We're taking a look at the biggest and the baddest Marvel baddies to find out what's
really driving them in their quest for world-domination. From genocidal warlords to high-tech thieves,
here's what these MCU villains can't live without.
Loki is certainly a menace capable of great destruction. He invited killer Frost Giants
to Thor's coronation. He teamed up with the Chitauri, stole the Space Stone, and used
the Mind Stone to wreak havoc on New York City. And at any given moment, there's a good
chance he'll try to stab you in the back when you're not looking.
But even when he impersonated Odin and ruled Asgard for a while, Loki wasn't really interested
in elaborate, evil schemes, not really. He mostly just liked a really good prank. Loki
is driven by chaos, in addition to the whole, y'know…wanting to be king thing.
"All this because Loki desires a throne."
"It is my birthright!"
"Your birthright was to die!"
He just can't help himself, even when he sometimes tries to do the right thing.
On Sakaar, Loki was more than happy to serve the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok, and he
cheered when the Hulk smacked him around in the arena. He later tried to betray Thor when
they were teaming up, but eventually, the god of mischief did the right thing and helped
defeat Hela in Asgard. But that just speaks to the guy's unpredictability.
Even when going up against Thanos, Loki offered him his fealty, and then tried to stab him.
He got killed for his audacity, as Thanos isn't one who really cares much for jokes.
Happily, thanks to the events of Avengers: Endgame, there's a version of Loki running
around in time, undoubtedly causing all sorts of trouble.
Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, was one of Hitler's right-hand men during World War 2,
as depicted in Captain America: The First Avenger. He formed his own offshoot of the
Nazi SS called Hydra, and was obsessed with Dr. Abraham Erskine's Super Soldier Serum.
Consumed with becoming the "superior man" so that he could rightfully wield the Tesseract,
Schmidt forced Erskine to give him the formula.
The earlier version of the serum, without the addition of the crucial Vita-Rays, gave
Schmidt all of the power he desired, but it also had a hideous side effect. It disfigured
his face, literally turning him into, well…a red skull. It didn't matter much to Schmidt,
who didn't care about the superficial Aryan ideal. He just wanted to make himself into
something new, so he could use the power of the Norse gods via the Tesseract.
That's why the existence of his American opposite, Captain America, enraged him, and defeating
Cap was an imperative to prove his superiority. Unfortunately for ol' Schmidt, when he accidentally
touched the Tesseract with his bare hands, it activated and sent him halfway across the
universe through a wormhole. The Tesseract, also known as the Space Stone, sent him to
Vormir to be the wispy guardian of the Soul Stone. So much for the superior man.
Ultron was initially designed by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron as a "suit of armor"
for the world. Tony wanted the AI to be a defense system to protect the Earth against
aliens and interdimensional menaces, but he inadvertently gave it true sentience, and
more than a touch of his own megalomaniacal personality, with the aid of the Mind Stone,
which proves that using the Infinity Stones for any reason is just a certified Bad Idea.
Upon reviewing the carnage surrounding the Avengers and the damage humanity inflicts
on itself in general, Ultron immediately came to the conclusion that the best way to protect
the world was to destroy...well...everybody. The thing is, in his twisted mind, he interpreted
this idea as, well, just take a gander:
"Is that why you've come? To end the Avengers?"
"I've come to save the world. But also…yeah."
Being an advanced being, he attempted this mission in the most efficient way he could
think of, trying to recreate the extinction-level event that wiped out the dinosaurs by ripping
up a huge section of Sokovia and smashing it into the ground like a meteor. No more
humans!
Ultron wanted a brand new Earth built in his own image, creating a machine age founded
on his own twisted vision of natural selection. To him, humanity was just a bad idea that
needed to be wiped out, in favor of better forms of life like himself. He never did quite
understand how much of his personality was driven by Tony Stark's own ambitions, albeit
warped almost beyond recognition.
Of all the MCU villains, none were quite as obsessed with their goals as Helmut Zemo.
A Sokovian colonel and leader of a covert hit squad, Zemo lived a happy life with his
wife and Avengers-obsessed son, Carl. Then Ultron came along and killed thousands of
Sokovians, including Zemo's wife, son, and father. As a result, Zemo blamed the Avengers
for not caring about the lives of innocents, and he vowed to destroy them.
Zemo knew he couldn't kill the Avengers himself, but he studied them, learned their secrets,
and manipulated them into almost destroying each other, as seen in Captain America: Civil
War. He framed Bucky Barnes for the death of T'Chaka, the Black Panther's father. Then,
using Bucky as a pawn, he manipulated Captain America and Iron Man into a confrontation
that nearly killed them both, leaving the Avengers fractured for years.
Zemo is unique because his life was basically over. The only thing he thought about after
the murder of his family was this idea of obtaining some kind of justice for their senseless
deaths. He had no other goals, and justice wasn't even something he enjoyed. He simply
felt it was his duty to destroy the Avengers in the name of his family. In fact, he was
about to kill himself, listening to a voicemail from his wife one last time, before Black
Panther stopped him and captured him.
As an ancient, godlike Celestial, Ego the Living Planet flickered into existence and
slowly coalesced a planet around himself. Desperately lonely, he created a humanoid
form and used that to travel around the universe. Soon after, he decided to terraform every
planet he visited into an extension of himself as part of a plan he called The Expansion.
His universal legacy would literally be himself, on every planet. Everything would be him.
A perfect plan for a narcissistic god!
"...covering all that exists until everything is…me."
