The Reel Rejects - COY'S COMIC CORNER: All MCU VILLAINS RANKED From Worst To Best! (Namor Included | Marvel Studios)

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

WITH BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER Now Out, Coy ranks all 63 Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains from Phase 1 - Phase 4 w/ characters like Killmonger, Thanos, Loki, Wenwu (The Mandarin), Scarlet Witch..., Hela, Green Goblin & MORE. Another special ranking of Coy's Comic Corner! #BlackPantherWakandaForever #Marvel #MCU #Disney #DisneyPlus #BlackPanther #Namor #SheHulk #Avengers #Spiderman Follow Coy Jandreau On Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@coyjandreau?lang=en Become A Super Sexy Reject For Full-Length T.V. & Movie Reactions! https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Support The Channel By Checking Out Our High-Quality Merch: http://shopzeroedition.com/collections/reel-rejects-merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:12 That said, we are going to be ranking the main villains in the MCU, a couple supporting, but overall, we went through all of the movies, phase one through four, all of the shows phase one through four, and looked at who the villains were. So, no, there are certain supporting characters that did not make the cut. I understand I couldn't get to all of them. I think it's 529 on Marvel Wiki. But the lion's share, the big one, there's 63 in here. We're going to go through every single villain ranked by my experience with them. Let's get into it. Coming in at number 63, the worst, in my opinion, villain in the MCU is YonRog.
Starting point is 00:01:49 This is because I feel like it was meant to be a twist. and it didn't feel like a twist. I feel like it was one of the rare times in the greater MCU that they were like, ah, got you. And I was like, nah, you didn't. It felt a little, I don't know, it felt mustache twirly, and it felt like it was a little bit assuming of ignorance
Starting point is 00:02:06 on the behalf of the filmmakers to the audience. I did feel like it was like trying to assume we were a little dumber than we were, and I felt a little underwhelmed by it. So some of these are lower because they were a bit boring or one note. This one is the lowest because it both felt a bit one boat. but also felt like it was assuming I was dumber than I am, and that was a little insulting.
Starting point is 00:02:27 Nothing against Jude Law. I think that he had a lot of fun playing it, and I'm happy for him. It just did not work for me, and it felt like it judged me. 62 is Taskmaster. Now, overall, I like the Black Widow movie quite a bit more than I think the average.
Starting point is 00:02:41 I had a great time with it. I really enjoyed the overall experience, and I loved, especially the fighting and all of those elements that felt very Jason Bourne. I love that Scarlett finally got to play Black Widow in her own movie. I really enjoyed Florence Pute. getting introduced. There's so many things of the movie I like. What I didn't like
Starting point is 00:02:56 was the way they undermined what Taskmaster's powers are. I don't mind that Taskmaster is a woman in this continuity. I don't mind that Taskmaster came from the Red Room and has ties to Black Widow. What I do mind is by making her mute, by making her
Starting point is 00:03:12 someone whose powers are programmed, you lose the character of Taskmaster. The character of Taskmaster is someone who can mirror someone by watching them that can basically have the almost mutant ability to replicate something that's a really cool unique ability that's then the kind of a iized a iadized a i's and they also make it so the fun of taskmaster is the playful banter the the mercenary aspect the fact that you don't know who
Starting point is 00:03:39 taskmaster is going to slide with the duplicitousness all of the thing that make taskmaster cool the skull and the smarm are gone if you make the skull kind of a a motorcycle helmet you get rid of literally the smarm in the dialogue and you make it so the power are negated so the things that make characters cool are appearance powers and and all the things that they took away from taskmaster so i like the the the red room twist didn't really like the rest number 61 is aldrich killion now this one is especially interesting because iron man three is one of my favorite mc u films that's in my top third and i think before the big studio note this might have been a fun play on the character because originally it was supposed to be a rebecca ferguson as the big villain but
Starting point is 00:04:20 ike pearl mutter who was running things at the time wanted to sell more toys thought men sold more toys made the villain basically Aldrich Killian feels like very last minute this feels like a studio note of a villain so you've got a thing that feels very paper thin you've got a very mustache twirling choice you've got a lot of things that would be fun if it was a mislead like the other mislead in the movie we'll get to the mandarin a bit but the mislead here doesn't work because it's like we've got all these misleads then land on and he's the bad guy so it's like we had the opportunity to have something really special and then because of third out notes it fell apart and also for some reason he could breathe fire i that didn't work for me so uh he's
Starting point is 00:04:55 going to be lower he is 61 aldrich killian love me some guy pierce just not here number 60 coming in on the lower side and this is one of the more controversial ones because it bums me out and this is the one that i think is most expectation versus delivery and i got to say he's lower than a lot of the ones that i'm just neutral towards because of my high expectations one of my top 10 Marvel villains in the overall adaptation of Marvel Comics ever is Kingpin. One of my bottom five in the MCU is Kingpin. I love Vincent Donofrio's Kingpin. I love what he does with this character.
Starting point is 00:05:31 I love how he's utilized. I love how much he loves his city. I love that he feels like an exact mirror of Daredevil. I love that you're rooting for him almost as much as Daredevil and how that makes you feel as a person. I got none of that from the Hawkeye portrayal. I got a very, very comic book. in a bad way kind of thin narrative where it's like he big guy he throw he powers and it didn't
Starting point is 00:05:53 feel like it was the same character and i know we haven't really addressed whether or not they're going to be the same character in canon yet there's been a lot of interviews a lot of talks off camera but whereas i feel like daredevil really worked on she hulk by using like some of the charm and the playfulness and all those things to make him work in a different medium in a different genre that didn't land with kingpin it felt like a different character even though it was the same actor it felt like they didn't let him play the Kingpin. It felt like he was doing a more of a Saturday morning cartoon. And the thing I love about Kingpin is he's not that portrayal. So I'm very excited to see him an echo. I'm very excited to see Vincent Donofrio going forward. Unfortunately,
Starting point is 00:06:26 the portrayal in Hawkeye left a lot to be desired for me. Fifty-nine is Maliketh. Now, Maliketh is probably a lot of people's number one worst. He's the lowest for a lot of people because they didn't really give Chris Eccleston a lot to do. He's one of the dark elves in the comics that is maniacal and dark and has a lot of texture. and a lot of things playing with light and darkness. His face is literally split in two with light and dark, and there's a lot of injustice in how he sees things. Here, he's a bad guy that does bad guy things.
Starting point is 00:06:54 There's not really a lot of subplot for why he loves darkness, but he just likes darkness. So this one didn't work for me because it just felt like they didn't give him a lot of writing to play with, and Chris Ecclton is a fantastic actor. I would have loved to see play Malikah in another opportunity. Maybe in an else world, maybe in a what if. Number 58 is likewise another incredible actor in another part, that I would love to see expanded with maybe a bit more.
