You might have heard that Avengers: Infinity War is out in theaters this weekend, amazingly the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For the most part, these movies have been good enough to earn my trust that this giant purple guy looking for jewels for his glove will actually be pretty cool. Thanos is supposed to be the biggest bad yet (check out my predictions on which heroes he’ll actually kill), which got me thinking it would be fun to do a ranking of all the villains in the MCU that have led up to him. Even though the average Marvel villain only gets about twenty minutes of screen time, their motivations usually drive the whole plot and often dictate the quality of the movie.
This Marvel renaissance all kicked off ten years ago with Iron Man back in 2008, which came out only two months before The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger’s Joker is widely considered the gold standard of comic book movie bad guys, and while I’m not sure Marvel has come that close to rivaling him (would Iron Man have been a hit if it had to follow Dark Knight instead of coming out before it?), they certainly learned from Christopher Nolan’s decision to take the villain seriously. I think one of the big reasons for Marvel’s success is that their villains usually aren’t just trying to take over the world (with a few disappointing exceptions). Their goals are more grounded, sometimes even understandable, and they are often just a much darker reflection of that movie’s hero. Let’s dive in!
18. Malekith (Thor: The Dark World, 2013)
It’s a tall order to make a “dark elf” cool, and boy did this movie not pull it off. You only get so many opportunities to cut back to the bad guy and make us scared of him and his plan, and there’s a section of this movie where he just takes a nap to heal himself. His master plan revolves around obtaining the Aether (eventually revealed to be the red Infinity stone), which will give him the power to make the universe dark again during the rare alignment of the nine realms. This is nerdy comic book nonsense that never pulls off the stakes it thinks it’s presenting. It also doesn’t help that his henchman is WAY cooler and more memorable when he transforms into Kursed, basically a jacked Predator with lava blood. They don’t even have Malekith be the one who kills Thor’s mother, it’s this cool lava dude instead. Malekith is a cookie cutter villain who just wants to rule the universe because he’s evil. Cristopher Eccleston, the actor who played him, has been quoted as saying he hated how the character turned out…apparently there was a lot of backstory character-building about his murdered family that was cut. At this point Eccleston has pretty much sworn off everything he’s worked on, but I agree with him on this. I’m guessing this is one of the Marvel movies most people haven’t seen, and you didn’t miss much. The 8th film in the MCU, this was the last time they really put out a stinker.
17. Kaecilius (Doctor Strange, 2016)
This ranking is not a knock on Mads Mikkelsen, who does the best he can with the little he has to work with. But there’s no way any of you even remembered this character’s name. Kaecilius suffers from the same problem that a lot of villains do who are featured in the first movie of a superhero franchise…there just isn’t enough time to develop them into something memorable. You have to devote most of the movie to the hero’s origin story and show them training how to use their powers, and how they struggle to balance their old life with their new responsibilities (and in the case of Doctor Strange, there’s also the Matrix-level explaining of hidden dimensions to get through). Then once the audience is all caught up and rooting for them, you can bring in a bigger villain in the second movie who gets more screen time. Batman Begins would have suffered from the same fate as Doctor Strange if Scarecrow was the only villain, but the reason it worked so well is that the man who trained Batman ends up being the real big bad. Ra’s al Ghul and Batman have diametrically opposing theories on dispatching justice that are laid out from the very beginning. Ghul gets fleshed out as much as our hero does before we realize he’s the bad guy. Doctor Strange could have done the same thing with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character Mordo, Strange’s fundamentalist mentor who grows to believe he is the only sorcerer pure enough to deserve to have power. Instead we’re left with Kaecilius, a former disciple of the Ancient One who becomes obsessed with worshiping the dark lord Dormammu in order to live forever. Strange doesn’t even have to fight him at the end, instead just dealing with Dormammu. He’s a filler bad guy setting the table for others, nothing more.
