10 MCU Villains Who Were Wasted (And Deserve A Comeback After Avengers: Secret Wars)

There have been some great Marvel Comics villains brought into the MCU since the first phase. However, in some cases, genuine threats were misused and often nearly dismissed completely. Universal threats were killed in a flurry of CGI, and beloved Marvel supervillains were changed in bizarre ways to ensure that what appeared on the big screen looked nothing like the characters from the comics.

There were also cases where the actors involved publicly called out Marvel for wasting their characters, with names like Mickey Rourke, Christopher Eccleston, and Frank Grillo as perfect examples. There are also some wasted characters who didn't die, and there is still a chance that Marvel could bring them back and fix them, including one that might be in the pipeline if a long-gestating MCU movie ever gets off the ground.

Crossbones

Frank Grillo actually had some great moments in the MCU as Brock Rumlow. He was introduced in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and he was someone who was part of the S.T.R.I.K.E. team, although it turns out he is a double agent and actually works for Hydra. He starts off as a hero, working with Captain America. However, when Cap refuses to go along with Alexander Pierce, Brock is part of the team that attacks him in the elevator fight.

That said, when it came time for Rumlow to finally get his chance to be a supervillain in Captain America: Civil War, he was dead before the opening action scene even ended. Crossbones only has about five minutes of screen time before he triggers a suicide vest, and Scarlet Witch has to contain it to protect people. This said, Crossbones dies by suicide, and it wasted any chance of Grillo making this villain into something bigger.

Ronan the Accuser

Ronan the Accuser was the main villain from Guardians of the Galaxy, and he was played by Lee Pace, who did a fantastic job in bringing a personality to a character that is often rigid and boring in the comics. The movie even does something incredible with him when it has him murder The Other, the ruler of the Chitauri, in front of Thanos to prove a point. It seemed that he was going to be a major threat. That isn't what ended up happening.

He is a major threat while he is attacking Xandar in his large ship, and he dominates Drax the Destroyer in a one-on-one battle. However, when the time comes for him to fight Star-Lord, Peter Quill just cracks a joke and disintegrates Ronan without a second thought. It isn't that Ronan was a bad character, but his death ends what could have been a longer-running cosmic villain where he could have been used for more. When the MCU builds its cosmic universe in the next phase, a new Ronan variant should return.

The Mandarin

Iron Man 3 remains one of the best MCU movies thanks to its smart screenwriting and a brilliant set-up twist concerning the main villain. While this remains the movie that brought the wonderful Ben Kingsley into the MCU as Trevor Slattery, the identity he pretended to be caused many fans to reject the movie outright. Slattery pretends to be the terrorist known as the Mandarin. While the Slattery twist reveal was a highlight of the movie, it was disappointing for fans to see the iconic Iron Man arc enemy used as a fake-out.

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings shows that the Mandarin is a fabricated name by Xu Wenwu to spread fear, and there is no villain who uses this name. While the MCU might have believed it was hard to use the villain as he was in the comics, thanks to negative racial stereotypes surrounding him, there were versions of a man who was the opposite of Tony Stark, using magic instead of tech to build an empire. That's the Mandarin the MCU needs.

M.O.D.O.K.

M.O.D.O.K. had a great animated series on Hulu, and while that wasn't anything like the character from the comics, it was highly entertaining and a critical success. However, when the character showed up in the MCU proper, it was a terrible adaptation and was used as a joke in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. This wasn't the M.O.D.O.K. who ran A.I.M. This is the former Yellowjacket from the first movie, Darren Cross.

While Darren Cross was amusing in the role, and his attempts at redemption were comically heartwarming, this was not M.O.D.O.K. While it would be extremely hard to bring M.O.D.O.K. in with the design from the comics, and the animated series showed he is better as a joke, bringing in a faithfully adapted M.O.D.O.K. to run A.I.M. in the next MCU phase could redeem the character.

Taskmaster

The changes made to Taskmaster made sense in the storyline for Black Widow. Making the character a woman was smart since she was someone who was there to fight Natasha and Yelena. It also made sense to have her be Taskmaster because of the character's photographic reflexes that let her mimic the Widows and make her hard to beat. The problem is that Marvel Comics' version of Taskmaster is an icon.

