Every MCU Villain After Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, Ranked

MCU has struggled to create a major villain like Josh Brolin’s Thanos ever since Avengers: Endgame. Thanos had a plan he truly believed in, and he beat the Avengers fair and square in Avengers: Infinity War. Once he achieved his mission, he went away in isolation, probably grieving the death of Gamora.

By the time Endgame ended, Marvel had set a bar for villains that was almost unfair to whoever came next. And the studio has spent years trying to clear it. Some of the villains who followed were rushed. Some were wasted. A few were genuinely excellent and did not get the credit they deserved.

We have gone through every major big-screen antagonist since 2019 and ranked them on how well they were written, how much they scared us, and how much they pushed the hero across from them.

15 Samuel Sterns / The Leader

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Tim Blake Nelson finally returned as Samuel Sterns, seventeen years after The Incredible Hulk teased his big green brain. The character comes straight from the comics, where The Leader is one of Hulk’s oldest enemies. In Captain America: Brave New World, he is a prisoner who quietly pulls strings, feeding Thaddeus Ross the medicine that turns him into Red Hulk.

It is a clever idea on paper. The problem is that Sterns spends most of the film sitting in a cell talking, so Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson never really gets a proper fight out of him. The villain was great and long-anticipated, and he was played by a brilliant actor. However, the payoff was too little, earning him the lowest rank.

14 Kang the Conqueror

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Jonathan Majors played the ruthless comic book time traveller who was supposed to be the next Thanos, and the marketing told us so for months. Marvel then stuck him in the Quantum Realm in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and had him lose to Paul Rudd‘s Scott Lang, a man whose greatest weapon is a swarm of ants.

Majors is genuinely menacing in a few scenes, especially when he explains how many timelines he has erased. But an all-powerful conqueror should not look this beatable in his first outing. The character never had time to recover, especially after Majors’ off-screen problems ended his MCU run early.

13 Gorr the God Butcher

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Christian Bale‘s Gorr is lifted from Jason Aaron’s comic run, and his opening ten minutes in Thor: Love and Thunder are terrifying. He goes from a helpless father to an all-powerful God Butcher, but he was only great until he picked up the cursed sword. He was then buried under the movie’s misplaced jokes, screaming goats, and a colour palette that keeps switching moods.

Chris Hemsworth‘s Thor barely engages with what Gorr is actually saying, which is that gods do not deserve worship. Bale gave Marvel a classic villain, but the movie around him did not want one. Many also agreed that the character design for the villain could have been much better.

12 Dreykov

Black Widow (2021)

Dreykov is loosely based on a name from the comics, but this version in Black Widow is mostly built for the film. Ray Winstone‘s villain runs the infamous Red Room, where they kidnap girls and experiment on them. He controls them with chemicals so completely that Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha cannot even attack him directly.

That detail is horrible in the right way, and it makes the story personal for once. The trouble is that he is an old man in a chair for most of the runtime, with no real presence. He works as an idea about control and abuse, but not as a screen villain you remember and hence ranks lower on this list.

11 Mr. Paradox

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Matthew Macfadyen plays a TVA bureaucrat with a smile that never quite hides the villain within him. Macfadyen plays Mr. Paradox so effortlessly hateable from the first scene in Deadpool & Wolverine. Paradox is an original creation dropped into the TVA setup we know from the shows, and his plan is essentially office politics with a doomsday device attached.

He wants a promotion, so he decides to erase an entire universe with a Time Ripper. Ryan Reynolds‘ Wade Wilson treats him with total contempt, which is the correct response. He is enjoyable, but he ranks lower because he is a plot device in a suit and lands mid-table in terms of an actual threat.

10 Bill Metzger

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

Bill Metzger is an obscure anti-mutant activist from the comics, but Spider-Man: Brand New Day turns him into a scarier villain. Tramell Tillman initially plays him as a polite bureaucrat at the top of Damage Control, who invites Spider-Man to help him out. Tom Holland‘s character helps him capture Sadie Sink‘s Jean Grey before learning the truth about him.

The reveal that his experiments killed Jean’s sister, and that he built an anti-mutant weapon with the help of Peter’s tech, stings. The movie was ultimately about Spider-Man stopping Jean Grey from killing Metzger. So, he hasn’t risen to the level of other top villains here yet. But he is a villain likely saved for a post-Secret Wars MCU.

9 Galactus

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Ralph Ineson‘s Galactus is one of Marvel’s oldest and biggest comic villains, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps treats him with proper respect. He is not evil in the usual sense. He is ‘hunger with a voice’, and the scale of him is genuinely overwhelming.

His offer that he will spare Earth in exchange for one baby is the kind of impossible choice the MCU rarely commits to. Pedro Pascal‘s Reed Richards and Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm have to outthink him rather than outpunch him. He loses points in this ranked list only because a force of nature cannot have much of an arc.

8 Shalla-Bal / Silver Surfer

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

This version of Galactus’ herald, played by Julia Garner, incorporates the best parts from comics. The Silver Surfer is a classic character, but making Shalla-Bal the one riding the board changes the emotion completely. She destroyed worlds to keep her own planet alive, and she carries that guilt with her.

