Big Bad / Marvel Cinematic Universe

Spoilers for all Infinity Saga works are unmarked

The main villain of the Infinity Saga, Thanos.

"Thanos. He's a plague, Tony. He invades planets, he takes what he wants, he wipes out half the population. He sent Loki! The attack on New York—that's him!"

— Bruce Banner, Avengers: Infinity War

Just like the Marvel Universe, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has one considerable number of characters that are a Big Bad.

---

Marvel Studios - The Infinity Saga

Thanos is the overall main antagonist of the Saga, as its Myth Arc builds up to him claiming the Infinity Stones after sending various minions out to search for them. He serves as the Final Boss in the Infinity War-Endgame two-parter, albeit with the latter featuring a slightly younger variant of him. The rogue Asgardian Loki and the terrorist organization HYDRA are secondary threats: the former causes chaos throughout the Nine Realms and briefly serves as one of Thanos' servants while the latter attempts to Take Over the World, setting the stage for Ultron's creation and Zemo fracturing the Avengers.

Phase One

• Iron Man: Obadiah Stane (aka Iron Monger) is not only selling Stark weapons to the Ten Rings terrorists under the table but is also trying to kill Tony and take over the company, despite his close relationship with Tony following the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark. Raza is hired to kill Stark, but instead captures him and tries to force him to build weapons for the terrorists. The plot doesn't end well, and Stane disposes of him later.
• The Incredible Hulk: Emil Blonsky is initially The Dragon to General Thunderbolt Ross in his pursuit of Banner. After receiving a Super-Soldier serum, Blonsky's Blood Knight tendencies and desire to become stronger than the Hulk drive him to turn himself into the Abomination, forcing Ross into an Enemy Mine with Banner to stop his rampage.
• Iron Man 2: Ivan Vanko, aka Whiplash, wants revenge on the Starks after Tony's father got Vanko's deported. Justin Hammer is a Big Bad Wannabe, being incredibly jealous of Stark and willing to employ Vanko in order to one-up him, but Vanko is the true threat and Dragon-in-Chief in control at almost any given point, manipulating him into making a series of drones so that he can control them and War Machine.
• Thor: Loki, as Thor's brother, orchestrates events early in the film to get Thor banished, but fully becomes this after learning the Awful Truth that he's actually a Frost Giant. He organizes a huge gambit to earn Odin's approval and Asgard's throne, trying to wipe out the rest of his race after setting up his biological father, King Laufey, for trying to assassinate Odin.
• Captain America: The First Avenger: The head of HYDRA, Johann Schmidt (aka The Red Skull), betrays the Third Reich with plans to Take Over the World for himself, empowered by a Flawed Prototype of the Super-Soldier Serum that Captain America is empowered by. He has additional support from Arnim Zola, the Evil Genius and The Dragon responsible for weaponizing the Tesseract for HYDRA's conquest.
• The Avengers: Loki is The Heavy leading the Chitauri invasion of Earth on behalf of Thanos, delivering him the Tesseract in exchange for the planet out of belief that freedom is a lie, and mind controlling Hawkeye in order to achieve this, driving Nick Fury to fully assemble the Avengers. Meanwhile, The Other serves as his handler and commander of the Chitauri army Loki summons for the Battle Of New York.

Phase Two

• Iron Man 3: Aldrich Killian is the mastermind behind A.I.M. and the Extremis Super Soldiers, setting up actor Trevor Slattery as the anti-American terrorist known as "The Mandarin" so he can manipulate the War on Terror and sell his technology to the U.S. government. He also wants revenge on Tony for humiliating him years prior, kidnapping and injecting Pepper Potts with Extremis while his forces steal the War Machine armor (rebranded as Iron Patriot) in a bid to kill President Matthew Ellis as the final step in his plan.
• Thor: The Dark World: Malekith the Accursed, the leader of the Dark Elves bested by Thor's grandfather Bor, who seeks to continue his war against Asgard and all of reality using the Aether, currently trapped in Jane Foster. Thor is forced to team up with Loki to defeat Malekith when their mother Frigga is killed by him.
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier: Alexander Pierce is the head of the HYDRA conspiracy within S.H.I.E.L.D., who starts a manhunt for Captain America when he starts to suspect his plan, and uses the titular Winter Soldier, Cap's brainwashed friend Bucky Barnes, as his personal assassin, even attempting to have Nick Fury killed as part of his plan. Arnim Zola is the Greater-Scope Villain who initiated HYDRA's plan, Pierce being his successor after he digitized himself, and designing an algorithm which targets everyone least likely to support HYDRA, carried out by the Helicarriers used for Project Insight. On a franchise level, HYDRA as a whole turns out to be the true killers of the Starks, with Senator Stern, the one who initially pushed for acquiring Iron Man's armor, being revealed to be one of their moles.
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Ronan the Accuser, a Kree fanatic who wants to destroy his race's longtime enemies, the Xandarians, by acquiring the Orb, having also killed Drax's family in the past. Gamora's sister Nebula becomes The Dragon after the former betrays them. While they're technically in service to Thanos, the Titan barely shows up and the two ultimately turn on him once Ronan gets the Power Stone from the Orb. A group of Ravagers lead by Yondu Udonta, who abducted Star-Lord from Earth when he was a child, also pursue him for the Orb and place the bounty on Star-Lord that ropes Rocket and Groot into getting involved, only to later form an Enemy Mine with the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop Ronan.
• Avengers: Age of Ultron: The titular Ultron, an insane A.I. used as part of Iron Man's directive for world peace, who initially wants to act as a savior to humanity before gradually devolving into an Omnicidal Maniac. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, who were recruited by HYDRA leader Wolfgang von Strucker when Stark Industries weapons killed their parents, become his Co-Dragons after manipulating Stark into creating him, but pull Heel Face Turns after finding out the extent of his plans.
• Ant-Man: Darren Cross (aka Yellowjacket) is a former student of Hank Pym who plans to weaponize and sell the Pym Particle technology to HYDRA and the Ten Rings, and takes things personally with Scott Lang, the new Ant-Man who Hank chose for a heist on his company, later targeting his daughter Cassie.

