Does Marvel have a problem with their villains?

[Mad Ones]

It's a bit easy to say Marvel has a problem with villains when DC has Batman's rogues gallery and Magneto is a major pillar of the X-men movies. But Marvel has a combination of great, mediocre, and terrible villains. Probably because they've made so many movies already.

Loki is the best villain from a Marvel movie. He has a very personal connection with the protagonist, character focus and development, and just enough sympathy to make him complicated.

If we can call the Winter Soldier a villain than he was also excellently done, for the same reasons as Loki. However, Bucky is such a victim that he isn't exactly a villain. But maybe that's what works so well.

I don't even remember the names of the other villains in the Winter Soldier (like Robert Redford's character). All I know is that they worked for Hydra. I don't know why they work for Hydra, but they do. That's probably the weakest part of an otherwise fantastic movie.

I think I'm in the minority here, but the Mandarin is one of my favourite things that Marvel has done. I look back at the trailers and marketing for that movie and smirk, unlike boil in rage like I know some on here do. I thought from the first time we saw "the Mandarin" in the marketing for the movie that he was a joke that I couldn't take seriously. And the movie did exactly that. The enemy became the military industrial complex (true to Iron Man's form), and not a simple 2-dimensional pseudo-racist "terrorist." The fandom prides itself on knowing EVERYTHING about a comic book property and strives to know every plot twist and turn, and loves to connect the dots to the comics. But Iron Man 3 was bold enough to actual surprise the base. Unheard of and controversial.

Stane, Whiplash, and Hammer were consistent villains for Iron Man's development. Too bad Iron Man 2 was sloppy in its storytelling because almost everyone suffered for it. But the villains were "good enough." Personally, I found Hammer extremely annoying and Rourke's acting took me out of the movie.

The abomination was horrible as the Incredible Hulk devolved into a brainless wrestling match. The movie was good until the third act.

The Red Skull was evil for the sake of being evil. He didn't need development because "Nazi." He foiled Captain America in a cartoonish "one is good because he's an American and the other is bad because he's a Nazi" kind of way.

Thor: The Dark World will probably forever stand out as Marvel's biggest waste of potential. The source material has some pretty incredible ideas and villains. Thor's villains help in world building and mythology creation. Malekith didn't do that. He was 2-demensional. The "world building" came from lazy narration and boring explanation.

Ronan worked on some level because of his connection to Thanos. His racism against Xandar and his radicalization should have been developed more, though. He was underwhelming as a cosmic level threat, but I liked his character design.

Ultron was great during his creation scene, his conversation with the Vision, and the one time he showed resentment toward Iron Man. Ultron was more wasted potential, though. Why not play up his relationship with Iron Man with some Oedipus Rex themes like he has with Ant-Man in the comics? Ultron was created BY THE AVENGERS, so why did he feel so disconnected from them? What theme did Ultron contribute to? Was Iron Man vindicated or condemned by the end of the movie? Do the characters even care?

I'm maybe a little worried about Thanos. Great villains connect with the audience and actually make them feel something. If the mo-cap is as good as Caesar in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes then it won't feel like there's another barrier between the character and the audience. But I worry that Thanos won't look any better than he did in Guardians. His relationship with Death makes him interesting, but Marvel has shown us with Ultron that they don't mind downplaying what makes the villain interesting.

Sorry for the long post. I just felt like writing my thoughts.

 

[Spiderdevil]

Ant-Man's problem was Marvel's marketing more than anything else. For starters, they primarily marked the whole project on Wright, even claiming the only reason it was happening was due to Wright. Then when he left, Marvel continued on with it as if nothing happened. It reeked of it primarily existing for damage control reasons, and the subpar trailers only reinforced that thought for a lot of people.

99% of the audience don't even the behind the scenes tussle, a lot don't even know who Wright is, so there is no question of them getting turned off due to Wrights departure

And you can't expect a studio to drop a project on which they spend 8 years and a lot of money just because the director left, not making a big deal out of it and moving forward without a fuss was the most practical decision

 

[Spiderdevil]

Not really. It's mostly a meme at this point that allows haters and critics to do their thing. The last 5 DC films had 2 good villains, Ras al ghul and Joker and 5 weak ones talia, bane, scarecrow, zod and paralax. yet they don't get 5% of the criticism for it.

