TheMarvel Cinematic Universerelies just as heavily on its villains to succeed as it does the heroes, dreaming up some terrifyingly strong threats for The Avengers and company to take down. The MCU would truly be nothing without its powerful villains, which push the boundaries of how powerful an antagonist in a comic book film can be while still keeping the action somewhat grounded. Even if manyMarvel villains have been disappointing, the series has gotten away with some profoundly powerful antagonists over the years.
The villains of the MCU vary wildly in terms of raw power.As theMCU timelineprogressed, the series became more and more comfortable introducing powerful magic users, aliens whose threat spans the entire galaxy, and even primordial beings that have existed since the dawn of time. Whether they’re an alien despot, an interdimensional warlord, or a literal god, Marvel’s villains come with some terrifying threat levels of varying intensity.
15Ultron
Avengers: Age of Ultron
It says a lot about the average power levels of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s villains that a foe as terrifying as Ultron is ranked so low. Ultron is the brainchild of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, and artificial intelligence that was meant to bring piece to the planet and protect it from alien threats by acting as “a suit of armor around the world”. Unfortunately, soon after activating, Ultron decided that “peace” and human life were mutually exclusive, deciding to do everything in his power to wipe the human race off the face of the planet.
His digital consciousness ensures that he can stay in the fight as long as at least one of his thralls or robotic creations is alive, each of which being a powerful drone rivaling anIron Man suitin capability.
Ultron very nearly succeeds in his planet-smashing goal, devastating an entire country with his plans to turn one of their cities into a meteor. His digital consciousness ensures that he can stay in the fight as long as at least one of his thralls or robotic creations is alive, each of which being a powerful drone rivaling anIron Man suitin capability. Still, Ultron could ultimately be defeated by physical means, and though he left lasting damage in the form of the Sokovia Accords, he certainly underestimated his opponents.
14Namor
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Compared to Ultron, Namor is a more consistently successful threat that is still an active presence in the MCU. Namor is the product of ancient colonialism of his old Mesoamerican culture at the hands of the Spanish, growing into a powerful mutant. His enhanced strength and durability, flight thanks to his winged ankles, and centuries of combat experience make him a terrifying foe on his own. But Namor also wields strength as the ruler of the Talokan underwater civilization, which has access to their own deposit of Vibranium.
Talokan is the only nation on Earth that can rival Wakanda’s technological prowess thanks to its independent Vibranium stores, and its unique undersea location comes with its own specialized advantages.Namor succeeds at dealing a crushing blow to Wakanda, killing Queen Ramonda, and comes close to besting the new Black Panther in single combat. While Namor’s political power as the ruler of the ocean isn’t to be underestimated, he is still bested by a relatively inexperienced opponent.
13Agatha Harkness
WandaVision
Less of an overt world-ending threat and more of an insidious planner content to sit in the background,Agatha Harkness is one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most dangerous magic-users.Born a witch, Agatha has the power to absorb magical energy from other beings, taking their power for herself and adding their life force to her own. By meticulously killing entire covens of witches, Agatha has been able to expand her life to be centuries long, biding her time accumulating ever more magical power.
Every Cinematic Parallel Between Scarlet Witch In WandaVision And Billy Maximoff In Agatha All Along Combined In Heart-wrenching Social Media Post
MCU compilation post proves Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Joe Locke’s Billy Maximoff a.k.a. Wiccan are more similar than they seem.
Agatha’s draining powers are capable of killing people even accidentally, making her a deadly foe for anyone to go up against.InWhat If…?season 3, a variation of her even reaches Celestial heights of power, stealing energy from the likes of Arishem the Judge to become an all-powerful being. The main timeline Agatha bites off more than she can chew, however, though it takes the efforts of the personification of Death herself to finally take her down.
12Ronan The Accuser
Guardians of the Galaxy
Even if he might not be the flashiest villain around, Ronan the Accuser isn’t to be underestimated when pitted agains the wider range of MCU villains. The zealous Kree warlord on a quest to “cleanse” the universe is recognizable by his powerful gavel and armor inspired by a judge’s robes. He’s threatening enough as a powerful alien tyrant, but things really begin to get serious when he harnesses the strength of the Power Stone.
Brimming withthe Infinity Stone’s power, Ronan’s strength and durability goes through the roof.He’s able to survive a direct hit from a planet-busting cannon and being run over by a spaceship,and his new empowered gavel is capable of dismantling the defenses of an entire planet with a single touch. Even if his powered-up state doesn’t last long, if it wasn’t for Star-Lord’s quick thinking and Kevin Bacon’sFootloose,Ronan very well may have already demolished the entire galaxy.
11Gorr The God-Butcher
Thor: Love and Thunder
Few MCU villains were as wasted as Gorr the God-Butcher was inThor: Love and Thunder.Played by Christian Bale, Gorr was once a simple alien eking out a miserable existence on an inhospitable planet, losing his daughter to a brutal drought. When his prayers go unanswered, Gorr ends up bonding with the mysterious All-Black Necrosword, a semi-conscious weapon of profane power that he uses to go on a god-slaying rampage.