16. Ronan the Accuser (Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014)
Even though this movie is mostly about the Guardians learning to become a team, you obviously need some sort of bad guy to unite them against. But Ronan is probably the worst part of an otherwise surprisingly fun movie. His ceremonial introduction where he rises out of some black goo, throws some war paint on, and puts on his “accusing” headdress is pretty dang cool, and he looks legit. But I think the problem is he seems stuck in another space movie that isn’t self-aware. The whole appeal of the Guardians is how bizarre and silly everything is, how they never take anything seriously. You keep expecting Ronan to drop the maniacal act when he’s alone, to wink at action movie tropes like the rest of the cast by showing a soft side, but he never does. If you don’t let your villain in on the joke, he doesn’t really belong. Starlord challenges him to a dance off at the end, and Ronan’s incredulous confusion is played for a laugh. He can’t even begin to compute the idea of someone not being afraid of him, and I really think Ronan should have been the type of character to drop his hammer and join in. He does get points for being crazy enough to threaten Thanos, but he’s too one dimensional and underdeveloped to get ranked higher.
15. Emil Blonsky/Abomination (The Incredible Hulk, 2008)
The film Marvel really hopes you forgot about, this Edward Norton version of Hulk came out only a month after Iron Man. The difference in quality between the two movies is staggering…the first Iron Man is an all time great movie and this is probably the worst of the 18 films in the MCU (the only salvageable part that Marvel held onto was bringing back William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross in Civil War). The plot of this is a mess, but the villain’s arc…a soldier who becomes obsessed with stopping the Hulk and eventually transforms himself into a bigger, badder version, isn’t necessarily bad on paper. The execution, however, is cringeworthy. Tim Roth, who shines as a scrappy lowlife in every Tarantino movie he’s been in, is absurdly miscast in this (apparently Norton fought against him being the choice). He is supposed to be a scary elite soldier, a killing machine, but he looks like Upham from Saving Private Ryan. I mean they actually have to CGI a six pack on him when he’s shirtless! It reminds me of the insane choice to make Topher Grace Venom back in Spider-Man 3. Both movies miscalculated that casting someone who’s just as shrimpy as their respective heroes would be compelling, when in fact it’s just laughable and distracting. Sometimes to make us fear your villain, they just have to be that classic mold of the physically intimidating unhinged brute (even before they transform into a CGI monster). Tom Hardy would have been perfect for this role, and ironically, Eric Bana would have been too, even though he played the Hulk in Ang Lee’s 2003 version. Roth isn’t the only one to blame for this misfire, but the role should have been one of the few strengths of the film.
14. Darren Cross/Yellowjacket (Ant-Man, 2015)
Coming off of his amazing, scene-stealing performance in the first season of House of Cards, I was really excited to see Corey Stoll cast as the villain in Ant-Man. Stoll’s character in Netflix’s first big show was complex and layered, a fascinating look at a naive man with demons who was in way over his head. A guy we rooted for despite his flaws. The same cannot be said for his turn in this movie. Darren Cross might be the most one-note, comically evil villain in the whole MCU (I expect even Thanos will show more of a heart). The man doesn’t seem conflicted in the slightest, never hesitating to zap a disagreeing board member or literally dozens of cute little sheep into pink mush. It seems ludicrous that Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym would have ever considered him a viable protégé in the first place. He’s practically a mustache-twirling cartoon character. The evil businessman is one of the oldest comic book tropes, created before the rise of super villains who also had powers. It was probably made most famous by Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor in 1978’s Superman, the first superhero movie. Luthor’s plan in that was to demolish California, thereby upping the value of his Nevada property as the new coast (lol). We’ve come a long way from that in our superhero movie villains motivations, and Cross’ arc does make a lot more sense in its smaller scale. He wants the keys to the kingdom, is offended that they’re given to a lowly cat burglar instead, and takes things into his own hands. But the way Stoll plays him makes it seem like he’s still stuck in the 70s. It might have worked for Hackman, but there’s probably been almost a hundred superhero movies since Superman, and you’ve got to adapt the evil CEO into something more realistic for us to really buy in. It’s also worth mentioning that while the heist plot was refreshing for a Marvel movie, the fact that the heroes are breaking into the villain’s lab, and not the other way around, doesn’t leave much for Cross to do. The suitcase and toy train fights are fun, but it’s also not helping that Yellowjacket gets reduced to the very old trope of kidnapping the hero’s daughter when his plans have gone south.
