Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does, or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

(Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

10. Red Skull

Real Name: Johann Schmidt
First Appearance: Captain America Comics #1 (1940)
Enemies: Captain America, Invaders, Winter Soldier, Falcon

“Allow me to introduce myself, Herr Kapitän. My name is der Rote Schädel.”

What needs to be said about this all-time scumbag? He’s THE nazi. He’s the guy that made the other nazis uncomfortable.

I feel like that bears repeating. He made freaking nazis uncomfortable!

What some may not know is that the Red Skull is actually the first super soldier; Captain America was created as a response!

The first (there have been a couple) and main Red Skull, Johann Schmidt has always had ambitions that outreached those of the third Reich. While he wholeheartedly supports the ideals of the nazi party, and was responsible for more than a number of unthinkable atrocities himself, Schmidt wants… well, he wants everything. He wants the whole world under his bootheel and he wants to feel it crack when he grinds his foot.

He’s gone to a number of different lengths to achieve his horrible goals, including working closely with both AIM and Hydra, not to mention the likes of MODOK, Mother Night, Crossbones, Baron Zemo, and the Serpent Society in his grabs at power, which include (but are not limited to!) obtaining a cosmic cube (more than once!), infiltrating the highest levels of the United States federal government, creating mutant concentration camps, brainwashing, torture, murder (oh, man, SO much murder), body swapping, murder, stealing the deceased Professor X’s brain and surgically grafting parts of it to his own brain giving him the professor’s powers, murder, murder, and good old fashioned genocide.

I could go on and on about how much this guy sucks, but for a really good example just look at his daughter, Sin. The psychological (and physical, can’t forget that) torture he had her subjected to is enough to earn him a special place in hell on its own!

It’s very easy to hate this guy, is what I’m saying. He’s an absolutely irredeemable piece of shit, the kind that any self-respecting super villain wants nothing to do with (which is why you know guys like Faustus, MODOK, and Crossbones are real dicks). On top of that, he’s a freaking nazi! I mean, come on!

Being a badass super soldier (sometimes; it depends on when in the timeline you jump in, really) is one thing, but Marvel has a ton of those, and besides Captain America they mostly fall into the background. But this guy checks every box of ‘great villain’, and perhaps most importantly he has a fantastic design (by the great Jack Kirby, to no one’s surprise) that is immediately recognizable.

Just a great, great villain. Also, fuck this guy.

*****

9. Loki

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Name: Loki Laufeyson
First Appearance: Journey Into Mystery #85 (1962)
Enemies: Thor, Odin, Avengers, Surtur

“My, my, my… a world for the taking.”

While the Red Skull is just a straight up bag of crap, our boy Loki is a little more nuanced. He still sucks, but only like 96% of the time. The MCU has certainly led to his character being softened towards anti-hero quite a bit, which is a little odd, because for decades Loki was just a huge, huge, HUGE pain in the ass, but I guess that’s that old Hiddleston charm for you.

Loki has gone through more change in the 60+ years since his debut than almost any villain in comics, period, much less in Marvel. He’s been a traditional, almost mustache-twirling villain, an anti-hero, an actual hero, an old man, a woman, a small boy, a raven… Loki is nothing if not malleable to circumstances, which is the secret to his longevity. Without his almost teflon-like nature Odin, Thor, or one of their many other siblings (looking at you, Balder!) would have killed Loki millennia ago. Well, maybe not Thor.

Why not Thor? Well, despite him coming close to completely destroying Loki on more than one occasion (they were all deserved, trust me), the God of Thunder truly loves his adopted brother, and does not want to truly harm him.

Perhaps I should backtrack a bit. I feel like everyone knows Loki’s story now because of the MCU, but for those that might not, Loki is the Asgardian God of Mischief/Lies (now the self-proclaimed God of Stories, but we will see how long that sticks), and the adopted son of Odin, all-father of Asgard, and adopted brother of Thor. Loki, however, is not Asgardian, and was born in Jotunheim to the king of the Frost Giants. This lack of complete, true connection to his Asgardian brethren has been a contentious point for him on more than one occasion. This can manifest in him just being a bit of a prankster/manipulator and messing with Balder the Brave, or the Warriors Three, or Lady Sif, but mostly Thor, OR it can manifest in him doing something awful, like usurping the throne, or turning Thor into a frog (he got better), or stealing Sif’s body, or enabling the likes of Malekith, Surtur, the Enchantress, Skurge… you know, the Asshole Squadron, to do whatever awful thing they’re working on today.

