Does marvel really have a problem with making their villains cool?

[hafizbat]

I'm surprised to see he hasn't been mentioned yet, but one of the most well-done villains in the MCU was Arnim Zola. Absolutely loved his little "appearance" in The Winter Soldier.

 

[KDM1986]

I'm surprised to see he hasn't been mentioned yet, but one of the most well-done villains in the MCU was Arnim Zola. Absolutely loved his little "appearance" in The Winter Soldier.

Oh man I loved his scenes in winter soldier! I hope he pops back up again in a future cap movie. Maybe he can be a little more mobile. t:

 

[metaphysician]

Killian: (cartoonishly) I am The Mandarin!
*Proceeds to get his ass kicked by Pepper Potts*

This is being deceptive. He didn't "get his ass kicked by Pepper Potts." He got into an extended fight with Tony that ended with him being trapped inside a self-destructing armor. *Then* when he managed to still turn up not dead, he got finished off by Pepper juiced on Extremis.

Which is to say, could you at least pretend to not be offended by the villain getting beaten by a woman?

 

[Marvelocity]

This is being deceptive. He didn't "get his ass kicked by Pepper Potts." He got into an extended fight with Tony that ended with him being trapped inside a self-destructing armor. *Then* when he managed to still turn up not dead, he got finished off by Pepper juiced on Extremis.

Which is to say, could you at least pretend to not be offended by the villain getting beaten by a woman?

Was the movie called Super Pepper or Iron Man 3? I forget. I feel like Pepper has saved the day at least as much if not more than Tony in these movies.

There is nothing good to say about Iron Man 3 - a complete botch of an otherwise great trilogy.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I think the criticisms on Red Skull are VERY unfair. Captain America wasn't a Saving Private Ryan style WWII epic. It was a throwback to Indiana Jones and The Rocketeer, and for THAT Captain America film, Red Skull was perfect. I am sure if the Red Skull is used in Cap 3 or whatever, he will bear more resemblence to the more modern Red Skull, but that isn't the film they were making. If the Red Skull came off this way in a more serious Captain America WWII based film, I'd agree. But, with the film as constructed, I simply don't. He worked for the movie he was in. That being said, I don't want to see that Red Skull when he appears next. I'd like a scarier version. Once again, that comes back to the Cap franchise is different at this point in time, so Red Skull must change with it.

 

[Marvelocity]

I agree 100%. Red Skull is my favorite MCU villain thus far with Stane a close second.

 

[Boom]

This is being deceptive. He didn't "get his ass kicked by Pepper Potts." He got into an extended fight with Tony that ended with him being trapped inside a self-destructing armor. *Then* when he managed to still turn up not dead, he got finished off by Pepper juiced on Extremis.

Which is to say, could you at least pretend to not be offended by the villain getting beaten by a woman?

I'd prefer the main, titular character to take down the villain in earnest. Since the movie involves his arc and the villain ties very directly into that arc. Instead, he simply weakens him, allowing a secondary character to swoop in and take care of business while RDJ sits there queuing up for another one-liner.

Just a personal preference. Nice of you to jump straight to assumed misogyny, though .

 

[hafizbat]

I think the criticisms on Red Skull are VERY unfair. Captain America wasn't a Saving Private Ryan style WWII epic. It was a throwback to Indiana Jones and The Rocketeer, and for THAT Captain America film, Red Skull was perfect. I am sure if the Red Skull is used in Cap 3 or whatever, he will bear more resemblence to the more modern Red Skull, but that isn't the film they were making. If the Red Skull came off this way in a more serious Captain America WWII based film, I'd agree. But, with the film as constructed, I simply don't. He worked for the movie he was in. That being said, I don't want to see that Red Skull when he appears next. I'd like a scarier version. Once again, that comes back to the Cap franchise is different at this point in time, so Red Skull must change with it.

Well said. I really, really want to see what the Russo bros would do with Red Skull. Here's hoping he's in Cap 3!

