5 Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains Even More Evil Than Thanos

Thanos was the main antagonist of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga, and he cemented himself as one of pop culture’s most monstrous villains. Even before gathering the Infinity Stones, he culled the population of countless planets in his short-sighted pursuit of universal balance, and he callously killed anyone who stood in his way. He even tortured his adopted daughter, Nebula, when she failed to meet his expectations.

Upon acquiring the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos could have achieved his goal by doubling the universe’s resources or eliminating the need for such resources altogether, but he instead chose the far crueler option of erasing half of all life in existence. Despite this, Thanos was not the true epitome of evil in the MCU. A few key villains from both before and after Avengers: Infinity War managed to match or even exceed the depravity of the Mad Titan.

Green Goblin Ruined the Lives of Multiple Spider-Men

Willem Dafoe first appeared as Norman Osborn and his green-clad alter ego in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, but he traveled to the MCU as part of Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s multiversal crossover. The Green Goblin was already despicable in Raimi’s film, and No Way Home elevated his villainy to another level. The MCU’s version of Peter Parker did not wrong Norman in any way. In fact, he and his Aunt May tried to help Norman out of the goodness of their hearts.

Regardless, the Green Goblin persona eventually reared its ugly head once more. Norman brutalized Peter and murdered May, smiling maniacally as he did so, and he convinced his fellow villains not to accept the cures that Peter had devised. As ruthless and misguided as Thanos was, he genuinely believed that he was bettering the universe, but Norman had no such delusions. He was well aware that he was a villain, and he took sadistic glee in the suffering that he inflicted.

Kilgrave Was a Terrifying Agent of Chaos in the MCU

Though smaller in scale than many other MCU villains, Kevin “Kilgrave” Thompson was easily one of the most vile. He was the main antagonist of Jessica Jones, a series that was recently canonized thanks to its titular heroine appearing in the second season of Daredevil: Born Again. Due to experiments performed on him as a child, Kilgrave possessed a powerful form of mind control, which he frequently used to torment strangers.

What made Kilgrave so frightening was his lack of motivation or rationale. He selected his victims on a whim, meting out harsh punishments for the slightest perceived transgressions. Kilgrave took great offense at Jessica calling him evil in the episode “AKA Smile,” thinking it “reductive,” but he certainly fit the definition of the word. He traumatized Jessica to such an extent that she continued to see hallucinations of him even after he met his deadly comeuppance.

Red Skull Led the MCU’s Most Notorious Villain Group

Image via Jay Maidment / Paramount Pictures / Courtesy the Everett Collection

Captain America served as the MCU’s ultimate paragon of virtue, so it is only fitting that his nemesis was pure evil. Johann Schmidt, better known as Red Skull, was the founder and leader of the modern iteration of Hydra, making him responsible for decades of atrocities carried out by the organization. Though he claimed in Captain America: The First Avenger that he did not agree with the Nazis’ ideology, he nonetheless aided them to further his own goals.

Johann planned to conquer the globe by using the Tesseract to power weapons of mass destruction. Colonel Chester Phillips said, “He thinks that he’s a god, and he’s willing to blow up half the world to prove it.” The Infinity Stones themselves ultimately punished Red Skull for his villainy; as revealed in Infinity War, the Tesseract teleported him to desolate planet Vormir, where he was condemned to an eternity of “guiding others to a treasure [he] cannot possess.”

Malekith Nearly Destroyed the Entire Marvel Universe

Image via Disney / Courtesy the Everett Collection

Malekith the Accursed, the oft-forgotten main antagonist of Thor: The Dark World, was one of the MCU’s most dangerous villains. As Odin explained in the film’s prologue, the Dark Elves were born from the primordial darkness that existed before the Big Bang, and Malekith, “the most ruthless of their kind,” aimed to use the Aether to revert the universe to its original state.

If Malekith had succeeded, the devastation wrought would have been far greater than what Thanos accomplished with the Infinity Gauntlet. Only the Dark Elves and presumably a few cosmic beings like the Celestials would have been able to survive in the empty void. Additionally, Malekith ordered the death of Thor’s mother, Frigga, even after she had been subdued and rendered defenseless by Algrim. Fans often call Malekith the most boring MCU villain, but that ignores just how vicious he truly was.

The High Evolutionary Was the MCU’s Most Despicable Character

Image via Disney

Ronan the Accuser and Ego the Living Planet were both deplorable villains, but none of the Guardians of the Galaxy’s foes were as hatable as the High Evolutionary. Obsessed with genetic perfection, the High Evolutionary carried out painful experiments on unwilling test subjects from across the galaxy. He was responsible for Rocket Raccoon’s heartbreaking origin story, and he casually wiped out billions of lives by destroying Counter-Earth simply because he deemed its inhabitants imperfect.

The High Evolutionary has been confirmed to be more evil than Thanos both in and out of universe. When Nebula learned of Rocket’s past in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, she said, “This is worse than what Thanos did to me.” Director James Gunn supported this claim in an interview on Extra‘s YouTube channel, in which he called the High Evolutionary “the cruelest MCU villain we’ll ever see.” Though the High Evolutionary’s kill count was lower than Thanos’, he elicited a far stronger negative response from viewers.