Of course, he needed a power boost in order to make it work, which is why he impregnated
countless women of numerous species. He hired Yondu to bring their children to him so he
could see if they inherited his powers. None of them did, so he simply killed them. Then
he finally found Peter Quill and brought him to his world, as seen in Guardians of the
Galaxy Vol. 2. Ego fooled Quill with what seemed to be the fatherly love Quill had always
wanted, but Ego was simply after his son's power to make The Expansion work.
Fortunately, Quill's friends helped him fight back, and they destroyed Ego's inner core,
saving the universe and ending Ego's plan for a long-lasting legacy...and his life.
If Ego could've thought of anything beyond his own existence, he'd still be alive.
The Grandmaster is one of the oldest beings in the universe, with only his brother, the
Collector, being his equal. Like the Collector, the Grandmaster has a very specific obsession,
he loves to be entertained. Upon arriving on the planet Sakaar, the Grandmaster established
himself as the ruler of this junction of wormholes that brought stragglers and lost souls to
him on a constant basis. He quickly had the idea of pitting the new arrivals against each
other in gladiatorial combat.
Based on the statues of former champions, the Grandmaster at one point captured the
likes of Beta Ray Bill, the Man-Thing, the Bi-Beast, and Ares. Of course, the Hulk was
his favorite champion, entertaining him endlessly until Thor came along to spoil all of his
fun. Still, the lives of others were far less important than his own good time. When you're
that old, it's easy to get bored. Of course, with his obedience disks, melt stick, and
loyal warriors, it was hard to protest when he rigged the games in his own favor.
Thankfully for the people of Sakaar, Thor helped lead a revolt against the Grandmaster,
resulting in a confrontation with a very angry populace. Hey, at least he won't be bored
while his ex-subjects try to tear him apart.
"This revolution has been a huge success. Yay us! Pat on the back. Pat on the back.
Come on. No?"
Erik "Killmonger" Stevens was the son of N'Jobu, the brother of King T'Chaka of Wakanda. N'Jobu
was sent to America as an undercover observer, and he learned that Black people in America
were, quote, "overly policed and incarcerated" and subjected to poverty and misery. So he
planned to fight back by stealing Wakanda's vibranium and leading a worldwide revolt.
When T'Chaka learned of his plans, he confronted N'Jobu, and soon after, the Wakandan prince
was dead. T'Chaka then left N'Jobu's corpse behind in America, as well as his son, Erik.
In other words, the king had abandoned his nephew. Moments later, Erik found his dad's
lifeless body and obsessively vowed to take what was his, not only for himself but for
all the world's Black people.
Killmonger wanted reparations for what he had lost, his father, his childhood, and justice
for his people.
"We're gonna send Vibranium weapons out to our war dogs. They'll arm oppressed people
all over the world so they can finally rise up and kill those in power."
So, he joined the Navy SEALS and became a deadly marksman, earning the "Killmonger"
nickname, and he acquired the skills and training to kill his cousin, the new King T'Challa.
Killmonger desired for Wakanda to stop hiding and to take its true role as leader, liberator,
and subjugator, and he planned on claiming the throne by killing T'Challa in ritual combat.
Of course, the Black Panther eventually took back control of his crown and defeated Killmonger,
but he also heeded his cousin's lessons and peacefully opened Wakanda up to the world.
"In times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers."
Thanos, the architect of so much destruction, simply wanted balance. Growing up on Titan,
he quickly realized that his home was like most planets, with, quote, "too many mouths
to feed and not enough to go around." Thus, he proposed an idea: If they'd kill off half
the population at random, they'd, in all likelihood, save the other half. Makes sense on paper,
right? Well, he ended up being banished from Titan as a result of this outrageous idea…which
worked out for him, at least. It turns out that he was proven right; the population of
Titan died out.
Thanos then took his quest across the universe, building a host of fanatically devoted followers
who conquered and obliterated half the population on countless worlds. But for Thanos, this
method was too slow, so he sought out the Infinity Stones. He was so certain of his
radical objective that he planned to wipe out half of all life in the universe with
a single snap of his fingers.
"With all six stones, I could simply snap my fingers, and they would all cease to exist,
and I call that…mercy."
As seen in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos did just this. In his mind, he was doing what
needed to be done. To do any less would be a failure of will, one that put the entire
universe in peril. Of course, his single-minded obsession didn't concern itself with what
happened after, nor did it otherwise try to improve any lives.
Quentin Beck was a former engineer for Stark Industries who developed sophisticated hologram
technology. Tony Stark took his tech, gave it a silly acronym, Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing,
or B.A.R.F, and used it for his own therapeutic purposes. When Beck complained, Stark fired
him, partly because he was "unstable." Stark wasn't wrong, but it was still a pretty crappy
thing to do.
Beck and many other disgruntled Stark employees bided their time and formed a plan for revenge,
as seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home. It wasn't just revenge on Stark personally, as he died
stopping Thanos. It was revenge on Stark's legacy. Beck learned that Stark had left Peter
Parker a pair of sunglasses that controlled E.D.I.T.H., a global satellite and computer
hacking system that controlled a huge weapons network. Beck wanted those glasses so that
he could be the biggest, baddest, best hero of them all, better than Iron Man.
And Beck almost achieved his dream, as he manipulated Peter into handing over the glasses
through a campaign of smoke and mirrors, or rather, drones and holograms. Eventually,
Peter figured out Beck's plan and wouldn't rest until he rectified his error. As a result,
Spider-Man utterly defeated Mysterio, but as he was dying, the villain got his revenge
on Peter, too. He framed him for the attacks on London and then revealed his secret identity
to the world, making Peter a fugitive.
"Spider-Man's name is Peter Parker!"
"What the—"
Talk about being one bitter baddie.
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