The Villains Problem

[Patchwork Man]

No, because he was a [BLACKOUT]dick.[/BLACKOUT]. Ego was a cool character concept, but his existence was the most interesting thing about in him in the comics. His character in GOTGv2 was worth hearing what he had to say, which was pretty cool. I think all the great villains in the MCU are so because they are improvements on the originals, they take what works, and make them work for the medium. Loki goes from jealous brother generic trickster to a guy with legitimate issue with Thor's rule. Pierce goes from nobody to Robert Redford desk mastermind, Bucky from silver age turned gritty and badass to a conflicted automaton, Zemo from a purple clad fencer to the most subtle and subversive villain I may have ever seen, and [blackout]Ego? Don't even get me started on the improvements."[/blackout] The MCU does best with villains that are underdeveloped or weak in comics. If I'm right, Hela will be awesome, Ayesha will be awesome, and we'll be reading articles about great female villains in a few years, while Thanos will be another disappointment when compared with his awesomeness in comics. Though there's always a chance they could pull a Zemo and make a really interesting original character and name him a classic comics character.

It's no stretch to write a part for a character and make 'em an [BLACKOUT]arrogant prick[/BLACKOUT]. (They do it for Tony Stark all the time.) Gunn should have renamed him. I saw very little of the character's power set that I hoped to see. [BLACKOUT]No psionics, no antibodies, and too much time and energy devoted to restoring his humanoid presence for the benefit of the Guardians and the audience. But wow, we saw him battle a Quill-generated Pac-Man, complete with sound effect.[/BLACKOUT]

Hela is no Beta Ray Bill, but I don't think of her as a "weak or underdeveloped" character. right now, she's the only thing about that Ragnarok trailer that interests me.

Every time a new MCU film comes up, I convince myself, "Surely THIS villain will deliver." And shockingly, they don't.

I've honestly given up on the MCU villains, until one comes along and surprises me.

Same here. I've set my expectations to zero. I'll just grab a Twizzler and "conduct" the overly choreographed battles from my theater seat.

 

[Boom]

You didn't like Ego? I thought he was a really interesting villain and Kurt Russell is charismatic as hell in the role.

He was fine. Didn't light my world on fire though.

We still have Vulture and Hela coming up. We'll see.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I quite liked Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw, too.

I did too. Unfortunately they have been on a bit of run of terrible to mediocre villains with Dr. Doom, Francis, Apocalypse, and the forgettable trio (Evil Wolverine, Generic Doctor Guy, and Generic Mercenary Guy) from Logan.

 

[Ivan Drago]

Kevin Bacon was fun, but kind of forgettable. I always viewed his motivation as Magneto lite.

First Class also has January Jones as one of the villains, who gives one of the most bland performances I've ever seen in a comicbook movie.

 

[DrCosmic]

That would explain you lumping comics Hela in as a 'weak and underdeveloped' villain. Dude no, Hela is awesome. She's long been one of my favourite underrated Marvel villains, and then bizarrely my favourite actress got cast as her in the MCU. Sometimes things work out exactly as you wanted.

Hmmmm... if Hela is awesome in comics, then I actually fear for her fans. I'm a relatively new Marvel fan, only really got much from the 90s onwards, so some of these characters who have really classic stories I see as bit players, because that's how they've been used over the past 30 years. But just going learning from the trend of this thread, the movies who change them as though they were bit players seem to be appealing to neophytes and semi-true believers, but while Ego was super-refreshing for me, especially in the context of the MCU, he was disappointing for Ego fans, who know the real deal, his real powerset and never saw him as a bit player.

It's no stretch to write a part for a character and make 'em an [BLACKOUT]arrogant prick[/BLACKOUT]. (They do it for Tony Stark all the time.) Gunn should have renamed him. I saw very little of the character's power set that I hoped to see. [BLACKOUT]No psionics, no antibodies, and too much time and energy devoted to restoring his humanoid presence for the benefit of the Guardians and the audience. But wow, we saw him battle a Quill-generated Pac-Man, complete with sound effect.[/BLACKOUT]

Hela is no Beta Ray Bill, but I don't think of her as a "weak or underdeveloped" character. right now, she's the only thing about that Ragnarok trailer that interests me.

