I'm David, welcome to my brain. Here I write to not only show that I can but to share my opinions on various topics. Mostly Video Games, Anime, Movies and Tokusatsu. Though I am open to suggestions and never afraid to admit when I'm wrong. Have a good time in here and be sure not to mess with my memory, it's bad enough as it is.
Monday, October 22, 2018
March to Infinity: Top Villains of the MCU Movies Part 1: The bottom of the barrel.
All of these bad guys, yet we all know that the only ones everyone talks about is Thanos and Loki.
Alright ghosts and ghouls, time for another installment of my 10th anniversary coverage of the MCU. To wrap up my coverage of the MCU for this year I've decided to take a look at the villains that Earths Mightiest Heroes have fought. Now there will be some stipulations here as always. First, only one spot on this list per movie meaning that a villain can only have one spot if they've made multiple appearances so Loki won't be counted twice because he was the main villain in both Thor and Avengers. Second, main villains only, the big bad, the mastermind the final fight of the movie only, so if a movie has multiple villains it only goes to the big boss.
Third I'm strictly looking at the movies only so no Kingpin (sadly), no Cottonmouth, no Kilgrave, no Hand (thankfully) and nobody from Agents of S.H.I.L.E.D, Inhumans, Agent Carter you get the drill. So enough stalling here's what I consider the biggest bad of the MCU starting off with what I consider the worst of the bunch.
Now who was surprised to see this pointy eared plank of wood on the list so early? Nobody that's who and speaking of surprises the lowest ranked villain on my list came from the lowest reviewed and received movie in the franchise, now who could have seen that coming? We've seen guys like Malekith 1000 times before, the ancient nihilistic monster who sees life as a blight on the universe and wishes to restore the universe to it's dull, empty lifeless splendor and oh my god I'm getting bored just remembering this crap. Now that's not to say this type of villain can't work, I mean it can with the right kind of menace and personality behind it, the Anti-Spiral from Gurren Lagann and the Black Lanterns immediately come to mind. They had the shear scope, drive and overwhelming odds to back up those claims, this dollar store Legolas has just a ship full of dudes, satanic Kool-Aid and a personality so bland and lifeless even Ben Stein is telling him to stop being so boring.
You'd think that an interdiminsional demon with powers beyond human comprehension would make for a compelling final fight. But Disney already has that with Bill Cypher so they had to make due with this thing. Throughout the movie we've heard from his worshipers how badass and powerful he is and how does Steve put this demon down? By coming back every time he crushes him like a grape until he gets so annoyed he agrees to leave. Admittingly it's a very clever way of dealing with a threat like this which is why he's still better then #19 up there but for all the build up to just be a wet fart, come on. Unless he comes back in a sequel or a future Avengers movie we have this big bad demon that was a whole lot of nothing, also looking like Paralax from that god awful Green Lantern movie isn't doing anyone any favors.
That however did us all a lot of favors, thanks Wade.
The first big bad in the MCU and it shows. While it is awesome to see the Dude running around in a giant mech fighting an actually realized live action Iron Man it was still kind of weak. We know that the Iron Monarch suit is just a reversed engineered MK 1 suit and it just reinforces the old adage of "bigger isn't always better" so how did you expect a upgraded hunk of junk would hold up against a suit made by Tony with his full resources at his disposal? I honestly feel kind of bad putting this so low on the list since it was the first big bad of these movies so they didn't even know if there was going to be anymore movies if this didn't do well. But I guess that just goes to show how much better these guys got after this so, yeah fair is fair and if you think I'm wrong then here's the Iron Monger himself to speak on my behalf.
Well it's a Hulk movie so they probably figured that if the hero was a big muscle monster then his perfect match would be another big muscle monster. I mean arguably I could have put General Ross in this spot then this thing but again, rule of the final encounter and all that. But aside from this guy being as developed as putting a block on top of another block we did at least get ourselves a climactic fight scene at the end. Considering the lack of one in the Ang Lee version (which was still fresh on everybody mind when this first came out mind you) we at least got a big lug that the Hulk can check into the smackdown hotel.
At least this ghost doesn't have to repeat her back story every time she shows up, unlike another Ghost themed character I could mention, right Takeru?! Though much like the Abomination I should probably also put Ghost and Bill Foster on this list together since they really were partners in all of this. But Bill tried to stop her when she went too far so no. As for Ghost herself she was another victim of Hank Pym being Hank, when he inadvertently turned her life upside down leading her to be made into a weapon for S.H.I.E.L.D and wanting revenge. Though she was cured of her condition and she and Bill will go and live happily ever after, or at least as close as they can get considering all the horrible stuff they did, also Thanos killing half the universe and all that.