Phase Three

• Captain America: Civil War: Sokovian Colonel Helmut Zemo manipulates the Avengers against each other, having lost his family to Ultron and seeking to destroy the A.I.'s creators for revenge. He does so by framing Winter Soldier for the murder of King T'Chaka, pitting Black Panther against him while motivating Captain America to prove his innocence. Iron Man is the Dragon-in-Chief for Thunderbolt Ross' attempts at enforcing the Sokovia Accords, passed following an encounter with Brock Rumlow (the former commander of S.T.R.I.K.E. within S.H.I.E.L.D. and another of HYDRA's moles) that ends in multiple Wakandans being blown up, until he goes rogue in the final act and tries to kill Bucky after Zemo exposes him as the assassin HYDRA sent to kill Tony's parents, finally enabling Zemo to split the Avengers.
• Doctor Strange: Dormammu is a malevolent Eldritch Abomination who desires to devour all planes of existence; Kaecilius is a rogue sorcerer who falls prey to his promise of "eternal life", leading the Zealots in destroying the Sanctums preventing him from assimilating Earth and killing the Ancient One, Doctor Strange's mentor. Dormammu empowers them with magic from the Dark Dimension and personally confronts Strange as the Final Boss once he begins his invasion.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Ego the Living Planet, Peter's Celestial father who wants to use his son to consume all life and become a Living Universe, having been the one who sent Yondu to retrieve him (until Yondu decided to raise Peter himself after learning that Ego killed his other children). He was also the one who raised Mantis, the Guardians' newest member. Ayesha and the Sovereign are secondary threats as a haughty alien race that Rocket provokes after the Guardians retrieve Nebula from her, hiring Yondu's Ravagers faction to hunt them down after Stakar Ogord banishes them for what Yondu did. Taserface also tries to make a name for himself by pulling a mutiny on Yondu, who manages to at least catch Rocket and Groot, though it doesn't go well for him. Of these, Ego's threat is so strong that Nebula (who still holds a grudge with Gamora) and what remained of Yondu's faction (Yondu himself and Kraglin Obfonteri) ally with the Guardians to defeat Ego.
• Spider-Man: Homecoming: The Vulture (aka Adrian Toomes) was the head of a salvaging company run out of business by Stark and now leads his scavengers in turning advanced technology into weapons for the criminal underworld. He's also the father of Spider-Man's love interest Liz Allen, forcing him to reconsider his Homecoming date if it means putting a stop to Vulture's smuggling ring.
• Thor: Ragnarok: Hela, Odin's eldest child who had once conquered the Nine Realms for Asgard before being imprisoned for her sociopathic bloodlust. Escaping after her father's death, she now wants to continue where she left off, destroying Thor's hammer Mjolnir. Skurge the Executioner and Fenris are her Co-Dragons, the former later turning against her to make a last stand protecting the Asgardians, while the Grandmaster is a Disc-One Final Boss as the ruler of Sakaar who forces Thor into becoming a gladiator, where Thor also meets up with Hulk, Valkyrie, and Korg. Thor once again teams up with Loki, who initially sides with Grandmaster, in order to confront Hela and channel his innate ability to manipulate lightning without a weapon.
• Black Panther: N'Jadaka aka Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, T'Challa's cousin, seeks revenge on the Black Panther after T'Chaka murdered his father. He also wants to take over Wakanda and conquer the rest of the world the way white colonizers conquered Africa in the past. Ulysses Klaue, a mercenary and long-time enemy of Wakanda who collaborated with N'Jobu in his treason as well as being the one who earlier provided Ultron with the Vibranium for his body, is the main antagonist for the first half of the movie before Killmonger kills him in order to gain entrance into the country.
• Avengers: Infinity War: Thanos finally takes action after years of plotting behind the scenes. After his homeworld destroyed itself in an Overpopulation Crisis, he decided to prevent this from happening on other worlds by invading and wiping out half their populations. Thanos pursues the Infinity Stones with his Black Order to be able to do this with a literal snap of his fingers instead of the slow way, planet-by-planet. This brings him into conflicts with other heroes as he invades Xandar for the Power Stone, kills Loki and several surviving Asgardians to acquire the Space Stone hidden in the Tesseract (motivating a vengeful Thor to work with Rocket and Groot to forge Stormbreaker on Nidavellir, where Thanos forced Eitri to forge the gauntlet), attacks Collector (a contact Gamora was aiming to sell the Orb to) on Knowhere to acquire the Reality Stone hidden in the Aether, is forced to murder Gamora on Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone from a banished Red Skull after torturing Nebula for the location, and deploys invasion fleets to Earth for the Time Stone and the Mind Stone, the former hidden in Doctor Strange's Eye of Agamotto (with Ebony Maw of the Black Order abducting Strange to try to remove it, in turn driving Iron Man (who Thanos turns out to be an Evil Counterpart of) and Spider-Man off world to meet the other Guardians), the latter being the source of Vision's life and power and forcing him to hide in Wakanda with the other Avengers. Notably, this is a rare example of a film's Big Bad pulling double duty as its protagonist.
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Ava Starr (aka Ghost), the daughter of Hank Pym's former partner Elihas Starr and adopted daughter of another of his partners, Bill Foster, wants to heal her increasingly unstable intangibility by stealing Pym's quantum technology, while the significantly less competent Sonny Burch, learning of the technology from a mole in the FBI, also tries to steal it in order to sell it on the black market. Both of their attempts to steal the technology clash with Hank and Hope van Dyne, now the Wasp, going to Scott for help to rescue Janet van Dyne from the Quantum Realm.
• Captain Marvel: Yon-Rogg is the leader of Starforce and Carol's Evil Mentor, responsible for killing Mar-Vell and abducting Carol to become a weapon for the Kree Empire. The Supreme Intelligence sends them after Talos and the shape-changing Skrulls, alleged terrorists who are actually refugees fighting the Kree expansion.
• Avengers: Endgame: Thanos achieved his goal of wiping out half of the universe, so it's up to the Avengers to defeat him and restore those they've lost. However, while they successfully kill him in the first act, he's already destroyed the Infinity Stones to ensure his work can't be undone. As a result, the Avengers travel through time to retrieve past versions of the Stones from the events of The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy, and from the 1970s, but in the process gain the attention of a younger variant of Thanos, who follows them into the future in force to steal the Stones and remake all of reality in his own image to remove those ungrateful for his victory, causing Iron Man to sacrifice himself to destroy the enemies.
• Spider-Man: Far From Home: Quentin Beck (aka Mysterio) is the Post-Final Boss of the Infinity Saga. Leading a group of disgraced Stark Industries employees, he uses high-tech holograms and drones to manufacture disasters caused by the Elementals — interdimensional beings that can control fire, water, wind, and earth — so he can stop them and become "the next Iron Man". In order to gain greater power, he tricks Spider-Man into giving up E.D.I.T.H., a keepsake Iron Man passed down to him which grants control over an entire army of drones, and intends to use them to kill those that know the truth about him. After Beck's plan is foiled, he posthumously frames Spider-Man for the terrorist attacks and exposes his secret identity to the world.