Gorr is indeed able to slay multiple gods across the universe, being granted supreme strength and an eerie control over shadows by the evil blade.He’s almost successful in his goal to wish all gods into extinction, reaching the fabled Eternity, but Thor is able to appeal to his humanity at the last minute and get him to wish for his daughter’s life back instead. Gorr is ultimately defeated, but he nearly brings pantheons of gods across the MCU to their knees with his reign of terror.
10Ego
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
According to Ego himself, the main villain ofGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2is an ancient presence that has been alive since time immemorial.True to his name, Ego is a living planet whose latent Celestial energy allows him to totally construct and control matter around him, creating biological vessels and entire wondrous landscapes. More insidiously, Ego attempts to weaponize a child inheriting his Celestial powers in order to use them as a battery, allowing him to implant buds of himself across the galaxy that could reforge all of creation in his image.
Ego is certainly one of the most esoteric and horrifying threats to the galaxy the MCU has ever seen. The thought that he came very close to re-shaping the entire cosmos to his liking is a frightening one indeed, and as a literal living planet, Ego is no easy foe to truly defeat.However, his key weak point at the center of his mass is able to be destroyed by the Guardians of the Galaxy with a powerful bomb. Without Star-Lord’s own Celestial heritage cooperating, Ego is little more than a single planet that can be easily avoided.
9Kang The Conqueror
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Poor Kang has had a rough go of it as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next multi-movie threat that would require the Avengers to once again assemble. Before he wasreplaced by Doctor Doomas the MCU’s latest big bad, Kang was hyped up to be an esoteric threat to the entire multiverse in projects likeLokiandAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.What makes Kang so deadly is the fact that there is a legion of his variants working in unison to conquer all of creation, not content at just a single universe.
The Kang encountered inAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniais the original conqueror who sparked the Multiversal War, armed with dazzlingly futuristic technology and legions of loyal soldiers.
However, he is still a human at the end of the day who is bested by Ant-Man, though his legions of variants currently controlling the majority of the multiverse might not be so simple to defeat. The dramatic gulf in threat levels between different Kang variants averages him out in the middle of the pack, his actual on-screen strength not matching his supposed tyrannical past.
8Ikaris
Eternals
The true gut-punch ofEternalswas the reveal that not only was one of the Eternals not on the side of humanity,but it was one of their most powerful members. Like the other Eternals, Ikaris is an ancient being placed on Earth millennia ago by the Celestials to protect the sentient life there from the scourge of the Deviants. Unlike his brethren, Ikaris was privy to the Celestial’s true goal of raising Tiamat from the Earth via the absorbed consciousness of humanity, willingly complicit in such a grievous act of genocide.
Ikaris is easily the strongest of the Eternals, boasting super-speed, durability, strength, flight, and eye-lasers reminiscent of Superman’s power set.It takes the combined powers of multiple other strong Eternals in order to hold him off,though they aren’t able (or willing) to kill him. Ikaris may be undoubtedly powerful, but it was his own guilty conscience that ultimately served as his own undoing.
7Cassandra Nova
Deadpool & Wolverine
Existing outside the flow of normal time, Cassandra Nova is the undisputed ruler of the TVA’s Void, where all pruned people and objects go to meet their fate at the hands of the ravenous monster Alioth.However, Cassandra is powerful enough to not only survive, but thrive in this bizarre landscape, becoming a powerful warlord thanks to her terrifying powers.The mutant twin sister of Charles Xavier (or at least, a variant of him), Cassandra Nova has mind-boggling mutant powers on the same level as her brother, perhaps even stronger.
Cassandra Nova boasts telekinesis powerful enough to flay a man in an instant, and laughs off any conventional attacks with overwhelming psychic power.Her ability to read minds in a gruesome manner, regenerate from wounds, phase through objects and teleport gives her a terrifying portfolio of strength few can match. However, any psionic-nullifying helmet like Magneto’s or Juggernaut’s can instantly put a stop to her powers, making her an immensely dangerous Omega-level mutant with one glaring weakness.
6Scarlet Witch
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Few characters have had as tumultuous an experience in the MCU asScarlet Witch’s personal journey.Flip-flopping back and forth between hero and villain multiple times, by the time Scarlet Witch is the major antagonist of a single film, she’s become a potent reality-warping threat thanks to her latent chaos magic. Wanda Maximoff was born to this power, though it was activated and enhanced by exposure to an Infinity Stone, granting her telekinesis and mental manipulation that eventually graduated into full-on reality-altering power.
InDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,Scarlet Witch is a threat that can only really be ran away from,not faced head on. She effortlessly dismantles variants of some of the MCU’s most powerful characters in her fight with the Illuminati. It’s only through appealing to Scarlet Witch’s humanity that Doctor Strange and America Chavez are able to defeat her, causing her to destroy Mount Wungadore and take her own life. If it wasn’t for this quick thinking, Wanda could’ve very easily succeeded in her original goals and then some.
