's right though his goal is dominance rather than leadership which makes him a true ideological opponent for t'challa it's one of the things that makes their final battle in which they're both in nearly identical black panther costumes so good they're reflections of each other both committed to fight for their ideals without compromising who they are there's a reason marvel studios chose to use loki as an ongoing villain for the avengers he's one of the most compelling calculated and charismatic villains ever tom hiddleston is so good at being bad that marvel opted to keep him around long after his bid for supremacy was foiled at the hands of earth's mightiest heroes he's still no match for the hulk but who is oh wait we know who thanos is the villain of the marvel cinematic universe there's been a lot of character work put into the cinematic version of thanos which is especially impressive considering that most of it is shown to the audience in infinity war a movie that's also juggling story arcs for dozens of other characters at the same time through it all he's shown to have the same quality that all the greatest villains share he thinks he's right he's the hero of his own story the only one who can step up and save the universe from itself and is willing to sacrifice whatever he needs to in pursuit of that goal in the comics thanos has been referred to as the ultimate nihilist but the mcu's version is the exact opposite he believes very much in what he's doing which makes him even more compelling and more dangerous check out one of our newest videos right here plus even more looper videos about your favorite shows are coming soon subscribe to our youtube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one

Channel: Looper

Views: 952,874

Rating: 4.8454852 out of 5

Keywords: looper, looper movies, mcu, villains, mcu villain, mcu villain rank, marvel villain, marvel cinematic universe, marvel cinematic universe villain, marvel cinematic universe villains ranked, mcu villains ranked, best mcu villain, best marvel villain, best marvel villains, best marvel villains ranked, best marvel cinematic universe villains ranked, mcu villains worst to best, villains worst to best, marvel villains worst to best, every mcu villain, every mcu villain worst to best

Id: MdmZ_kbx8UY

Length: 27min 56sec (1676 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020