So, I stand corrected, it's possible that every single one of these villains were given incredible stories and characterizations before I really got into Marvel comics. I still think though, that Marvel's best villains are ones which deviate widely from the source material, that they can 'get away with' making In-name-only (or in Hel's case, not even that, eh?). Zemo and Pierce and Ego are, essentially, original characters, and if we take their names off of them, you would not recognize them as their comics counterparts ([blackout]except for that great shot of the planet's face in GOTG[/blackout]). I'm thinking that's where the MCU villain problem is solved. Whenever they try to stick to comics, for those big name villains, they come off... weak. Loki being the exception that proves the rule. And maybe Bucky, if you want to count him as a villain. Based on what I'm seeing, Hela will either be unrecognizable from her comics counterpart, or weak and underdeveloped in the film (my money's on the former, looking at the rest of the film's departures).

 

[Grommers]

I think my issue with all the villains in the MCU are that when I watched A:EMH, they were able to bring more weight to the villains in the 1-2 episodes for that then these feature length movies.

As for DC, obviously BB/TDK/TDKR the villains are memorable (for better or for worse.), and Lex still needs another movie, just like Jared's joker, to really start fleshing out.

Zod was great in MoS.

I liked Kevin Bacon, but everyone else has been dry from the x-men movies.

Suicide Squad's villains..were terrible, however Captain Boomerang / Harley Quinn seemed like they could be really cool in a universe, and I'm not sold on will smith's deadshot.

The netflix series have had some pretty cool villains except for the Hand, which ironically is what the defenders will be up against.

 

[CaptainWagner]

Hmmmm... if Hela is awesome in comics, then I actually fear for her fans. I'm a relatively new Marvel fan, only really got much from the 90s onwards, so some of these characters who have really classic stories I see as bit players, because that's how they've been used over the past 30 years. But just going learning from the trend of this thread, the movies who change them as though they were bit players seem to be appealing to neophytes and semi-true believers, but while Ego was super-refreshing for me, especially in the context of the MCU, he was disappointing for Ego fans, who know the real deal, his real powerset and never saw him as a bit player.




So, I stand corrected, it's possible that every single one of these villains were given incredible stories and characterizations before I really got into Marvel comics. I still think though, that Marvel's best villains are ones which deviate widely from the source material, that they can 'get away with' making In-name-only (or in Hel's case, not even that, eh?). Zemo and Pierce and Ego are, essentially, original characters, and if we take their names off of them, you would not recognize them as their comics counterparts ([blackout]except for that great shot of the planet's face in GOTG[/blackout]). I'm thinking that's where the MCU villain problem is solved. Whenever they try to stick to comics, for those big name villains, they come off... weak. Loki being the exception that proves the rule. And maybe Bucky, if you want to count him as a villain. Based on what I'm seeing, Hela will either be unrecognizable from her comics counterpart, or weak and underdeveloped in the film (my money's on the former, looking at the rest of the film's departures).

I'm not really sure where that logic comes from. You're saying they SHOULDN'T try to accurately adapt characters from the comics and just make up their own characters?

 

[Steamteck]

We have Loki, Zemo, Pierce, kind of Bucky, [BLACKOUT]Ego[/BLACKOUT] and Cate Blanchett/Hela on the way

Plus a decent Ultron, Red Skull, Ronan, Abomination and Killian

compared to just a few true duds

Once again, imo:
MARVEL HAS NO VILLAIN PROBLEM

I'm on board with you. Little to no Villain problem.

 

[DrCosmic]

I'm not really sure where that logic comes from. You're saying they SHOULDN'T try to accurately adapt characters from the comics and just make up their own characters?

...maybe?

All I'm saying is what they seem to be good at, and what they seem to suck at. If someone is great at eSports and sucks at playing basketball, and I point that out, am I saying that they shouldn't try to be a professional basketball player? Not really, but if they don't know how to bring their BBall skills up to snuff, then if they are smart, all on them, they'll decide to go with eSports. What I think they should do shouldn't matter. If they love BBall so much they'd like to spend their time sucking at it than doing what they're good at, then do it for the love of the game. That's the extent of the logic.