Marvel Studios - The Multiverse Saga

The second Myth Arc of the MCU focuses both on a younger generation of heroes arising within the MCU as chaos erupting beyond it, bringing in a wide menagerie of vile villains from across the multiverse. Chief among these being the most ruthless and most feared warlord of them all: Kang the Conqueror.

Phase Four

• WandaVision: Agatha Harkness poses as Wanda's neighbor "Agnes", manipulating her into keeping up the Hex as she schemes to steal her Chaos Magic. Wanda herself is an Anti-Villain Protagonist, having created the Hex in a grief-fueled accident following Vision's death and enslaved the populace of Westview to act out roles in her perfect sitcom life. Meanwhile, Director Tyler Hayward of S.W.O.R.D. is a Big Bad Wannabe trying to have the original Vision illegally rebuilt as a weapon under his control, intending to frame Wanda for his reactivation, despite the opposition of Monica Rambeau.
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Karli Morgenthau and the Flag-Smashers, Super-Soldier freedom fighters for those displaced after the Blip by the Global Repatriation Council, escalate into acts of terrorism to send their message. Sam and Bucky form an Enemy Mine with Baron Helmut Zemo to stop her, while also dealing with the unstable and anti-heroic government-sponsored successor to Captain America, John Walker. The Power Broker (Sharon Carter) is the Greater-Scope Villain who commissioned the creation of the Super-Soldier serum Karli stole.
• Loki (Season 1): "He Who Remains" is a variant of Kang the Conqueror and the founder of the Time Variance Authority, the organization that captures the Loki variant who escaped during Avengers: Endgame, responsible for pruning alternate timelines to prevent the emergence of his malevolent counterparts. Judge Ravonna Renslayer tries to keep up The Masquerade after the Time-Keepers are exposed as fake figureheads, but is gradually sidelined in Loki and Sylvie's hunt for the true founder. Sylvie herself is a Disc-One Final Boss whom Loki is initially recruited to stop from causing Nexus Events, and kills He Who Remains in the finale despite the dangers posed by releasing his variants.
• Black Widow: The Red Room Program, headed by General Dreykov, abducts young girls to be chemically brainwashed into master assassins and spies known as Black Widows, with Natasha having been one of them prior to her escape. Dreykov's daughter Antonia is his similarly brainwashed Dragon, Taskmaster, turned into such after a failed attempt by Black Widow to assassinate him. When Dreykov is killed during the climax, Antonia keeps going for a final fight until Natasha frees her from her programming.
• What If...? (Season 1): Infinity Ultron claimed the Infinity Stones and successfully wiped out all life in his universe, setting out to become a Multiversal Conqueror after learning of the Watcher's existence. As an Anthology series, each episode (excluding the seventh) leading up to the two-part finale has its own Arc Villain:
  • Episode 1: The Red Skull seeks the Tesseract to summon an Eldritch Abomination that will act as HYDRA's champion. Said creature immediately kills Schmidt upon being brought to Earth, threatening to annihilate the world, and forcing Captain Carter to trap herself in an alternate dimension to defeat the creature.
  • Episode 2: The Collector has taken over as the universe's intergalactic criminal kingpin after Thanos' Heel–Face Turn, with the Black Order as his minions, being the opposition Star-Lord faces when Nebula hires the Ravagers to steal the Embers of Genesis from the Collector.
  • Episode 3: Hank Pym takes on the Yellowjacket identity to murder the Avengers, wanting to avenge Hope's death after she died on a mission for Fury. Also in the mix is Loki, seeking retribution for his brother's death and leading an Asgardian invasion to successfully conquer Midgard.
  • Episode 4: Doctor Strange Supreme inadvertently ends the world as he tries to undo the death of this timeline's Christine, absorbing various demonic entities to gain the power to do so and even killing a Good Counterpart of himself from a diverged timeline.
  • Episode 5: A Zombie Apocalypse accidently released from the Quantum Realm when Hank Pym tried to rescue Janet van Dyne, infecting hero and villain alike (with even Thanos and the Black Order infected). Wanda is the most dangerous of the infected Avengers, with Vision luring in victims with the promise of a cure to keep her fed and docile.
  • Episode 6: Killmonger saves Tony from the Ten Rings, tricking him into creating an army of Vibranium "Liberators". He proceeds to kill Stark and T'Challa to orchestrate a war between the U.S. and Wakanda, defecting to the latter's side so he can become the new Black Panther.
  • Episode 7: There is no usual Arc Villain but acting S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill serves as the main Hero Antagonist, to put a stop to Thor's parties as they are a threat to Earth.
  • Episode 8: Ultron, who succeeded in defeating the Avengers and claiming Vision’s body as his own. His plans become bigger, however, when he learns of the existence of the multiverse.
  • Episode 9: Ultron remains the villain, with Uatu and Strange Supreme recruiting the Guardians of the Multiverse to stop him, but his defeat in the climax leads to Killmonger and an A.I. copy of Arnim Zola from Ultron's universe fighting for control of the Stones as part of the Watcher's gambit to seal them away.
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Xu Wenwu is The Heavy as the master of the titular Ten Rings and Shang-Chi's immortal father. He seeks to reunite with his children so he can lay siege to the mystical city of Ta Lo, where he believes his deceased wife is imprisoned. The Dweller-in-Darkness is the Greater-Scope Villain and Final Boss, manipulating Wenwu with visions of Ying Li so he'll lead an invasion to free it.