Personally I would put Winter Soldier/Pierce and Stane ahead of Ra's al Ghul

So Marvel has had basically the same or more number of good villains than DC, DC/WB probably get a pass because Ledger's Joker overshadows everything

 

[Bayne]

What happens when RDJ retires from the role? That's my point. Marvel wants to "Bond" him, but even Bond's had a few memorable villains in the 50+ years his films existed.

I'm not the biggest Bond fan in the world, so I may have missed a gem or two, but from where I'm sitting, percentage wise, the Bond franchise has fewer great villains than the MCU. I can barely even remember their names most of the times, and they usually fall into heavily predictable, generic categories with relatively little in the way of interesting characterization. Yet, Bond is still a cultural icon 50 years (and multiple actors) later. Because Bond movies are almost always about Bond being cool, not about how great the villains were.

 

[Batsfan1]

I think I'm in the minority here, but the Mandarin is one of my favourite things that Marvel has done. I look back at the trailers and marketing for that movie and smirk, unlike boil in rage like I know some on here do. I thought from the first time we saw "the Mandarin" in the marketing for the movie that he was a joke that I couldn't take seriously. And the movie did exactly that. The enemy became the military industrial complex (true to Iron Man's form), and not a simple 2-dimensional pseudo-racist "terrorist." The fandom prides itself on knowing EVERYTHING about a comic book property and strives to know every plot twist and turn, and loves to connect the dots to the comics. But Iron Man 3 was bold enough to actual surprise the base. Unheard of and controversial.

Hardly bold. They just replaced one stereotype with another. Instead we got what every IM movie had: An evil businessman. They just bait and switched.

 

[Batsfan1]

Not really. It's mostly a meme at this point that allows haters and critics to do their thing. The last 5 DC films had 2 good villains, Ras al ghul and Joker and 5 weak ones talia, bane, scarecrow, zod and paralax. yet they don't get 5% of the criticism for it.

Ra's, Bane, Joker are all great. Talia's okay/acceptable/meh. Zod was meh/acceptable. Paralax was meh.

 

[Shikamaru]

I frankly don't understand how your post relates to mine. I will reiterate for the third time; the sentence I disagreed with was "a hero is only as good as the person opposing him". That's a statement that is clearly revolving a single story since no hero has the same villain in every one of his stories (quite the contrary in fact). It means that an analogy for the statement is that a hero in a movie can't be better than the villain.

Not necessarily. The idea is that you can't really have a great hero without a great villain. The reason it's worded like that is to emphasize why the quality of a villain always helps improve the quality of a hero character.

Therefor it's completely irrelevant whether Iron Man will enjoy popularity for many decades. RDJ has given performances that people thought was great, while his villains have pretty much never been talked about in that way. Ergo he proved that the hero was greater than the person opposing him, and that remains what my point was.

How is it irrelevant when that's exactly what Marvel intends to do?

99% of the audience don't even the behind the scenes tussle, a lot don't even know who Wright is, so there is no question of them getting turned off due to Wrights departure

Those people just watched the subpar trailers and based their decision on those.

And you can't expect a studio to drop a project on which they spend 8 years and a lot of money just because the director left, not making a big deal out of it and moving forward without a fuss was the most practical decision.

Dude, that's my whole point . It was a monetarily damage control decision first and foremost, and a creative decision second.

I'm not the biggest Bond fan in the world, so I may have missed a gem or two, but from where I'm sitting, percentage wise, the Bond franchise has fewer great villains than the MCU. I can barely even remember their names most of the times, and they usually fall into heavily predictable, generic categories with relatively little in the way of interesting characterization. Yet, Bond is still a cultural icon 50 years (and multiple actors) later. Because Bond movies are almost always about Bond being cool, not about how great the villains were.