Same thing here. If Marvel can figure out why their more faithful characters are so weak, and fix it, I'm all for it, but I suspect, after all these films, and such great work making their heroes faithful-ish, and multiple tries to make faithful villains that have fallen flat, maybe they've found something they can't fix. If they can't figure it out, and they just want to continue doing more wack but faithful supervillains, exacerbating their villain problem, then why not? But that doesn't seem to be what they're doing either. They seem to have found something that really works, and it's not with faithful villains.

I mean, honestly, even Thanos, faithful, felt a bit anemic in GotG.

 

[2kt09]

Same thing here. If Marvel can figure out why their more faithful characters are so weak, and fix it, I'm all for it, but I suspect, after all these films, and such great work making their heroes faithful-ish, and multiple tries to make faithful villains that have fallen flat, maybe they've found something they can't fix. If they can't figure it out, and they just want to continue doing more wack but faithful supervillains, exacerbating their villain problem, then why not? But that doesn't seem to be what they're doing either. They seem to have found something that really works, and it's not with faithful villains.

I mean, honestly, even Thanos, faithful, felt a bit anemic in GotG.

Get...better...writers

15 movies, 11 seasons later and I think the audience at large is still waiting for why they should genuinely care about the mad titan

Read something interesting about Darren Cross on that fictional character bio wiki. Sucks that couldn't be incorporated.

With much certainty, the villain having a "good"/"sympathetic" side to them, a recipe Raimi was fond of, isn't a requisite for making villains interesting as Peter Berg and Jane Goldman can attest to.

 

[darrenbevan1]

Wonder Woman does not get the villains right.

They're like Boris and Natasha.

http://darrens-world-of-entertainment.blogspot.co.nz/2017/06/wonder-woman-film-review.html

 

[DrCosmic]

Get...better...writers

15 movies, 11 seasons later and I think the audience at large is still waiting for why they should genuinely care about the mad titan

Read something interesting about Darren Cross on that fictional character bio wiki. Sucks that couldn't be incorporated.

With much certainty, the villain having a "good"/"sympathetic" side to them, a recipe Raimi was fond of, isn't a requisite for making villains interesting as Peter Berg and Jane Goldman can attest to.

What makes you think they haven't got the best writers? Better writers can't change the require plot points Feige sets out. The fact was Ant-Man called for a shrinking corporate guy. Either make a less interesting movie, or make an unfaithful villain. A worse writer will choose the former, a better will choose the latter. His heart issue is interesting, but that doesn't make sense with the shrinking bits like it does with his general superhumanness (and it doesn't make sense there either). And every minute you take to make him more sympathetic takes time from developing three heroes. What would a good writer choose to do?

What are these examples you're referring to with Peter Berg and Jane Goldman? Kingsman created a very sympathetic villain as did Hancock.

There is absolutely room for the monster villain, a remorseless beast representing some deeper terror. I think TDK is a much better example of that type of villain in superhero movies. That is so much harder to do, because you have to actually tap into something deep and terrifying to humanity. You can't just spout pop philosophy like EisenLex or Letoker, that won't work for the truly monstrous villains.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

SLJ wasn't sympathetic in Kingsman. He was the type of villain you love to hate and can't wait to die horribly.

 

[2kt09]

What makes you think they haven't got the best writers? Better writers can't change the requires plot points Feige sets out. The fact was Ant-Man called for a shrinking corporate guy. Either make a less interesting movie, or make an unfaithful villain. A worse writer will choose the former, a better will choose the latter. His heart issue is interesting, but that doesn't make sense with the shrinking bits like it does with his general superhumanness (and it doesn't make sense there either). And every minute you take to make him more sympathetic takes time from developing three heroes. What would a good writer choose to do?

What are these examples you're referring to with Peter Berg and Jane Goldman? Kingsman created a very sympathetic villain as did Hancock.

The writing doesn't leap out to me with most MCU flicks. You'd need a lot more Shane Blacks, Markuses, and McFeelys.
A better writer does both: making the protagonists and the antagonists interesting. Even if they stuck with the petulant businessman, Valentine and Max are examples of how you do it better. Valentine had his quirks, but he ultimately wasn't a sympathetic mastermind. Goldman has also done Lamia, Shaw, and Barron.

 

[Tony Stark]

Wonder Woman does not get the villains right.