• Eternals: Arishem is the leader of the Celestials and master of the Eternals. Creating the monstrous Deviants to hunt apex predators and tasking the Eternals to cull their omnicidal hunger, he sends both to Earth in order to ensure intelligent life on Earth reached a population large enough to initiate the emergence of the Celestial Tiamut. Ikaris is The Heavy who oversees the emergence and feeds Ajak to a Deviant when she turns against the Celestials, unintentionally creating the vengeful Kro.
• Hawkeye: Wilson Fisk is the head of the Tracksuit Mafia, a Russian gang after a watch belonging to former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Laura Barton. His Co-Dragons are Maya and Kazi: the former wants to avenge her father's death at the hands of the Ronin while the latter works to cover up his and Fisk's part in the murder. Eleanor Bishop also works for Fisk and hires Yelena Belova to kill Clint when he gets publicly involved.
• Spider-Man: No Way Home: The Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, and Electro^note along with an oblivious Venom are displaced from their original universes after a botched spell to obscure Spider-Man's exposed identity. Peter tries to cure them of their powers to prevent their respective fates after stopping Doctor Strange from sending them back to their universes to die, but Norman's Goblin persona quickly reasserts control after Octavius is saved from the control of his arms and convinces the other three to refuse their treatments. He proceeds to kill Aunt May and further destroy the weakened barriers between realities, continuing his mad obsession with corrupting Spider-Man by driving Peter to almost murder him.
• Moon Knight: Arthur Harrow, the former Avatar of Khonshu, became disillusioned with punishing the guilty only after evil had been committed. With Khonshu's current Avatar, Moon Knight, now being his primary enemy, he leads the disciples of Ammit in freeing the goddess, becoming her Avatar so they can judge the living for both past and potential crimes.
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Wanda is corrupted by the power of the Darkhold (revealed to have been written by the demon Chthon) and sends demons to hunt America Chavez, intending to use her power to traverse the multiverse. While she can technically do this already through the book's spell for dreamwalking (possessing her alternate selves), she needs America's power so she can not only physically be with her sons from another universe, but in case they are sick, she can find a cure for their sickness anywhere. The Mordo of the Illuminati's universe is a Hero Antagonist who distrusts Strange's variants for the chaos they tend to cause whenever they acquire the Darkhold—notably Sinister Strange, who assassinates various alternate versions of himself out of a belief that he's ending their suffering.
• Ms. Marvel: Najma is Kamran's mother and leader of the exiled Djinn of the Clandestines, who seeks to use Kamala's bangle to tear down the Veil that separates the Noor dimension from Earth in order to return home, which will destroy Earth in the process. Acting as The Heavy and Final Boss once the Clandestines are killed off by the penultimate episode is the Department of Damage Control, represented by Sadie Deever, who hunt Kamala and other Djinn with no regard to collateral damage, even bombing civilian homes using the E.D.I.T.H. technology they confiscated from Spider-Man after he was exposed.
• Thor: Love and Thunder: Gorr the God Butcher is an alien being who despises all gods for their hubris and apathy towards mortals after meeting his god, Rapu, and becoming disillusioned after witnessing his apathy towards Gorr and his fellow followers' suffering, including his daughter's death, and seeks to butcher the lot of them using his pitch-black, deity-slaying blade, the Necrosword, which lured him in as a host and corrupted him. To this end, he captures Asgardian children to force Thor to give up Stormbreaker so it can let him reach the godlike Eternity, a being who he can convince to do the task in an entire instant rather than, like Thanos, hunting each god down one by one, per the advice of the Necrosword, forcing Thor, who has reunited with a now-empowered Jane, to open his heart to love again.
• She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: The Intelligencia, an online community of misogynistic trolls, is founded by the “HulkKing”, Todd Phelps, to manipulate events against Jennifer and acquire her blood so he can turn himself into a Hulk. Acting as The Heavy and a Big Bad Wannabe is Titania, an influencer who seeks to get even with She-Hulk after the hero beats her up, but her petty attacks make her little more than a recurring nuisance than a true threat. Later on, Titania teams up with She-Hulk to help defeat the Intelligencia, but this makes She-Hulk storm off set and make K.E.V.I.N. change the ending so only She-Hulk defeats them.
• Werewolf by Night: Verussa Bloodstone, the widow of the legendary monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, oversees the hunt for the Man-Thing as posthumously organized by her husband to choose his successor, later trying to kill Jack and her stepdaughter Elsa after they free their quarry and the former is revealed as a werewolf.
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: Namor the Sub-Mariner is the king of Talokan, who leads his people in a war against Wakanda, to kill Riri Williams for the invention of an underwater Vibranium detector which risks exposing his kingdom, forcing Shuri to refocus her efforts on creating a synthetic heart-shaped herb and become a new Black Panther when her mother Queen Ramonda drowns as a result of Namor's plan.