Yes, Whiplash was the true villain in Iron Man 2. What did you want me to put the little tool in the suit on here instead of the cold badass Mickey Rourke with a genius intellect, an army of robot suits and electric whips, what are you stupid?! Though this does break away from the trend of all of Tony's villains in the movies mostly being just assholes in suits it's not going to get much higher on the list. Besides he was the bad guy in the movie where Tony wasn't exactly on his A game so yeah. But a genius intellect, a serious axe to grind with the Stark name for basicly leaving his father to die, this guy could have been a major threat to Tony, if only he wasn't taken down like a chump.
Oh goody another douchebag in a suit, he might be the best from the Iron Man movies but still just another douche in a $200 bag. Though don't get me wrong Killian did make for an interesting twist villain, though his motivation was weak getting snubbed by Tony for a pitch at a New Years party when he could have just scheduled an appointment. This dude was not only the mastermind behind the Mandarin (which I still think is a great way to solve the problem with adapting the Mandarin in the first place) but was also creating super solders to compete with the rising Superhero population, he even became a test subject himself. Which not only cured his paralysis but also gave him enhanced strength and heat powers. It would have been far cooler if the Mandarin really was the real deal MCU Osama Bin Ladin and not just this tool pulling his strings but for what we have it's not that bad.
Our second teasing of the scope of the threat that Thanos and the Infinity Gems represented and he made a fairly decent case. A religious fanatic of the Kree empire; Ronan joined forces with Thanos to destroy the planet of Xandar. But once he found what he was tasked to retrieve Ronan welched on the deal and decided to destroy Xandar himself. So we have a deranged religious fanatic with the power of a god ready to destroy a planet with holy hellfire, that would normally make anyone shit their pants, but if only the guy had an actual personality to go along with the threat he posed. He served his purpose well and we will be seeing him again in Captain Marvel but in his lead villain role he wasn't too bad.
From a guy with the powers of a god to a literal god with a love of blood and death. Hela was the first daughter of Odin and was his second in command in his conquest of the 9 realms. But once he decided that he wanted some image changing he figured his war crazed, conquerer daughter might be a bit of a PR no-no and had her sealed. Like I said in the review of the movie she was one of the prefect personifications of the evils of colonialism, the one who sees nothing more to a kingdom then the land itself, the people, it's culture, who gives a crap all she cared about was conquest and absolute power. More then scary enough on it's own but the fact that it literally took the end of the world to stop her makes her quite the threat to deal with and a worthy final villain for the solo Thor movies.
Yes this is the boarder of villains in the MCU, a literal Nazi is the half way point of compelling villainy on my list. Here we have Johann Schmidt a former high ranking Nazi who figured out that Hitler was chump change compared to his agenda and was basically relegated to a desk job due to being too smart and dangerous for the Nazis liking, so he created his own evil organization with blackjack and hookers. Let me reiterate; we have a guy that the Nazis thought was crazy! He managed to acquire one of the Infinity Gems in the form of the Tesseract and tried to start his own world conquest schemes with his new organization Hydra; but thanks to Captain America we all know how well that turned out, being stuck on a barren planet in the cosmos babysitting another magic rock he can't use until a giant purple man and his green foster daughter showed up to get it leaving him free to do whatever he wants now. Not sure if we'll be seeing more of the Red Skull in any future MCU projects but that remains to be seen.
So here we have the first 9 of the top 19 MCU movie villains, and let me tell you, this was the hardest part of the list to compile. As we go on we have far more interesting villains to talk about which are more compelling then these guys for various reasons. But for the stock, evil for evils sake guys like the first 5 it was a slog just trying to say anything other then falling asleep at the keyboard. But next time like I said we finally get villains that I can really sink my teeth into. So next time I'll have my personal top 9 villains of the MCU movies.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Thor The Dark World is owned by Marvel Studios, produced by Keven Feige based off the comic by Larry Leiber, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Doctor Strange (2016) is owned by Marvel Studios, The Walt Disney Corporation and Scott Derrickson Iron Man is owned by Paramount Studios, Marvel Studios and Fairview Entertainment Based off the original comic by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Don Heck and Jack "The King" Kirby. The Big Lebowski is owned by Joel and Ethan Cohen and Working title films. The Incredible Hulk is owned by Paramount Pictures, Marvel Studios based on The Hulk created by Stan Lee and Jack "The King" Kirby Ant-Man and the Wasp is owned by Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures. Based off the comic book characters created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby. Iron Man 2 is owned by Paramount Studios, Marvel Studios and Fairview Entertainment Based off the original comic by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Don Heck and Jack "The King" Kirby. Iron Man 3 is owned by Marvel Studios, Written by Shane Black and based off the characters created by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Leiber and Jack Kirby. Guardians of the Galaxy is owned by Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Motion picture studios based off "Guardians of the Galaxy" created by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Thor Ragnarök is owned by Marvel Studios, produced by Keven Feige based off the comic by Larry Leiber, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Captain America The First Avenger is owned by Marvel Studios, Paramount pictures and The Walt Disney Company. Based on the character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Deadpool 2 is owned by 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment and The Donners' Company Based on Characters created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Lefeld (Kinda sorta)
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