From Abomination To Gorr The God Butcher, Here Are 8 Powerful Marvel Villains Ruined By The MCU
The MCU’s villain problem is an issue that has haunted the hit franchise since its early days, although most fans would argue that it hit a new high after Avengers: Endgame, when the franchise seems to have run out of memorable bad guys. The high standards set by Thanos have proved difficult to replicate, with Kevin Feige hoping to replicate the gravitas in Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom.
On paper, Dr. Doom should be an easy one to pull off, given his formidable reputation in the comics. Unfortunately, the MCU hasn’t always gotten the comics’ villains right. For a long-running franchise famous for the most resilient superheroes, the MCU’s villains are always short-lived and rarely as multidimensional as the franchise’s range of heroes. This trend has led to the trivialization of some of the best villains in Marvel comics, and these are our top picks.
8. Abomination
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She-Hulk was supposed to become Marvel’s Batwoman, but the character’s titular show collapsed on its very first try because the writing couldn’t bring the heroine to life. The writers also made a mess out of one of Bruce Banner’s biggest villains in the comics when they introduced a pacifist version of Abomination. In the comics, Emil Blonsky is a powerhouse of rage and chaos that tests every Avenger that takes him on. He starts as a dangerous spy before becoming more powerful than Hulk when he first gets his powers. While he isn’t the biggest threat to the Avengers, Abomination remains a formidable force.
The villain got a great MCU run in The Incredible Hulk, and while the version wasn’t as powerful as the comics version, he was still an acceptably ferocious killing machine that posed a real threat to Bruce Banner. The toned-down version of him introduced in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, however, makes a joke out of the character. Not only does the character pose zero threat, but he is also reduced to hulking up for fun, which doesn’t fit any version of the character at any point in the comics.
7. Whiplash
Iron Man 2 proved that having a great catalogue of superheroes only works if they are matched with equally formidable villains. Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) is one of the most forgettable MCU villains, mostly because he didn’t pose any significant threat to the heroes involved. Whiplash had a uniquely designed armor and weapons, but the character’s largely baseless reason for coming after Tony Stark made him inactionable from the outset. Rourke’s forced Russian accent and poor choice of humor didn’t do much to improve the character either.
Whiplash was largely based on two Marvel Comics characters, Mark Scarlotti and Anton Vanko, both of whom are decent villains with a solid backstory compared to the Iron Man 2 incarnation. Even Anton Vanko, the comics version of the Iron Man 2 character who was largely based on the MCU character, has a simple, more compelling reason to hate Tony Stark, having seen a man in an Iron Man suit destroy his village. With Whiplash being reduced to an impactless villain in the film, his image was destroyed across the Marvel Universe, which meant that even his return with the Masters of Evil in Avengers #6 was hardly recognized
6. The Mandarin
One of the MCU’s biggest failures is the lack of a proper contest between Tony Stark and The Mandarin. The infamous villain, who wields the power of the mysterious Ten Rings, is Iron Man’s archnemesis and one of the most powerful villains in the comics, with a high-stakes showdown always anticipated when the two meet. However, with the Infinity Saga in its infancy, the MCU chose to introduce Trevor Slattery, the actor impersonating The Mandarin in Iron Man 3.
The Mandarin got a proper introduction in Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, but the character wasn’t nearly as impactful as his reputation in the comics. Despite the attempt to correct their Iron Man 3 mistake, Slattery remains the most enduring memory of The Mandarin, reducing the character to a joke.
5. Gorr the God Butcher
Thor: Love and Thunder enjoyed some success, mostly because of Natalie Portman’s surprise return as Jane Foster and her emotional storyline. However, the MCU once again made a total mess of a major supervillain from the comics, as they just wouldn’t give a villain the chance to express their full potential.