Starting point is 00:07:16 And I also love certain elements of this portrayal. It's just some of these got to be low because others are high, and that is Casillus. I personally love the idea of someone being a religious zealot that is overwhelmed with this sense of right that takes them over. And honestly, I think the two major attempts at it haven't quite landed for me. Three now with Moon Night, but the three major attempts, they have varying degrees of success. Out of those, I think this is the lowest success for me, because I never, really felt the passion. I felt the idea of the passion. I felt it in the dialogue more than the delivery. And it's not an acting choice. It's just like there was so much going on in a movie where
Starting point is 00:07:55 you got to introduce magic into the MCU. I love what Scott Derrickson did with the tone. I love what Scott Derrickson did with the world building. I loved all of those things. But I felt like because there was so much else going on, Cicilius got shortchanged. And I don't really remember what his motivation was. He hated Tilda Swinton for being a hypocrite. That's all I really remember. and that's not quite enough for me for a character that could have been so much number 57 is luffy this is the frost giant father of loki i wasn't even sure whether to include him or not he felt like more of a bait and switch of a villain but with luffy and a character that is so terrifying that he sometimes intimidates the gods i just feel like i don't remember him strongly enough even after re-watching these films to have that be delivered as luffy now this is very early on in the mc u i don't fault it as much as others that's why i mean i consider luffy worse as you know an intimidation factor than say the kingpin but because i don't really remember it because it didn't leave an impact it's a little higher because expectations were lower but it's just kind of a you know luffy was there number 56 the powerbroker so this one is interesting because i wanted
Starting point is 00:08:57 to feel the oomph of a reveal and i really think that the tone of this show had a lot of elements that felt like espionage that felt like there was going to be a big twist that felt like falcon the winter soldier was going to end with something that was like gobsmacking. And I felt like they just maybe planted too many seeds. They gave us too many hints at the fact that we were going to be betrayed by Agent 13, that we were going to get this, this moment of like, ah, so I a little bit felt like maybe the tone was too shoehorned in. So this is a show that got a lot of rewrites because of COVID. This is a show that had to reframe a lot of their things. And maybe that caused this to be a little too on the nose. But I do feel like the power broker reveal kind of
Starting point is 00:09:38 undermined the impact of how I wanted this villain to land. Number 55 is the sovereign. Now, this is a set of characters that I'm hoping get some time to improve with Guardians 3, but with Guardians 2 doing a lot with ego and having, you know, all those characters in the Guardians already, I do feel like the Sovereign felt like an addition in world building and an abstraction versus an actual threat. I never was really worried for our characters with the Sovereign as cool as they were and as much as I love their imagery and as much as I love the casting. I really hope it's going to be more of a setting up Adam Warlock, and then we find more about the sovereign. It does feel like the part one of two of the sovereign, so that's why, you know, I'm not really
Starting point is 00:10:16 sure how to put these as villains, but when I think of the villain of Guardians 2, I've got ego and the sovereign, and the sovereign didn't leave as much as an impact as I hope they would, hoping that changes in three. Number 54 is Curse, Curse with a K. Remember Curse, Curse killed, you know, Thor's mom. René Russo is dead because of Curse, and that's about all I remember from Curse. That's not great. That is a secondary villain to Maliketh, and I guess because the expectations were lower,
Starting point is 00:10:40 that's why he's a little higher. He had a cool visual aesthetic, but he didn't really get to do a lot, but he got to count as a villain if you kill Friggup. So Curse, 54. Number 53 is Yellowjacket. Now, in the MCU, especially in the first couple phases, the villain problem was largely making the villain just the antithesis of the hero, which is a logical thing.
Starting point is 00:11:01 It's what the comics do. It's what works and what doesn't. It's interesting because when it works, it really works. But when it doesn't, it feels very one note. And Corey Stoll is a very good actor. I love him in The House of Cards. I love him when he pops up in Indies. Even though he had one of the most graphic and intense murders in the MCU,
Starting point is 00:11:18 he literally turns a guy into like splat and throws him away. I didn't ever feel any more of a threat. I never felt like Ant Man had anything to go against him other than just like, that's bad Ant-Man and Yellow Jacket. So this villain just didn't quite work for me because I just didn't know what his plot was beyond being the antithesis. number 52 are the chatari the chichari in general now groups of villains are tricky because how much can you really invest this was tricky to even include because i do feel like they are the villains in avengers and they are set up beautifully in certain post-credit scenes but i never really knew other than them being kind of like worker bees for loki what their goals were so the chatari had cool visual
Starting point is 00:11:54 design i love the different ships i love the organic nature of the ships that's why they're a little higher but I never really got to know what the Chitari would want. And I always thought they were kind of a parallel to the brood, like when they didn't have the Fox licensing at Marvel. I felt like the Chitari could have gone brood. They could have come back. They could have done a lot more. And it's been cool to see their weaponry and stuff come back and be utilized.
Starting point is 00:12:15 And maybe we'll still get more of the races of space, what these other species are, what their goals are. Did they want to invade us to take over our planet, et cetera? I just didn't really get that from the Chitari. So they're 52. Number 51 is the destroyer. Thor one had a lot to do Where we had already brought in
Starting point is 00:12:34 Iron Man who is our most maybe approachable Not in personality, but in like a guy builds a suit And then Captain America We've got adventure movies, we've got nostalgia Thor had to be like, hey, we got those things We're going to add in magic, but only Norse magic You're going to believe in all this mythology And you're going to do all of that with this awesome handsome new guy
Starting point is 00:12:50 Chris Hemsworth. It's doing a lot So Loki is pretty much the antagonist But he's kind of the antagonist of all phase one So the actual antagonist doesn't get a lot to do so destroyer gets a big old pass because he's just really cool looking and he's the puppet on the string and he does that very well i mean is a big destroying thing so destroyer 51 all right top 50 this is a long list number 50 is whiplash you remember his bird he just wanted that bird real bad he was a product of iron man two feeling rushed i mean mickey rourke was coming off of the
Starting point is 00:13:23 wrestler his big comeback jumped on a marvel movie all the ingredients were there but i feel like we didn't really have much in the way of the vengeance that was implied like there was a lot of revenge that was shown on screen but i never really felt it like when you get later on to winter soldier and that revenge in the other direction from tony toward something that's earned and felt i never really felt a lot from this villain that felt you know a bit more on the saturday morning cartoon side and i think it was a mix of the rush production uh you know a difference of ideas of portrayal making sure we juggle all these things and setting up iron man two's definitely stuck and you've got to set a lot of stuff up problem so i think this was just an early misstep for marvel which they then did quickly rectify
Starting point is 00:14:06 number 49 the black order now this is another group of villains this is thanos's posse and the reason it's so low is i think they just didn't get the time to really be anything but a posse the group of villains that work for villains henchmen don't really get to do a lot they're a little higher than others because there was some moments of characterization there was a little emotional impact there was some really cool visual choices and designs but again this is a list of 63 something's got to be lower when you've got this many villains the ones that fall into the background around thanos are just inevitably at 49 number 48 and this one is hard to categorize because it almost doesn't feel fair in a show that's dealing with cliches and is very intentionally going like this is bad
Starting point is 00:14:47 writing because we did this to you know make sure the audience feels this and these certain things it's hard to judge any villains but in looking back at my experience of she ilk i did find i never believed what Titania wanted besides the joke of social media so i definitely had moments where i was like man that's too real and social media definitely impacts me like that and man doing it for the gram and all those things but i would have loved beyond that one moment at the wedding of her having a real moment if she's going to be the main antagonist which like i said she didn't end up being it would have been nice to see a little bit more of that it wasn't jamila jamil's performance and it wasn't even necessarily the writing it was the fact that she was much like the black order a side thing to the
Starting point is 00:15:26 main villain so she's on this list it's low just because i didn't really know where else to categorize a villain that's kind of intentionally a distraction from the real problem number 47 is lizard we've got five villains in spider man no way home amongst those i feel like the one that didn't get the most time is going to be the lowest uh lizard got a few moments to shine got some good jokes but overall like lizard's just going to lizard it's cool to see a little redemption for risa fons getting to come back from the amazing franchise but at the same time when you you've got five villains one of them's got to not have as strong of an arc and turning everyone into lizards just like the comics is a bit silly so hard to add a lot of pathos to that and thus
Starting point is 00:16:06 47 lizard number 46 is drakhov from black widow it is hard to keep moving forward with the mc u and have villains that are both getting the right amount of time but also delivering really strong message the messaging in black widow almost didn't need a central villain it needed someone just pull the strings the abuse of women is staggering and awful and real someone just had to be the face of that because of that you didn't need a lot of screen time but because of that lack of screen time when he showed up it was hard to feel anything except for hate that guy and in a world as profoundly in depth as the mc u when they just hate that guy shows up it's not going to be as high as other villains so this character really just suffered from the theme was more of the villain than the villain
Starting point is 00:16:54 himself so when i say 46 drakoff is adam winstone it's adam winstone good old adam winstone ray winstone when i say ray winstone this low it's more just the the theme worked more than the the personification of the theme for me not good not bad 46 right winstone number 45 razor fist this is ironically a huge step up from the characterization of whiplash this is a very similar character if you look at it's got these two things wields them cool fights but here i feel like they use the henchman thing better like i think of whiplash was a henchman it would have worked if they did the thunderbolts and they brought back whiplash that'd be cool because it's a really cool visual thing but he's not like a main villain which is why the other villain of iron man too is higher we'll get to that later but that villain's
Starting point is 00:17:36 great the villain here he's got really cool choreography he's got really cool elements to him and he's only kind of for that purpose that said can't be much higher because what i love about the villains is when they've got as much to do as the hero obviously razor fist didn't get an opportunity but i got to give them credit for being this with just a guy with razor this i mean full credit where credit is doing now we're getting to the villains that i feel stronger about but didn't feel like they got to do quite as much as they needed to to be in the top third so we're about halfway through this list and this is where they start getting good but for something or the other just didn't work out for me and that's going to bring us to number 44 which is nashma nashma was the villain in miss
Starting point is 00:18:11 marvel and this much like the uh ray winstone character a lot of the themes were the villain like it was generational trauma, it was the looking at family and how family dynamics can be toxic or strong, and there's a lot of things there. But I feel like with Najma, it was introducing so many things like, I mean, spoiler for Miss Marvel, mutants as well as the veil, as well as introducing her powers, as well as setting up that incredible school, as well as setting up her own son, that I didn't know by the time we got to the delivery of her as the main villain, how much to invest in her. So I never really felt enough for the character to have her much higher as well as it was portrayed, just didn't get to feel a lot for her directly.
