The Avengers are known as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and they’ve earned that appellation with some of the greatest battles of all time. The Avengers have had epic adventures, and those stories were made possible by the villains there in. The Avengers is the greatest assemblage of superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Their number includes everyone from a Thunder God to the world’s best weapon maker to a woman who can change worlds to a guy with a bow and arrow. Any enemy that is going to threaten the Avengers, a team composed of the most skilled and experienced heroes on the face of the planet, is going to need to be on a different level. Avengers villains, even the lower level ones, are a cut above.
The Avengers have found themselves facing off against the biggest threats. While some of the Avengers’ villains aren’t the best, there are other villains that stand the test of time. These are the Avengers’ greatest foes, ten villains who have given the team their biggest challenges.
Thanos
MCU fans think that Thanos is an Avengers villain, but in the comics that’s not exactly the case. Thanos debuted in The Invincible Iron Man, but creator Jim Starlin moved him over to the cosmic side of the ’70s Marvel Universe, where he battled and teamed with Adam Warlock, and met and fell in love with Mistress Death, pledging his loyalty to her. Thanos would end up battling the Avengers while trying to get his hands on a Cosmic Cube. Thanos died in that battle, but Starlin would resurrect him when he came back to Marvel in the ’90s. This led to Infinity Gauntlet, a story that members of the Avengers star in, but never actually feel like the Avengers. Thanos has fought the Avengers several times since, and every time it’s a battle for the ages. Thanos is a threat to the entire Marvel Universe and that puts the Avengers in the forefront of the defense against the Mad Titan. The makes him a de facto Avengers villain, and one of the deadliest.
Doctor Doom
Doctor Doom is another case of someone who isn’t an Avengers villain, but is actually an Avengers villain. While Doom has basically become a supporting character in Fantastic Four, he’s a big enough deal that the Avengers have had to deal with him multiple times over the years. In fact, Doom is currently dealing with the Avengers in One World Under Doom, as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four work together to figure out his latest scheme. Doom is one of the most dangerous human beings on Earth. If there’s anyone who can challenge the Avengers at their best, it’s Doom. Doctor Doom doesn’t often tangle with the Avengers, but when he does he takes very few chances. Doom doesn’t have the familial ties to the Avengers that he has with the Fantastic Four, so the kid gloves come off between the two groups. Doom respects the Avengers as a force to be reckoned with, but he also doesn’t respect the Avengers because he thinks that he’s so far beyond all of them. It’s an interesting relationship and it’s led to some pretty hardcore battles between the two.
The Celestials
The Celestials are one of the most powerful forces in the Marvel Universe. While the Avengers consider the Celestials their enemies, the same can’t really be said for the Celestials. The Celestials operate at such a scale that beings as powerful and skilled as the Avengers don’t even enter into their mental calculus. The Celestials are all about life on a universal scale, engineering the fate of entire civilizations over spans of time that most beings will never experience. The Celestials’ grand machinations often revolve around the Earth, a place where the Celestials did a lot of experimentation. This has mobilized the Avengers to battle the Celestials at times, and the Avengers have been able to make a pretty impressive chink in the Celestials’ armor. The Avengers have figured out a way to fight them, which is pretty impressive regardless of whether the Celestials care about the Avengers or not.
Norman Osborn
This one is going to be controversial, but Norman Osborn is one of the Avengers’ best villains. “Dark Reign”, when Osborn was given the keys to the Avengers and SHIELD, birthing the Dark Avengers and HAMMER, is amazing. Osborn became known as Iron Patriot, fighting alongside the Dark Avengers against enemies from the Molecule Man to the X-Men, and keeping the various Avengers teams from mobilizing against him. Osborn played a pretty smart game, playing the public with big acts of superheroics, helped along by a crack PR department, all while striking ruthlessly at anyone who opposed him. It made for brilliant back in the day and holds up now, Osborn an extremely entertaining villain. “Dark Reign” is an excellent story, made all the better if you hunt down the Warren Ellis/Mike Deodato Thunderbolts that came before it, and showed that Osborn was more than just the guy who put on the goblin mask and has been trying to kill Peter Parker since he was fifteen. Osborn’s tenure as Marvel’s main villain for around eighteen months was an exciting time, and earned him a place among the Avengers’ best enemies.
Apocalypse Twins
This is another controversial choice — some people would have possibly put Immortus or Red Skull here — but I’m not most people. Rick Remender’s Uncanny Avengers was peak Avengers/X-Men goodness, and the best chapters of the book came from “Apocalypse Twins”, “Ragnarok Now”, and “Avenge the Earth”, which featured the Apocalypse Twins as the main villain. The Apocalypse Twins came form Remender’s Uncanny X-Force, the children of Archangel and the Final Horseman known as Pestilence who were stolen by Kang and raised in a mutant concentration camp in a terrible future to toughen them up. Kang wanted to use the Apocalypse Twins as his personal weapons, but Uriel and Eimin had other plans, coming up with a plan that would get the Celestials to destroy the Earth while they used the Scarlet Witch to move mutants to another planet. It’s an amazing story cycle, and the Apocalypse Twins are the best part. The three stories flesh out the twins wonderfully, showing them off as the powerful and dangerous foes they truly are. They’ve only appeared in those three stories, but they are such awesome villains that they deserve their places in among the Avengers’ best villains.
