Main Comic Book Villains Ranked Lamest To Coolest

Main Comic Book Villains Ranked Lamest To Coolest

Arguably the most important legacy identity in Marvel Comics, the name Captain Marvel has been used by many heroes in the publisher’s history. While Carol Danvers, the current Captain Marvel, has amassed her own eclectic collection of villains and is the most recognizable hero in this role today, her rogues’ gallery is littered with villains inherited from previous wielders of the iconic title.

Some of these are well-known villains whose reach overlaps multiple Marvel heroes. Others are specific to the Captain Marvel legacy, or Carol herself. While these combined legacies have produced many fearsome foes, not all of Captain Marvel’s comic book villains have aged as well as the heroic identity.

Updated on July 14th, 2022, by Shawn S. Lealos: Captain Marvel will return soon in the MCU, and while the movie will be a sequel to her original solo movie, the title will actually be The Marvels. In this movie, she will team up with the new Disney+ sensation Ms. Marvel, as Kamala Kahn is an admitted huge fan of Carol Danvers. Also appearing is Monica Rambeau, who seems to have a beef with Carol. Monica gained powers in WandaVision, and while she was known as Captain Marvel at one time in the comics, she eventually became Proton. Who these women will fight remains a mystery, although there are plenty of great options to choose from in Captain Marvel’s comic book history.

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15 Supreme Intelligence

Captain Marvel Comic Book Accurate Supreme Intelligence

The Supreme Intelligence was a being the Kree created to help them construct a Cosmic Cube for their use. The most brilliant Kree was used to construct the intelligent being, and soon it became sentient and refused to allow the Kree to control him. It wasn’t long before he took control of the empire.

RELATED: All You Need to Know About Captain Marvel’s Kree Nation

Everything that has gone wrong in Captain Marvel’s life when it comes to her connection with the Kree goes back to Supreme Intelligence. This became even more apparent when he merged with another being to become Vox Supreme and forced Captain Marvel to kill the Avengers. She luckily had a plan and tricked the intelligent being, defeating him in the end.

14 Mystique

Mystique Explosives

One of the most traumatic things to ever happen to Captain Marvel in her life happened when she battled Rogue. The X-Men member was part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants at that time, raised by her mother’s Mystique and Destiny. She stripped Carol of her powers and memories and left her in an almost comatose state.

Captain Marvel never truly recovered, but while people blame Rogue, this was all Mystique’s fault. Her manipulations sent Rogue after Captain Marvel and she didn’t stop when Rogue defected to the X-Men. Mystique is mostly an X-Men antagonist, but she is also one of Captain Marvel’s most dangerous enemies.

13 Doomsday Man

Ms. Marvel punches Doomsday Man

Created by the United States military for “aggressive space exploration,” the Doomsday Man is a remote-controlled humanoid robot, heavily armored to withstand the rigors of the cosmos. Highly advanced and nearly indestructible, it has been commandeered for villainous means on occasions.

The first to utilize the automaton was the military scientist Dr. Kronton, who went rogue shortly after finalizing his creation. Years later, it was salvaged and repurposed by the terrorist organization AIM, only to be decommissioned after a battle with Carol Danvers, then operating as Ms. Marvel. In both instances, the difficult-to-control robot was defeated when the heroes lured it into falling into a conveniently existing hole in the ground.

12 Titannus

Titannus

A member of the shape-shifting alien Skrulls, Titannus was cursed to be one of the very few members of his species who did not possess the metamorphic mutant gene. To compensate, he submitted himself to his planet’s military “Super Skrull” project, which imbued him with enhanced strength, durability, reflexes, and flight.

While most versions of Captain Marvel have close ties to the alien Kree, sworn enemies of the Skrulls, and view the species as inherently dangerous, this is mostly because of the Skrull’s ability to assume multiple forms and wage subversive guerrilla campaigns. Lacking this ability, Titannus is an easily identifiable threat who can be seen coming from miles away.

11 Genis-Vell

Genis-Vell in Marvel Comics

Carol Danvers inherited the title of Marvel from the original Captain Mar-Vell. Genis-Vell is Mar-Vell’s son, and he went by the name Photon as well. He started out as a hero, bonded with Rick Jones for a long time, and operated under his father’s moniker. However, over time, he began to descend into madness.