Starting point is 00:18:49 So when she got, you know, phased and evaporated and all that stuff, I wanted to feel more there. So it's a little on the lower side. Number 43 is another of the five villains in Spider-Man No Way Home. This one's going to Electro. So this one's here because I really think Jamie Fox found his Electro and No Way Home. I think they all did. I think all five of the villains finally got to give the portrayal they had wanted.
Starting point is 00:19:09 But I do find that as fun as the portrayal of a guy that's power-hungry, that has power of power. Like, that's fun. I love that greed. that electro had i did struggle with the fact that it was one line of dialogue of like the air feels different here so now i'm jami fox like he just became jami fox i enjoyed the power hungry jami fox but i would have loved a little bit more about you know the multiverse can change you or in this universe this is my it just it was the one of the times the multiversal problem wasn't
Starting point is 00:19:37 addressed and i love no way home if you follow this playlist you know no way home is my jam that's my number one but that was a moment where i was like ooh this this multiversal choice is pulling me out of the suspension of belief so electro as the thing that represents that suspension of belief is going to be lower as much as i enjoyed the portrayal number 42 are the track suit mafia as an entity i am a huge fan of the matt fraction aha run of hawkeye and a huge part of that are the track suit mafia my issue mainly with the track suit mafia is we were all wanting some big bad that didn't feel like it delivered for me we talked about that a little bit at the top with kingpin but the track suit mafia then because of that
Starting point is 00:20:16 erraticness also felt erratic they were funny they said bro i got a lot of those things they are as you may notice one of the higher groups of villains on here because i did enjoy that the fact they felt like the comic books but they couldn't be any higher than 42 for me because that was their purpose to be henchmen and henchmen are never in higher top villain list so as henchmen good job as top villains hey or 42 number 41 another of the groups of villains and that representing a problem and that also goes into carly morganthaa herself in falcon in the winter soldier a troubled production dealing with a virus plot when the pandemic broke out these characters i feel like we're probably the most rewritten in post of anything maybe in the entire MCU these are characters that we're going to
Starting point is 00:20:57 use a virus to implement their plot and then we were dealing with a real virus that you know you can't really tell that story at the time the show came out so i feel like these characters did not get to be what they needed to be i do think it's interesting that we are living in the MCU that is now processing both how government and organizations can be flawed in their power struggle as well as radicals that are trying to undermine organizations can be flawed because anytime you've got a power structure it can go awry so i love the concept of these flag smashers i love the idea of it being the anti-shield falling apart the anti-hydra takeover but they didn't really get the chance to show that and i don't think it's their fault but it's got to be somewhere 41 top 40 and this one pains me to say because i think
Starting point is 00:21:40 he's about to be a really incredible character in thunderbolts but so far i haven't got gotten to see General Thunderbolt Ross get to be General Thunderbolt Ross. In the comic books, he's such a main part of why Hulk is driven toward certain things. He's this father figure that hates what his daughter loves and there's the power struggle of government versus this individual, there's the father-daughter struggle, there's all these things. And since we don't really have Betty Ross in the MCU, I feel like Thunderbolt Ross has had to be a guy that's just like the representation of military in the distance.
Starting point is 00:22:11 And since we've got shield and since we've got all these other elements, I haven't really known anything of him except the Sukovia chords and that in itself isn't about him so i think with the thunderbolts and with harrison ford we might see a lot more of thunderbolt ross that might completely change where he is but right now because i don't really know what he represents in the mccu he's just kind of there i like the portrayal number 40 thunderbolt ross number 39 is our guy that represents the evil superman and this worked for me more than most eternals works for me more than most. But at the same time, it's odd. If Eternals was a mini-series, if it was one of the shows and we got six hours with it, I feel like Icarus would be very high. I feel like what Richard Madden did
Starting point is 00:22:51 with this portrayal, I really enjoyed. I felt the betrayal. I felt his nuance. I felt where he was coming from. I felt all of those things. But when I think back on the movie, I think of the overall theme of wanting to feel seen and wanting to understand where I stand in the universe and what we all represent as beings shaping the universe, all those things, more than I feel what his choices were to represent the Eternals. So by nature of what the story that had to be told, Icarus is on the lower side as much as I really, really loved it. He's a highlight for me, but now we're into the stuff that I really enjoy that just, if this was a mini-series, man, what Icarus could have been. Number 38 is Sandman. I love me a reluctant hero. I love me a reluctant villain. With Sandman, he's
Starting point is 00:23:37 never really against Spider-Man. I love that throughout No Way home, he's just distrustful. I love that he's got to do a lot. I love personally, as someone who loved the Sandman elements of Spider-Man 3 that we got more time with him, but he's kind of just the guy that's reluctant. Like, because of the movie juggling three Spider-Man and five villains, we don't get to really feel that moment like we do in Spider-Man 3, where he's like trying to put himself back together and the swirling. That moment represents both his mental and physical disarray. And I feel like we didn't get a lot of Thomas Hayden Church getting to play with that. So because of that, he's on the lower side.
Starting point is 00:24:11 I love this portrayal. I think it's one of the better castings. I think Thomas Hayden Church is Sandman. It was great to see him again, but it's just I wanted more. 38. Number 37, I said there were going to be more religious zealots on this list. The second of those three is Ronan the accuser. I really like the idea of the Cree being these passionate zealots.
Starting point is 00:24:29 It sets off the Cree Scroll war really well. I think what they were able to do with his voice and his presence and all of those things was pretty powerful, and I do think it served to have a villain net, and I've used one note as a negative throughout this, because I think a one-note villain doesn't typically work. But I think when you're dealing with someone that's mindlessly devoted, having this note, when you've got the cacophony of insanity, that is the Guardians of the Galaxy, does work in this case. You've got one focal point, don't have to spend a lot of time on them.
Starting point is 00:24:55 I've always said that team movies won't work in one movie. I was wrong. Guardian showed me you can do a team movie in one movie, but because of their centralized focus on one villain you're able to have the team be the forefront so ronan worked for me better than most but he's not higher than 38 because i'm like okay that's that guy does cool he accuses tight and that's that's the whole journey but dance off little extra points running the accuser all right we're into the top half or almost the top half we're at number 36 this is probably the one that's going to get me a lot of crap from a certain audience and it's uh because i think that people don't unless they're
Starting point is 00:25:25 on the other side of it realize how much of a problem this is and that is just being a dick on the internet I'm going with intelligentsia as number 36. I think that what they were able to do with Todd Hulk and Intelligentsia is fascinating. I do feel like I would have loved to have seen the ramifications a bit longer. I would have liked if intelligentsia was introduced a little sooner, revealed a little sooner, and there was a lot more than just like, we're taking Todd Hulk to jail. I wanted more of the consequences of the trolling because I think this show is about shining a light on cockroaches, showing people how shitty they are.
