It’s got to be pretty hard to top a villain quite so devious and terrifying as Thanos,
but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
From death gods to demons to dictators and beyond, here are the Marvel villains who could
give the Mad Titan a run for his money.
Sure, Thanos killed half the universe, but he did it in the pursuit of what he saw as
a higher purpose.
Hela doesn't need a reason to kill: death is who she is and what she does.
“I am Hela, Odin's first-born, commander of the Legions of Asgard, the rightful heir
to the throne, and the goddess of death.”
When she kills you, you go to her realm of Hel, which is 'Hel with one L' if you're keeping
track, and become part of her undead army, which, as afterlives go, doesn't sound particularly
fun.
This is why Vikings try so hard to prove their value as warriors, because only the bravest
and best are chosen by the Valkyrie to spend eternity feasting in Odin's great hall of
Valhalla.
In theory, everyone else goes to Hel.
The Marvel version of Hela was introduced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Journey into
Mystery #102.
Her intricate armor and multi-horned helmet are classic Kirby designs, and help make Hela
one of his scariest-looking characters.
In fact, of all Thor's enemies, she's probably the scariest.
After all, it's not easy to stop someone from killing whoever they want when they have dominion
over the realm of death.
Kang the Conqueror is a strategist by nature.
He never makes a move until everything is arranged perfectly, and he's confident that
whatever happens is certain to go his way.
Because he’s from the far future, Kang has access to time travel, meaning that when he's
orchestrating his manipulative plans, he can change the past to make the future he wants
more likely.
Anytime the Avengers face Kang, they have to realize that he may have already changed
their timeline in ways they aren't even aware of.
“I hope you enjoy the rest of your days on this dead Earth, for this is where I leave
you.”
As you might expect, conflicts with Kang can get pretty confusing.
He first appeared in 1964's Avengers #8, but a previous time-traveling villain named Rama-Tut,
who'd appeared a year before in Fantastic Four #19, was later revealed to be Kang from
another place in his timeline.
Thanks to the convoluted nature of time travel, you never know when more than one Kang might
show up, and at times he may even be at war with different versions of himself, as happens
in the "Kang War" storyline that started in Avengers #128.
Mess with Kang and you’ll soon wish you’d never been born.
Marvel is lousy with demons, but none greater than Mephisto.
Inspired by Mephistopheles from the legend of Faust, Mephisto has been Marvel's official
Satan stand-in for over 50 years, ever since his debut in The Silver Surfer #3 by Stan
Lee and John Buscema.
He's the devil who holds Doctor Doom's witch mother captive in his own version of Hell.
He's also the one who made the deal that turned Johnny Blaze into Ghost Rider.
Like the demon on which he was based, Mephisto will show up and say plenty of nice things
to you if he thinks you might sign on his dotted line, but if you don't do exactly what
he wants, you’ll soon find out that he's more than capable of ruining your life...
and your afterlife.
The Hate-Monger was a mysterious villain who first appeared in Fantastic Four #21 in 1963.
He's an unnerving masked figure in a peaked hood that immediately brings to mind the Ku
Klux Klan, only he’s also got a ray gun that makes people hate each other.
He eventually turns out to be none other than Adolf Hitler, or maybe just one of his doubles
or clones, who assumed his new identity after fleeing Germany.
This Hitler dies at the end of that first Hate-Monger story, but it soon turns out that
hate itself isn’t so easy to kill.
What makes the Hate-Monger scary isn’t just that he's Adolf Hitler.
The scary thing about the Hate-Monger is the idea of Hitler and the hate he represented
being practically impossible to kill.
“There are no men like me.”
“There are always men like you.”
He just keeps coming back, over and over, with new and more powerful technology every
time.
Introduced in issue #5 of The Ultimates 2, the First Firmament is the living embodiment
of the first universe that ever existed, back at the dawn of time.
Attacked by the very beings it had created, its consciousness survived and remained in
the void.
When Eternity, the eighth living universe to exist, was weakened by other events out
in the cosmos, the First Firmament returned and sought revenge.
The sheer scale of the cosmic power wielded by the First Firmament, who has no regard
for life in our universe, is deeply terrifying on a cosmic, existential level.
Fortunately, the Ultimates and Galactus were able to help Eternity defeat the First Firmament,
but it was doubtless a close call with an unusually powerful and entirely evil being.
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