RELATED: 6 Things Most Fans Don’t Know About Carol Danvers’ Kree Suit

Genis-Vell decided he wanted to make himself into a god, which caused a lot of strife between Rick and Genis. After they split up, Genis chose to join Baron Zemo and the Thunderbolts but soon learned that his powers were growing out of control, making him a danger to the world.

10 Ove

Captain Marvel Fights Ove

Ove is a more recent addition to Captain America’s stable of villains. This took place after Carol woke up in the future, where several things caused the world to become uninhabitable outside of select protected areas. One of these was in New York City and included descendants of heroes and a still-young Emma Frost.

This area, though, was ruled by Ove – the son of Namor and Enchantress. With Namor’s thirst for power and his mother’s magic, he was a formidable opponent. However, Carol beat him by sending him to the past and then depowering him. With a mother like Enchantress, don’t expect him to stay down for long.

9 M.O.D.O.K.

MODOK meets with The Intelligencia from Marvel Comics

An acronym that stands for “Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing,” MODOK originated as a scientist named George Tarleton who worked for the terrorist organization AIM, a frequent antagonist of Captain Marvel. After volunteering for a procedure designed to increase his intelligence and maximize his brain’s computational ability, he was transformed into the massive-headed, tiny-limbed MODOK, and subsequently usurped control of the organization.

Although possessing incredible mental powers, such as increased intelligence, thought processing, and limited telekinesis, his deformed body, and gigantic head hindered his physical mobility, requiring him to forever utilize a specially designed hovering apparatus that he dubbed “the doomsday chair.”

8 Controller

Basil Sandhurst was a sickly child who spent much of his formative years bedridden and friendless; frequently buried in his studies. As an adult, he utilized these years of accumulated knowledge to become a brilliantly minded scientist, but his lack of social skills and erratic personality often prevented him from obtaining long-term employment. After blackmailing his way into a position at an experimental research facility, his carelessness and hubris eventually led to his accidental exposure to a bath of experimental chemicals, leaving him deformed and bedridden once more.

Encasing his crippled body within a high-tech, super-strong exo-suit of his own design, he would set about attempting to conquer the world, to prove his superiority over a population he deemed intellectually inferior. Sandhurst’s primary weapons are his “control discs,” which when attached to his opponents allow for limited mind control. He has fought four versions of Captain Marvel, including the original Kree hero Mar-Vell and most recently Carol Danvers. In each encounter, his ego-driven sense of superiority has been his ultimate downfall.

7 Ronan The Accuser

Ronan The Accuser - House Greyjoy

Captain Marvel currently serves as the Accuser for the Kree Empire in Marvel Comics. This is not the same Kree that fans saw in Captain Marvel, where Carol had to battle her former friends and allies to protect Earth and the Skrulls hiding out there. This version is the Kree-Skrull Alliance, led by Hulkling of the Young Avengers.

Carol took over the role of Accuser at that time, and fans might remember that the most famous Accuser for the Kree was none other than Ronan, who made his MCU appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy. In the comics, Carol and Ronan never got along and when she decided to become an Earth hero, she and Ronan clashed more times than not.

6 Yon-Rogg

Yon Rogg flying and spreading his arms

Commander of the mission that brought the original Captain Mar-Vell to Earth, Yon-Rogg, jealous of Vell over the affections of a shared love interest, intended to strand the hero on the “backwater planet,” to be left for dead. When Mar-Vell instead became a celebrated champion amongst Earth’s superhero population, which the Kree empire deemed useful for intelligence gathering, Rogg was infuriated and determined to eliminate him personally.

Capturing Vell’s human ally Carol Danvers, Rogg’s machinations would ultimately result in the activation of Danvers’ hidden Kree lineage, leading her on the path that would eventually culminate in her own adoption of the legacy of Captain Marvel years later.

5 Deathbird

The eldest child of the royal family of the alien Shi’Ar empire, Deathbird is feared amongst the cosmos for her sadistic lust for power. When her ruthlessness and refusal to adhere to royal tradition resulted in her removal from her rightful inheritance of her people’s throne, she set about building her own personal army to wage war upon the civilizations united under Shi’Ar rule, to instead attempt to take her birthright by force.