Starting point is 00:25:57 And I wish there were ramifications to that because I think that's what those people need to So it's lower because I love the execution up until it was like, and we're wrapped. So intelligentsia is our most real threat. There are people being absolute monsters of people on the internet, and that causes real mental and physical harm. So I think that's something that needs to be addressed. So therefore, this villain is absolutely the most realistic villain, but I wish there were more consequences shown, so it's on the lower side.
Starting point is 00:26:23 Number 35 is abomination. I think that this is a character that if introduced in Thunderbolts again, could go higher as well as Thunderbolt. Ross, because I love the idea of a super soldier that's just listening to orders gone awry. That is touched on him winter soldier, but it's touched on in a different way with Abomination. I think Abomination getting, even the comedic use of him being a guy just following orders what they didn't shield, it opens up a lot of interesting conversations.
Starting point is 00:26:47 Add to that, they fixed the visuals and made him feel like the abomination, add to that the fact that I think Emil Blonski is a fascinating character now and the fact that they're bringing him back from 2008, there's a lot that makes me put Abomination higher than I think a lot of people would but he's now someone i'm fascinated to see more of so he's got to be in the top half abomination number 34 is arnim zola i love that one of the silliest characters in comics one of the most visually preposterous characters worked i love the fact that he represents that like tech threat back in the cold war era and that Toby jones was able to be physically in first avenger and then a voice that is threatening and actually causes problems for captain america in winter
Starting point is 00:27:24 soldier winter soldier juggles so many incredible villains very well got to give arnim zola some love he's shockingly high at 34 number 33 is verusa varissa i'm not sure how to say it but she is so captivating so immediately in werewolf by night this is a performance-based love this is an actress that came and knew exactly the assignment acted her eyeballs out made me hate her but be captivated by her i hated how she treated her her husband even in death that weird admiration and longing should have felt i don't know i felt gross but also that was captivating the way she treated Elsa Bloodstone. She did everything right and you wanted to hate her. And she also felt like a 20s classic monster movie villain. It was so big, but it didn't feel absurdist because it was
Starting point is 00:28:07 intentionally, everything. Everything worked for me. Love this villain. Verusa. It's up there, man. That was a great portrayal. Number 32, Dormammu. We're in the top half. Pretty steady now. We're approaching the top third. This is a villain who is so, so hard to capture because of the abstract. This is literally a concept. And the visual Scott Derrickson was able to bring. the feeling of Dr. Strange just trapping this, this concept in a time loop, this feeling of purgatory, the paranoia that was able to be captured with Dormammu, I absolutely adore. Dormo was a nearly impossible character to convey, and I think they did it. I think those visuals are still amongst my favorite in the MCU is just the sheer
Starting point is 00:28:46 psychedelic trip of what Dormamu as a visage would have to be, and visage visage, anyway, I love, love that, but I don't love that the existence. threat hasn't come back. If Dormammu got to play some more, if he got to be more of a Thanos element, if there got to be more dealing with, you know, something that had to give up, but like was ruining the day for Dr. Strange, I want Dormamo to be back as a threat. Then he'd be higher, but for now, that's where Dormamo lies. 31 and one of my probably more controversial picks, but this is where the deviance slash crow reside. I think a lot of people didn't enjoy Crow, which was Bill Scarsguard in the Eternals, but for me, the deviance represented
Starting point is 00:29:24 us as humans. They were seen as primitive. They were seen as not intelligent, and you realize that the villains, the Eternals were fighting, were actually just things trying to survive. And they kind of became our eyeline. And I love that because this is a movie about humanity. And then there's a twist that humanity is represented by the villains and that the people we're rooting for might not be the heroes at all. The end of Eternals is them sacrificing billions of lives for the lives they know and they like. And that kind of makes them the villains. But on the journey there, you need someone to identify with so having a twist of being like i identify with these devians i identify with these creatures
Starting point is 00:29:59 that are smarter than we think we are it kind of feels like how i think we would experience aliens if aliens can travel interdimensionally they're probably smarter than us because spoiler alert we can't and i think that they would see us as primitive so i identified a lot with the devians so they're pretty high up here considering how much that movie juggled 31 number 30 in our most successful religious zealid character arthur harrow arthur harrow was captivating because Ethan hawk was acting his eyeballs out opposite his buddy Oscar Isaac, and I think without that performance, the movie, movie, I think without that performance, the show that was already juggling a lot of mythos and mythology and juggling a lot of things would have fallen apart. I don't love the final episode of the show, Moon Night, because
Starting point is 00:30:38 I feel like it went to the punchy, kicky problem that Shealk then addressed ironically, but what I was loving was Arthur Harrow manipulating Moon Knight. So up until it became this big smash, you know, Transformers-esque Godzilla thing, what I was focused on was the villain. And that, that's because of Arthur Harrow. That's because of the performance. So he's really high up there for me. And I think if the show landed differently, or if season two balances out in a different way, I just love the fact that when you walk around, you hear that glass in his shoes and you believed it. I love this show opens with Arthur Harrow punishing himself. I love that his belief was so strong. You believed it. It's a fascinating portrayal. Got a lot out of this villain, Arthur Harrow.
Starting point is 00:31:15 29 is Ghost. I'm one of the people that liked Ant Man and the Wasp more than the first Ant Man, because I really was captivated by the villain. I thought Ghost was very interesting in that she just wanted to figure things out. She was so earnest in it, but then there was a maliciousness to it. And I also like that Ant Man is a tech-based hero, and there was a tech-based villain in a nonlinear way. It wasn't like Yellow Jacket where it was just evil Ant-Man. There was a different element of tech. I do think we're going to be more endeared to this villain even more after Thunderbolts.
Starting point is 00:31:43 I think there's a reason she is in Thunderbolts. Ghost intrigued me. I thought it was a step up from the comic counterpart. Very intrigued by seeing more soon. Number 28, Batrock the Leaper. Yes, Batrock. This is legit one of my moments when I was like, the MCU can do anything. Not only is Bathtrock the Leaper, one of the most preposterous comic book characters that shouldn't work on screen,
Starting point is 00:32:02 not only did they give him a comic book accurate costume. Not only did he leap willy-nilly to and fro in Winter Soldier, and it somehow worked that his power sets translated on screen, but they cast Georges Saint Pierre, one of my all-time favorite M.M.A. fighters and it worked like he is a french man named george so is batrock the leaper there's just so much about this that works for me it's such a fun casting choice used very well and he leaps and when he comes back in falcon of the winter soldier that was one of the most exciting moments for me i love batrock the leper he'd be higher if i had no integrity if i was like yo this list about
Starting point is 00:32:37 my favorite's number one batron but i'm not that guy we're going to get the top 27's going to take a long time in batrock the leper because i respect him i love him thank you george number 27 i am torn about this choice because I love this character so much in the comic books. I don't know if it clouds my experience of this character in the movies. I love Hugo Weaving. I also love what they were able to do going forward with the character by bringing him back, even though he had disappeared in Ingame. There's a lot I like about Red Skull. But I don't remember a lot of Red Skull moments when I think about First Avenger, and that's not a good sign. I think of Red Skull as this very ominous, almost Dr. Doom-esque presence. And since Hugo Weaving only wanted to do the one movie,
Starting point is 00:33:16 Ross Markwand crushed it coming back. I would love to see more of Ross Mark Wand as Red Skull. But since Hugo only did the one, and then it was like 10, 15 years later when Ross came back as Red Skull, I just can't put him higher, but I think so positively of the Red Skull. I think they nailed it as far as being the antithesis of Captain America without being directly linear.
