Many of our favourite super villains in comics don’t hail from Earth; their origin stories
take readers to extraterrestrial planets, eventually finding these antagonist forces
facing off against cosmic heroes or finding their way to our world where our valiant heroes
put an end to their evil intentions.
So today, we’re taking a closer look at these alien baddies with our list of the top
10 alien super villains who could destroy the world.
And there’s a lot of them.
We’re going to be sticking to comic books for this list, so if you’d like a part two
that branches out more into other parts of nerd culture, give us a shout in those comments
below!
And be sure to stick around till the end to let us know what other characters you would’ve
liked to see in our video!
Now let’s get to it!
10 Ebony Maw Starting off our list is a character who could
bring a civilization to its end not by using physical strength, but by using his massive
intellect and cunning.
Ebony Maw first appeared in the comics in New Avengers issue 8 in 2013, with a full
appearance in Infinity issue 1 that same month.
He is one of Thanos’ Black Order who has a genius level intellect, telepathy, telekinesis,
flight and mind control.
That latter ability can be used in severely deadly ways, especially if Maw is able to
infiltrate a planet.
He has used his abilities to manipulate and control Doctor Strange in the comics, which
we saw loosely adapted in Avengers Infinity War, except in the comics, it’s significantly
worse; Maw uses Strange as a double agent for him within the Illuminati, which he takes
advantage of to find Thanos’ son, Thane in a hidden Inhuman city, and then made Strange
forget the location altogether.
He’s often described as a black tongue that spreads mischief and evil wherever he goes.
9 Annihilus First appearing in Fantastic Four Annual issue
6, from 1968, Annihilus is a Marvel villain created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby who is
most well-known for the Annihilation storyline.
He’s known as the living death that walks, and has superhuman strength, speed, stamina,
agility and reflexes, a chitinous exoskeleton that makes him even more durable, he can fly,
and he wields a cosmic control rod, which allows for molecular manipulation, a slowed
down aging process and energy blasts.
He is the ruler of the negative zone, and has attempted to invade Earth on multiple
occasions, with the Fantastic Four often putting an end to his evil plans.
8 Lobo In contrast to our last number, Lobo is a
violent and brutal individual whose named literally translates into “he who devours
your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it”.
And that he does; Lobo, an alien who hails from the planet Czarnia, once committed mass
genocide on his HOME WORLD just for kicks, exterminating them all by unleashing a violent
plague of flying scorpions.
He’s got an impressive skill set as well, which includes immortality, regeneration,
a red power ring, superhuman senses, strength, speed, stamina and durability, and a genius
level intellect to boot.
Funny enough, he is protective of space dolphins and has a bulldog named Dawg, so at least
he cares about some form of life.
Lobo is the kind of character who might not be able to wipe out the entire planet in one
go, but with his drive for destruction and chaos, and his ability to regenerate from
a molecular level, if he put his mind to it, he could very well commit genocide again if
he so chose.
7 Brainiac Brainiac is a villain who first appeared in
Action Comics issue 242 from 1958.
He’s an alien villain who is often considered to be Superman’s second arch-enemy, next
to Lex Luthor of course.
Brainiac is capable of a whole lot of scary crap; his cyborg body grants him superhuman
strength, speed, stamina, longevity and durability, flight, and a regenerative healing factor.
In addition to that, he’s got super human intelligence, he’s a technopath, he can
project energy, take possession of other beings, can generate impenetrable force fields, and,
worse of all, he has vast psychic powers, which can include telepathy, telekinesis,
mind control and matter manipulation, although that has varied over the years.
Thanks to DC’s ever changing and retconning of their own main continuity, several versions
of him have popped up over the years, and in some versions of his story, he is responsible
for the destruction of Krypton.
Needless to say, he’s got the abilities to bring down an entire civilization, especially
if the likes of Superman wasn’t around to protect the earth from his schemes.
6 The Supreme Intelligence The supreme intelligence is yet another character
whose intellect could bring down a civilization.
So the Supreme Intelligence, who first appeared in Fantastic Four issue 65 in 1967, is an
artificial intelligence that rules over the Kree.
It was created by the Kree as a super computer that consists of the greatest minds of the
Kree people over the last million years; a cybernetic and organic single collective intelligence
that incorporates the disembodied brains of the greatest Kree individuals that have been
preserved cryogenically.
It has a seemingly immeasurable intellect with vast knowledge that surpasses anything
we have on Earth.