 

[Silvermoth]

Add Enchantress to that list. And I think their villains could be really memorable and great if they gave them enough character development and maybe if they are appear in more films. I mean, Red Skull/Mandarin should have been great in the film since they are the most popular antagonist (in the comics) of Iron Man/Captain America respectively.

I think enchantress would suffer from the same problem to be honest. Weak motivations. She wants to sleep with Thor. So what, who cares?

A few writers have tried to boost her up a bit beyond that but that's pretty much all she is

 

[Majik1387]

I don't see how anyone can have such a negative opinion of the villains where the most they can say is they're not cool......

 

[The Endless]

Was the movie called Super Pepper or Iron Man 3? I forget. I feel like Pepper has saved the day at least as much if not more than Tony in these movies.

There is nothing good to say about Iron Man 3 - a complete botch of an otherwise great trilogy.

There is plenty of good things to say about Iron Man 3. I can't be bothered to go into again so i'll post this. It's an interesting read and FILM CRIT HULK is an awesome writer. Not trying to change anyones mind but this in an insightful piece about the film.

http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/tag/iron-man-3/

 

[Sexy Magician]

I think they have a problem with killing off villains with potential to be really cool, and thats Red Skull and Ronan.

 

[Dark Raven]

For some reason I've seen a lot of people critiquing marvel films by saying they're great but they don't have the most memorable villians (Loki and winter soldier being the exceptions).

I don't really agree even though ronan was a bit flat but I think a major problem with that is that a lot of their iconic villians are at other studios (magneto, galactus, doc doom, venom etc).

Are there any marvel villians you think could become super memorable on the screen? There's a couple I can think of

- Madame masque
- Moses magnum
- steel spider from iron fist
- kingpin in daredevil
- Ultron of course

Anyone else?

Dr Doom, Marvel's most iconic villain, might be at Fox, but he's hardly been memorable at all in the FF films so far. He's been very light weight and, had he been at Marvel but were just the same as portrayed by Julian McMahon, he too would've fallen into this criticism of being a weak villain.

A villain has to be well written and stronger than the hero for the hero to overcome him. The problem with some of the older CBMs, particularly the Batman films (and to some extent that is somewhat similar now with TDK series) is that the villains were always in danger of stealing the movie from under the hero. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it has produced more memorable movie villains (eg the Joker in both incarnations from 89 and 2008) but I think a balance could be maintained in a Marvel movie where there is that potential for scene stealing while the hero is still a strong character of their own as well.

In most of the Marvel movies, the villains haven't almost stolen the movie. Certainly not in Guardians or in T:TDW or IM2 or IM3. Does anyone even remember Malekith other than the fact that Thor fought him at the end? Loki was more memorable than him.

 

[DA_Champion]

If Marvel has no interesting villains in their comic books (I doubt that's true) then they should make one up. Studios were making up villains in action movies for decades prior to CBMs being a thing, it's not a big deal.

 

[Victarion]

You keep the villain from stealing the show by making the hero more interesting than the villain. Whatever changes that may entail. I thought Blonsky/Abomination was a cool Marvel villain. Vanko had the makings of a cool villain before his best parts got left on the cutting room floor. The Mandarin was pretty cool, too. Both of them, heh. I think Stane is the only Marvel villain I was pretty meh about. I mean, here's...an angry businessman in an Iron Man suit. It was bland.

 

[Dark Raven]

You keep the villain from stealing the show by making the hero more interesting than the villain. Whatever changes that may entail. I thought Blonsky/Abomination was a cool Marvel villain. Vanko had the makings of a cool villain before his best parts got left on the cutting room floor. The Mandarin was pretty cool, too. Both of them, heh. I think Stane is the only Marvel villain I was pretty meh about. I mean, here's...an angry businessman in an Iron Man suit. It was bland.

That's the point I was making. In Marvel movies, there never seems to be a danger of that. They almost need to find that right balance where the villain is able to almost steal the show, but their heroes are still interesting. Marvel's never had the problem of making their heroes watchable and the most fascinating part of the movie. They almost seem sometimes like they could operate even without a villain.