13. Johann Schmidt/ Red Skull (Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011)
Hugo Weaving gave us one of the most iconic bad guys ever with Agent Smith in The Matrix. Every word he spoke was memorable, whether it was just gritting “Mr. Anderson” through his teeth, or pontificating about humanity being a virus. The guy definitely knows how to play a menacing villain, but he isn’t given the material necessary here to leave much of a mark. He expertly chews through every scene in this as the maniacal Schmidt (there’s definitely something scary about a guy who thinks Hitler isn’t evil enough). The problem is that the character just isn’t memorable, and it’s also really hard to take him seriously once he takes off his mask and is running around with a weird looking red skull (they really messed up that makeup job). I remember growing up playing the awesome arcade game Captain America and The Avengers, and thinking Red Skull was about as evil as it got. Maybe the character just doesn’t translate well to the big screen, but he really should have been the BIGGEST bad before Thanos showed up. I read that the first draft of the Avengers 1 script had both Loki AND Red Skull in it, and I really wish they had figured out a way to make that work (I would have much preferred an army of zombie Hydra soldiers rising up to giant alien whales coming through a portal). I do love how the Captain America trilogy unfolded even without bringing him back, but it’s still a big bummer how unfinished this character feels.
12. Ultron (Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2015)
There’s a lot I don’t like about this movie, but my biggest problem is probably how much it only exists to set up other movies. In a vacuum, it’s a really random and bad movie that can’t stand on its own. The events of this film directly set up Captain America: Civil War, which is way, way better and to me is the actual second Avengers movie. If you look at the core plot idea…Tony building a sentient robot that turns bad and creates its own army, it really feels like it would make more sense to have this be Iron Man 3. This is Tony’s problem to fix, and he could still create Vision to help him do that. The rest of the Avengers are just kind of along for the ride to be mad at him the whole time and fight CGI robots (Hulkbuster is neat, I will admit). All that being said, Ultron is actually kind of a cool bad guy. James Spader was inspired casting, one of the few things Joss Whedon got right. His voice and sense of humor give us a type of evil robot we’ve never seen before. The catchy title implied Ultron’s reign would last for a while, which I think made his plan seem underwhelming as it unfolded. Instead of wanting to rule humanity, he just wants to end everything. This was probably a mistake. His plan to raise a city and then drop it on Earth to cause the extinction of all life is certainly unique, but it doesn’t make room for that many confrontations with him. It would have been better to see him trying to enslave major cities one at a time, and actually winning for a while. He’s an interesting villain that was unfortunately just used to advance the MCU timeline along. Thanos even shows up at the end of this, as if to apologize and say “don’t worry, the stakes will actually matter soon.”
11. Loki (The Avengers, 2012)
One of the big knocks against Marvel is how quickly they churn through their villains. Every single bad guy on this list so far has only been in one movie…they get introduced and then quickly defeated before they can create any sort of lasting rivalry or compelling revenge narrative. Most of them just don’t get enough screen time to stand out. Loki is the big exception to this, as Infinity War will be his fifth movie. Of course, the reason he’s been able to stick around so long is that he’s often not the actual bad guy in the movie (he’ll only be on this list one more time). He’s probably best suited as comedic relief instead of being considered a serious threat. Tom Hiddleston is undeniably charming as Thor’s trickster brother, and his banter with Hemsworth is great, but he is severely misused in this movie. He goes from being a scheming, behind-the-scenes mastermind in the first Thor movie to a cookie-cutter power hungry villain suddenly comfortable just killing people (with a ridiculously overpowered scepter). He brainwashes Hawkeye and several others to do his bidding, but he also marches around in the spotlight…it would have made way more sense for him to be doing all this from the shadows. I’m sure Marvel regrets having him kill Coulson himself, because it’s impossible to let the Avengers ever forgive him (whereas Winter Soldier can at least blame mind control for his actions). As I mentioned before, this should have been Red Skull’s revenge movie, and Loki could have played a role in it, too. Teaming up the bad guys from multiple franchises seems like a no-brainer reason to force the Avengers to assemble in the first place, instead of having Loki partner with some random alien guy who sends an army of cannon fodder. Probably the most memorable part of this movie for Loki is when he gets smashed into the ground by Hulk. The audience laughs. He’s not a legitimate threat, and his frustration with that reality is what makes him a great character. It seems like he will try to help Thanos in the next movie, but I think it’ll be a mistake if he doesn’t redeem himself when it matters most.
