September 19, 2022 6.8K votes 1.7K voters 262.5K views
Over 1.7K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of 12 Marvel Villains Too Terrifying For The MCU
Voting Rules
Vote up the villains too revolting for the MCU.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't been shy of walking on the dark side and exploring creepy characters. In fact, some of the strongest Marvel villains have committed despicable acts that would make other pop culture baddies, such as Darth Vader and Voldemort, blush in embarrassment. Yet, in the comics, there is a rogues' gallery of reprobates that might be too frightening to put on screen. Some of them have faces only a mother could love, while others are just plain harrowing even to consider bringing to the decidedly PG-13 realm of Marvel Studios.
Whether it's a villain without skin or one who lives in another human's stomach, these are the Marvel villains too terrifying to be included in the MCU. Don't forget to vote up the scoundrels that give you the heebie-jeebies!
On their own, spiders are creepy, but wouldn't they be worse if, say, they could climb inside our bodies and take over our meat bags? With this in mind, The Thousand is a Spider-Man villain that is pure, unadulterated nightmare fuel and every arachnophobe's worst fear. After Carl King realizes Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider to become Spider-Man, he decides to eat the itsy-bitsy spider to see if he can luck out and gain powers, too.
That doesn't happen, though. His transformation results in his body turning into a cluster of spiders that he uses to get inside of other people and use their bodies like puppets. Honestly, this makes Frank Marshall's Arachnophobia seem like a walk in the park. Now, forget ever reading about The Thousand, and don't even tempt Kevin Feige to include this frightening character in the MCU.
What is it with villains who have permanent smiles? A smile is meant to be something happy and joyful, but thanks to villainous rogues like the Joker, it feels more like an omen of what's to come. Marvel's Mr. Smile is another scoundrel who likes to grin and show off those pearly whites before tearing someone's face off.
That being said, Mr. Smile might be more evil than the Joker, as he's actually a literal demon. This beaming bad guy built himself a “Mallet of Entropy” to use on atomic structures, but it's the sheer amount of teeth in his mouth that will harvest nightmares in every child (and parent).
Armadillos are cute, but Marvel's Freak, AKA Armadillo Man, isn't competing for People's Most Beautiful Person on Earth. Introduced in the Spider-Man comics as a person with substance dependencies, Freak turns into a monstrous mess after injecting himself with animal stem cell fluids from Dr. Curt Connors's lab, believing it was another illegal substance.
As a result, he develops a flesh cocoon chrysalis, essentially making him skinless and completely horrifying to lay eyes on. Not only would Freak's appearance be outside of the usual PG-13 standards for the MCU, but his substance abuse origins are also highly controversial, even for a Marvel villain.
No, this isn't about the rock band perhaps best remembered for "Come Sail Away." Styx is actually one of David Haller's many personalities, specifically Personality #666. Much like the beastly number of the persona, Styx allows Haller to take hold of the consciousness of anyone he touches, making them putty and malleable in his hands.
Oh, but that isn't the most terrifying aspect of Styx, though. This personality manages to split itself from Haller and find a home in a reanimated corpse, which it then uses to try and control Haller while figuring out a way to take over the world. And those teeth…
Put simply: the Shadow King is Marvel's version of The Exorcist's demon Pazuzu. It's a disturbing and malevolent entity from the deepest, darkest part of humanity's consciousness that bonds with a telekinetic mutant known as Amahl Farouk.
Naturally, the Shadow King is up to no good, hopping from host to host and using telepathic powers for evil purposes. All of his various forms are creepy as all get out, too. While the Shadow King appeared in the maturely themed Legion television series and even X-Men: The Animated Series in decidedly toned-down appearances, it's unlikely the MCU would want to explore this X-Men supervillain that would be more at home in a cerebral supernatural horror film.
Look, let's not beat around the bush here: The Brood are Marvel Comics' version of the Xenomorphs. Not only is their visual design clearly inspired by H.R. Giger's work on Alien, but the sole purpose of these insectoids is to spread their seed in hosts, ensuring the Brood never stops growing! Remind you of anyone?
As a common enemy of the X-Men, these brutal and remorseless creatures have featured in several big storylines over the years. However, their similarity and resemblance to the Xenomorphsall but guarantee they'll never appear in the MCU. Although… Disney does own both Marvel Studios and the rights to the Alien franchise now. If not the true Xenomorphs, could you imagine one of these critters crawling into Thor's body and respawning there?
