Let me start by saying that I love villains. Whether they are live action or animated, they are always a delight. And MCU villains, by the nature of being based on the comics, bring certain expectations to the audience that other genres may not necessarily have. But I want to talk about how Marvel Studios chooses their villains, because I’m strangely fascinated by it.
Some villains, such as Red Skull, Loki, Mandarin and other archenemies of the Avengers side of the universe, you would've expected to appear sometime in the MCU. And yet, they were mostly dispersed between phases. Loki and Red Skull appeared in Phase One along with the Abomination and Ross, and Phase Two had a version of the Mandarin and Ultron, and Phase Three gave us Zemo, but Phase Four got characters like Taskmaster and Green Goblin, with Phase Five having MODOK, the Hood, Kingpin and several others. So the recognizable villains have either been sparse or have been pushed to the Multiverse Saga.
What makes it more interesting is the kinds of characters they choose instead of having the iconic villains. Take for example, the Iron Man Trilogy, where 1 has Iron Monger (a good starter villain), 2 has Whiplash (a minor antagonist in the comics, but with sprinkles of Crimson Dynamo to add more abilities and story) and 3 got Aldrich Killian (a character who had the shortest lifespan of the three in the comics, but here gets superpowers and leadership of AIM no less). Glad Ant-Man didn’t repeat the formula, since they already had the bald start villain and the henchman in the comics main bad guy.
There’s also the minor villain in the comics turned big bad of a movie or show. Guys like Arthur Harrow, Kaecilius, the aforementioned Aldrich Killian, or even minor antagonists like Sonny Burch. But hey, it could’ve been worse, like Dreykov, an original character that was just a mention in The Avengers, that turned into the big bad of Black Widow.
Sure, some of these end up being composites of other villains, but it doesn’t help when James Gunn makes a character that is indeed recognizable as a silly villain, and turns him into a threatening planet sized enemy and into an interesting father for Peter, or Markus and McFeely turn Zemo from dad’s little cosplayer into the grief stricken destroyer of the Avengers.
What’s funnier to me is Good turned bad characters and vice versa. Here we have Nebula, Alexander Pierce, Talos, Agatha Harkness,Bill Foster, or the entire Black Widow family. I'm not considering Scarlet Witch, because she flip flops a lot in publishing. What makes this such an enigma is that there are several villains in Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and others’ Rogues’ Galleries or Friend Groups to have to change them.
One thing I do respect though is the distillation of the villains. Both Black Panther and Spider-Man’s movie villains have this approach. Namor, Killmonger, Vulture and Mysterio’s backstories and looks are changed, but at their core are the same. Namor hates the surface world, Killmonger has vendetta towards the crown for what they did to his family, Vulture is resentful for his business venture failing, and Mysterio is an attention seeking diva.
And despite all of that, I do want to commend the artist and costume designers who created these villains. I love most of them, even if the characters are one note, especially since they bring the imaginative spirit from the comics, such as Kaecilius’ eye shadow or Killmonger’s Vegetta outfit. And some of these characters have been given more time to shine in the comics thanks to the limelight. Malekith and Killmonger being prime examples of this, and of course Loki’s redesign and attitude change can be blamed on his MCU popularity.
Suffice to say, I have a love-hate relationship with these characters. I can only hope Kang and his gang of Multiverse Saga misfits can continue improving the formula, and that we get more people interested in the characters.
I'd love to know what you think about these villains, if you have any thoughts!
