We have come to love and appreciate the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hardcore fans (read me) anticipate new movie and series releases from MCU each year. While we love our heroes, how do we forget our Villains? Some are big bads, while others play a grey role in the universe as our anti-heroes. But all of them play with our emotions.
- Top 5 new movies and TV series to watch in the UAE this week
- Best ways to watch Marvel movies in order
- 20 New Disney Plus UAE shows and movies
Best MCU Villains
Today we travel to the beginning of the universe to find the best MCU villains. They’re not listed in the MCU’s chronological timeline but are mentioned as they appeared during the movie releases.
Subscribe to Disney Plus and get access to shows like The Mandalorian and Loki as well as blockbusters like Frozen, Avengers: Endgame and the entire Star Wars line-up.
Obadiah Stane
We get to meet Obadia Stane through the first movie in the MCU. He (Jeff Bridges) sets the pace in the movies as the first MCU villain and makes his mark in Iron Man. While his actions pale compared to villains that follow in the Cinematic universe, we can all agree that pretending to be Tony’s ally while still plotting behind his back was genius.
However, all the intelligence credited to Obadiah Stane is lost when he gets his suit of armour. Instead of fighting Iron Man tactically, he rampages through the whole fight scene, proving that he does not understand the Iron Suits as well as Tony.
Loki
Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, is a character you cannot ignore throughout the universe. We see Loki bring to life the God of Mischief in the first Thor movie release. In Loki, we meet a charismatic villain who charms us while still terrifying us at the same time. Loki has a villain-to-anti-hero curve in the MCU, and you can see this in the movies and series in the MCU.
Loki’s goal is to be a king, but since Odin sidelines him, he partners up with Thanos, who gives him a sceptre and an army.
What does Loki do?
He invades Earth, mind-controls shield agents and scientists and unleashes the Chatauriu army attempting to conquer Earth dwellers.
But to be fair, the God of Mischief never stood a chance going up against the original six Avengers.
Red Skull
Chronologically, Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) is the first villain to grace the MCU. But Since we are not listing the villains chronologically, Red Skull is third on our list. He shares the same aspect as Captain America. They are both genetically modified through the super soldier serum.
However, Red Skulls displays both the benefits and fallbacks of the serum. Of course, he gets super strength, as he can handle himself and go toe to toe with Steve Rodgers. The fallback of taking the serum is that it inflates his ambitions as Red Skull, leading him to establish Hydra – a superpower with a whole premise to conquer the world, even the Nazi command.
But all this is fruitless as Cap joins the fight and Red Skull suffers one military defeat after another. He finally ends up exiled to an alien planet cursed to lead seekers to the soul stone after touching the tesseract.
Ultron
Ultron (played by James Spader) is an AI robot Tony Stark and Bruce Banner created. Ultron is a super bot whose design of saving the Earth is eliminating all biological life and replacing it with machine sentients. He builds his own body and an army of robots to destroy Earth as he deems all biological lifeforms dangerous to Earth.
However, Ultron’s downfall is inherited from its creator – Tony Stark. His flaws include an inflated ego, and the Avengers use this to bait him into falling into their trap. Nevertheless, it takes the whole might of the Avengers and new members to destroy Ultron before he destroys Earth.
Thanos
Thanos completes our list today as the best villain in the MCU. We first meet Thanos just before the Infinity saga, and there is no guarantee that he will turn out to be the big villain. We only saw him in post-credit scenes, teasing us about some big bad things to happen in the Avengers Infinity Saga.
Then finally, at the start of Infinity War, we get the big villain – Thanos. What astonishes us is that he destroys Hulk in seconds, and it seems it was a sport to him when fighting the green monster. It sets the tone for the upcoming sequences of the movie as Thanos goes around the universe collecting the infinity stones.
He gives us our heartbreak by collecting all the Infinity Stones and finally snapping half of the universe’s population out of existence. The emotional roller coaster as Avengers: Infinity War ends is surreal and still fresh in our memories as a villain successfully defeats the heroes.
However, our heroes suit up and travel through time to save the snapped population while still bringing an end to Thanos’s Terror.
Bonus Upcoming Villain – Kang
Now that we’ve looked at the best MCU villains let’s see what’s in store for the future. Infinity Saga ends with Thanos’s demise, so MCU needs a new villain. This is where Kang comes in. We meet Kang in Loki’s Disney+ TV show as He Who Remains – a benevolent Kang variant with a daffy demeanour warning our anti-heroes (Loki and Sylvie) of other Kangs to come.
Then Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania releases, and we meet Kang the Conquerer. He is a stoic and calm variant who does not joke with any of the heroes and subjects in the Quantum realm. Kang the Conquerer is mean and brute, and his variants fear him. They even celebrated when news of his demise was announced.
We will see Kang again as Phase 5 of the MCU continues.
Who do you think will be our best villain, the one that tugged at our heartstrings and made us scream at the screens? And did we forget someone on this list? Let’s continue the discussion in our comments section.