Tony Masters is a great character, someone who often walks the line between villain and antihero, and someone who is both quick-witted and a fantastic fighter. The MCU's version of Taskmaster is killed quickly in Thunderbolts*, and that ends her character arc. The MCU could still use the Taskmaster name and have Tony take on the role in the next phase, because he could be a perfect addition to the MCU's roster of villains.

Whiplash

Mickey Rourke is one of the actors who complained about his role in the MCU. He appeared in Iron Man 2 as Whiplash, and there were a lot of great things about the character. His design was solid, and his energy whips, powered by an arc reactor, were a perfect weapon to use against Iron Man. However, as Rourke said, the movie cut out several of his scenes to simplify the character.

In the end, Rourke was the best supervillain in that movie, but Iron Man 2 chose to instead rely on a giant CGI battle where Iron Man and War Machine fight a legion of armored attackers, with Whiplash among those in on the attack. Whiplash deserved better than to be shoehorned into the story and then left to die in a big-budget CGI climax at the end of Iron Man 2.

Malekith

Malekith remains the most disappointing character to ever appear in the MCU. Malekith the Accursed is the ancient leader of the Dark Elves, and he is the main villain in Thor: The Dark World. In Marvel Comics, Malekith is so powerful that he is part of a crossover event that puts all the Nine Realms in danger, and it takes the combined efforts of heroes all over the universe to stop him. That isn't who appeared in Thor: The Dark World.

Malekith is one of the weakest villains ever to appear in the MCU because he has no real motivation other than being evil. He receives almost no character development, and the big fight with Thor at the end is a blur of CGI effects that were barely comprehensible. Director Alan Taylor said that many scenes of Malekith's backstory were cut from the film, and actor Christopher Eccleston said Marvel was dishonest about his character's role in the movie. Malekith deserves better.

Dormammu

Dormammu is the overarching villain in the first Doctor Strange movie, but he only shows up at the end in an abstract appearance as Strange challenges him in a motion-capture scene. However, the all-powerful interdimensional ruler of the Dark Dimension, who wants to consume Earth, is little more than an afterthought in the movie. He is powerful, and that is shown when Strange hai to trick him into a time loop rather than defeat him.

Dormammu in the comics is one of Doctor Strange's most persistent and powerful villains. He is the uncle of Clea, the love of Strange's life, who appeared at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and there were hopes they might face him in his realm, finally allowing him to take on the fiery appearance from the comics. It hasn't happened, and Dormammu is one of the MCU's most underutilized villains.

Gorr the God Butcher

Christian Bale was great as Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder. However, there was one serious problem with the movie: Taika Waititi made it more comedic, similar to Thor: Ragnarok. While that worked in Ragnarok, thanks to Jeff Goldblum's over-the-top Grandmaster, it failed miserably in Love and Thunder because Gorr is a tragic figure, and his story in the movie was full of trauma.

Gorr needs to be tragic and deadly, and all he does in this movie is to threaten a bunch of Asgardian children and then cause Jane Foster's death. None of it really hits as well as it should have because what surrounded it was a movie that relied too heavily on comedy, and it stripped what should have been a great Gorr story to its bare bones.

Justin Hammer

The one MCU villain who needs to come back soon is one who isn't a supervillain at all. While Iron Man 2 was critically slammed, one person who delivered on all counts in his performance was Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer. He is slimy, cowardly, manipulative, and a bad guy that everyone loved to hate. He outshines Whiplash in every way, and he proves to be the perfect antithesis to Tony Stark. He also survives and ends up in jail.

Forget about Aldrich Killian from Iron Man 3. Justin Hammer is the perfect Iron Man foil because he doesn't care about being a supervillain. He just wants to control the show and create his own supervillains to fight for him, all while he hides in the background. The good news is that he is supposed to be back in Armor Wars, if that ever gets made, but if it doesn't, the MCU has to find a way to bring Justin Hammer back. He is too great a villain to disappear forever.