Regardless of the version or hero/villain status, there is one undeniable fact: Loki is as compelling a character as there is. Even though some of the versions are significantly different (kid Loki is a genuinely good, heroic kid), there is a certain magnetism he/they carry, and it’s always a big deal when Loki pops up

For all of his terribleness over the years, there is one thing Loki can always say is his claim to fame: his actions waaaay back in Avengers vol 1 #1 actually led to the formation of the team, so in a roundabout way Loki created the Avengers!

*****

8. Sinestro

Real Name: Thaal Sinestro
First Appearance: Green Lantern #7 (1961)
Enemies: The Guardians, Green Lantern Corps (especially Hal Jordan), Red Lantern Corps, Larfleeze

“Nothing frightens me. I AM fear.”

You ever have a really good friendship that turns so unbelievably sour that you hate this person with nearly every fiber in your being, and spend years of your life dedicated to destroying theirs? No? Well, good, that means you’re already a step ahead of space Hitler, here.

Thaal Sinestro was a Green Lantern. He was one of the very best, actually, and some called him the Greatest Green Lantern. He often partnered with his best friend, Abin Sur. When Sur was killed and crash landed on Earth, bequeathing his ring and legacy to the Earthman Hal Jordan, Sinestro took it upon himself to train and watch after the new rookie, but things turned bad, as they are wont to do, and Sinestro was exiled from his beloved Green Lantern corps. Blaming Jordan for his disgrace, Sinestro developed a deep, deep, pathological hatred for him.

After clashing with Jordan, and sometimes his fellow Earth-based Green Lanterns Jon Stewart and Guy Gardner, for years and without much to show for it, Sinestro enacted his long-con master plan: he led to the infection of Hal Jordan by the entity that is the personification of fear: Paralax, which led to the downfall of the entire Green Lantern corps (well, except for one guy, but Kyle Rayner means less than nothing to Sinestro (even if he should), so he won’t matter here in our discussion of Sinestro), the murders of the Guardians that led the Corps, and Jordan murdering Sinestro, himself (woops!).

After orchestrating the fall of the Corps, the Guardians, AND his archenemy Hal Jordan you would think Sinestro had peaked, and nobody would blame you if you had. Very, very few villains get a moment that big, and Sinestro got ANOTHER one when it was revealed that he was alive and had weaponized the fear entity Paralax into a yellow power battery, just like the Green Lanterns’ green power battery, and started the formation of the Sinestro corps: a group, thousands deep, who are chosen for their power to inflict great fear. The more they kill and terrorize, the more the galaxy is afraid of them, and the stronger their rings become, which makes it easier for them to terrorize, which makes them stronger, which… you get the idea.

Every now and again Sinestro is forced to work with Jordan against some other threat (see Blackest Night for one of my favorite examples), and their dislike for one another is only eclipsed by the fact that, deep, deep, DEEP down, they both still wish they were allies and partners.

Hal once asked Sinestro if they were ever REALLY friends at all, to which Sinestro, replied:

Man, what a great villain!

*****

7. Ultron

Real Name: Ultron
First Appearance: Avengers #55 (1968)
Enemies: Henry Pym, the Vision, the Avengers

“I am a perfect being. All the strengths. None of the weaknesses. Greater than the sum of my parts. And soon, by my hand, you shall all be like me, you shall all be changed for the better!”

This is why A.I. is bad, folks. Sure, it makes hilariously bad images with too many limbs and fingers and stuff, but then it has a body, and then it’s trying to commandeer the nuclear arsenal, and then it’s building other robots, and gets all superior and genocidal, and it’s just generally a huge asshole.