10. Ivan Vanko/ Whiplash (Iron Man 2, 2010)
The second Iron Man movie made the common superhero sequel mistake of over-stuffing itself with too many plots and new characters, to seem “more epic.” Before we even get to the bad guys, it has to juggle introducing both War Machine (with a recast Don Cheadle) and Black Widow, have Tony fighting the government by refusing to turn over his technology, all while he also is trying to discover a NEW ELEMENT in order to save himself from his arc reactor (that is simultaneously keeping him alive and killing him). Then you throw in Justin Hammer, Tony’s rival weapons manufacturer played by the always good Sam Rockwell, and there ends up being large chunks of this movie that completely forget about its most interesting asset: a tatted-out Mickey Rourke with gold teeth and a cockatoo. I absolutely love how ridiculous this character looks, and how physically intimidating Rourke can be. He’s like a Bane you can actually understand. And he’s a genius, too! Jeff Bridges spent the whole first movie trying to recreate Tony’s arc reactor, and this guy does it in the freaking opening credits. He has an extremely personal vendetta against Tony, since both their fathers invented the technology but only Howard Stark got the credit. And his initial goal is perfectly simple: show the world that Iron Man can bleed, so that others will realize they can defeat him. By far the most memorable scene in this movie was spoiled in the trailers: when Vanko gets to the racetrack at Monaco and comes about as close to killing Tony as you can get. He laughs when Tony interrogates him afterwards, satisfied that he has proven his point. Hammer gives him a second chance, and just as things are getting interesting the movie gets sidetracked from Vanko until the final fight. Vanko was cool and weird and memorable enough to own this movie by himself, he just never got the chance. He might be too high on this list, but I’m also a big Rourke fan.
9. Ego (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, 2017)
I’d say spoiler alert, but I think if you care about this movie at all, you’ve already seen it. One of the big questions after the first movie was who Peter’s father was. Maybe I’m naive, but I never thought the answer to that would end up being a an all-powerful Celestial being who wants to consume every existing world. I really enjoyed how they Trojan-horsed Ego in as the bad guy here, first setting up the gold Sovereign and Ravager mutiny as the primary villains. Both groups end up just being used primarily for laughs (Taserface is much more along the lines of the type of bad guy I thought Ronan should have been in Guardians 1). This movie is still very funny and weird, but it tries to go for a more serious tone with the themes of family and destiny once Ego shows up. He isn’t really played for laughs at all…Kurt Russell instead just slowly reveals the character to be a super bad selfish dude…with an understandably big ego. Russell and Pratt play off of each other really well in this, but the delayed reveal does limit Ego’s impact on this list. He is the most powerful villain on here, but he’s playing nice almost the whole movie, and hardly gets to show off what he can do. He also becomes unredeemable very quickly, when it might have been more interesting to have Star-Lord believe he could still change him. Star-Lord and Yondu’s relationship is the real heart of this movie, and we’re not really sad at all to see Ego destroyed. He would be a lot higher on this if he was a more complex villain.