Eh, not too sure about that. I'm not the biggest Bond fan but I could think of about a handful of iconic Bond villains off the top of my head. That's already more than the iconic MCU villains, and Bond films don't even come out that often (the MCU is already halfway there in terms of numbers).

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Eh, not too sure about that. I'm not the biggest Bond fan but I could think of about a handful of iconic Bond villains off the top of my head. That's already more than the iconic MCU villains, and Bond films don't even come out that often (the MCU is already halfway there in terms of numbers).

Bond has lots:

Dr. Julius No
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Rosa Klebb
Emilio Largo
Auric Goldfinger
Francisco Scaramanga
Max Zorin
Jaws
Odd Job
Red Grant

Even some of those that aren't nearly as iconic are great, such as Franz Sanchez and Alec Trevelyan.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Lolwhat? Bane by himself was a far more memorable villain than anything the MCU has served up.

I beg to differ. Bane could've been great but he was too much of a disappointment. I found the winter soldier to be more menacing than him.

 

[Mjölnir]

Not necessarily. The idea is that you can't really have a great hero without a great villain. The reason it's worded like that is to emphasize why the quality of a villain always helps improve the quality of a hero character.

How is it irrelevant when that's exactly what Marvel intends to do?

Obviously you can. RDJ's Iron Man has been seen as great, his villains generally have not. And the way it's worded does not say that a good villain helps to improve the hero (something I've already stated myself), it says that the quality of the villain is the limit of the quality of the hero. It's just like the term "a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link" and that definitely does not mean that the chain can be a bit stronger than the weak link. It means exactly what it says, just as it should if it's a saying.

And it's irrelevant because that was not what I and the other poster were discussing. The discussion was whether a hero can be greater than his villains, or great despite having lesser villains.

 

[Grievous]

Maybe I'm biased since Scarecrow is my favorite DC villain but I enjoyed him in Batman Begins. The only problem was not enough screen time and I would preferred he of been the only villain in the movie.

 

[Flint Marko]

Not really. It's mostly a meme at this point that allows haters and critics to do their thing. The last 5 DC films had 2 good villains, Ras al ghul and Joker and 5 weak ones talia, bane, scarecrow, zod and paralax. yet they don't get 5% of the criticism for it.

Every time someone has brought this up they get chastised for it, but it's an interesting point.
The easiest way to be dismissive of Marvel's success is to criticize their rogues gallery. People who dislike the MCU are the loudest to complain about this, while undermining everything about the movies that work well enough to warrant consistent critical and audience approval. It definitely has become a "meme", as you put it. While there is truth to it, it's an easy, quick criticism that gets overblown.
So if we are going to put Marvel under the microscope and harshly judge their rogues gallery, it makes sense to look at the other studios and see how they are handling their villains. It also makes sense to point out that they, too, have numerous instances of dropping the ball that don't ever get as much attention because they aren't the most successful superhero franchise of all time.
Now, do I think that Marvel is doing a great job with their villains overall? No, I've said as much before. But I certainly don't think the situation is as dire as it's made out to be. I truly think they have several good villains that get swept under the rug to keep in line with this idea that every MCU antagonist is on par with Malekith. And, again, if other studios were offering up consistently better villains then maybe this argument would carry more weight. As it stands, the only villains who easily surpass everything in the MCU are the Joker and Magneto. The rest are all debatable, with varying degrees of success.
But, again, people don't like talking about this because they think it's changing the subject so to speak, but I think to properly discuss their villains in context you must look at what other studios are doing as well.

 

[BH/HHH]

Or people are actually just validly critiscing their rogues gallery cause Marvel seem to fail to deliver in that department quite a lot. Not everything's about DC vs Marvel for god sakes.

 

[Flint Marko]

Or people are actually just validly critiscing their rogues gallery cause Marvel seem to fail to deliver in that department quite a lot. Not everything's about DC vs Marvel for god sakes.