Phase Five

• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: Kang the Conqueror who, after being exiled to the Quantum Realm by his variants, seeks the help of Scott Lang to shrink down and retrieve the Multiversal Power Core, previously enlarged by Janet to deny him escape, to his ship, which will allow him to traverse the multiverse and escape the subatomic world so he can get revenge on his variants by destroying their timelines. Kang is aided by M.O.D.O.K., a heavily augmented Darren Cross who responds to Cassie Lang's signal and strands her family in the Quantum Realm, but later turns against Kang.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: The High Evolutionary is an alien Mad Scientist who uplifted Rocket as part of his experiments to create a perfect species, and is also revealed to have created the Sovereign, with Ayesha and her own creation Adam Warlock now working for him to hunt down Rocket, allegedly so that the High Evolutionary can use him to perfect his work (but seemingly really just for revenge for defying him).
• Secret Invasion: Gravik is the leader of a Renegade Splinter Faction of Skrulls who have grown tired of waiting for another planet to live on. He stages a covert invasion on Earth that involves manipulating the global powers on the planet into attacking each other with nuclear weapons, hoping the resulting war will destroy humanity with radiation that Skrulls are immune to, even managing to replace War Machine with a Skrull and kill Maria Hill, motivating Nick Fury to try to stop him. He also seeks to obtain the Harvest, a collection of DNA samples taken from the Battle of Earth, so that he can use it to give himself superpowers.
• Loki (Season 2): He Who Remains is revealed to be the mastermind of the Temporal Loom crisis, having created it to serve as a failsafe in the case of his death. Acting as the Heavies are Ravonna Renslayer, who seeks to become the new ruler of the TVA, and General Dox, who bombs multiple branched timelines in an attempt to kill Sylvie.
• The Marvels: Dar-Benn, the new leader of the Kree, uses the other half of the Quantum Bands wielded by Ms. Marvel to tear apart several jump points, one of which causes Captain Marvel, Photon, and Ms. Marvel to switch places, to steal vital components of various worlds in order to restore her homeworld of Hala after it descended into a civil war following Captain Marvel killing the Supreme Intelligence offscreen.
• What If...? (Season 2):
  • Episode 1: Nova Prime plans to sell out Xandar to Ronan the Accuser, allowing him to invade the planet in exchange for maintaining a position of power afterwards. To do so, she kills Yondu to manipulate Nebula into stealing the codes needed to shut down the shield above Xandar for her.
  • Episode 2: A young Peter Quill returns to Earth wanting to go back home, but his Celestial powers cause mass destruction, including the destruction of other planets and the other Realms, leading the Avengers to team up against him. In the end, Ego, after discovering Peter is on Earth, tries to continue the Expansion on Earth, while Peter is eventually talked down by Hank Pym, helping him and the heroes fight against Ego.
  • Episode 3: Justin Hammer leads a group of mercenaries to attack Avengers Tower during their Christmas party in order to steal the vial of Hulk's blood, with only Happy Hogan able to stop them due to his exposure to said blood.
  • Episode 4: The Grandmaster serves as the main antagonist, as the hedonistic ruler of Sakaar who Iron Man attempts to overthrow after being sent there. Meanwhile, Gamora is sent to capture Tony for Thanos after he had stopped the Chitauri invasion of Earth.
  • Episode 5: Melina Vostokoff, the current leader of the Red Room, sends the Hydra Stomper, Steve Rogers, to assassinate Secretary of State Bucky Barnes. However, the assassination turns out to be a ploy to lead Captain Carter away from the other Avengers so that she can capture her.
  • Episode 6: The Spanish conquistadors that cause Kahhori to fall into the Forbidden Lake (empowered by the Tesseract after it fell through time after Surtur destroys Asgard) after they shot her brother Wahta, who are after the Fountain of Youth, which they believe the lake to be.
  • Episode 7: Hela comes into conflict with Xu Wenwu after being banished to Earth by Odin. The two later become allies, and confront Odin together.
  • Episode 8: An imminent incursion threatens the 1602-themed reality as a result of Steve Rogers being sent through time, but when Queen Hela is lost in a similar rift, Captain Carter spends most of the episode on the run from a vengeful King Thor, who sends Sir Harold "Happy" Hogan and the Royal Yellowjackets after her.
  • Episode 9: Strange Supreme is revealed to be the overarching antagonist, kidnapping "universe-killers" such as Kahhori with the intent of sacrificing them to the Forge, which he is hoping to use to resurrect his destroyed universe. Captain Carter is forced to confront him to put a stop to his plan, and even runs into King Killmonger and defeats him for good in the process of doing so.
• Echo: Wilson Fisk looks to take revenge upon Maya for the fallout from the events of Hawkeye where Maya had shot Fisk. Moreso, the series features several periods of looking back upon Maya's life and the influence Fisk had upon it, with Maya herself being a Villain Protagonist while serving under Fisk and seeking vengeance against Rōnin. Zane is The Dragon to Fisk in the latter episodes while Vickie is more of a Big Bad Wannabe.

Marvel Television

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The series' overall threat is the terrorist organization HYDRA, with many of the individual villains tying back to them in some way.

