As the MCU progresses, the lore and characters only get richer; and, to be fair, Marvel Studios
has decades and decades of comic narratives to pull from, so the fact that the MCU has
become as complex as it is should be no surprise.
But alongside the heroes that we root for in these films, there’s also a whole lot
of villains kicking around, some with fairly unresolved story lines.
So today, we’re taking a look at a few of them and returning to our list of the Top
10 Marvel Villains Still Lurking in the MCU – Part 2!
Also, heads up, there’s some major spoilers on this list concerning recently released
MCU films, including Avengers Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp, so be warned friends!
10 Dormammu Dormammu may have only appeared to be a secondary
antagonist in the Doctor Strange film, but the nefarious inter-dimensional entity was
a threat that lingered throughout the entire film’s narrative.
Doctor Strange managed to convince Dormammu to leave Earth alone by trapping the entity
in a continuous time loop thanks to the Eye of Agamotto, aka the time stone.
But while Dormammu has set his sights elsewhere for now, who knows if one day he’ll come
back, wanting to bring the world into his Dark Dimension after all.
And if Strange really has lost the time stone for good, what tricks will he have to resort
to in order to stop Dormammu once and for all?
9 Arnim Zola Captain America Winter Solider reintroduced
Arnim Zola, the mad scientist who worked alongside Red Skull in Captain America the First Avenger.
Except when he returned, he had his mind transferred inside of a massive computer housed in a warehouse
that Cap and Black Widow pay a visit to.
Zola tells them about how Hydra had infiltrated SHEILD, then tries to kill them.
While the warehouse is destroyed, it seems likely that Zola would’ve had a backup,
and considering he managed to live on in this form in the first place, chances are he would’ve
made sure that if anything were to happen, his mind would be transferred elsewhere.
In addition to that, apparently the writers of Winter Solider intended for Zola to survive,
so who knows.
8 Abomination Remember the Incredible Hulk movie?
Yeah, most of us don’t.
It’s one of the only major let downs of the MCU.
But it also featured a villain of interest; Abonimation, aka Emil Blonksy, a former special
ops commando who was on loan to General Thaddeus Ross in order to capture Bruce Banner.
When injected with the original super soldier serum, along with a dose of Bruce Banner’s
blood, he became Abomination; a villain who was later defeated by the Hulk.
Afterwards, he was taken to a cryocell in Barrow Alaska, and was mentioned in passing
a few times; the first being in a conversation between Coulson and Jasper Sitwell regarding
bringing Abomination into the Avengers Initiative, and the second during Agents of SHEILD when
Coulson threatens Grant Ward about relocating him to Blonsky’s cell in Alaska.
Other than that, the character hasn’t had much presence in the MCU.
But perhaps he’ll just remain in his cell for the rest of his days.
7 Kurse Speaking of films a lot of us don’t want
to remember, Thor The Dark World probably falls somewhere into that category for a lot
of you.
Compared to the other Thor films, it just isn’t as good.
But regardless of how you feel about Thor’s second movie, it did feature some interesting
aspects of the MCU we hadn’t seen before, including the Dark Elves, and a big bruiting
baddie named Kurse.
Kurse wasn’t major in the Dark World; instead, he was villainous muscle, who eventually was
sucked into somewhere by a black hole grenade.
While it’s safe to assume that his body was crushed from the inside out, immediately
killing him, whose to say that there aren’t other Kurse Stones kicking around after all?
The Kurse Stone is a mystical stone used by Dark Elves to transform them, often with death
several hours after the transformation.
How do we really know that the one in the Dark World was actually the very last Kurse
Stone in existence?
6 The Collector Personally, The Collector never struck me
as being ALL that bad.
But he’s done some sneaky stuff in the past in order to get what he wants.
The Collector played a major role when it came to the infinity stones throughout the
MCU, and he tends to make for a useful and interesting plot device when writers need
to pull upon acquiring a strange or rare object.
We also don’t know exactly what the Collector’s fate was, or if Thanos left him alive after
retrieving the Reality Stone from him.
But we do know that Thanos left Knowhere in flames.
The Collector is a resourceful character though, so we doubt that that was the last we will
see of him.
5 Batroc Another villain who made an appearance in
Winter solider, Batroc is a highly skilled French mercenary who managed to go head to
head, or rather, fist to fist, with Captain America.
He’s one of the world’s most wanted men.
The last we saw of Batroc was him in SHIELD custody, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if
he popped up somewhere down the line again, especially if a different character ends up
taking up the Captain America mantle somewhere down the line.
Plus, there’s been no word of whether or not he escaped custody when SHIELD fell, so
the chances of him being out there and being active –if not dusted – are fairly high.
4 Ghost The most recent villain to debut in the MCU
on our list, Ghost was an antagonist in Ant-Man and the Wasp.
By the end of the film, Janet Van Dyne helps to save Ghost by transferring quantum energy
into her body to keep her alive, and it seems that Ghost is on the road to redemption.
Ghost was also never really that bad; she just wanted her powers gone, which SHEILD
never helped her with, and in order to stay alive she had to harvest quantum energy.
Considering what happened in the post credit scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp with Hank, Hope
and Janet being dusted, Ghost and Bill Foster, aside from Scott himself, are the only ones
who actually have an in-depth understanding of the Quantum Realm; something that will
be crucial to defeating Thanos. 3 Hela
Okay, so it’s very likely that Hela might be dead after Surtur had his way with Ragnarok.
But consider how powerful she is, and the fact that we never actually saw Surtur defeat
her.
Sure Asgard is destroyed, but who’s to say that she didn’t survive?
She’s also the Goddess of Death.
If anyone could cheat death or avoid it, it would definitely be the goddess of it.
Also it’d just be cruel to waste a talent as phenomenal as Cate Blanchett.
Just saying.
2 A.I.M Advanced Idea Mechanics, otherwise known as
AIM, entered the MCU in Iron Man 3 under the leadership of Aldrich Killian.
While Killian is now dead and gone, the organization has quite the roots in the comics; first introduced
in 1966 in Strange Tales number 146, AIM quickly became a network of terrorist arms dealers
and scientists whose goal was to overthrow all of the world governments for their own
gain.
It was the group responsible for reviving Red Skull from suspended animation in the
comics.
It employed Batroc, it dispatched a special agent called Destructor to capture Ms Marvel.
It helped create the Red Hulk.
So yeah, it’s a foundation of technology capable for a whole lot of evil doings.
And it wouldn’t be surprising to see the MCU return to it at some point, perhaps under
the real Mandarin’s control next time around.
1 Thanos Perhaps the most obvious villain in the MCU
that we left off of our list last time around is the Mad Titan himself, Thanos.
And, so far, he’s been the most threatening villain in the MCU.
Sure Loki was a lot to handle, but the Battle of New York only really happened because Thanos
orchestrated it.
He’s always been that greater threat lingering in the MCU, and he’s the most powerful that
the Avengers and our other heroes have ever encountered.
In the comics themselves, Thanos is a character that keeps coming back, even after the Infinity
Gauntlet (which was the 1991 comic that Infinity War was primarily based off of), and there’s
very few villainous forces out there that parallel or out do his capabilities.
While we’re sure Thanos will get a big ol serving of justice when the fourth Avengers
film rolls around, based off of his history in the comics, it’s hard to believe that
the Mid Titan will be gone forever, even after his defeat.
That is, if the Avengers plan works, which will probably be time travel.
Very likely time travel.
There we have it friends!
Which of these villains would you be the most excited to see come back in the MCU?
Aside from Thanos who is most definitely coming back, that is.
Give us a shout in those comments below!
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