When it comes to complicated villains, Marvel has an unparalleled rogue’s gallery, both in the pages of its comics and onscreen. After all, what would our favorite superheroes be without worthy villains to fight? The conflict between good and evil—especially when the stakes are high and involve a complex clash of ideologies—is what makes superhero movies worth watching. Let’s face it, you can’t save the world unless someone is threatening it.
With its previous big-screen offering, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel brought a classic antagonist, Namor, from the comics to live-action for the first time. Now Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania does the same, with a character who’s planned for a long-term franchise arc: Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer, a microscopic villain with macroscopic (read: genocidal) ambition.
So where does Kang rank among Marvel’s best villains? The A.V. Club has selected characters from the MCU as well as Marvel’s television shows and movies that exist beyond the MCU. You won’t find every Marvel villain here, just the ones who stand out, either because of the actor’s interpretation, or the nuance of their characters—or a combination of both.