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The Masters of Evil
The Masters of Evil have been a thorn in the Avengers’ side since almost the beginning. The first Baron Zemo, Heinrich Zemo, recruited Enchantress, Executioner, Black Knight, and Radioactive Man to battle the Avengers. This was the first incarnation of the Masters of Evil but it wouldn’t be the last. The coolest part about the Masters of Evil is that the team is always morphing and changing. Everyone from Ultron to Egghead have led the Masters of Evil, and while some of the grunts are the same — the Wrecking Crew, Absorbing Man, and Titania usually come standard — there are often very different and rather large rosters. The Masters of Evil and the Avengers have battered each other for ages, and while the team hasn’t really been around for a very long time — Helmut Zemo mostly shifted to trying to use various rosters of Thunderbolts in their place — a new multiversal version of the Masters of Evil did show up recently and it’s looking like they’re going to play a role in One World Under Doom. The Masters of Evil have a rich place in the history of the Avengers, and them coming back is definitely a cause for celebration.
Baron Zemo
Most people associate the Zemos with the Masters of Evil, and that’s completely fair. Heinrich and Helmut are the greatest leaders of that villain team. However, the two of them are extremely important to the history of the Avengers completely on their own. Heinrich was a Hydra OG, working with Red Skull and Hitler himself against Captain America. Heinrich Zemo was responsible for Captain America being frozen and survived long enough to battle him in the present day. He wasn’t the Avengers first arch-enemy, but his battles against them helped define the team. Helmut, the son of Heinrich, took up his father’s place in the family business and led the most successful attack by the Masters of Evil in “Under Siege”. Helmut wasn’t done with the Avengers, and would come at them again and again, using his Thunderbolts plan when the Avengers disappeared after the battle against Onslaught to almost take over the world. The return of the Avengers messed everything up, but Zemo is still a major foe of the Avengers. The Zemos have a special place in the history of the team, and deserve their own place in the pantheon of greatest Avengers villains.
Loki
Loki has long been a major villain in the Marvel Universe. Loki has a lot of accomplishments to put under their green belt, but one of their most important deeds, and the one they almost certainly regret the most, was the creation of the Avengers. Rick Jones brought the Avengers together to fight Loki, and since then Loki and the Avengers have been bitter enemies. It definitely helps that Thor is on the Avengers, making the team a target in Loki’s eyes, and that has often been enough for Loki to go after them. Loki also likes to include the Avengers in their machinations because they feel superior to the members of the team; Loki has a tendency to look down on anyone who actually likes Thor. Loki has since become a more heroic being than they used to be, but it’s only a matter of time before they decide that it would be fun and make for a good story — Loki has recently morphed into the God of Stories — and Loki decides to include the Avengers in their games again.
Kang the Conqueror
Kang the Conqueror is an amazing villain, and it’s a shame that the larger world isn’t going to know about it any time soon in the MCU. Kang the Conqueror is a character that could only come from a Silver Age Marvel comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Kang was a genius from the far future who decided that the world was boring, and started to travel back in time. He started as Iron Lad, helping found the Young Avengers, eventually went to Ancient Egypt to rule as Pharaoh Rama-Tut, before becoming Kang, using his time travel technology to pilfer the greatest weapons in the past, present, and future, and use them to defeat everyone that stood in his way. After grinding the future under his boot heel, Kang decided there was only one challenge left — defeating the Avengers. That’s what Kang has been about ever since then. Kang and the Avengers have had many, many battles against each other, and he’s definitely one of the most complicated characters in Avengers canon (however, if you want the easy version of understanding Kang, go out and buy Avengers Forever Vol. 1 from Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, and Carlos Pacheco). He’s a villain who may fight other teams and heroes, but is always an Avengers villain at heart.
Ultron
Some people would put Kang the Conqueror as the Avengers’ greatest villain, and that’s a perfectly valid conclusion (after Avengers Forever, get “The Kang Dynasty”). However, for this Avengers fan’s money, there’s no one better than Ultron and that’s because of the familial bond. Ultron was created by Hank Pym, who made a self-aware robot to help him around the lab. Ultron started hating humanity almost immediately, and Pym tried to destroy his creation. Ultron survived, and his hatred of humanity grew to the extent that he decided to destroy all organic life on the planet. Ultron is responsible for the creation of Vision and Jocasta, but no one ever talks about her anymore, and has been a part of some of the Avengers’ greatest comics (“Ultron Unlimited” is unfortunately out of print, but you should hunt it down). Ultron is Avengers royalty in every way. The connection is a huge part of that, but there’s also the fact that Ultron is just a plain scary villain. There is no other evil robot in comics as chilling as Ultron, which definitely plays a factor in why he’s the Avengers’ greatest villain. Ultron might not be a universal level threat like Thanos, but an Ultron fighting the Avengers story means something that battles with so many other Avengers villains don’t.
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