Who said anything about DC vs Marvel? I truly feel that my post was not the least bit petty or inflammatory.
I'm pointing out that the dialogue is consistently focused on Marvel's supposed shortcomings with their villains, which seems misplaced since I don't think they are all that far behind their competitors, if at all. That's something worth bringing up in a thread titled "Does Marvel have a problem with their villains?"

 

[Black Narcissus]

The problem is that Marvel is so deep into their cinematic universe that they are going to miss a lot more than the rest, but it is still valid criticism. I'm left with a huge smile on my face, but often can't for the life of me remember the villains name without looking them up. LAwd.

All good tho.

I'm going to take my nephew to see Antman tomorrow.

 

[Shikamaru]

Not really. It's mostly a meme at this point that allows haters and critics to do their thing. The last 5 DC films had 2 good villains, Ras al ghul and Joker and 5 weak ones talia, bane, scarecrow, zod and paralax. yet they don't get 5% of the criticism for it.

First, where are you getting this impression that they don't get "5% of the criticism for it"? Green Lantern, Rises and MoS are some of the most controversial CBM's in the past few years. The last two sparked more debates on here than any other film save Iron Man 3.

Second, I'll still take Scarecrow/Bane/Talia/Zod over half of the MCU villains.

 

[writer0327]

Personally I think DC has slightly more interesting villains than Marvel, but Marvel's heroes are vastly superior to DC's, thus the reason why the villains in Marvel have always taken a huge backseat by comparison to their DC counterparts.

The Joker stands as the best comic villain of all time and it's truly hard to screw that character up. But Bane and Scarecrow were reduced to puppets in the two Al Ghul's schemes... right-hand men. Zod should have/could have been much more than what he was.

 

[Loki882]

Also, just because other studios may be substandard at something (which I personally disagree with honestly, but lets roll with it for the sake of argument) doesn't mean that Marvel automatically gets a pass for doing the same thing. If anything, they get criticized MORE because of their track record. They do so many other things really well that, when they don't do so well, it sticks out even more.

 

[roach]

There are few MCU villains that I like: Loki and Robert Redfords character in Winter Soldier. I like villains to be menacing and scary. That's the point of being a villain.
Marvel should look at Darth Vader as the perfect example of how to do a villain in a light movie. in A New Hope...there are light jokey moments...but the villain is all about business. Vader is all about business. He's menacing. He's terrifying. He's badass. When the heroes face him...on Cloud City in ESB and on Endor...you fear for the hero.
I was hoping they'd do that for Ultron. Hopefully we see that with Thanos.

And this is not to say villains can't be jokey....Loki and Joker should be jokey and menacing....just not all of them should be like that.

 

[Spiderdevil]

Ra's, Bane, Joker are all great. Talia's okay/acceptable/meh. Zod was meh/acceptable. Paralax was meh.

Bane and TDKR as a whole is extremely overrated, he was reduced to being a love struck bodyguard/puppet

Alexander Pierce/Winter Soldier were better Villains

 

[Spiderdevil]

Those people just watched the subpar trailers and based their decision on those.

This I agree, I had 3-4 friends who were reluctant to go because of subpar trailers but they thoroughly enjoyed the movie
The Subpar trailers may have turned them off but hardly anyone knew about Wright's firing etc

Dude, that's my whole point . It was a monetarily damage control decision first and foremost, and a creative decision second.

Regardless of what it was, it was the only thing Marvel could have done, hire a new director/writer, tweak the script and carry on without making a fuss

They had no other option

 

[Spiderdevil]

I don't think you can blame Marvel completely for their subpar villains, Marvel's greatest villains are Magento, Doctor Doom, Galactus, Thanos, Green Goblin and Spidey's Rouges gallery. They only have rights to Thanos and they haven't used him yet

 

[GENERAL RAAM582]

Then Marvel has the ability to turn a subpar B-list/C-list villain into something really special and they have failed to do this. The Mandarin would have been amazing. His presence in those tapes and Kingsley's performance was terrifyingly terrific and they used it as some comedic plot twist. Way to go. All of that wasted potential.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

now ign is talking about it

 

[Whiskey Tango]

I was hoping they'd do that for Ultron.

If only.