In other movies, the villain has stolen the show, and of course you don't want that, but almost doing it is not a bad thing, because in these movies the villain has been far more memorable. Balance is the key.

 

[Victarion]

It is a balancing act, as you say. Marvel simply needs to work on the villain angle, for the most part.

 

[DA_Champion]

It is a balancing act, as you say. Marvel simply needs to work on the villain angle, for the most part.

Some of us would enjoy that, I would, but I don't think they need to. Their style is to emphasize the heroes over the villains and comedy over tension, I'm not the biggest fan but that's working out extremely well for them.

 

[Marvelocity]

If Marvel has no interesting villains in their comic books (I doubt that's true) then they should make one up. Studios were making up villains in action movies for decades prior to CBMs being a thing, it's not a big deal.

As many have alluded to in this thread, their comic versions are always better than the movie versions.

Loki in the comics is about as bad as bad guys get. He's scum and the most deceitful person in the Marvel Universe, but the last Thor movie tried to turn him good for a brief while, which was just a horrible decision. Thankfully they amended that at the end of the film by showing his true intentions.

Red Skull is better in the comics, but I liked what they did with him in the movie.

Crimson Dynamo is obviously better in the comics. I don't know why they tried to combine a character nobody ever cared about (Blacklash) with him to make this Mickey Rourke nonsense, but it ruined the character. There's your example of a made-up villain not working out at all. Same with Killian/Mandarin. He's Iron Man's arch nemesis, but they made him a joke in the movie. Malekith, from what I remember, shows up even less than Kurse in the comics. He's a decent villain but wouldn't make the cut of Thor's top 10 enemies. I feel like they just put him in the movie so they could have free reign to alter him any way they wanted. Even though he's not a standout in the comics, he sucked in the movie.

I'm starting to see everyone's point. Marvel really, really sucks at handling villains. I would say the only one that exceeded his comic version was Obadiah Stane.

 

[BoredGuy]

I'm starting to see everyone's point. Marvel really, really sucks at handling villains. I would say the only one that exceeded his comic version was Obadiah Stane.

I don't think you really are, considering most people in this thread are basically saying "they could maybe use more backstory, but no, there's not a 'problem'"

I think enchantress would suffer from the same problem to be honest. Weak motivations. She wants to sleep with Thor. So what, who cares?

A few writers have tried to boost her up a bit beyond that but that's pretty much all she is

Well I guess they could go with a creepy Single-White-Female stalker-horror film angle for her
But yeah, I don't see Marvel taking the Thor films in that kind of direction

I was thinking the other day about a story with her coming to earth to get Thor back, and powering up the wrecking crew, and stuff like that
didn't really think it all the way through tho, pining for Thor really is the main motivation she's been shown to have

 

[DrCosmic]

I think it's interesting that Marvel's villains are rarely attached to their heroes on a personal level. The exceptions being the great ones like Loki and presumably Ultron. The result is that the villain conflict is unimportant, so much so that the villains are rarely actually defeated by the heroes.

Was the movie called Super Pepper or Iron Man 3? I forget. I feel like Pepper has saved the day at least as much if not more than Tony in these movies.

There is nothing good to say about Iron Man 3 - a complete botch of an otherwise great trilogy.

I'd prefer the main, titular character to take down the villain in earnest. Since the movie involves his arc and the villain ties very directly into that arc. Instead, he simply weakens him, allowing a secondary character to swoop in and take care of business while RDJ sits there queuing up for another one-liner.

Just a personal preference. Nice of you to jump straight to assumed misogyny, though .

Pepper is Tony's everything, and his overall arc is very much about his relationship with Pepper and his inability to tinker with that. That is the first problem we're introduced to in IM3, his relationship with Pepper. In order for that arc, the arc of IM3, to be resolved, there had to be a deeper connection than before, one where Pepper could identify with Tony's world, she had to step into that.