Starting point is 00:33:36 A lot worked, but he can't be higher than where he's at, Red Skull. Number 26, and this list was made in honor of the final feature film in Phase 4 is Namor. Namor is probably the most interesting duality of adaptation versus translation on this list. That in Wakanda Forever, I'm not going to give spoilers just in case, but in Wakanda Forever, Namor is incredible at serving the purpose that Namor, the movie adaptation, needs to to make the movie work. But Namor, the comic book character, doesn't feel like Namor in the movie to me.
Starting point is 00:34:13 I think of Namor, first word I think of is arrogant. And I didn't feel that with this Namor to the level I felt I needed to. I didn't feel the smarm. I didn't feel Namor was likable. And Namor to me is someone that you're like, really Sue Namor? And then you're like, well, I guess I kind of get it in a bad boy sort of way. And I just never felt that way. I feel like Sue Storm loving Namor works too logically with this take, his kindness, his leadership.
Starting point is 00:34:39 A lot of things about what made it work in Wakanda Forever are actually a detriment to the adaptation. But this is the MCU villain list. As a villain in the MCU, incredible. As a villain in the MCU, he served the movie's narrative and he made me feel all the things the movie was trying to make me feel. So like I said, this is literally the hardest one because as an adaptation for film,
Starting point is 00:35:00 great delivery of a villain in Wakanda forever. As an adaptation of Namor, not how I perceive the character, but these are archetypal characters. So maybe my perception and Ryan Coogler's perception are just different, so I can't fault them for that. So I really don't know where to put Namor, so for me namor is 26 he's in the top third ish because i really like what he was in the movie but at
Starting point is 00:35:21 no point did i go that's who i've read for 30 years namar and what a turn to go from namor one of the leads of wakana forever to one of my favorite obscure sea list characters that i thought was handled wonderfully shocker that's right look at your villains list all over the internet where are you going to see namor followed by shocker right here that's where i love that not only do we get shocker as a henchman in spider-man homecoming but he was so quickly replaced i love that we got two shockers i love shocker in the comic books and i think the way to show his like ridiculousness is having him played both by tom hardy and by bokeem woodbine i love that we got the experience of bokeem getting to take on the mantle and that like i'm going to do what i need to for money kind
Starting point is 00:36:03 of character really worked and i felt intimidated very briefly by shocker but i also felt like a guy that just got these gauntlets that he's going through stuff i love the origin i love how they hide in the shatari i love how it worked with vulture this felt like the exact right way to use a henchman character that's why it's so high up in this not only do i love shocker the comic character i love this use of henchman number 24 probably lower than a lot of people on their list but that's because of my experience of her throughout the mc u as well of my experience of her with the comic books wanda maxim off is 24 if wanda was introduced as the scarlet witch just in dr strange the multiverse of madness somehow i would have liked this character a lot more unfortunately
Starting point is 00:36:41 Fortunately, this character felt like it wasn't the Wanda we had just left in Wanda Vision to me. It's like we got 10 years of giving us steps one through one through seven. And then this movie jumped to 10. I needed eight and nine to get to the Scarlet Witch. I did not feel like we were with Scarlet Witch yet. So when she suddenly literally turns around and black and white goes to color and evil is there, it felt way too rush for me personally. I also felt that she can manipulate reality.
Starting point is 00:37:07 And a couple times she used her powers to go like, peo, pew, pew, pew, and like make finger guns instead of like doing cool. like there's a moment in the movie where she like whispers in a guy's ear and it causes this this beautiful chaos that to me is wanda which is why it's as high as it is 24 is pretty high in the villain list because i love lizzie olson's commitment i love lizzie olson's scarlet witch and wanda i love her portrayal and i love most of what they were able to do unfortunately that leap puts it lower as well as some of the more linear choices with powers after she'd been developing them for so long i want this character to be higher i want wanted to come back i want to fear the scarlet witch more and i want it to feel earned number 23 is gore i almost switched these two and i juggled that for a while but i think i had lower expectations of gore because i hadn't met him yet and wanda expectations for delivery and my experience of wanda throughout wanda vision and earlier very high expectations gore i just wanted him to be intimidating and scary and christian bale certainly was i wanted christian bale to convey that malice i wanted to believe his hatred of gods i loved that we had in his opening scenes so much earnest pathos i love
Starting point is 00:38:09 that this movie is as high as it is for me, the more I think about Love and Thunder, the more it falls down the rankings, but the things that work for me are how much the gods are arrogant and worthy of the scorn that they get. And I love at the end of the movie, what happens with Thor for him to become a father? None of that works without Gore. If Gore doesn't have the emotion towards his daughter, if he doesn't do everything he does for love and he doesn't have this feeling towards God's and none of that works. So Gore works as a villain in this narrative. However, it can't be any higher because he butchers zero gods on camera. I saw zero butchering stabs the guy but they do all the butchering off camera so he's intimidating when you see him
Starting point is 00:38:43 but i wanted like 20 more minutes of him so he can't be higher than where he is but with the screen time we got i was impressed at how much i felt for eternity and for the gore we did get number 22 now admittedly this one is high because it was our first villain and i got to say i can't shake off how cool that was ironmonger is i think one of the better okay the villain is the bad the villain is the good guy but bad i think ironmonger is a great example of corporal greed personified and I love the duality of that because that's basically Tony's arc he goes from a war profiteer to a hero that stops war and I love that ironmonger is if he never did that ironmonger is the guy that keeps profiting ironmonger is the guy
Starting point is 00:39:22 that steals and makes his own suit and yes it is the linear bad guy but good good guy but bad but it works because Jeff Bridges is charming it was it was our first time really seeing Jeff Bridges that way in this big of a movie he's the dude he's this awesome loving guy and I loved his villainous portrayal some of the lines and deliveries and the way he's intimidating to pepper and all those things really work and yes it's the first movie so there's a lot of love for where this kicks off iron man is still i think one of the best ncccum movies all these 15 years later and i think without obadiah stain it would not have worked as well i could easily see people not loving this villain as much but for me it's a very
Starting point is 00:39:57 important kick off to the whole mc u number 21 ego the living planet one i'm very happy just to say that sentence how crazy is it we live in a world where ego the living planet isn't a movie then how crazy is it that it's played by Kurt Russell and then how crazy is it that it's a metaphor for parental failings for arrogance for gods and men for what it means to be a father to juxtapose what it means to have a son versus be a father opposite
Starting point is 00:40:23 Mary Poppins'all Yandu I love that this is a movie of father and sons and that the father is ego it adds a celestial element it adds a human element with how much Kurt Russell is so invested in this character I love his relationship with Chris Pratt this movie falls apart without Kurt Russell's portrayal of ego, and it ends insanely and bombastically and big.
Starting point is 00:40:42 I think Ego the Living Planet is a shockingly good villain, especially with how much Kurt Russell is invested in the fatherhood elements. This worked for me in a lot of ways. Top 20, we've got Ulysses S. Claw. Andy's Circus is introduced in Ultron, and immediately you can smell how sleazy this character is. This character is just ripping and dripping with disgust. He is a mercenary that will do anything for a dollar. He's stealing from the McCondins. He's the only guy to get Vibranium out because he knows all the worst people. You know that immediately. Not only does he deliver that on screen in seconds, but then you get to actually invest in him. You care weirdly about his exploits. You don't like him, but you care. And that's Andy Circus's charm.