It’s capable of cosmic awareness, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition and post cognition,
it can alter reality, manipulate matter and energy and create up to three androids at
any given time.
So needless to say, with a force like that leading the Kree, you can see why the Kree
have been able to nearly wipe out other extraterrestrial races in the past.
5 Parallax Parallax is a cosmic entity who could easily
take over a planet and cause its destruction.
Fear is Parallax’s jam; it has massive fear casting and mind control abilities that can
take hold of the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman and even Spectre.
Only those who can conquer their inner fear completely are able to evade its grasp.
If someone feels the slightest bit of fear, it can take possession of their body.
It has no true physical form, generally transforming into a form that will instill its targets
with fear.
So imagine what abilities like those could do if Parallax wanted to see a world crumble,
and no superheroes the likes of Green Lantern or Batman were around to prevent it from doing
such?
4 Knull Knull is a literal god.
An elder god, to be exact, having existed prior to the Marvel multiverse as we know
it.
Knull had enjoyed drifting through the endless void of space, until the Celestials screwed
that up for him, evolving the universe into what it is now.
Knull attempted to wage a war against them, decapitating one of them in the process, causing
him to be banished for eternity to the void.
He used that decapitated head to forge the Klyntar, the race of symbiotes that Venom
belongs to, and that severed head would eventually become Knowhere.
Known as the god of the symbiotes, he has the ability to create, control and manipulate
an eldritch darkness, a manifestation of the primordial void that existed before the universe
itself, allowing him to create and dominate over the Klyntar.
He is responsible for the destruction and corruption of entire civilizations across
the universe thanks to his symbiote army.
3 Anti-Monitor The pinnacle antagonist in the famous 1985
Crisis on Infinite earths, this DC big bad has near limitless cosmic powers.
He can manipulate matter and energy, warp reality, has super strength durability and
longevity, and of course, the real kicker, he can absorb entire universes.
So yeah, Anti-Monitor could easily wipe out the world if there was no opposition preventing
him from doing so.
The Anti-Monitor is responsible for the most deaths of characters out of all of DC’s
villains, and destroyed thousands of universe’s to boot.
He literally devours the energies of universes.
He is responsible for the elimination of the DC multiverse, restarting it into a simpler
more streamlined universe.
So yeah, without a doubt, the giant retcon tool that is Anti-Monitor definitely deserves
a spot on this list.
2 Thanos Thanos is one of the more deserving villains
on this list; he’s an antagonist that arguably, compared to our last number, worked hard to
gain the ability to completely wipe out planets.
Not condoning it, just saying.
Thanos, the mad titan, was created by Jim Starlin, first appearing in The Invincible
Iron Man issue 55 in 1973.
He is a member of the extraterrestrial race called the Titanian Eternals, meaning he was
born with superhuman abilities, although he would further increase them by means of bionic
amplification, mysticism and even some powers bestowed to him by his unrequited love, the
entity Death.
In both the comics and the MCU, Thanos hunts down the infinity gems, and once he’s collected
them all, has the power to do whatever he desires.
He’s omnipotent.
And while he chose to wipe out half of all living things, if he preferred, he could have
just obliterated the Earth or any other planet.
Sans gauntlet though, we wouldn’t put it past him to whip up a scheme to destroy the
earth by other means; he’s conquered a bunch of different extraterrestrial races in the
past.
1 Galactus The reason Galactus tops our list is because
his one sole purpose, compared to every other villain on this list, is to consume planets.
He is known as the devourer of worlds.
He’s one of the most likely characters to attempt to annihilate the earth, but not out
of a particularly evil reason; he is a part of the universal balance of the cosmos, an
unstoppable force of nature that keeps the universe in check.
First appearing in Fantastic Four issue 48 in 1966, Galactus is the product of a mortal
man merging with the sentience of the universe during the big crunch, gestating for billions
of years before emerging as Galactus, endowed with the power cosmic.
He awakens with an insatiable hunger and must feed on planets and life force in order to
survive.
He eventually stumbles upon Earth with his herald, the silver surfer, and is stopped
by the Fantastic Four from consuming the planet after Reed Richards gets his hands on the
ultimate nullifer; one of the only things in the universe that could waver Galactus’
hunger and pose a threat to his existence, frightening him enough to move on from earth
and consume a planet elsewhere.
There we have it friends!
Now it’s your turn!
What other alien super villains do you think are capable of destroy the Earth?
Give us a shout in those comments below and share your two cents with us.
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