• Season One: The Clairvoyant, aka S.H.I.E.L.D. agent John Garrett, Phil Coulson's old friend, serves as the mastermind behind numerous plots by the Centipede Project (actually a HYDRA sub-group), all leading toward the creation of a private army of Super Soldiers. Raina is the primary representative of Centipede up until The Reveal, with Deathlok and Grant Ward as Garrett's Co-Dragons.
• Season Two: Jiaying, Skye's mother and the leader of the Inhuman sanctuary Afterlife, was mutilated by HYDRA scientist Daniel Whitehall and consequently developed a hatred of normal humans. After being put back together by her husband, Calvin Johnson, the two went on a rampage to find their missing daughter, and Cal continues to search for Skye in the present in order to put their family back together. When their activities attract the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D., Jiaying plans to start open war in the fear that they'll be no better than HYDRA in their treatment of Inhumans.
  • The first half of the season has Whitehall researching the mysterious Obelisk, aided by Co-Dragons Grant Ward, Agent 33, and Sunil Bakshi. Cal joins him in a Big Bad Duumvirate, intending to use him to locate Terrigen Crystals for Skye's Terrigenesis before killing him as revenge for what he did to Jiaying.
  • After Whitehall's death, the remainder of the season up until Jiaying becomes the Final Boss devolves into a Big Bad Ensemble between Dr. List, a high-ranking HYDRA officer experimenting on superhumans on behalf of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker; Robert Gonzales, the leader of a rival S.H.I.E.L.D. faction that doesn't recognize Coulson's authority, who deploys Agents Alphonso "Mack" MacKenzie and Bobbi Morse as moles within the main faction, and has a more aggressive attitude towards superhumans; and Grant Ward and Kara Palamas / Agent 33, becoming Wild Cards as they seek closure for the latter's brainwashing by HYDRA.
• Season Three: Hive, the first Inhuman and the inspiration for the founding of a cult that later developed into HYDRA, wants to turn millions into subservient Primitives. The first half of the season featured Gideon Malick, the modern-day leader of Hive's cult, as well as Ward, now the leader of a social darwinist faction of HYDRA and the Arch-Enemy of the collective S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Ward is quickly Demoted to Dragon by Malick before being killed by Coulson in response to Ward murdering Rosalind Price and assimilated as Hive's new host body for him to return to Earth. Malick's goal was to retrieve Hive from exile, and is quickly usurped once his master arrives, with things getting more personal when Hive mind controls Daisy.
• Season Four was split up into three separate arcs connected to a Tome of Eldritch Lore called the Darkhold, each with their own villain:
  • Ghost Rider: Eli Morrow, uncle of the Ghost Rider, tricks the Watchdogs into releasing the Darkhold ghosts so he can locate and gain godlike power from the book.
  • LMD: Dr. Holden Radcliffe, a former pawn in Hive's scheme who S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited, is a Mad Scientist who wants the knowledge of the Darkhold for the good of humanity, planning to create the Framework, a virtual simulation of the world without people's greatest regrets. However, his methods of obtaining the book include kidnapping others and replacing them with Life Model Decoys. The Watchdogs' leader, Anton Ivanov, is a Big Bad Wannabe working with Radcliffe and Inhuman-hating senator Ellen Nadeer, giving them resources for their plans in exchange for his help in killing Inhumans before getting Demoted to Dragon by Aida.
  • Agents of HYDRA: Aida, Radcliffe's LMD assistant, kills him and takes over the Framework simulation. Under her watch it is turned into an oppressive police state run by HYDRA, with an avatar of herself at the top as Madame Hydra and Fitz, known as the Doctor, as her Dragon, with the Doctor temporarily taking charge when Quake breaks her avatar's back. She also wants to Become A Real Girl using the Darkhold, but once she does so and starts experiencing emotions she doesn't handle them all that well after Fitz rejects her love and becomes murderous, forming a Big Bad Duumvirate with Anton and setting out to recreate her totalitarian empire in the real world using the Darkhold.
• Season Five: Brigadier General Glenn Talbot, emotionally unstable thanks to brain damage from a Quake LMD deployed earlier by Aida and Anton shooting his head, brainwashing by HYDRA, and the desire to atone for actions he committed because of the prior two factors, gives himself Gravity Master powers that quickly drive him insane and turn him into Graviton. The Confederacy, a conglomeration of alien empires trying to exploit the planet for resources before Thanos arrives, are the Greater Scope Villains; two of their leaders, Taryan and Qovas, manipulate Talbot into mining the Earth for more Gravitonium, shattering the planet in a Bad Future.
  • The main antagonist for the first half of the season is Kasius, Taryan's disgraced son who has enslaved the remains of humanity in said Bad Future to farm Inhuman slaves.
  • Upon returning to the present, the most prominent villains become HYDRA sleeper agent Brigadier General Hale and her Legion of Doom (consisting of her rebellious daughter Ruby, the cause of Elena losing her arms as she saw in the future and a user of Gravitonium, Baron Strucker's son Werner von Strucker, who is in love with Ruby, Ivanov and his LMD Sleeper mechs, and Glenn Talbot's friend Carl Creel). She wants to drive away the Confederacy with a show of force, but her efforts to do so inadvertently cause Talbot's descent into insanity.
• Season Six: Izel is an extradimensional being destroying planets using batlike creatures called the Shrike, searching for the Di'Alla Monoliths stolen from her realm in order to open a stable portal for her people to invade. Meanwhile, Sarge is an Identical Stranger to the recently deceased Coulson leading a violent guerilla campaign against Izel. It's eventually revealed that he's another fear entity named Pachakutiq, having possessed a clone of Coulson inadvertently created by the Di'Allas and jumbled their memories together. In the finale, Pachakutiq overcomes what remains of Coulson's mind to form a Big Bad Duumvirate with Izel.
• Season Seven: The Chronicoms, led by their Predictor Sibyl, are an alien race who lost their planet to Izel, and have subsequently wiped out the Confederacy. After serving as a secondary threat in the previous season, they now aim to conquer Earth as their new homeworld by using Time Travel to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. before it can mount a defense against them, forcing the modern-day S.H.I.E.L.D. (aided by Fitz's ally Enoch and a Chronicom LMD-revived Phil Coulson) to follow the Chronicoms into the past. Their interference in history also draws in members of HYDRA (primarily the Malick family), whose forces collectively become The Heavy after the Chronicoms decide to form a Big Bad Duumvirate with them:
  • Wilfred Malick, Gideon's father and predecessor as leader of HYDRA, is recruited to fast-track Project Insight after the Chronicoms originally tried to assassinate him to prevent HYDRA's rise (and in turn S.H.I.E.L.D.'s rise). However, he and most of the Chronicoms' forces are killed off around the time of the attempted launch, with Sibyl barely surviving in a disembodied computer form.
  • Nathaniel Malick, Gideon's brother who was sacrificed to Hive in the original timeline, becomes disillusioned with both HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. vying for control of the world and wants to disrupt their order with total anarchy (but really just wants to take control himself by "saving" people from the chaos he started). He forms a direct partnership with Sibyl as the Chronicoms' primary enforcer after his father's death, appropriating Daniel Whitehall's research to steal Daisy's powers while recruiting both a younger Garrett and Daisy's sister Kora to his cause.

Agent Carter

• Season One: Dr. Ivchenko, aka Johann Fennhoff, is revealed to be an agent of Leviathan (the Soviet Union's science and intelligence agency) and the one behind the theft of Howard Stark's inventions, as part of a larger Revenge by Proxy plan against Stark designed to end with releasing Midnight Oil on New York. Dottie Underwood, the Soviet Black Widow, is The Dragon and Peggy's Arch-Enemy.
• Season Two: Whitney Frost, the wife and true brains behind one of the members of the powerful Council of Nine secret society, is infected by Zero Matter and usurps control of the Council (demoting their Dragon-in-Chief Vernon Masters to Co-Dragons with her crime boss ex-boyfriend, Joseph Manfredi). Her obsession with gaining more Zero Matter culminates in an attempt to open a portal to the Darkforce Dimension, threatening to let the Zero Matter consume all of reality.

