The Avengers Franchise Has Crappy Villains

[Hanley!]

So I saw Guardians of the Galaxy on Friday night, and I enjoyed the film quite a bit. But I couldn't help but notice that once again the villains were really bland and terrible. Ronan the Accuser had pretty cool makeup, but his personality and motivations were so two dimensional. His bald female companion (Nebula, I think) had even better makeup but was similarly shallow.

These are just the most recent additions in what is quickly becoming the least impressive rogues gallery imaginable. It seems like none of the writers being employed for these films knows how to write a compelling villain. Looking back on the franchise, they've only got it right once as far as I can tell, and even then it was only half-right. Though I haven't seen Iron Man 3 or Captain America 2, so perhaps one of those films introduced an interesting new bad guy. I'm inclined to doubt it at this point though.

The worst thing is they've had some really great actors in these roles, who would have been capable of tackling something more challenging: Tim Roth, Jeff Bridges, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Eccleston, Mickey Rourke (right after The Wrestler). It's a big waste of talent.

The only villain that has ever really impressed in these films has been Loki. He was really interesting in both Thor films; although the actual villain for Thor 2 was as two-dimensional as they come and very similar to the new Guardians villain. Though I was disappointed that they kinda ruined Loki for the Avengers film. They were so focused on the team itself (which is understandable to be fair), that they made him look weak and silly and took away much of what made him interesting.

I'm more worried now that I've realised that they're spending several years and several movies building towards Thanos, who seems just an uninteresting as any of the others. And that's after going through Ultron, who doesn't sound much better. Without appropriate adversaries for the overpowered heroes, these films are going to get less and less interesting to me.

I kinda think that they should have saved Loki as the villain for Avengers 3 at this point. He's the only villain they've gotten right, but still didn't really add anything to the first Avengers film. They could have saved him up for the last one, at which point the fans would be really into him, and it would have been a nice way to wrap up the trilogy. Someone more generic like Thanos would have been more fitting for the first film.

What do the rest of you think? Did you like any of Marvel villains? Was I missing anything when I missed Captain America 2 or Iron Man 3? It's just a little disappointing to see them constantly messing up something that is so fundamental to making a great superhero film.

[Viazon]

Your face has crappy villains.

[Everlong]

This is nothing new really. Marvel has always been criticized for having bad villains, especially in comparison to DC. Marvel does a great job of making lovable heroes, which DC doesn't really, but other than Magneto and Loki, most of the big name marvel villains kind of fall flat.

So the people making these movies haven't had a whole lot to go off in terms of quality source material for their villains. But they still could have taken some more creative liberties with them.

[Everlong]

And to answer your other question... Iron Man 3 and Winter Soldier had decent villains. In the case of Winter Soldier in particular though, it wasn't so much a conflict against a single villain as it was against a philosophy and changing methods of warfare. There's also another hybrid storyline at play, but I won't spoil it.

[Hanley!]

DC does generally have better villains than Marvel, but it's not like Marvel doesn't have any. And there's scope to make even the duller ones work well in the movies in any case. They just have to tie in well with the plot and the hero in a way that makes them memorable to the audience. In a two hour film, the smallest details can make a big difference. Evil looking aliens spouting clichéd dialogue doesn't really do it for me though.