Starting point is 00:41:22 He's such an incredible performer. That South African accent is impeccable. The way he's able to be smarmy, but fascinating. You lean into this performance. There's so much going right. And it's a character that has a frickin' sonic cannon for an arm. It is a character I did not care that much about in the comic books and Andy Circus made it so much more interesting and worked in both the Ultron needs as well as the Black Panther movie needs. He served his purpose in both and I was genuinely shocked when he died. Love Andy Circus's take on Claw. Number 19, the return and no way home of Dr. Otto Octavius. A lot of people's favorite comic book movie is Spider-Man too. I personally am much more Andrew Garfield Spider-Man than Toby McGuire Spider-Man, but I can also
Starting point is 00:42:02 still acknowledge how important the relationship between Toby McGuire and Alfred Molina's Doc Ock and Spider-Man is in Spider-Man, too. That is one of the most mature villain-hero relationships we've seen. That's one of the most mature villainous portrayals we'd seen. So to have him come back, to have those moments of, like, Peter, it's good to see you, my boy, to have him get to go full evil as manipulated by the chip and get to see Tom Holland use science to solve problems, to see a scientist rescue them, to see him go good, and you get to play around with a lot of, like, what corruption is as portrayed by an actor, Alfred
Starting point is 00:42:32 Molina nails this comeback performance. Doc Ock is still an incredible villain in this. I really enjoyed the duality of his performance, and I love seeing him come back and get to play around with that again. Doc Ock's up there. Number 18, Ultron from Age of Ultron. I love this because it's a beautiful continuation of the Tony Stark arc. You've got war profiteer Tony Stark. You've got a man who believes that he is absolutely correct, that then overcorrects and tries to protect the entire planet by putting a shell around it.
Starting point is 00:43:00 He puts a shell around his world. He ends up putting a shell around individuals that he loves by making a suit for Pepper, by making a suit. for Spider-Man, you know, by taking care of his daughter. Like, he ends up accomplishing this goal in a metaphorical way. But Tony's always trying to protect everyone by putting a shell around it. And Ultron is that concept gone awry. He takes over the internet. He sees the corruption of man.
Starting point is 00:43:20 He has some logic in his belief that, you know, humans are a problem, a virus. You look at the Matrix and other things that are a commentary and humanity. Ultron does all that. Unfortunately, and I love the delivery, the voice, and everything is so incredible. It's a one-of-one audio experience. but I did feel that it wasn't an age of Ultron. Like, the movie was like, you know, the weekend of Ultron. Like, I didn't feel the scope at any point.
Starting point is 00:43:43 And to me, I know a lot of people have retroactively found a lot of love for Age of Ultron. To me, it was one of the first, too big a bite. Like, there's a lot of that movie that's a lot of empty threads that then, luckily with 10 years, we're able to come back together. But I feel like that quilt unraveled. We've had to sew it back together. And a lot of that was the overly ambitious goal, which I respect ambition. But it didn't feel like Ultron got to be the age of Ultron we wanted because of the other
Starting point is 00:44:03 things they were trying to do. wanted to live in the malice of Ultron more, and instead of getting the age, I got the weekend of Ultron, but the character himself, excellent villain. Number 17, Supreme Ultron. Yes, the What If Ultron, I think, just edges out Ultron because he felt like the Ultron from the comic books I wanted Ultron too, but he wouldn't work without the Ultron from the movies. That said, when he takes out Thanos, when he does all those things, that's Ultron. Ultron should be an absolutely shaking force to the entire universe. Ultron should affect everything, and i feel like this did i feel like the ultron we got in what if was the the comic panel come to life
Starting point is 00:44:39 brilliantly delivered very investing very fascinating though i'll acknowledge that it wouldn't it's it's a yes and it's an alley up it's a continuation of so it can't be higher even though i think it's an incredible villain because you need the foundation to get there so it's like a sequel villain in its own way but supreme ultron absolutely decadent great villain for what if number 16 u.s agent we've talked a lot in this list because it's a very common thread in comic books of hero villain duality I think Captain America, his anti is Red Skull, right? It's like Batman and the Joker. It's not about an evil Batman.
Starting point is 00:45:12 It's about Batman has one rule, and it is not to kill. Joker is about breaking rules and chaos. They're not Yin and Yang in a direct way. They're more about, like, conceptually, Yin and Yang. I love that U.S. agent is a direct antithesis, not like the Red Skull. He's literally a guy that thinks he's right. He's a guy that believes in a very different America. I, to briefly get political, worry that there are people that,
Starting point is 00:45:35 see America the way that U.S. Agent does. I worry that U.S. Agent is a logical choice for a lot of people. I worry that the beliefs of this character are founded in reality, and that makes him a fascinating character. Chris Evans' Captain America is amazing because he made a character that is spangled work. He legitimized a ridiculous character so well. U.S. agent takes that a step further and makes a scary reality flesh. He makes all the good that is what America can be be Captain America. I love Winter Soldier being a commentary, and it's not just answering rules and just following blindly. U.S. Agent does.
Starting point is 00:46:07 He just says, yes. I cannot wait to see him in Thunderbolt. I cannot wait to see where things go while being afraid of how real he is. I think he's an excellent villain excited to see more from him. Also, brilliantly betrayed by Wyatt Russell, who's the son of Kurt Russell,
Starting point is 00:46:19 ego playing a dad and his son playing a U.S. agent. That's just fun. That's just nice. I like that irony. Number 15, top 15, you lovelies. This is probably the most prophetic villain in the greater MCU. This is a villain that I think we're going to have
Starting point is 00:46:31 actual problems with this very soon. It is a villain that is portrayed by an actor who is both movie star and like giant theater nerd and only that man can portray this character. Mysterio shouldn't work. Jake Schillenhall just happens to be like this awesome theater nerd who's so cool. So like you've got a theater nerd character that is charming and charismatic. That's Mysterio. You've got someone you want to follow in this iteration. You don't follow Quentin Beck in the comic books, but in this one they make him this likable Avenger basically.
Starting point is 00:46:58 You make him someone that like you want to be a hero. So Peter realizes that and falls apart because he wants. wanted to like this guy he wanted to like have that parental figure he's the big brother he doesn't have uncle ben in this universe he's got this big brother he lost tony he's weak he needs that figure that's perfect for jake chill and all that makes so much sense and then on top of that his powers are what i'm worried about we've got you know uh deep fakes around the corner to be not be able to be you know discern from reality we've got voice modulation that is already scarily accurate we won't know in the next 20 years what's real and what's fake and mysterio plays with that that
Starting point is 00:47:33 That paranoia is coming. I love that this is a villain. That's prophetic, but I hate the fact that it's going to be true soon. You're so dramatic. You're not scared of that shit. Terrified, Greg. It's terrified. It's coming.
Starting point is 00:47:47 This is our last election where we know who's running. We don't know what's coming, Greg. We don't know. Number 14 and probably my most controversial pick. This is a twist I adored that so many hated they actually dislike the movie for it. You've got iconography in the world. That's what comic books are. They're archetypal.
Starting point is 00:48:03 characters shown with beautiful iconography to make us feel things. Manipulating iconography itself to use as a villain that is in fact a shell is genius. Trevor Slattery as the Mandarin is inspired because it plays with our expectations. And that's what the world is, expectations of iconography. I love that he's a man that's branded with all this stuff to make you think he's this despot, this terrorist, and he's an actor. I thought that was so clever. I thought it was so well done as Sir Ben Kingsley.
Starting point is 00:48:32 I enjoyed that twist so very much. I thought it was a way to handle a very difficult character. You'll notice the real Mandarin has not been listed yet because I loved it, then they allie-ooped that with a way to fix a certain racial stereotype in a fascinating way. But Ben Kingsley, as the Mandarin, is one of my favorite twists, and so many things had to go right to get there. I love me some Iron Man 3. Love me the Mandarin. Number 13 and very high on the list because the performance is immaculate.