The Defenders ShowsThe Hand are a clan of resurrecting ninjas banished from the mystical city of K'un-Lun who entrench themselves in New York's organized crime syndicates as part of a plan to maintain their immortality.

• Daredevil:
  • Season One: The Kingpin, Wilson Fisk, is the mastermind behind the alliance of crime syndicates out to take over Hell's Kitchen. Madame Gao is the most feared and respected of Fisk's allies, but (aside from poisoning his lover Vanessa when she feels their relationship is making him weak) never gets directly involved.
  • Season Two: Nobu Yoshioka, one of Fisk's former allies, comes Back from the Dead and is revealed to be the representative of a Hand faction after a supernatural "Black Sky" weapon. Acting as a Disc-One Final Boss is the Punisher, Frank Castle, a murderous vigilante who declares war on crime in New York after his family was massacred in a gang meeting organized by a drug lord called the Blacksmith (Colonel Ray Schoonover, Frank's former commanding officer). An incarcerated Fisk receives a small subplot to bridge his story between seasons, showing how he rebuilt his empire from within prison.
  • Season Three: Wilson Fisk returns, now trying to re-establish his criminal empire, get revenge on Matt, and cover up his crimes by manipulating and blackmailing FBI agents into working for him. Chief among the agents is Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter, a sociopath trying to be a good person before Fisk exploits his need for guidance to mold him into The Dragon. Dex undergoes a psychotic break following the death of his obsession Julie and turns against Fisk in the finale, leading to a Mêlée à Trois final fight between the two of them and Matt.
• Jessica Jones:
  • Season One: Kilgrave is a sociopath who gained Compelling Voice powers at a young age and never developed a sense of restraint or empathy for others as a result, Mind Raping anyone he sees fit. Jessica escaped from him after a year under his control and sets out to stop him once she discovers he's still alive. Will Simpson is a secondary antagonist as a victim of Kilgrave who develops a Knight Templar attitude toward stopping him.
  • Season Two: The Big Bad Duumvirate of Dr. Karl Malus of IGH and Alisa Jones (Jessica's long-lost mother), neither of which are truly evil but still morally ambiguous and violently insane, respectively. Most of the conflict is actually derived from Trish, whose struggle to feel empowered ends up bringing IGH out of hiding to silence her search for them. Her continuous escalation of situations leads to her forcing Malus to give her powers, Malus being Driven to Suicide after realizing how much damage he's caused, and Trish putting down Alisa after she subsequently goes on a grief-fueled rampage.
  • Season Three: A Big Bad Ensemble between serial killer Gregory Sallinger and Trish, whose increasing Sanity Slippage and willingness to kill as a masked vigilante leads to Jessica getting suspected for her murders. Trish kills Sallinger in the penultimate episode, becoming the unambiguous Final Boss.
• Luke Cage:
  • Season One: Willis "Diamondback" Stryker is the arms supplier to local crime lord Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes and Luke's former best friend/half-brother, responsible for the latter's false imprisonment because of a grudge against the Parental Favouritism Luke received. After Cornell's death, Willis takes over his operation to continue his obsessive quest for revenge. Acting as the lesser member in a Big Bad Duumvirate for both villains is Mariah Dillard, Cornell's Corrupt Politician cousin.
  • Season Two: Mariah and her Hypercompetent Sidekick Shades go to war against another gangster, John "Bushmaster" McIver, for control of Harlem. Bushmaster develops into more of an Anti-Hero as the season draws to a close, while Mariah's growing ruthlessness causes Shades to turn against her and help Misty bring her down.
• Iron Fist:
  • Season One: A Big Bad Ensemble between Harold Meachum, Madame Gao, and Bakuto. The latter two are leaders of opposing factions of the Hand, while Harold is forced to run Rand Enterprises on their behalf from behind the scenes but is itching to escape their control. Harold is also responsible for killing Danny's parents, making the conflict personal when he becomes the Final Boss.
  • Season Two: Davos works with Joy Meachum to get revenge on Danny for failing to protect K'un-Lun and getting Harold killed, respectively, planning to steal the Iron Fist from Danny. However, Davos' obsession with purging crime from the city soon clashes with Joy's remaining morals, causing her to help Danny and his allies recover the stolen Iron Fist. Also in the mix is Mary Walker, a mercenary hired by the pair to aid their plans but whose own issues make her a Wild Card in the grand scheme of things.
• The Defenders: The Black Sky (aka Elektra Natchios) is The Dragon to Alexandra, the leader of the Five Fingers of the Hand, for the first six episodes before killing and supplanting her. The Hand's plan to maintain their immortality is to unearth a dragon skeleton underneath Midland Circle (which would destroy New York due to structural failure), then invade K'un-Lun to kill the Iron Fist and use the body of the immortal Shou-Lao to obtain an endless supply of dragon bones so they can live forever.
• The Punisher:
  • Season One: A Big Bad Duumvirate between William J. Rawlins III (aka Agent Orange) and Billy Russo. Rawlins set up Schoonover's drug operation and used the money to finance illegal CIA operations; Russo is his former subordinate who now owns a private military company, which he uses to silence anyone who could expose their corruption. Interestingly, Rawlins believes himself the sole Big Bad who makes the plans while Russo is merely The Dragon who gets his hands dirty, which gets him killed in the penultimate episode once Russo becomes fed up with his ego.
  • Season Two: A Big Bad Ensemble between an amnesiac Billy Russo and the mysterious assassin hunting Amy, John Pilgrim (who is The Heavy for his Greater-Scope Villain bosses, Anderson and Eliza Schultz). The Schultzes want Pilgrim to kill Amy for compromising photos she took of their politician son, while Russo starts a gang as he struggles to recover his memories.