It gets better. The thing that made Tony "better" than Killian was basically he had grown beyond selling weapons and had Pepper. The most visceral way to illustrate that is if Pepper, the thing Killian doesn't have, is what beats him. Tony's last words to Killian "She was already perfect." are thematically a summon in this case. Pepper is his victory, not out weaponing another weapon guy.

It gets even better. Tony's main storyline is about his tinkering, and how he needs to stop using that to solve emotional problems and embrace that as his superpower instead of the results per se. This is why he needs to blow up the armors at the end, because they are not his superpower, him being The Mechanic is his super power. Pepper, ready for adventure, ready to take charge and armed with an Iron Man repulsor and random Stark missiles laying on the ground is absolutely a result of Tony's tinkering, mostly on an emotional level. Plus it's a callback to IM1 when Pepper defeated Stane for Tony, and everyone loved that.

They made the right call based on the story. Now I do agree the movie could have been called "Tony Stark's Life" in order to more accurately describe what was the central focus. So those saying "Iron Man" didn't get enough focus in Iron Man 3, I feel you to a point. That said, Captain America and Thor's first villains defeated themselves, the heroes just stopped their plans. Captain America didn't defeat Pierce, or Bucky actually. Thor beat Malekith, I think, without Jane actually helping with the punching, she just hit the buttons, so that's something I think, and of course Iron Man and Rhodey actually did defeat Whiplash and Hulk definitely soloed Abomination. It seems the only time the heroes actually beat the villains themselves was in the least liked MCU films. Crazy. GotG may be an exception, because Quill was directly involved but the film is getting great marks. Perception is a funny thing. It feels like this was the first time a supporting characters took out the villain, but it's far from it.

 

[Loki882]

I don't think that it's a problem with not making their villains "cool" so much as not making them particularly interesting. They're usually just "generic bad guys who the hero has to fight." And don't get me wrong, I'm fine with that in some cases. I don't need Red Skull or Abomination, or Obadiah Stane to be deep or complex characters for example. But when it keeps happening, and characters that SHOULD be interesting aren't (except for Loki and evil Robert Redford), that's when it gets disappointing. For example:

-Ronan is "cool" in many respects. He looks cool, sounds cool, is menacing, and a complete badass. But comic book Ronan is a really interesting and multi-dimensional character, so to see him so oversimplified in the movie (which I loved btw) was really underwhelming.

-Whiplash had an interesting backstory, and understandable reason for hating the Stark family, he was really intimidating, and he had a fairly unique plan. He was built up so well in the first half of IM 2, only to then barely appear in the second half (and when he did they stuck him in a lab most of the time), and then he turns into another generic bad guy that gets taken out in a really underwhelming final fight.

-Mandarin was really intimidating and he was mysterious enough that you're wondering "who is this guy? Where did he come from? Why is he doing all of this?" And he seemed like a very different kind of villain from the previous IM films (which is what Marvel promised us). And then they pull the rug out and the actual villain is another rival businessman/scientist with a grudge and weak motivations, just like in the OTHER TWO IM films.

It seems like, unless your name is Loki, Marvel simply doesn't care about you. You're a plot device, nothing more. And that's fine in some cases, but they've overdone it. Hopefully Ultron and Thanos will at least turn out to be interesting.

 

[DrCosmic]

Ultron will be, but Thanos is absolutely a glorified plot device. Highly glorified, but still. Don't expect anything deeply emotional or philosophical about Death.

 

[Sexy Magician]

I'm surprised to see he hasn't been mentioned yet, but one of the most well-done villains in the MCU was Arnim Zola. Absolutely loved his little "appearance" in The Winter Soldier.

He was great in TWS, I found it a bit creepy, but in a good way, would love to see him again!

 

[Loki882]

Well said. I really, really want to see what the Russo bros would do with Red Skull. Here's hoping he's in Cap 3!

My only real complaints about Red Skull were that:

1. He wasn't in the movie enough.

2. He didn't really do much when he did show up most of the time.

3. They didn't really let him be evil ENOUGH. He should have been REALLY scary, but they didn't let him really cut loose enough.