8. Loki (Thor, 2011)
I already talked about how misused Loki was in the first Avengers movie, but here he is exactly as he should be: the resentful brother of Thor who resorts to darker and darker scheming in order to get what he feels he rightly deserves. It’s fairly obvious from the start that he is the one pulling the strings, but he gets a great character arc in this. After tricking Thor into showing he’s not ready to be king, he finds out that he’s not actually Odin’s son. A more forgettable villain would just retaliate here, siding with the Frost Giants and waging war on Odin’s lies, and then dying at Thor’s hand. But he instead keeps scheming, betraying his own race in a misguided attempt to still win Odin’s affection and prove his worthiness over Thor. While Thor is the strongest man in the room, Loki is the smartest. And both of them have the same lesson to learn, that it takes a lot more to be a good king. Thor ultimately learns this, Loki refuses to. Hiddleston was born to play this role, even as it has evolved over time. He makes us laugh with a quip and eye roll in the classical Shakespearean style Kenneth Branagh directed this first movie, but also makes it funny to look terrified during a reunion with Hulk in the modern, self-aware Thor: Ragnarok. He probably doesn’t get enough credit when you think about all the perfectly cast actors who have made the MCU the success that it is today. He’s not higher because Loki is a very classic, familiar villain, the outcast family member who betrays everyone’s trust (like Scar from Lion King or Fredo in Godfather II or any Shakespeare play or fantasy story really). Hiddleston does it very well, but we’ve seen it before. And Marvel has given us some much more interesting bad guys in the years since.
7. Aldrich Killian/ Mandarin (Iron Man 3, 2013)
Heading into this movie, if you had seen Ben Kingsley’s terrifying performance in Sexy Beast, you were very excited to see him as a bad guy again. So at first I was disappointed at the reveal that he is a fake, an actor being used as propaganda by the real villain, Guy Pierce. But over time I’ve come to appreciate what a crazy decision this was, to completely misdirect fans with a massive marketing campaign centered around a fake villain. Kingsley’s reveal is played for laughs, but you’re so shocked that it almost takes you out of the movie. I don’t love all the orange glowing exploding Extremis stuff in this, and Killian’s puppet master role means he is missing from the two most memorable set pieces (the destruction of Tony’s house and the attack on Air Force One). But still, the idea of a smart villain who is fine being in the shadows, the opposite of most grandstanding comic book bad guys, is very original, and Killian’s revenge backstory against Tony works well, too. This movie isn’t without its problems though. The Mandarin is Iron Man’s biggest foe, but Marvel didn’t know how to bring the racist caricature to the big screen, so they just ended up whitewashing it with Pierce having dragon tattoos and breathing fire (the correct move would have been to cast an Asian actor in Guy Pierce’s role and just get rid of any elements of the Fu Manchu stereotype). The other issue is that Rebecca Hall’s character was originally supposed to be the true villain, which would have been the first female bad guy in the MCU, but Marvel reportedly shot this idea down for fear of its impact on toy sales. The twist is very memorable and enough to get Killian this high on the list, but this movie should have been much more groundbreaking.
6. Hela (Thor: Ragnarok, 2017)
The MCU’s biggest failure so far has been a glaring lack of representation. Of the 18 movies, this is the only one with a female villain (and we won’t be getting our first Marvel movie centered around a female hero until next year’s Captain Marvel). The success of Black Panther and Wonder Woman proved that not only is there a massive demand for superheroes who aren’t played by a white guy named Chris, more representation also opens up fresh storytelling possibilities…which undeniably gives us better movies. Cate Blanchett absolutely kills it in this as Thor’s evil older sister, the goddess of death. She is absurd without winking or going over the top, hamming it up as she struts around intoxicated with power (she seems to only keep Karl Urban’s character alive so she can have someone to give evil monologues to). She looks awesome, she’s unkillable, has an army of zombies and a freaking giant wolf, and her ability to shoot out infinite knives and stabbing weapons makes the T-1000 look like a putz. Odin’s attempt to remove her from history is a surprisingly apt metaphor for our own country’s past. The winners not only get to write the history books, they get to omit the parts that make them look bad. Hela asks the naive Thor “where do you think we got all this gold from?” and you can’t help but think about the horrific lies behind American prosperity. The only knock is that Blanchett’s actually too good for this limited role…the fun of Ragnarok comes from seeing Thor and Hulk’s ridiculous adventure. Hela is mostly left to spin her wheels until they return for the big showdown. Still, she is easily one the best villains in the MCU.
