“You complete me,” said the Joker to Batman in one of the most memorable moments of Warner Bros’ 2008 classic, The Dark Knight. The clown might have been a homicidal maniac, but he was on to something. Superheroes need great villains and so do superhero movies. And yet, the most commercially successful superhero film franchise, Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU), has often found success in spite of its rogues gallery rather than because of it. The legal split that kept some of Marvel’s top comic properties out of the MCU also kept some of its most recognizable and diabolical villains from squaring off against the Avengers, Guardians and other interested parties, and promoted a few backbenchers into the spotlight.
Sure, there’s Thanos, the intergalactic big-bad with the wrinkly chin, unfathomable motives and expensive taste in jewelry. He’s certainly menacing enough, and has figured in Marvel’s epic cosmology for decades. Killmonger was a great one-off and Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull was creepy and evil, though not especially formidable. Then what? Whiplash? The Mandarin? Obediah Stain? Ultron the smarmy AI? Let’s get real: if it weren’t for Tom Hiddleston’s endlessly fascinating performance as Loki – who is not nearly so complicated in the comics most of the time – the franchise would seem awfully one-sided.
Now that Disney has reached an agreement on the acquisition of 21st Century Fox pending regulatory approvals, that is likely to change. Sure, fans have been slavering over the possibility of Marvel doing new and improved takes on Fantastic Four and the X-Men, but just imagine the infusion of menace provided by these five super-villains.
Doctor Doom. Arguably the most iconic villain in the Marvel bag of tricks, Doctor Doom provided the visual antecedent to another of cinema’s best bad guys, Darth Vader, and terrified generations of kids wondering what awful secret was hidden under his iron mask. Despite that pedigree, Victor Von Doom fizzled as a foil to the Fantastic Four in Fox’s failed franchise twice over, which was a calamitous waste. Doom, who is the dictator of his own country in addition to plotting against humanity, is brilliant, ruthless and arrogant. His natural adversary is the FF’s brilliant, arrogant and compassionate Mister Fantastic, and he’s most often undone by overlooking the threat posed by the other members of the team.
In the comics, Marvel realized they had a good thing in Doctor Doom and employed him extensively as an all-purpose villain against their other heroes, including The Avengers, Spider-Man, Daredevil and many others, even though he spent most of his time plotting against the FF. Audiences are still waiting for a credible rendition on the big screen. Maybe they’ll get one when Doom joins the MCU.
Kang the Conqueror. Kang the Conqueror is a time-travelling warlord from the future who has cropped up in a bunch of Avengers storylines since the early days but ended up in the hands of Fox because he had appeared first – in an earlier incarnation – in the Fantastic Four. Kang’s backstory is so convoluted that even Marvel scholars get tangled up in the particulars, which might be why he’s sat on the shelf despite a cool set of tech-oriented powers and an interesting, movie-friendly look to his costume.
He was at the center of one Marvel’s best-loved storylines of the 1970s, the “Celestial Madonna saga” concocted mostly by writer Steve Engelhart, that played out over a dozen issues of the Avengers and helped develop characters currently on the periphery of the MCU such as Mantis, the Vision, the Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye. Assuming we get some restoration of the status quo in Avengers 4, Kang could be the next major threat to a slightly-revamped Avengers lineup.
Magneto. The X-Men’s principle nemesis is one of the most nuanced and intelligible bad guys in all of comics. Born Erik Lehnsherr, his hatred of bullies and authority comes from his experience as a child surviving the Holocaust. He is intelligent, empathetic, and feels fully justified in his ends: while he can be reasoned with on occasion, he is animated by the zeal of an ideologue. And his powers are deadly. It’s no wonder that two great actors, Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender, found plenty in this character to deliver (ahem) magnetic performances that make up for a wealth of storytelling sins in Fox’s pair of X-Men trilogies.
In comics, Magneto figures most prominently in the X-Men’s core storyline, crystalizing and complicating the theme of mankind’s fear and hatred of mutants. However, Magneto has also occasionally crossed over to menace other Marvel heroes, and is a match for most of them. Even if there are no plans to extend his reach beyond the mutant-sphere, he still adds a nice piece to the board.
The Skrulls. Okay, this is kind of a deep cut, but hear me out. The shapeshifting, lizard-like alien race first appeared way back in Fantastic Four #2, making them Fox property. However, they had their biggest star turn in Marvel’s late 60s epic Kree-Skrull War, a six-part story written by Roy Thomas and mostly drawn by Neal Adams, that had the Avengers and Captain Marvel stuck in the middle of a confrontation between two races fighting over Earth because of its strategic position in their ongoing conflict. Sound familiar?
The Kree, led by Ronan the Accuser and his boss, the Supreme Intelligence, have turned up in both the movies and in the Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD TV show, and are likely to play a much bigger part in next year’s Captain Marvel movie. Without their natural cosmic adversaries, however, they lack meaning and menace. Plus, the Skrulls’ ability to imitate humans gives them a paranoia-inducing “invasion of the body snatchers” quality that has been used to good effect in comic book stories over the years. And then of course there is Super-Skrull, a genetically-modified member of the species who combines the powers of all of the Fantastic Four. Lots of possibilities if these creatures get loose in the MCU to cause trouble for the Kree, the Avengers and the Guardians.
Galactus. There is no greater threat in the entire Marvel Universe. Galactus isn’t a villain; he’s a force of nature. He travels the galaxy directed by his herald – most famously the Silver Surfer, though there have been others – looking for planets to consume for their life force. Yes, dude eats planets. And he does so without much concern or apology. It’s just what he does, which makes him more terrifying and unknowable even than a fully gloved-up Thanos with his weird fixation on overpopulation.
Many connoisseurs consider the three issues of the Fantastic Four (#48-50) that introduced Galactus to be the absolute pinnacle of the “Marvel Age of Comics” and the most visually dramatic storytelling ever concocted by Jack Kirby, which is saying quite a bit. Rather than tackle that challenge, Fox opted to go high-concept on Galactus in the dreadful 2007 sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The big guy deserves another shot, and so do fans. Now that old purple-pants is back under Marvel’s control, maybe we’ll get one.
