The best Avengers villains of all time - vangorderwhout1940

The unsurpassable Avengers villains of all prison term

Kang and other Avengers villains collage (Envision mention: George Marston)

Thanos is considered one of the Avengers' fiercest enemies, if non one of the inferior villains in the entire Marvel Universe. But He's just become the leader of the Eternals - and what's more, the Eternals are about to meet a baddie who may even occultation Thanos as a bloody-minded tyrant.

Cover to the Avengers, Thanos is just one of the many a realness-threatening villains that have been bested again and again aside Earth's Mightiest Heroes. And while you can rest assured the Delirious Colossus has a place among the greatest Avengers enemies ever, who else makes the cut?

We'll answer that right now, as we make our picks for the 10 best Avengers villains ever.

10. Taskmaster

Though he's rarely caused as much trouble on his ain as much of the other villains happening this leaning, the piece known only if every bit the Taskmaster may follow the superlative threat to the Avengers, and possibly the world, past virtue of one perfoliate fact: all those Hydra agents, AIM troopers, Red region Guild enforcers, and other cannon-fodder type baddies that the Avengers possess to wade done month in and calendar month out?

Completely of them graduated from the Taskmaster's honorary society for henchmen.

Blessed what he calls exact reflexes, the Taskmaster pot replicate physical action mechanism at will - the movement, fighting style, and combat traits of any person whom he has substantially studied. He's parlayed this into a career not but as a crowning assassin, but as the go-to guy for collecting and training an army of goons, henchmen, and soldiers. Though He's now and then strayed snug to good poke fu territory, he's always returned to villainy. The fact of the matter is, Taskmaster follows the money, and heroism doesn't usually include a 401K.

Tally to his mercenary disposition is the fact that his photographic reflexes crusade him to lose his more individual memories, and an arsenal that rivals the entirety of the Avengers, and you've got a alarming villain with no morals and very olive-sized to lose.

Taskmaster joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a surprising way, portrayed by Olga Kurylenko in 2021's Black Widow, and the drama Quran adaptation lately got his own Taskmaster limited serial publication.

You can learn more about this villain in our Taskmaster profile.

9. Korvac

Michael Korvac may have been the most powerful foe the Avengers ever faced, every last the way back in the landmark '70s story Avengers: The Korvac Saga.

Though he began life as a lowly computer programmer, the extraterrestrial conquerors known as the Badoon transformed him into a bionic woman, unwittingly setting him on the way of life to ultimate power.

After attempting to analyze and understand the world-eating entity Galactus's vast knowledge of the universe, Korvac accidentally exposed himself to the Power Natural object, a nigh-omnipotent force sure-footed of reshaping reality. To begin with intending to make over Earth American Samoa a utopia, Korvac's inevitable infringe with the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy set him connected a path of devastation that left both Avengers and Guardians dead in its Wake.

In an try to occlusion Korvac's violent disorder, a cosmic entity well-known as the Collector conveyed his daughter, Carina, to halt Korvac. Carina and Korvac fell in erotic love, though, and hid connected Earth, posing as normal Americans. After the Guardian Starhawk's unfitness to perceive Korvac gave them away, withal, the violence began afresh, ending only when Thor killed Carina, and caused Korvac to realize the death and destruction he had caused. In the end, atomic number 2 sacrificed himself to return the Avengers to life, and untie all of his mistakes.

Last, Korvac has raised his head again as the main villain in the current Iron Man ongoing comic book series.

8. Scarlet Witch

The Ruby Witch English hawthorn seem like a strange choice for this list, considering that most of her 50-year history has been spent Eastern Samoa one of the Avengers' most hardy members, but when you think her culpability in the 'Avengers Disassembled' storyline, the fact is she has a high body count of actual Avengers than some other baddie.

Ever.

Nonvoluntary mad by eld of psychological excruciate, first at the hands of the villainous Magneto, and future away the loss of her children, Wanda Maximoff went on a violent death spree that claimed the lives of leastways four Avengers, and culminated in the casting of a reality-altering spell that left virtually around 200 mutants uneffective - though she did at length restore them.

Surely, most of her victims have returned in the last couple of years, but even Korvac and Thanos, whose death counts spiraled into the hundreds, saw their destructive actions undone in a matter of pages. Wanda's brief spree had ramifications that are organism felt to this day, even despite being a bomber again in Uncanny Avengers.

She may have only been a villain for a day, but it was one of the worst days the Avengers always saw.

And hints of that day - or something adpressed - were teased in the Disney Plus show off WandaVision.

Get to know Wanda better with our recommendations for the best Scarlet Witch stories in comic books.

7. Norman Osborn

Norman Osborn may have started his nefarious vocation as Spider-Man's sterling bane, the Green Goblin, just the hold out few years have seen him grow into a menace happening a scale far greater than he ever previously attained.