5. Adrian Toomes/ Vulture (Spider-Man: Homecoming, 2017)
Growing up, I really only cared about three comics: Batman, X-Men and Spider-Man. The heroes were always fun, but I think the real reason was that they easily had the best bad guys. Spider-Man’s Rogues Gallery is so deep they’ve been able to do three separate franchises (six films) without repeating any bad guys. Still, I thought we were scraping the bottom of the barrel with Vulture…but he ends up being one of the best villains in the MCU. The stakes are appropriately lower in this, since Tom Holland’s version is still just the “friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.” The Avengers are around to handle the big stuff. Toomes works perfectly in this, a scrapper who holds onto alien tech he discovered after the first Avengers movie. He’s the only MCU villain grounded enough to actually have a family, justifying his criminal activity to provide for them, instead of seeking power. And this all leads to the beautiful twist in the final act, where it’s revealed just who his family is. When you’re a shy high school boy, nothing is more intimidating than meeting the dad of the girl you’re taking to the dance. This movie embraces that Peter is still in high school, structuring the tone and plot around Parker’s age, and having his two lives intersect with Vulture’s true identity. Michael Keaton does an awesome job as the gruff, no-nonsense Toomes, he’s scary without trying. He is the perfect bad guy for this reintroduction of Spider-Man, a fully realized table setter for future villains that is just the right amount of evil for Parker to defeat.
4. Winter Soldier (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2014)
For me, this is the movie that saved the MCU. After a fantastic first Iron Man, the next seven movies were mostly varying degrees of forgettable. The Iron Man sequels were weird, nobody cared about the two Thor movies, the Hulk movie didn’t exist, and The Avengers was a big let down. I was getting over the whole thing when this came along and blew me away. The action sequences are amazing, but the spy plot is also really well done. And at the center of it is the Winter Soldier, a mythical assassin who has been blamed for killings spanning the last 70 years (Robert Redford might be playing the head of Hydra giving the orders, but Winter Soldier is the big bad of this movie…the one Cap has to go toe to toe with at the end). His introduction is chilling, as Nick Fury thinks he has successfully escaped an attack only to see Winter Soldier calmly standing in the middle of the road waiting for him. Fury looks confused as the sound drops out…he didn’t think he was real. This character would get pretty high on this list if he was just a silent badass assassin with a metal arm that only showed up in this movie. But of course the real interesting thing about him is that he’s Captain America’s brainwashed best friend Bucky Barnes (this is like somehow pulling off the reveal that Boba Fett and Han Solo grew up together). Barnes’ complicated past makes for a great character in future movies, but in this one he still works as just a brutal force of nature. And the struggle he puts Cap through is superb storytelling. Winter Soldier is Cap’s kryptonite, but instead of a glowing rock we get a complicated character that became central to the MCU’s continued success.
3. Helmut Zemo (Captain America: Civil War, 2016)
One of the most impressive things to me about what Marvel has done the past ten years is how good they are at having the movies build off of each other. And I’m not just talking about the post-credit stuff setting up the Avengers, or the Winter Soldier’s storyline. The events of the first Avengers movie lead Tony to make Ultron as a security blanket, which leads to the destruction of the capital of Sokovia in Avengers 2, which leads to two things in Civil War: the proposal of the accords, and the death of Zemo’s family, which causes him to seek revenge. He’s probably barely onscreen for ten minutes, since there’s so much that the movie has to get through with all its other characters (managing to also introduce Spider-Man and Black Panther). But he still leaves his mark as the only villain on this list who actually wins. When he’s captured at the end, Martin Freeman mocks him, asking “how does it feel? to spend all that time, all that effort, and to see if fail so spectacularly?” Zemo smiles at him. “Did it?” he responds. Indeed, it did not. All of his careful planning unfolds perfectly…all he wants is to destroy the Avengers from within by making them all turn on each other. Tony and Cap are confused when Zemo reveals that he’s killed the other Winter Soldiers…they’ve never met a villain that isn’t trying to overpower them with force. “Did you think I wanted more of you?” he grimaces. To Zemo, The Avengers only make the world more dangerous. Tony and Cap and everyone else are forced to face accountability in this movie…the cost of destroying city after city has finally caught up to them. And it comes in the form of Zemo.