They're like Boris and Natasha.

http://darrens-world-of-entertainment.blogspot.co.nz/2017/06/wonder-woman-film-review.html

Yep, they were all terrible, and the effects for Ares sucked. I liked the movie but the villains sucked.

 

[DrCosmic]

The writing doesn't leap out to me with most MCU flicks. You'd need a lot more Shane Blacks, Markuses, and McFeelys.
A better writer does both: making the protagonists and the antagonists interesting. Even if they stuck with the petulant businessman, Valentine and Max are examples of how you do it better. Valentine had his quirks, but he ultimately wasn't a sympathetic mastermind. Goldman has also done Lamia, Shaw, and Barron.

Good writers do make both interesting, but sometimes that means changing something to be interesting in the context of everything else. Zemo, Pierce, Killian, and Ego are all quite interesting to me... they're just not faithful at all. Better writers doesn't make more faithful villains, it just makes more interesting ones.

I see what you're saying about Valentine, and quality non-sympathetic villains. Those are great examples, now that I see who you're referring to (though I haven't seen some of those films). I don't think that's the problem I was talking about, because even the MCU has quality non-sympathetic villains in Ego and Pierce. They're just not faithful, and better writers may make them more interesting, but not more faithful. That's more where I was going. Is that something you disagree with? That there are counter examples for? Because Shaw, Lamia and Barron are actually examples of what I'm talking about, great villains who exist because good writers know better than to not adapt their villains to their adapted heroes and plot.

So when it comes to Thanos, the problem with Thanos is that the MCU as a whole needed the mastermind sort of set up in Avengers, a string puller, but the rest of the MCU since has gone with a more faithful Thanos who is standoffish and brutishly threatening and doesn't really do much until he takes things into his own hands, making for a character that, as you said, no one has reason to care about, even when he does decide to take things into his own hands. Perhaps he could have been made interesting by adapting his nihilism, but that then creates thematic dissonance in the larger extremely PG-13 franchise, no matter how good the writer, to say nothing of getting the *best* writers for 15 films is a logistical if not logical impossibility. At some point, you're going to have to create storylines that don't require a master in order to make them decent.

If Marvel had figured all this out earlier and made the interesting non-sympathetic unfaithful Thanos, we probably wouldn't even be having this conversation.

 

[TeeKay]

Ares sucked. By that point I was turned off by the film.

 

[Ivan Drago]

Ares sucked. By that point I was turned off by the film.

It was shockingly bad. Not as bad as BvS/Suicide Squad climax, but I was reminded of it.

I'm surprised some people are just glossing over it.

 

[2kt09]

I see what you're saying about Valentine, and quality non-sympathetic villains. Those are great examples, now that I see who you're referring to (though I haven't seen some of those films). I don't think that's the problem I was talking about, because even the MCU has quality non-sympathetic villains in Ego and Pierce. They're just not faithful, and better writers may make them more interesting, but not more faithful. That's more where I was going. Is that something you disagree with? That there are counter examples for?

So when it comes to Thanos, the problem with Thanos

Spoiler

is that the MCU as a whole needed the mastermind sort of set up in Avengers, a string puller, but the rest of the MCU since has gone with a more faithful Thanos who is standoffish and brutishly threatening and doesn't really do much until he takes things into his own hands, making for a character that, as you said, no one has reason to care about, even when he does decide to take things into his own hands. Perhaps he could have been made interesting by adapting his nihilism, but that then creates thematic dissonance in the larger extremely PG-13 franchise, no matter how good the writer, to say nothing of getting the *best* writers for 15 films is a logistical if not logical impossibility. At some point, you're going to have to create storylines that don't require a master in order to make them decent.

If Marvel had figured all this out earlier and made the interesting non-sympathetic unfaithful Thanos, we probably wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Are the greatest marvel cbm villains across the various studios not faithful?
The counter examples for unfaithful: Is Darren Cross faithful? Is Ronan? Is Whiplash? Is Hammer?
What was interesting about the Ellis's Extremis arc of Iron Man was that he's going against just some random thug who gained superpowers that can rip his suit apart easily,
which they've somewhat kept in the movie.
What was interesting about Killian is that he wasn't another businessman/scientist out to get Tony.
What Black adapted was this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_(comics)#Government_infiltration
What's interesting about Black's adaptation is the movie twist.
Ego's alright...just another version of Apocalypse I've already seen
Zemo's alright...just another villain trying to pit the Avengers against themselves with a familiar dose of blaming them for loss

The problem with Thanos is there's not much care for the character beyond easter egg, which makes him one of the least interesting.
Is he going to "do it himself" in Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther? Maybe Ragnarok.
I do understand the gimmick of cameos provide a curiosity.