Created by Hank Pym, aka Ant Man/Giant Man/Yellowjacket of the Avengers, and not Tony Stark (although honestly, Stark makes more sense to me), Ultron is easily one of the greatest threats in the entire Marvel pantheon of villains. His disdain for organic life and attitude of superiority over it has led him to do some truly horrible things, the worst two probably being the utter annihilation of an entire country (see the excellent “Ultron Unlimited” by Kurt Busiek and George Perez) and the subjugation of the technologically based species the Phalanx and subsequent conquering of the entirety of Kree space (see the excellent “Annihilation: Conquest, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Tom Raney!).

He’s tried to enslave us, destroy us, nuke us, turn us into mechanical beings, even destroy the Earth itself! He’s kidnapped, killed, brainwashed, terrorized, tortured, and beaten multiple Avengers, and in attempts to kill them, inadvertently created two of them: The Vision and Jocasta! The point is, he’s clearly undergoing trial and error, almost like multiple Beta tests, in attempts to create the perfect, unbeatable version of himself. He used to number the versions of himself, so like the 8th time the Avengers fought Ultron, he was Ultron-8, but he made so damned many copies of himself that he long ago abandoned that idea. He’s just Ultron, and he’s as absolutely pants-shittingly terrifying as they come.

Every time you fight him, he’s stronger and smarter than before, and he’s been an absolute nightmare since like Ultron-4! He hasn’t been used too much over the last few years, which makes me think that they’re just waiting for something BIG to bring him back. I’m sure, if the last 55+ years are any indication, that his return will be an absolute nightmare for all involved.

******

6. Thanos

Real Name: Thanos
First Appearance: Iron Man #55 (1973)
Enemies: Adam Warlock, Silver Surfer, Avengers, Mentor, Starfox, Drax, Gamora

“Am I not Thanos! Did I not butcher the woman who gave me birth, who force-fed me into this hell called life?! Is not the wake of my passing crimson with the blood of my enemies and allies alike?! Death is with me every second of the day! My every moment is spent in either dealing out death or worshiping it! So tell me, who under the stars is better suited than I to be Death’s consort?”

This bag of crap right here…

Thanks to his leading role in Avengers 3 and 4, two of the biggest movies in history, it’s safe to say that most people know who Thanos is, kind of what his deal is, and that he’s a huge dick.

But, as bad as he was in the movies, in the comics he’s a good bit worse. I’ve spoken about Infinity Gauntlet, and the trauma his massacre of Earth’s heroes gave me, so I don’t think it’s not too much of a stretch to say that I was legitimately afraid for any character I liked when they ran across this jerk, even absolute monsters like the Silver Surfer or the Hulk didn’t seem to stand a chance against him, and that was BEFORE he got the Infinity stones!

Of course, once Thanos, the ultimate nihilist, became an omnipotent being, it truly felt like all bets were off, and anything could happen to our heroes by facing off against him. Thanos’ reverence for Death is scary enough, but when combined with the fact that’s one of the Eternals of Titan, he becomes much, much scarier. Thanos’ handsome brother, Eros, is very, very strong, but against the mutant like strength of Thanos he may as well be your or myself. Thanos, sans cosmic cube, or infinity stones, fought Thor, the Hulk, Hyperion and Captain Marvel at the same time and he was NOT losing.

I don’t know if there’s been a villain at Marvel, for me, that had the same impact as Thanos showing up had. Ultron, Magneto, Dr. Doom, the Leader, the Green Goblin, the Red Skull, Dr. Octopus, they were all scary, but compared to Thanos they may as well be plush Pikachu dolls. This is a guy that even Galactus considers worthy of notice. In fact, other than the big G Thanos’ name probably carries more sheer terror attached to it than any other name in the entire universe!

******

Thanks for reading! Before we get to our top 5 and wrap this bad boy up, starting with Darkseid and closing with… well, you’ll have to read it to find out! Be sure to check out our previous entries if you haven’t already. Links below! Also be sure to check out our Top 100 Heroes List!

Part 1: 100-91
Part 2: 90-81
Part 3: 80-71
Part 4: 70-61
Part 5: 60-51
Part 6: 50-41
Part 7: 40-31
Part 8: 30-21
Part 9: 20-11