Alternating between alliances and betrayals of many of Marvel’s space-faring species as it suits her needs, Deathbird has battled Carol Danvers on multiple occasions and has proven to be an unexpected match against her in combat.

4 Moonstone

Moonstone Ms Marvel Die

A renowned psychiatrist turned career criminal, Doctor Karla Sofen was empowered by an ancient Kree artifact discovered on Earth’s moon, thus her adopted moniker. As the villain Moonstone, she regularly used her gravity manipulating abilities to battle Captain Marvel and the Avengers as a regular member of Baron Zemo’s Masters of Evil.

RELATED: 10 Things About The Kree-Skrull War The Captain Marvel Movie Leaves Out

When she experienced fame and public adoration for the first time as the Masters of Evil disguised themselves as the heroic Thunderbolts, she briefly entertained thoughts of reformation. She would ultimately be lured back into her villainous ways, however, when she was given the opportunity to publicly serve amongst the “Dark Avengers,” another team of disguised villains who had secretly taken control of Earth’s superpowered community. While serving on this twisted version of Earth’s mightiest heroes, Sofen adopted the former identity of her long-time foe Carol Danvers, becoming the team’s evil Ms. Marvel.

3 The Brood

Brood Ms Marvel

An insectoid race that reproduces by infecting the living bodies of other species, the Brood exists solely to consume and propagate. With her close ties to Marvel’s cosmic pantheon, Carol Danvers has encountered the parasitic alien monsters on numerous occasions.

While traveling through space alongside the X-Men, Carol first encountered them while battling alongside the mutant heroes during the original Brood Saga, her cosmic powers playing a pivotal role in the conflict. Much later in her heroic career, Carol intercepted and dispatched a Brood Queen which had landed on Earth, establishing her as one of the few known beings to ever defeat a Brood Queen single-handedly.

2 Nitro

Marvel Comics' Nitro vs Wolverine

A human who was captured and experimented upon by the alien Kree, Robert Hunter became the villain Nitro after gaining the ability to explode and reform himself at will. He was first defeated by the original Captain Marvel while attempting to steal a top-secret military nerve gas, the exposure to which led to a cancer diagnosis that eventually ended the hero’s life.

While this tangential legacy was enough to gain him notoriety amongst Marvel’s heroes and villains, he would later eclipse this with a detonation that leveled an entire neighborhood, including sixty children at a nearby elementary school. It was this heinous event that directly led to the Super Hero Registration Act, the controversial legislation which ignited the Super Hero Civil War, irrevocably changing the entire landscape of the Marvel Universe.

1 Rogue

While she has long since redeemed herself as a member of the heroic X-Men, Rogue began her super-powered exploits as a part of Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. It was while operating with this villainous team that she first battled Carol Danvers, an encounter that would affect both women for years after. Young and inexperienced at the time, Rogue attempted to use her mutant powers to absorb Carol’s alien attributes, but would accidentally assimilate not just her powers, but a portion of her psyche.

This lingering portion of Carol within Rogue’s mind would haunt her for years after and was the catalyst for her joining the X-Men in a desperate quest for help. Carol, meanwhile, would temporarily be placed into a coma, waking up years later lacking all emotional attachment to her past persona, the first instance in a now character-defining history of amnesic episodes. Although both women are now on the same side amongst Marvel’s heroes and have teamed up on occasions, their enmity toward each other stemming from this initial encounter remains a constant elephant in the room.

 NEXT: 10 Comic Book Storylines The Marvels Could Adapt

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About The Author

Drew Beaty
(55 Articles Published)

Drew Beaty is a third-generation superhero fan who was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He began his collection with hand-me-down comic books from a used book store owned by his father and grandfather in the late 1980s. Today, Drew owns and has read over 50,000 individual comics. He was once ranked “Best In The World” in the Marvel Comics category of the mobile trivia game Quiz-Up and still has the screenshots to prove it. When he’s not reading or writing about masks and capes, Drew spends his time with his wife and cats, or rubbing elbows with Portland’s music scene, where he has performed in the hip hop group Bad Habitat since 2008.

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