Starting point is 00:48:57 If you've got a bunch of people auditioning for Iron Man and you're like, man this guy's so close to perfect where can we use him we should make him the id to tony stark's ego and that is saying a lot because that person's got to dance they got to do a lot they got to be a gun profiteer they got to have orange hands they got to be justin hammer sam rockwell in iron man two is one of the biggest redeeming graces of that film to the point where i hope he's in armor war so badly i want him in armor war so much it's one of my favorite lost characters in the mc u he is such a great elseworld alternate Ironman he's so perfect and the whole time you hate how much you love him that is such a fun villain
Starting point is 00:49:36 he's such a piece of crap I want more of them I hate that I love him give me more Justin Hammer top 12 you lovelies we've got someone that was the villain all along another great twist it was agatha all along this is a comedic horrifying character this is such a great performance by katherine Hahn I was so impressed at how captivated I was how it was like second guessing myself like is she going to be i literally thought they might have changed the narrative to make her not the villain and then of course she was of course she was they got me and i love that i love the use of the salem witch trials as someone from massachusetts i'll own my bias there i love that they were able to make her magic feel like a different element they opened up a whole new world i love the musical reveal
Starting point is 00:50:16 i love how charming and interesting she was and how much you want to be agatha's friend and then how terrifying she was as a witch i cannot wait for house of harkness i was so impressed by this entire take on Agatha a character that did not get the time to shine nearly as much in the comic books great villain number 12 number 11 is playing on expectations of the audience in a really fun way you've got an espionage thriller and you cast robert redford you're going like oh yeah he's the guy he's the guy running things he's the guy like making it work he's the leader he's the villain because you follow him he's the villain because of audience expectations he's the guy that believes so much in his cause that he obviously doesn't see himself as the villain but he when he's the head of something as big of shield that's what you don't expect. I love the Hydra shield twist so much. And it doesn't work unless you've got someone like Alexander Pierce played by someone like Robert Redford. It seems like such a small part in the greater tapestry of the MCU. But if you look at where we are now in the MCU, it's about
Starting point is 00:51:11 heroes falling apart mentally, physically. They're so overrun. And that all really kicked off with our lack of systems. When systems started falling apart in Winter Soldier, that quickly led to Civil War, which quickly led to Infinity War, everything cascades from this moment. So a human in Alexander Pierce causing this is so wonderful and it's just his conviction in thinking he's right and to some people he is fascinating character I would never think looking at all of these names from comics I love Alexander Pierce would be in the top 12 but absolutely was thanks in part to Robert Redford top 10 you lovelies and the human that caused civil war I love baron zimo so much because civil war is the first time we got that double page spread comic book moment we get that insane
Starting point is 00:51:54 airport fight scene that did so much for comic movies and that was all orchestrated by one man pitting heroes against each other one man with a vendetta that honestly like he was a man that lost his family and nothing he did is redeemable nothing but you still go man he lost his family you hurt for him just enough to go man that's interesting Daniel brule brought so much humanity to barren zemo a character that literally in the comics is dumb enough to get his mask glued to his face that's seriously his mask is glued to his face that's real This is not that. This is a captivating, fascinating man with conviction and evil in his heart because he's hurt.
Starting point is 00:52:31 And then you get to play with that further in Falcon Winter Soldier, where admittedly, little too buddy, buddy. I get why it worked for the narrative. But I love that you're captivated by this man dancing. The only trailer they needed for that show is Daniel Brule dancing. That's Barren Zemo dancing in a club in Madreeport. The fact that the sentence I just said is real, Daniel Brul as Baron Zemo dancing in a club in Madrapoor,
Starting point is 00:52:51 that's real life. That's the comic world we're living in. because of how good he was in civil war love this villain love to see more of them hoping it's in thunderbolt big barren zemo fan number nine is the great and wonderful kate blanchett as hella this character is so impossibly captivating you're both intrigued by what she's going to do next in a very jokery loki way you're both captivated by her origin and that you're like well she did got to get screwed over by the gods which is kind of what the gods do you're also like god damn is that an attractive black track suit with green stuff that's so slithery sexy everything about this taking the character
Starting point is 00:53:26 is so much i love that the asgard movies aren't my favorite but the asgardians are the most fascinating to me i love what loki does i love what hell it does i love the journey of mythology with these characters and she literally did the thing that broke thor somehow more than losing his family she took away asgard she destroyed asgard she caused stakes in the mccu she caused ramification in the MCU, she caused us to know anything was possible by destroying Asgard through Ragnarok. Incredible villain, incredible portrayal. Wish we got more. Number eight is a villain we've met once. Number eight is a villain. We're about to meet a myriad of times in different forms. Number eight is a man who basically monologued at us and gave us more exposition than
Starting point is 00:54:13 maybe any other villain in a 40-minute window. He who remains shouldn't work. It is Kang, but not Kang. It's a preview of what's to come and about to be our big villain without giving anything away. It is a concept of the multiverse personified while being a Shakespearean delivery by Jonathan Majors
Starting point is 00:54:32 in such a powerhouse performance that made Loki my number one show because, in my opinion, it's the one that stuck the landing the most because of Kang. You tease Kang throughout this show, you better deliver. And then it's a monologue instead of a fistfight,
Starting point is 00:54:46 and it's one that gives you set up for the entire phase five, six, and beyond. Also, it's a scene that largely takes place in a room that has ramifications for the entire MCU that there's moments that are still trickling out from. This is a crazy, ambitious take, and they nailed it. I love He Who Remains Slash Kang. We haven't even met Kang yet. That's crazy. I'm so excited. Love this character. Number seven is my second favorite MCU movie. It's title character. Dramatic pause for notes. The Winter Soldier is everything right about when you make a movie and trust your audience.
Starting point is 00:55:23 The Winter Soldier was a new character to comic books. You ask any comic fan pre-2015 if we're going to see Bucky come back. You doubt it. Like, he was Uncle Ben. Bucky's dead. Bucky stays dead. Ed Brubaker brought back Bucky as the Winter Soldier. And it was shocking, but I never thought we'd see it come to screen.
Starting point is 00:55:39 And it wasn't that long later. It was a newish comic book. And then it was exactly right. It played with all of our emotion towards Steve. It played with all of our love for Sebastian Stans. take on Bucky and it did it with some of the best action to this day in the MCU it made you care about little details like the fact that he was trying to remember and he bought plums which are good for brain health it had every little detailed nuance and at no point did it slow down it trusted
Starting point is 00:56:02 the audience to be like plums ha it's funny if you know and you google or it trusted you to you know recognize that the energy in the chase scene with black panther and captain america would be their different power sets it was like when you're a kid on the playground you dump out all your toys there's so many moments in this movie that hinge on winter soldier being so awesome you want to know how this fight goes he is incredible and has only gotten better but he started as a villainous so he makes this list because he still has villainous tendencies he's still working through stuff i'm very curious how they handle them in thunderbolts winter soldier i think was one of the first times i went this could be for anyone not just comic fans because of the nuance of this villainous portrayal number six we're getting up there y'all is mandarin as in the father of shung chie the real wielder of the Ten Rings. I love this character because he's in love. I love this character because I felt for him, like, I'm not a father, but as a father, as a human, I felt for what he wanted. I felt his grief and his justified lust for power in so many ways that he's self-justified. I felt Shang Chi's agony towards him. I felt what it was to see him be corrupted by power. They did
Starting point is 00:57:09 all of this with an incredible performance by Tony Leung, and they did it in two hours. This is an origin movie, not just for Shung Chi, but also for an entire universe and the Mandarin. So they're able to bring us a twist on a twist. They're able to legitimize a villain that's very cheesy at times in the comic books. They're able to build an entire world while shaping it around this man, and they're giving us these 10 ring, which I guarantee are shaping the greater MCU to come. They did all of that, and at no point did this villain feel shortchanged, because every scene he's in is so gratifying and so uh captivating in a way that you're like filling in the dots
Starting point is 00:57:47 between scenes this villain's incredible and he fights on a dragon it's awesome love this movie top five you lovelies let's get into it first of the top five is going to be the great green goblin willam defoe got to come back in spider man no way home and deliver the comic book norman osborne got to deliver to the comic book green goblin got to deliver all of that willem defoe glorious and he got to be absolutely terrifying. You believed him kicking the crap out of Spider-Man, falling through buildings and smashing like Ultimate Goblin. You also believed his malice and that he thought, honestly, you're welcome.