Inhumans

• Maximus Boltagon, brother of King Black Bolt, launches a coup to take control of Attilan and upend its Fantastic Caste System. While his motives may seem noble in trying to end his society's Fantastic Racism, being on the receiving end of that racism for years has made him bitter and he ultimately tries to kill his family and hold all of Attilan hostage in order to hold onto the power he's gained.

Runaways

• Season One: The PRIDE^note consisting of Leslie Dean, Geoffrey and Catherine Wilder, Tina and Robert Minoru, Dale and Stacey Yorkes, & Victor and Janet Stein are the wealthy parents of the titular Runaways and collectively The Heavy for their benefactor, Jonah, the true leader of the Church of Gibborim who organized and blackmailed them into providing human sacrifices to sustain his youth.
• Season Two: Jonah is revealed as the Magistrate of an alien race called the Gibborim, and his desire to free his wife, daughter and son trapped underground would result in cataclysmic earthquakes. They're seemingly killed halfway through, but end up possessing Victor, Stacey, Tina and Alex. The remainder of the unaware PRIDE continue their efforts to bring their children home while the Gibborim scheme behind their backs.
• Season Three: The witch Morgan le Fay steps up as the new villain after the Gibborim are removed from their hosts, hoping to sway Nico to her side and take her Staff of One.

Cloak & Dagger

• Season One: A Big Bad Ensemble between Detective Connors, the Dirty Cop who killed Tyrone's brother, and Peter Scarborough, the Corrupt Corporate Executive head of Roxxon Gulf who framed Tandy's father for causing an oil rig explosion. Ultimately, Roxxon is the biggest threat as their cutting corners on the safety measures of a citywide power project puts New Orleans at risk of an invasion of Darkforce "Terrors".
• Season Two: Andre Deschaine, aka D'Spayre, feeds on others' despair and runs a sex trafficking ring to generate a constant supply. Mayhem, Brigid O'Reilly's Literal Split Personality, is a Disc-One Final Boss who hunts down and murders members of the trafficking ring before briefly being banished to the Dark Dimension.

Comics

• Captain America: First Vengeance: The Red Skull is in charge of the HYDRA bases that Steve Rogers infiltrates during the mini-series. The comic also shows how Schmidt became a member of the SS and forced Erskine to develop the super-soldier serum for him by sending his family to a concentration camp.
• The Avengers: Black Widow Strikes: Richard Frampton, a Ten Rings operative trying to rebuild the Jericho Missile, is the Greater-Scope Villain, while Sofia, a Russian assassin and mercenary who wants to kill Natasha to become the new "Black Widow", serves as The Heavy and a more personal opponent for Natasha.
• Iron Man 3 Prelude: The Mandarin, who staged a series of terrorist attacks to obtain the War Machine armor from Rhodey. Notably, this is the real Mandarin and not the fake one that Trevor Slattery played during the event of Iron Man 3.
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier Prelude: Baker is the leader of an unnamed terrorist cell that stole the Zodiac weapon from S.H.I.E.L.D.. He and his men infiltrate the Willis Tower and intended on unleashing the weapon once the building was open to the public.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Prelude: The first issue has Thanos, which shows how his abusive training turned Gamora and Nebula into the galaxy's deadliest assassins. The second issue has Zade Scraggot, a Stygian crime boss who hires Rocket and Groot to deliver a family of Scalluscs to him so he can harvest their shells and use them to decorate his bathroom.
• Avengers: Operation HYDRA: Doctor Jensen, a high-ranking HYDRA scientist responsible for repurposing Chitauri weaponry for the foot-soldiers stationed at her base.
• Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Scepter'd Isle: Baron Wolfgang von Strucker is one of the leaders of HYDRA and is responsible for taking Loki's scepter from S.H.I.E.L.D.. Strucker experimented on Sokovian rebels to test out the true potential of the scepter and ended up giving the Maximoffs their powers.
• Ant-Man - Scott Lang: Small Time: Geoff Zorick was Scott's former boss at Vistacorp who was overcharging his customers illegally using outdated payment systems. He would eventually fire Scott for whistleblowing on his operation.
• Doctor Strange Prelude: The two-issue print comic feature an unnamed witch and Chinese bandit Jiãó ào Zhànshì, both of whom steal dangerous mystical relics that threaten the lives of innocent civilians. The digital comic shows the Start of Darkness for Kaecilius and why he turned against the Ancient One in the first place.
• Black Panther Prelude: Zanda and Douglas Scott are mercenaries-for-hire who take two Wakandans captive as the start a hostage situation in Paraguay.

Video Games

• The Incredible Hulk (2008): The Enclave organization share this role with Major Talbot, who serves as The Heavy to General Ross. Like in the movie, they are all supplanted by the Abomination by the end.
• Iron Man 2: Kearson DeWitt and Ultimo form a Big Bad Duumvirate. DeWitt was the former head of Theoretical Weapons at Stark Industries, but was fired after Tony shut the entire weapons division down. Wanting revenge, DeWitt stole a copy of J.A.R.V.I.S's programing and modified it into the wrathful Ultimo. DeWitt then used his PROTEAN technology to fuse his body and consciousness with Ultimo, and tried to destroy Stark with one of his former weapons.
• Thor: God of Thunder: Mangog, a Living Weapon that Odin sealed away centuries ago after it proved too powerful to control. Loki tricks Thor into unleashing Mangog in an attempt to discredit his brother and secure his place as the rightful heir of Asgard. Mangog proves to be too powerful for Loki to defeat and he is forced to work with Thor to take him down.
• Captain America: Super Soldier: Dr. Zola is the main threat, with the Red Skull less involved in the game's story. It's Zola's attempt to replicate the super soldier serum and awaken the Sleeper that are the driving force of the plot.
• Iron Man 3: The Official Game: M.O.D.O.K., aka Aldrich Killian. Before his death, Killian uploaded his consciousness into a new body, and sought revenge against Tony. Taking charge of AIM, M.O.D.O.K. stole the Extremis formula, and later uploaded himself into the mainframe of Stark Industries with the express purpose of framing Stark for numerous terrorist attacks.

---