Later on repelling a Skrull encroachment in the story Secret Invasion, Osborn set up himself at the head of America's certificate forces, disbanding SHIELD, and forming his personal organization, Pound, in the process. For a time, IT seemed as though Osborn had the world's best interests at bottom, merely the specter of his wicked alter ego never left him alone for long, and soon, it was apparent that there were faraway more sinister motives at pass on.

Osborn assembled not only a cabal of the world's greatest villains but also formed and commanded a series of increasingly terrorist Darkling Avengers teams meant to fool the reality into trusting his vision. Osborn's supercilious schemes came flaming cut down around him, literally, after his deprivation of ascendancy not only if of his own demons but those in his statement led to the fall of Asgard.

Osborn has had some ups and downs since his HAMMER time (get IT?) but he recently returned to the worldwide of Wanderer-Man, resuming his originative villainous pretext as the Green Goblin.

6. Thanos

Thanos, the hulking, unfriendly despot of Behemoth is possessed of a odd obsession; an obsession with Death itself. Wishful to win the affection not retributory of the conception of Death, but of its cosmic avatar, Thanos has, numerous times, sought a method to destroy all life in the cosmos - nearly famously in the story The Eternity Gantlet. In his crooked idea, only such a gesture would be enough enough to attain the attention of Death herself and win her embrace.

On his own, Thanos' distinguished physical and psychic prowess make him a cosmic-level threat, simply when paired with the Infinity Gantlet, an artefact that gives its wearer control over nearly wholly aspects of reality, Thanos is nigh-unstoppable. As a matter of fact, with the big businessman of the Gauntlet at his command, Thanos went on a kill spree that claimed the lives of almost half the sensate beings in the universe, including the X-Men, Temerarious, and the Fantastic Little Jo.

When the Avengers conflicting him, Thanos well killed all of them, including a unmanageable Captain America. It was only when his hubris leads him to leave his physical material body that his own granddaughter, Nebula, was capable to seize the Infinity Gauntlet, and undo all of his destruction.

Thanos has been a unvarying thorn in the side of the Marvel Universe ever since - and that extends into the Marvel Medium Macrocos, where Thanos repeated his Infinity Gauntlet scheme to annihilative effect in Avengers: Eternity War and Avengers: Endgame.

5. Kree/Skrulls

By themselves, the alien races are titled the Kree and the Skrulls have always been enough of a threat to Earth to justify either of their places on this list. Even so, it is their ongoing war, a struggle that has claimed countless lives, worlds, and colonies of some races, that has precipitated the greatest conflicts between the Kree, the Skrulls, and the Avengers.

Beginning with the legendary taradiddle Avengers: The Kree/Skrull State of war (in which individual Avengers, and the Kree warrior Captain Mar-Vell, traveled crossways the universe to make up the conflict which vulnerable to engulf Earth) the state of war 'tween the two outlander races has been directly, or indirectly responsible many incidents of Earth-threatening violence.

For the Kree, their greatest conflict with the Avengers came during Avengers: Operation Astronomic Rage, when the Kree went to war with some other alien race, the Shi'ar. During the conflict, the Shi'ar created a massive twist called a Nega-Turkey, designed to destroy the entire Kree civilisation. After Captain America convinced the Shi'ar non to detonate the fail, it was stolen aside the Skrulls who detonated it anyway, crushing the Kree imperium.

It was later unconcealed that the smooth warfare, including the construction and detonation of the Nega-Bomb, were all manipulations of the Kree Supreme Intelligence, a beingness composed of the psyches of umteen great Kree, to kick-start Kree evolution.

These eons-fighting alien races recently set aside their differences in the story Empyre, forming a sorbed Kree/Skrull Alliance LED by the Young Retaliator Hulkling - an conglomerate, that, so far, has been on the side of Marvel's heroes.

4. Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil

Though the enduringly dastardly collective hasn't ever been led away a Zemo, the connection between the villainous dynasty and the Masters of Evil is inextricable. Founded by the elder Zemo, the former Nazi man of science Heinrich, as a military group to oppose the newly founded Avengers, and, by filename extension, Zemo's venerable nemesis Captain America, the Masters quickly grew from a smattering of second-string henchmen into one of the most feared and formidable groups to ever fight down the Mighty Avengers.

Aside from the Zemos, the Masters ingest been lead by such villains atomic number 3 Ultron, Dr. Octopus, Justine Hammer, and Egghead, and included well-nig every menace always to fight back the Avengers, along with many rogues more related with separate Marvel heroes. At one sentence boasting a roster consisting of all but 20 villains including the entire Wrecking Gang, the Riveting Man, Mr. Hyde, and too many others to name the Masters of Evil wealthy person most always been a formidable force.