Starting point is 00:58:22 I just killed Aunt May. I just made you the hero. He knows the origin of his Spider-Man. He manipulates reality in his villainy. He literally kills Aunt May, causing the cascading origin of with great power comes great responsibility as delivered by the surrogate Uncle Ben in Andrew Garfield. field and to be wire there's so much incredible incredible delivery here that doesn't work unless
Starting point is 00:58:45 willem defoe after 20 years of not playing the character comes back and just gives it his all he's funny when he's pocketing donuts he's terrifying when he's looking up and snarling back at peter after getting hammered in the face he's intimidating when you genuinely think he killed toby like there's just so much right about this villain and the whole time you don't know what he's going to do next and i love the spider sense because he can sense something there's just i could rant about the Green Goblin performance for an hour, but we've probably already been here for an hour. This edit's going to be 90 minutes. This is a feature-length video, but Green Goblin, right here, magic.
Starting point is 00:59:17 All right, top four, how do you top the Green Goblin? You give me a very, very terrifying but subtle performance where one of the biggest power plays, two of the biggest power plays are dialogue, but that doesn't shortchange the action with your villain, and you do it with a character that I was iffy on in the comic books. I've always loved the Green Goblin. He's my big Spider-Man villain. It's like Green Goblin Venom. Doc. A lot of people have gone Dococ.
Starting point is 00:59:39 Green Goblin's my guy. So I didn't have high expectations when they were like, hey, Spider-Man Homecoming, Vulture. I was like, The Vulture, really? That's a choice? Like, Adrian Tooms is an old bank robber? You have a twist. You give me the age-old twist of I'm your father.
Starting point is 00:59:52 You give me the Darth Vader twist with the girl. Peter Parker's dating. So you give me effectively the Green Goblin twist, but even more so. It's not Harry. It's not his best friend. It's the girl he likes in high school. There's very little as scary in high school
Starting point is 01:00:02 than the girl you likes father, except when he's also the vulture. And most of the scenes of power are him talking. He overpowers Peter across a room by manipulating him to summon his glider effectively, it's the wings, but it's a glider, giving you that goblin moment, but also the vulture
Starting point is 01:00:18 moment. He also overpowers him sitting in a car, a comic accurate car, by the way, which I loved, just talking to him with a green stoplight flashing on his face, giving you that green of the vulture. That scene between Spider-Man and vulture, Peter Parker and Adrian Toombs, is some of the most Spider-Man stuff I've ever seen, and it takes place sitting in a car. The vulture,
Starting point is 01:00:35 his origins being built into the MCU by him, vulture scavenging the Chitari tech, all of it being because of Tony Stark, you reinvent a decent villain and make them integral tied to your universe, and then you manipulate them. So fan expectations of the comics, this is exactly what you want out of the villain. Fans of the comics are excited because they got a twist. Casual fans get to be excited by new villain, and Michael Keaton gets to act as eyeballs out as another person with wings. Top three, got to give it to Loki. Loki was number one for years for a reason. He is duplicitous. He is fascinating. He is charming. He is, He is someone you want to like.
Starting point is 01:01:08 He got his own show for a reason. He's pretty much a good guy now, kind of, but you still shouldn't trust him. He will stab you in the back over and over again, and you will still fall for it because he's so charming. There's a reason Tom Hedleston is Loki was able to captivate the entire Hall Age crowd just coming out in costume. There's a reason when he says, Neil, people do. This is a character that you never know what's going to happen next, that you don't know why you want to follow, but you will, without a doubt, every time. You believe in his intentions because he believes in his intentions.
Starting point is 01:01:34 the comic book has changed because of how much this character works. He's not even the god of lies anymore. He's the god of stories because the comic book is like, we like Loki. Like, it's fascinating, the impact this has had, and it's able to incorporate classic Greek myths, and it's able to incorporate lots of other storytelling from other parts of the MCU. Tom Hiddleston's take on Loki is Shakespearean in scope and nature
Starting point is 01:01:55 and what it's done for genre content villains. This is such a villain, top three. Easy. Number two and number one are both interesting in that you can see so much of where they're coming from. Both of them are absolute monsters. They're villains. But starting with number two, Kilmonger is fascinating because so many of his ideals are not only believable, but enacted. If you look at Tachala's choices after we lose Kilmonger, he does some of what Kilmonger was suggesting. Kilmonger is trying to feel whole, but he's doing it in every wrong way. He's broken and lashing out, And he's so fascinating in that you're like, that makes sense for what he's been through,
Starting point is 01:02:35 but that's still not okay. He's doing a lot of things. A lot of people believe in. He's doing a lot of things that people put in corners would do. And this is someone that's been abused his whole life, that's been left out in the cold, that's been kicked to the curb. You find yourself going like, man, does that make sense to me? And it's all delivered immaculately by Michael B. Jordan, who's one of the most charming people
Starting point is 01:02:54 on the planet. You're so enamored by him, and he's also a physical force. He's also a physical equal. He's also someone that people follow for a reason. There's a reason that's like Daniel Kalugia's character follows him. There's so much going on with Kilmonger, and I was so impressed by the way that the beautiful dialogue was able to flow just as much as his energy and fights
Starting point is 01:03:13 and just as much as Michael B. Jordan's presence in the room, Immaculate villain. Number one is the only one that I worry when people say this. They're not being ironic. Thanos was right. Has become a meme in itself, because I would argue that since Darth Vader, or maybe including Darth Vader,
Starting point is 01:03:29 This is one of the best blockbuster villains of all time, if not the best. This is a character that wasn't trying to end life. He was trying to sustain life by ending life. His goal, short term, was killing half the universe. His goal long term was making the universe thrive in his own messed up way. And that is so interesting. His belief structure was his flaw. Everything else was theoretically for a greater good in his own mind.
Starting point is 01:03:57 That's what a villain is. A villain isn't someone twirling their mustache going like, I'm going to do a bad thing. It's someone being so convinced they're right. They'll do anything. This is a villain set up for movies and movies and movies and movies and then still overperformed. He got his own movie effectively in Infinity War. We followed Thanos on his journey as the Mad Titan. We saw to a point where he was coming from.
Starting point is 01:04:16 I joke all the time that I'm stuck in the 405 in traffic sometimes. Man, Thanos was right. That shouldn't be a thought. I have, but it is because that is so well portrayed by Josh Brolin here. And I also love that it's a fully giant, you know, 12-foot grin. that I believe in. I believe Thanos when I see him on screen. The special effects are so captivating. The mocap performance
Starting point is 01:04:34 is so riveting. The reactions for everyone around them are so invested that I'm like, that's someone on screen. Thanos isn't real, obviously, but when I'm watching that movie, not only is Thanos real, but sometimes I'm like, man, what an interesting view of the greater universe. And you need someone of that scope, of that
Starting point is 01:04:50 scale of that conviction to be the conclusion of phases one through three, of something so big, he set a very high bar for phases four, five, and I'm very excited to see Kang, very excited to potentially see Doom. I'm very excited for all of what's to come. And I think without Thanos, the MCU wouldn't be what it is today. And I think without Thanos, comic book movies wouldn't be what they are today.
Starting point is 01:05:10 And that, I think, is the best MCU villain, if not the best villain of all time. That is going to do what you lovely, 63. I'm so tired. 63 villains ranked for your viewing pleasure. Please do not get in the comments and be like, what about Fenris the Wolf? We can't do all of them. if there's someone i actually excluded that you consider a big enough villain please do let me know if there's anything you disagree with please respectfully let me know if there's any other list
Starting point is 01:05:36 you'd like to see like uh maybe i don't know best fight scenes or uh most uh loyal adaptations of characters i don't know you let me know what you want to see in the comments thank you thank you thank you please do leave a like please check me on on ticot if you watched all this video and you're like this is still interesting you will love my ticot you specifically because you've been here a while thank you so much for being here thank you to the citizens of rej Nation. You are always so warm and welcoming. I appreciate you. And thank you to Greg, who's going to edit this for the next 12 years.
Starting point is 01:06:07 Can we do this again?

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