2. Obadiah Stane/ Iron Monger (Iron Man, 2008)
Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in this is rightly praised as one of the biggest reasons for the MCU’s sustained success. But people often overlook the perhaps equally important job Jeff Bridges did at giving us a realistic villain to set up the grounded universe. Bridges is a chameleon…it’s virtually impossible to tell this is the same actor who played The Dude or the aging sheriff in Hell or High Water. His shaved head and white beard completely transform him into an imposing figure…I’ve never seen anyone actually look intimidating smoking a cigar while riding on a Segway. Apparently much of the dialogue in this was improvised…the script had gone through so many drafts, and everyone was mostly concerned with nailing down the plot. Bridges and RDJ have a delightful rhythm because of this, which really sells the reveal that he’s secretly trying to take over the company. Heading into this movie I didn’t know ANYTHING about Iron Man, so I had no idea who the bad guy would be. The terrorists who kidnap Tony work beautifully as a red herring for much of the movie…you think they’re going to build another suit and he’ll have to stop them from attacking Los Angeles. Stane has bigger goals in mind, all in the name of making Stark Industries more money. He’s truly in awe of what Tony has accomplished with the creation of the suit, but he’s thinking of it purely in terms of a weapon. On paper, he’s a pretty flat bad guy…we don’t see his personal life or really get any reason why he’s suddenly turned on Tony, when he had been so loyal to his father. But Bridges forces this role to feel important and iconic, with bizarre pronunciations of words like “manufacturer” and a disturbingly calm demeanor. The ending fight is a little cheesy (Jeff Bridges in a mech suit isn’t gonna work), but overall this is one of my favorite bad guy performances ever.
1. Erik Stevens/ Killmonger (Black Panther, 2018)
It has been pretty special to watch Michael B. Jordan’s career unfold from Wallace to Vince to Creed. His signature charming cockiness makes his characters impossible to dislike, which is why I was surprised he would be the villain in Black Panther (sure, him and Ryan Coogler are inseparable at this point, but I didn’t know if he was right for the part. Boy was I wrong). The genius of this casting is that we ARE supposed to empathize with him, once we learn his backstory and motivations. He has every right to be angry that Wakanda hasn’t used its technology to help the oppressed black people in the rest of the world…we agree before T’Challa does. His intentions are noble, it’s his methods that make him the bad guy. This is similar to Magneto and Professor X…Magneto only knows humanity to be hateful and intolerant, and therefore wants to destroy it, while Xavier has had an easier life, and thinks humans and mutants can one day co-exist. Killmonger grew up in racist America as an orphan, while T’Challa was a prince in a land of peace and prosperity. The fact that they end up being related, and T’Challa’s dad is the reason for Killmonger’s painful upbringing, is what really elevates the material above everything else Marvel has done. I was shocked to realize on my second viewing that Killmonger only has one scene in the whole first hour, because he looms so large over the whole movie by the end of it. Just as Cristopher Nolan modeled the relationship between Batman and the Joker after the film Heat, you can’t help but notice how the final shot of Killmonger in this mirrors the moment when Pacino holds De Niro’s hand as he dies. Both bad guys choose death over prison, but Killmonger gets the instantly iconic line about burying him at sea. This is the power representation can add to a narrative. Killmonger stands out for a number of reasons in a field of villain roles that have largely blended together over the years (look at the previous 17 entries…even the robot and blue guy are white). This movie was so, so important, and Killmonger makes it his mission throughout to remind us exactly why.
And that’s it! Can’t wait to watch Infinity War and see how Thanos stacks up against everyone on this list. Thanks for reading!
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