MCU Villain Tournament

[THE DUKE]

Wow, there couldn't be anything except a climactic battle to wrap up the 22 movies that comprised the MCU leading to that point in Endgame.  Infinity War is the better movie, but Endgame was still the grand culmination.

[THE DUKE]

Thanos
Loki
Zemo

Not a coincidence that Thanos and Zemo are the only ones that completed what they set out to do.  At least for a while.

[TOUCAN]

1 minute ago, THE DUKE said:

Wow, there couldn't be anything except a climactic battle to wrap up the 22 movies that comprised the MCU leading to that point in Endgame.  Infinity War is the better movie, but Endgame was still the grand culmination.

I can agree with this. You needed that massive moment of a war and fan service.

[theJ]

I'm sure i'll be alone in my opinion.

Vulture
Zemo
Loki

I really liked the portrayal of Vulture, and how real it was.  The setup at the beginning of the movie made me feel for him throughout, even toward the end when he was defeated.  You could see the gradual decent into crime legit happening to nearly anyone.  I also loved that it was more low-stakes than most MCU films.

Zemo will probably be a popular answer in 1-3 for most, so i don't think i need to explain too much.  But the fact that he scored a major win against the Avengers and he's just a dude is clever writing.

Loki also obvious.

 

I didn't vote Thanos for one reason.  I still can't get over his overall motivation being flawed.  Maybe what he does solves a perceived problem, for a time.  But life is always going to proliferate until resources don't support it.  That's how all life works down to the single cell organisms.  So it's only a temporary fix, and i just find that fix short sighted and non-satisfying.  Otherwise he's great.

Honorable mention to Ghost and Killmonger, who are both more complex characters and deserve mention in a list of best MCU villains.

[Mox]

59 minutes ago, Malfatron said:

I disagree. I liked Thanos much more in infinity War.

if Thanos was only in the beginning of End Game and then the rest of the film was akin to a heist movie figuring out how to get the stones, and thanos never showed up again, it would have been brilliant.

 

I think the second part would've been more difficult to make work than you made sound but Thanos was absolutely a better character in IW. I don't really see any argument otherwise.

[THE DUKE]

30 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

I think the second part would've been more difficult to make work than you made sound but Thanos was absolutely a better character in IW. I don't really see any argument otherwise.

Largely because really Thanos is the main character in IW, whereas he's more of a simple antagonist in Endgame.

[Calvert28]

1 hour ago, theJ said:

I'm sure i'll be alone in my opinion.

Vulture
Zemo
Loki

I really liked the portrayal of Vulture, and how real it was.  The setup at the beginning of the movie made me feel for him throughout, even toward the end when he was defeated.  You could see the gradual decent into crime legit happening to nearly anyone.  I also loved that it was more low-stakes than most MCU films.

Zemo will probably be a popular answer in 1-3 for most, so i don't think i need to explain too much.  But the fact that he scored a major win against the Avengers and he's just a dude is clever writing.

Loki also obvious.

 

I didn't vote Thanos for one reason.  I still can't get over his overall motivation being flawed.  Maybe what he does solves a perceived problem, for a time.  But life is always going to proliferate until resources don't support it.  That's how all life works down to the single cell organisms.  So it's only a temporary fix, and i just find that fix short sighted and non-satisfying.  Otherwise he's great.

Honorable mention to Ghost and Killmonger, who are both more complex characters and deserve mention in a list of best MCU villains.

Well they didn't call him the Mad Titan for nothing. 

[theJ]

9 minutes ago, Calvert28 said:

Well they didn't call him the Mad Titan for nothing. 

Yeah, sure.  But i can't give him a pass for it.

Overall i'd still rank him #4.  Then Killmonger and Ghost.

[Fresh Prince]

Thanos-Mystero-Loki

[Calvert28]

1 hour ago, theJ said:

Yeah, sure.  But i can't give him a pass for it.

Overall i'd still rank him #4.  Then Killmonger and Ghost.

