Ranking All The MCU Villains From Worst To Best

[metaphysician]

What in the World?

Zemo in Civil War has nothing to do with Hydra. He's a Sokovian special forces colonel. The only ''connection'' he has with Hydra is deciphering their leaked files.

"HYDRA deserves its place on the ash heap, so your death would not bother me...''

Nothing in the underlined text makes sense. His guilt over his own involvement?

Zemo was a special forces colonel. . .in a country that was functionally a wholly-owned subsidiary of HYDRA. And who had enough knowledge about HYDRA and its operations to ferret out its deepest secrets. How, exactly, did you think that happened?

The movie does not have to have a character come up on screen and say "Helmut Zemo at minimum existed on the knowing periphery of HYDRA" for it to be both true and obvious. It wrote "1 + 1" on the blackboard and expects the audience to be able to add it up.

 

[Kargo Warrior]

Zemo was a special forces colonel. . .in a country that was functionally a wholly-owned subsidiary of HYDRA. And who had enough knowledge about HYDRA and its operations to ferret out its deepest secrets. How, exactly, did you think that happened?

The movie does not have to have a character come up on screen and say "Helmut Zemo at minimum existed on the knowing periphery of HYDRA" for it to be both true and obvious. It wrote "1 + 1" on the blackboard and expects the audience to be able to add it up.

Hydra was in Sokovia under the guise of SHIELD. Zemo explicitly states his dislike of HYDRA in front of an actual HYDRA officer. Being a colonel means following orders, it doesn't mean you're into deep state secrets. Black Widow leaked the entire HYDRA database. That's how Zemo knew about their dirty secrets. He spent a year decrypting the files.

On top of that, how does Tony creating an evil AI robot hellbent on destroying humanity, that subsequently uses Sokovia as a potential meteor has anything to do with Hydra, or even less, Zemo?

If anything, Hydra inadvertently helped the Avengers by creating Wanda and Quicksilver who helped them defeat Ultron. Sokovia is Tony's fault and no one else's. Wanda brainwashes Tony into creating Vision, who erased Ultron from the virtual World, so again, Hydra inadvertently helped the Avengers.

 

[metaphysician]

One, Hydra was exposed well before the events of Age of Ultron. Whatever the beliefs of the individual Sokovian on the street at the time, it beggars belief that a *high ranking intelligence officer* would be unaware of who his country worked for, and why the Avengers were thus there.

Two, the culpability for Hydra, which Zemo shares, is in using Sokovia as a base in the first place. Baron Strucker placed the entire country in danger the moment he established his own operations in the country: from the direct repressive measures he undoubtedly used to maintain control over the country; from the hazards of his mad science experiments; and from the risks of collateral damage when some hostile force finally came to unseat him. This is the regime to which Helmut Zemo was complicity. I suppose he could argue, in his defense, that he had no power to change this, that the decisions to obey Strucker were made by people above him, that he was "just following orders". Clearly this is not an argument that Zemo himself finds especially compelling, seeing as his plan was to end his own life after achieving some measure of revenge.

 

[Slade W]

Thanos and Loki are the top two for me. I would have to re-watch Thor and TDW before I could put one above the other. It is hard for me to rank them, but I think Pierce, Zemo, Vulture, Hela, Ultron and The Grandfather are good villains to varying degrees and all deserve a nod.

I should add that I still have not seen GOTG 2, Ant-Man 2, Captain Marvel, Endgame and FFH. I know, I know, what type of nerd am I?