Her turn against Galactus at the end feels earned largely because Sue Storm gets through to her as one mother to another. She sits above her boss because she actually has an arc and character development in the movie. Garner does a lot with very few lines and even fewer expressions.

7 Valentina Allegra de Fontaine

Thunderbolts* (2025)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus finally got to do something with the comic book spy she had been teasing across half a dozen projects. In Thunderbolts*, Valentina is not your typical villain with an evil motive. She is a politician facing impeachment who tries to build her own super soldier in secret, then sends a team of expendable people to bury the evidence.

The scene where she calmly plans to have her own operatives killed is chilling because it is so casual. Florence Pugh‘s Yelena finally manages to expose her, but her arc appears to be far from over. She ranks high for feeling like a real and recognizable kind of villain.

6 High Evolutionary

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Chukwudi Iwuji plays the comic book scientist as a man who genuinely believes he is doing beautiful work while torturing animals in cages. That is what makes him one of the most hated villains post-Endgame. Every time he throws a tantrum about imperfection in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, you understand exactly why Rocket flinches.

James Gunn wisely made the fight personal, so Chris Pratt‘s Star-Lord and the team are not saving the galaxy so much as rescuing their friend. Given the torture he put Rocket through, the viewers were eagerly waiting for his downfall at the hands of the Guardians. And we felt immensely satisfied when that climax came around.

5 Cassandra Nova

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Emma Corrin‘s Cassandra Nova comes from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, where she is Charles Xavier’s monstrous twin, and Corrin plays her with unsettling calm. She rules the Void, casually reaching a hand inside people’s skulls. She is easily the most powerful thing in the film.

What makes her work is the childishness underneath, playing the tantrum of a sibling who was never allowed to exist. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman only survive her by being too stubborn to die properly. She loses out on a higher spot because the film is a comedy first and a villain story second.

4 Namor

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Tenoch Huerta‘s Namor and his underwater kingdom were brilliantly reimagined for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Ryan Coogler made the Talokan rooted in Mesoamerican history, giving them an equally powerful cultural background as Wakanda. Namor’s anger comes from watching colonisers destroy his people centuries ago.

While he is not wrong about the surface world, he is very wrong about how he responded to the injustices he faced. Letitia Wright‘s grieving and furious Shuri nearly becomes him before pulling back, which is the smartest thing the film does for Namor’s villain arc. A villain who almost converts the hero is always going to rank near the top.

3 The Void

Thunderbolts* (2025)

The film uses Lewis Pullman‘s Bob, aka Sentry, in a different way than the MCU has ever really tried before. The Void is depression, drawn as an expanding shadow that swallows New York and traps people inside the worst days of their lives.

There appears to be no way to stop this shadow entity until Yelena walks into that darkness. She refuses to leave a broken Bob alone in this entity. It is the most frightening image in any of these films and the most moving resolution. Only a slightly muddled final act keeps it off the top spot.

2 Norman Osborn / Green Goblin

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Willem Dafoe returned after nineteen years in Spider-Man: No Way Home and reminded everyone how it is done. This Goblin is pure comic book, with a cackle and a glider, but the horror comes from watching Norman’s kinder half get strangled by the mask.

This version of the villain does not want to rule anything, but simply refuses to be cured. Killing Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May was the moment Tom Holland’s Peter stopped being a kid, and the fight afterwards is genuinely ugly and desperate. Dafoe’s villain is second only because he arrived with two decades of history the others did not have.

1 Xu Wenwu / The Mandarin

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Tony Leung took a comic character with a long and ugly history and turned him into the best villain of Marvel’s post-Endgame era. In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Wenwu is a thousand-year-old conqueror who genuinely stopped for love, then fell apart when he lost it. By the time we meet him, grief has convinced him that a demon behind a wall is his wife calling.

He is completely terrifying as the head of the terrorist organization first teased in Iron Man. Simu Liu‘s Shang-Chi cannot beat him with force because the wound between them is family. Leung gives the MCU something Thanos never had, which is real tenderness underneath the destruction. Sadly, he is also one of the most underappreciated villains in the MCU.

Ranking	Marvel Villain	Actor	Movie
1	Xu Wenwu / The Mandarin	Tony Leung	Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
2	Norman Osborn / Green Goblin	Willem Dafoe	Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
3	The Void	Lewis Pullman	Thunderbolts* (2025)
4	Namor	Tenoch Huerta	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
5	Cassandra Nova	Emma Corrin	Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
6	High Evolutionary	Chukwudi Iwuji	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
7	Valentina Allegra de Fontaine	Julia Louis-Dreyfus	Thunderbolts* (2025)
8	Shalla-Bal / Silver Surfer	Julia Garner	The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
9	Galactus	Ralph Ineson	The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
10	Bill Metzger	Tramell Tillman	Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)
11	Mr. Paradox	Matthew Macfadyen	Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
12	Dreykov	Ray Winstone	Black Widow (2021)
13	Gorr the God Butcher	Christian Bale	Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
14	Kang the Conqueror	Jonathan Majors	Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
15	Samuel Sterns / The Leader	Tim Blake Nelson	Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Which of these villains do you think came closest to matching Thanos? And who do you think was wasted the most? Let us know in the comments below!