Thanos was so insane and brilliant that his flawed plan actually seemed logical. His was so sure of it that he convinced himself that only he could see that one truth. Going back and watching it Thanos to me came across like Hannibal Lector where he knew he was smarter then everyone while living through such a unique and extreme situation. That the idea of listening to anyone question his logic was pointless because they could not comprehend it on his level. Thus he always felt reassured. 

 

I really don't get peoples love for Kilmonger as a complex character. He to me was the one character in all the movies that didn't make any sense to his motivation. To me he ranks near the bottom cause they didnt flesh him out at all with why he thinks and feel the way he did. 

 

Zemo, Ghost, and Vulture were great characters. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Calvert28

[theJ]

2 minutes ago, Calvert28 said:

To me he ranks near the bottom cause they didnt flesh him out at all with why he thinks and feel the way he did. 

That part is definitely true.  You have to do a lot of reading between the lines to understand his motivation. 

They could have done a better job explaining it in the movie.  Maybe 1-2 more short scenes showing him victimized as a minority, and him unable to do anything about it without the right resources.

[Calvert28]

1 minute ago, theJ said:

That part is definitely true.  You have to do a lot of reading between the lines to understand his motivation. 

They could have done a better job explaining it in the movie.  Maybe 1-2 more short scenes showing him victimized as a minority, and him unable to do anything about it without the right resources.

But where is the question I keep asking myself? When you listen to Bilbo Baggins give a report of him, he basically succeeded at everything he did in life. They gave him a ridiculous resume saying he went to MIT and have him join the special forces like Navy Seals or something like that. 

I kept asking where was his oppression? It seemed like he conquered all there was to be had in life physically and mentally. Its not like they gave a report of him scrubbing kitchen pans and having never fired a rifle before like a certain other WW2 hero. No hate crimes mentioned, in fact the only people who ever wronged him in the entire movie was his own family. But at the end he's screaming that "they took everything from him"? Like what? I'm like no, your family took everything including your birth right from you. 

It just made no sense what so ever to me. Plus he came from LA, I've talked before with a guy from Inglewood once who did a green peace or something or other and went to Africa to do it, specifically the Republic of the Congo. I asked him how it was and his eyes got wide and told me how thankful he was to have grown up where he did which was as bad as you find in America apparently but nothing compared to that hell hole. 

They really spread it thin with his character. 

[TOUCAN]

35 minutes ago, theJ said:

That part is definitely true.  You have to do a lot of reading between the lines to understand his motivation. 

They could have done a better job explaining it in the movie.  Maybe 1-2 more short scenes showing him victimized as a minority, and him unable to do anything about it without the right resources.

It's that reading between the lines that made me enjoy him the most quite frankly. He's a good one because of that. Not gonna dive further too deep into it because I am fairly certain it would violate some site rules and I don't want to do that, but you get it.

[fluhartz]

Loki   by a mile.. great character

Thanos

Bucky

[theJ]

28 minutes ago, Calvert28 said:

But where is the question I keep asking myself? When you listen to Bilbo Baggins give a report of him, he basically succeeded at everything he did in life. They gave him a ridiculous resume saying he went to MIT and have him join the special forces like Navy Seals or something like that. 

I kept asking where was his oppression? It seemed like he conquered all there was to be had in life physically and mentally. Its not like they gave a report of him scrubbing kitchen pans and having never fired a rifle before like a certain other WW2 hero. No hate crimes mentioned, in fact the only people who ever wronged him in the entire movie was his own family. But at the end he's screaming that "they took everything from him"? Like what? I'm like no, your family took everything including your birth right from you. 

It just made no sense what so ever to me. Plus he came from LA, I've talked before with a guy from Inglewood once who did a green peace or something or other and went to Africa to do it, specifically the Republic of the Congo. I asked him how it was and his eyes got wide and told me how thankful he was to have grown up where he did which was as bad as you find in America apparently but nothing compared to that hell hole. 

They really spread it thin with his character. 

All great points.  Maybe that's why they didn't dive deeper - they knew it would fall apart upon inspection.