 

[DOBSON10]

1. Thanos (Objectively #1)
2. Winter Soldier (Very intimidating before the reveal, still great after)
3. Ronan (Just plain mean, evil SOB, threatening... very underrated)
4. Red Skull (Same as Ronan, but Ronan was more of a physical threat)
5. Loki (Very good, but corny at times)
6. Vulture
7. Nebula (The real fiercest woman in the Galaxy)
8. Hela (Only good thing about the movie)
9. Alexander Pierce
10. Zemo (Great plan, just not very charismatic)
11. Ultron (Not threatening enough, too many jokes)
12. Abomination
13. Obadiah Stane
14. Mysterio (Cool visuals, non-threatening)
15. Ulysses Claw
16. Yellowjacket
17. Kurse (This high simply because he looked badass and beat Thor down)
18. Aldrich Killian (The Mandarin twist ruins any good will)
19. Ghost
20. Killmonger (MBJ sucks, enough said)
21. Whiplash
22. Malekith (Incompetent)
23. Kaecilius (He ran alot)
24. Yon-Rogg (Forgetable)
25. Ego (Cheesy, over the top, hammy)
26. Ayesha
27. Justin Hammer (Corny)
28. Dormammu (Every bit as stupid as Paralax from Green Lantern, just better CGI)
29. Sonny Burch (Don't even remember him)

 

[Yowza]

Honestly, the Infinity War movies (yeah, I'll call them part 1 and 2 even though the Russo's kind of played otherwise) felt like they had a whole lot of story behind them yet to be seen.

If Phase 1-3 REALLY was the Infinity Saga (yeah that's kind of ridiculous they're calling it that in past tense to play up phase 4 as something different), then there certainly should've been plenty of backstory already. If anything, all these little tidbits that keep popping up on CBM about stuff deleted, different ideas thrown about before filming, or versions of the script containing tidbits like Thanos in a prison in younger years make it sound like the movies had so much unexplored foundational elements behind them yet they settled for something more typical (no Thanos as main character in Infinity War despite how they kind of played it up beforehand).

Thanos overall is just kind of meshed in enough but the films are so crammed and ridiculous to a degree that I find it unbelievable how he doesn't just kill Thor in the first movie (heck they could've done it and still had him come back via Time Travel; no shock all that much really). I'll say it, in the finished product he wasn't all that fleshed out even though they took a lot of time on his CGI and look to sort of forward off an idea of him for audiences to catch a vibe off of.

So yeah, Thanos isn't even top of the list in the "Infinity War Saga" and doesn't compare to Vader as his presence is not felt all that much in the majority of MCU films. He's invincible when he needs to be and doesn't kill different hero's when he gets the chance ever and is moreso a plot device it felt to me at least in the finished product.

If you read all these background details or concepts never utilized in the films (or deleted scenes filmed and never to see the light for some reason like Tony and adult Morgan Stark) then yeah there was a lot of work that went into him that was glossed into a final crammed product that took ages to edit through all raw and finished footage until able to make a streamlined product within a designated runtime before moving onto the next adventure still keeping all the hero's alive from the previous phases even though X-Men and FF have just been acquired.

Thanos is not number 1 nor is it the Infinity Saga the first 3 phases even if some of said adventures liked to feature a certain Infinity Stone as a plot element to drive along a separate story.

 

[Yowza]

As for Loki, he was brought down by future appearances. Most notably his deleted scene from Age of Ultron not even appearing viral online (like a lot of deleted scenes from each movie). Anyway, he felt like a good villain in the first movie but never made sense how he didn't look like a Frost Giant as explained in the movie anyway but I'll have to re-check I suppose as someone could correct me. The Avengers he was ok then kind of crammed into other movies becoming dare I say boring...

Perhaps the show will even things out and create a promotional narrative/past tense contextualizing his shaky portrayal post-Avengers and offer some backstory to make him an interesting character but may veer him away moreso from a villain.



Overall, MCU villains need to be more fleshed out but ones that had a decent hook to them included Obadiah (needed more time; too easily done away with when so much history...), Killmonger, Ulysses Klaw, not Zemo yet (yeah, his whining didn't sell him but schematics did so TV show may bring him up), or Mysterio are some that come to mind. Actually, now that I think of it, Mysterio may actually be number 1 so far.

I refuse to do linear ranking unless apples to apples entirely.

 

[DeadStroke]

Killmonger

Thanos had the MCU buildup. Killmonger was in the film before Infinity War (meaning he really couldn't win or change as much) and still was powerful.

Also Endgame kind of took away from Thanos for me a bit.