 

[Tony Stark]

Ares sucked. By that point I was turned off by the film.

They tried to make Ares like Sauron through much of the film. This nebulous force that was driving men to turn on each other. They just failed to connect it to anything and when he is finally revealed it's like the wind is taken out of the sails.

What's worse is that we don't get any better with the "Boris and Natasha" performance of Ludendorff and Maru. Even though this is the best DCEU film, the villains are far from being as good as any of the other DCEU films.

 

[Consona]

Rewatched MoS yesterday. Zod is the best post-TDK villain so far across all brands, he has so many lines and dialogues and there are so many scenes with him, the film really explores who he is, and the Kryptonian genetics program is really clever background for a character like that. And Faora is this the most badass villain ever. She's so absolutely awesome.

It's interesting how good Goyer can be when he cooperates with Nolan. I mean, BB, TDK, TDKR, MoS...

SS villains at least fit the pulp feeling of the movie and they had fantastic designs, I mean Enchantress had, still not sure about "Damaged" . You can say whatever you want about her but both of her forms were so amazing look-wise. The ancient evil sorceress and glowing goddess, some of the best costume/creature designs in the industry.

The case with WW villains is weird since

Spoiler

Ares had to be disguised so he basically was a totally different character for the main part of the film. Ludendorff and Dr. Poison were actually not main villains, so you have this weird situation, where you'd need to develop characters that were not that important. Ludendorff was a proto-nazi warmonger and Dr. Poison a scientist obssessed with killing stuff. Maybe they could have had some more background, yea. But did they need it when they were possessed, or were they? The soldier hugging was confusing... t:

Lex in BvS was great. I loved him. Peculiar, manipulative, mischievous, neurotic, intellectual, psycho- and socio-pathic head of a corporation.

I thought Trask from X-men DofP was great too. And Magneto of course is a fantastic villain.

[BLACKOUT]Ego (the name is so short it would be so obvious)[/BLACKOUT] and Kaecilius had totally amazing, I mean AMAZING philosophical backgrounds, so it's even bigger shame how underwritten they were.

I loved Ultron, he's similarly peculiar to Lex in BvS... I like these idiosyncratic villains. Shame his conversation with Vision was not longer, I'd happily watch a two and a half hour long feature film of them just debating mankind and the universe.

I always found Loki, supposedly the best MCU villain, rather boring.

I liked Zemo a lot.

I cannot wait for Vulture and Hela!!!

 

[Drizzle]

They tried to make Ares like Sauron through much of the film. This nebulous force that was driving men to turn on each other. They just failed to connect it to anything and when he is finally revealed it's like the wind is taken out of the sails.

What's worse is that we don't get any better with the "Boris and Natasha" performance of Ludendorff and Maru. Even though this is the best DCEU film, the villains are far from being as good as any of the other DCEU films.

Yeah, the Ares reveal was weak. It was just like, "Here I am!" The villains in Wonder Woman were indeed lackluster but that aside, I thought the movie was still pretty good. Gadot and Pine really elevate it with their performances.

However, I'd still say that the villains in WW were better than or on par with the other DCEU villains save for Zod. He's still the only villain they got 100% right in these movies (not counting any of the members of Suicide Squad since they were the protagonists in that film).

 

[Flint Marko]

Unless Steppenwolf is amazing, the best super villain from 2017 will be a Marvel Studios villain.

 

[moreorless]

The big issue with the MCU for me remains that the kinds of stories were seeing told don't tend to call for a dominant villain role. Loki in the original Thor is I would argue the only time we've really seen a story that's naturally as focused on the villain as the hero and I think that certainly delivered.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Unless Steppenwolf is amazing, the best super villain from 2017 will be a Marvel Studios villain.

Well [BLACKOUT]Ego[/BLACKOUT] will be tough to beat to be fair, he really was a good villain.