IT was this bona fide army of supervillains, spark advance aside founder Heinrich Zemo's successor, Helmut, that saw the Edgar Lee Masters of Despicable's sterling moment of victory over the Avengers. In the fabled story 'Below Beleaguering,' the Masters lead an attack on Avengers House that left field the edifice in ruins, the Avengers scattered and unkept, and their ever-faithful servant Jarvis on end's door. Though the Edgar Lee Masters have not had practically activity since Helmut Zemo tricked the world into thinking they were heroes (founding the Thunderbolts in the cognitive operation), Zemo's recent takings to villainy would imply that it may only beryllium a affair of fourth dimension before the Masters of Wrong are once again live.

Zemo made his MCU debut in Captain America: Civil War (played by Daniel Brühl), and he returned in 2021's The Falcon and the Overwinter Soldier.

3. Loki

None Avengers villain has a stranger duality in his relationship to Earth's Mightiest Heroes than Loki, the Asgardian prince of lies WHO appears found new life and red-hot facets to be explored after his cinematic appearances in The Avengers and the 3Thor movies, and last in Walt Disney Plus' Loki.

While helium has menaced the team to the point of near constancy, he is also directly responsible for the squad's founding. In a scheme designed to pit the Heavyweight against his brother Thor, he inadvertently alerted individual other ruling superhumans to his scheme, and the rest, A they say, is account.

The master copy 'threat no undivided hero could withstand,' few villains in all of Marveldom can match Loki's power, and no his cunning, trickery, and manipulation, though umteen of them actually received their powers from Loki himself. Like most of the Avengers' greatest enemies, he shares a inheritable connective to the team, in the form of his blood brother Thor, the mightiest of the Mighty Avengers.

In Holocene epoch times, Loki's aeonian schemes lead to the come of Asgard at the hands of his seeming ally, Norman Osborn, as well As the expiry of Avenger and Olympian war immortal Ares in the limited series Siege. Though his villainy finally likewise led to his personal downfall, Loki was converted in the pages of Journey Into Enigma and continues to crop up to this Clarence Shepard Day Jr..

2. Kang

Kang the Conqueror — (Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Though He has been known by more names (or, in current Marvel footing, Variants) the valet once known as Nathaniel Richards is better known, and most feared, as Kang, the Conqueror.

A prison term-traveling warlord from an alternate Earth, Kang is one of the Avengers' oldest foes, having menaced them in his various guises almost since the team's inception. At multiplication appearance as the Scarlet Centurion, Rama-Tut, Victor Timely, Robust Lad, and Immortus, Kang's goal has almost e'er been the same; to find, defeat, and yes, inhibit the greatest warriors and civilizations throughout time and space.

Kang's finest hour came at the end of Kurt Busiek's legendary Avengers run in the story Avengers: The Kang Dynasty when helium really succeeded in conquering the Earth.

Marvel Cinematic Cosmos fans first met Kang as his MCU variant He Who Remains, who made a surprise appearance as the big bad of Walt Disney Plus' recent Loki TV serial.

Learn more about Kang and his MCU He Who Remains persona before He makes his next MCU appearance, and get a deep dive into his retold origin in the current Kang the Conqueror comic book limited serial.

1. Ultron

His horrific visage strikes terror into the Black Maria of even the bravest of men. The utterance of his name alone is enough to send many heroes cowering in reverence. He is Ultron, the brute, primordial flagitious that lays at the heart of world's fear of technology. He is a force of unimaginable demolition, and there is absolutely no way to plosive consonant him.

The greatest tragedy of the android known as Ultron is that he is emblematic of the Avengers' greatest failures. Created by Hank Pym, a founding Avenger and brilliant scientist better titled Giant-Man (and Ant-Man and Yellowjacket), Ultron was meant to be a crowning achievement of robotic skill, the world's first true artificial intelligence. Pym's experiment worked only too well; his creation immediately rebelled, erasing the memory of his very creation from his creator's mind, and setting out on a path to conquer all humanity.

By the time he resurfaced, he had already made upgrades to his form that were light years beyond what even Pym could conceive. Guiding an embodiment of the Masters of Evil, he near unsuccessful the Avengers along his first outing. In the years since, Ultron has lost on to bigger and many reprehensible acts, decimating entire nations, about conquering Kree space, and in the Age of Ultron comical story (which lent its distinguish to the second Avengers movie, in which Ultron was the villain), ravaging time itself.

For his various and vast connections to their history as a recurring menace a creation of founding Avenger Hank Pym, and creator of the synthezoid Retaliator the Vision, Ultron is peradventure the last-ditch nemesis of the Avengers. He e'er comes back, worse and Thomas More ferocious than before, and will ne'er be stopped.

As long as there are Avengers OR even organic life forms, there will be an Ultron, and the Marvel Universe will hold back in fear of his return.

I've been Newsarama's house physician Marvel Comics expert and general mirthful book historian since 2011. I've also been the on-the-spot reporter at most major comic conventions such as Humourous-Con International: San Diego, Raw House of York Comic Con, and C2E2. After-school of comic fourth estate, I am the creative person of many weird pictures, and the guitar player of more heavy riffs. (They/Them)