In the books, three Thors couldn’t defeat Gorr the God Butcher, who had nearly wiped out all the gods by the time Thor travels to the future to defeat him. Gorr is one of the bloodiest supervillains in Marvel comics, testing Thor to his very limits, unlike the MCU’s version, who is more creepy than dangerous.
Despite having the perfect actor for the role, and the perfect setting to introduce a formidable supernatural villain to the franchise, the MCU did the exact opposite. The only thing the film gets somewhat right is the villain’s backstory, which accurately justifies his hatred for the gods. However, Gorr does all his god-butchering off-screen, leaving him with no significant contribution to the plot besides kidnapping children.
4. Malekith
Here is another formidable villain from Thor’s rogues gallery that the MCU turned into a generic character in dull grey armor with little justification for being overtly evil. Malekith the Accursed in the comics is a force to be reckoned with in the pages of Marvel Comics.
In the books, he wields the dreaded Casket of Ancient Winters, which can turn entire planets into ice-covered wastelands. He is so powerful that he is the supervillain at the center of “The War of the Realms,” one of the comics’ biggest contenders for an Avengers film.
Despite Christopher Eccleston’s best efforts to deliver a memorable version of Malekith in Thor: The Dark World, the MCU just didn’t have the script for a proper treatment. Not only does he pose no threat to the heroes while wielding a whole Infinity Stone, but Malekith is also taken out in the most comical way in the franchise’s history – crushed by his own ship.
3. Red Hulk
The introduction of Harrisson Ford as General Thaddeus Ross (Red Hulk) was one of the biggest selling points for Captain America: Brave New World. After the prolonged absence of Bruce Banner in the franchise since Endgame, Red Hulk was the perfect opportunity to change the character’s narrative while keeping the power of the Hulk in future films, albeit as a villain.
In the comics, Red Hulk is the epitome of military strategy and a master of mental strength, whose alter ego is well guarded. When fully unleashed, he poses a bigger threat than the green guy, absorbing energy and emitting intense heat comparable to a nuclear furnace.
However, besides limited screen time that doesn’t really allow Ford’s Hulk to do anything, the MCU’s version of the character is volatile and hardly different from Green Hulk. The MCU opted for brute strength without focusing on the actual features that make Red Hulk a real nightmare in the comics. After the film became a box office bomb, the character is unlikely to appear again anytime soon, continuing the MCU’s trend of destroying Marvel villains.
2. MODOK
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is another MCU project that didn’t live up to expectations, and most of its failure came down to ineffective villains. The film turned MODOK into an all-around joke instead of the relentless menace he is in the comics. Although he isn’t the scariest of supervillains, MODOK (George Tarleton) poses a real existential threat to everyone, especially after he becomes the leader of AIM.
The terrible CGI used for the character in the 2023 film, coupled with his terrible script, in which he exists entirely at Kang the Conqueror’s behest, left little comparison between the MCU version and the comic character. And as Yellowjacket is not the MODOK from the comics, the MCU’s butchering of the character has left little chance of a proper MODOK ever appearing on the screens in the future.
1. Kang the Conqueror
The MCU had great plans for Kang the Conqueror, initially setting him up to become the big bad of the Multiverse Saga. Unfortunately, the journey got off on the wrong foot when they let their earliest variant get killed by some of the franchise’s weakest heroes in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Based on the film’s post-credits scene, the plan clearly was to set the powerful Council of Kangs as another Thanos-level villain, but that backfired when Jonathan Majors’s legal problems forced Disney to cancel the actor’s contract, and to write the character out of the MCU.
The villain ended up accomplishing absolutely nothing, leaving his comical defeat and subsequent death at the hands of ants as his lasting memory, which is a total travesty. In the comics, Kang is a manipulative genius with an unmatched mastery of time travel, giving him access to knowledge, weapons, and technology that most Marvel characters can’t even fathom. The Avengers stand very little chance against the threat of a full-strength Kang, but that is unlikely to ever happen in the MCU since Marvel doesn’t seem interested in recasting the role.
