Marvel has long been full of amazing villains, and this has led to villains becoming very popular. The best Marvel villains are the best villains in comics, and they’ve gotten the kind of attention that proves it. Attention means more stories starring the villain, and that means that they get fleshed out, which often results in even more fans liking the villain. Marvel has taken advantage of this by redeeming many villains, with characters like Magneto transcending the label of hero and villain. However, in nearly every case, they eventually go back to being villains. Sometimes, this is a good thing, as they were better characters as villains. Sometimes, though, the villains were better as more heroic people, and fans miss them. These are the villains that redemption made better, and it would be smarter to keep them away from being antagonists.
Superhero comics are, unfortunately, cyclical. Changes are rarely made permanent, especially in these later days of the Internet. New fans are always coming into comics from other media, and so the Big Two often resets things to that more casual fans will get to see things they recognize. This has seen many characters, who were much better in their redeemed form, regressed to villains. These seven Marvel villains would be much better if their redemptions were made permanent, ending the back and forth that has hurt them.
Image courtesy of Marvel Comics
Taskmaster is one of the coolest villains of all time. To begin with, his photographic reflexes give him the ability to copy anything he sees and is just extremely cool. It’s made Taskmaster into the king of the henchmen; while he had his own schemes, Taskmaster was much more well-known as a high level thug battling members of the Avengers with their own moves and weapons. Taskmaster has an amazing costume, his hooded cape and skull mask an awesome design choice that gives him a memorable look. Taskmaster isn’t a monster, when it comes to being a villain; he just goes where the money takes him. This is why it’s so very easy to redeem the Taskmaster. Unlike other villains, he doesn’t have a lot of beliefs that have driven him to villainy. Taskmaster can be hired by heroes to work with them, and could shift his business from training henchmen and working with villains to doing the same thing for the heroes. It would make complete sense for the character, and would give readers more Taskmaster action to love. Taskmaster is a simple fix, and would honestly become a better character if he was redeemed fully.
On the one hand, Cassandra Nova is a mass murderer, having killed 16,000,000 mutants in her first attack on the X-Men. She’s tried to kill the mutant race several times since then, but there’s a simple reason for that. Cassandra Nova is a technically a mutant herself, so she doesn’t hate mutants because she’s racist. She hates mutants simply because her brother Charles Xavier loves them. She targets mutants as part of her long held desire to destroy Xavier and everything he loves. Nova was an amazing character in her first couple of stories, but since then her stories have often lacked anything interesting, just rehashed her prior stories and ideas. This is why redeeming Cassandra Nova is such a tantalizing prospect. Back in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, readers got a glimpse of what a redeemed Cassandra Nova could be with the mutant Ernst becoming the new Cassandra Nova (yes, it’s a bit complicated but it’s Grant Morrison and it makes sense in the story). It would be interesting if Marvel went about the challenge of trying to make Nova a hero. She has a lot to make up for, and it would take a lot for people to actually trust her. Her road to redemption is unclear — maybe they can use the concept of the mumudrai to explain why she was evil an have it go away — but that’s half the fun of these kinds of ideas.
Wolverine has a lot of amazing villains. While he’s not completely on the level of someone like Batman and Spider-Man, he’s way closer than people who don’t read his solo adventures know. One of the best of them is Lady Deathstrike. Yuriko Oyama is the daughter of Lord Dark Wind, the man who created the adamantium bonding process that would create Wolverine. It was stolen from him by Weapon X, and since then Lady Deathstrike has sworn revenge against Wolverine. In order to challenge the ol’Canucklehead, she had herself made into a cyborg, using adamantium in the designs of her implants. Lady Deathstrike is a mercenary more than anything else, and her view of Wolverine has cooled over the years, realizing that he was as much a victim as her father. She’s become his ally on several occasions, but is always reset back to villainy for some reason. Lady Deathstrike is a character with tons of potential, and that potential would best be served if she was finally completely redeemed.
Doctor Octopus is one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes. There’s an argument of whether he’s Spider-Man’s ultimate villain or Green Goblin is, with many leaning towards Green Goblin because of his murder of Gwen Stacy. However, Doctor Octopus was able to do something that Green Goblin could never do — kill Spider-Man. Doc Ock then took over Peter Parker’s body and became the Superior Spider-Man. This is easily the most popular phase of Doctor Octopus’s career. Doc Ock made a very interesting hero, and it’s plain to see that he would do well with permanent redemption. There’s a reason why Marvel keeps going back to the Superior Spider-Man well with Doc Ock. Doc Ock got to see what being a hero could do for him and how far he could go. His greed and self-aggrandizement can best be served as a hero, so it makes him sense for him to finally make the switch and never go back. He doesn’t have to go back to being Superior Spider-Man, although that would be cool too, but he should definitely become a hero and stay that way.
Mystique and Destiny are one of Marvel’s best couples by a wide margin, and would be perfect for redemption. Mystique and Destiny are only villains because of their methods. The two of them have worked hard to help mutants in a world that hates and fears them, working against the bigots in power in the Marvel Universe. There’s really no reason for the two of them to be villains anymore. They spent the Krakoa Era working against the enemies of mutantkind in their own little way, and it was extremely entertaining. Mystique has long gone back and forth on the morality spectrum, with her currently having her own series, but she always gets dragged back to the villain side of things at some point. Perhaps the return of Destiny can finally see her give up the villainy. Mystique and Destiny are much more interesting as amoral mutant protectors, scheming against their enemies, and going to extremes to destroy them.
Thanos is one of Marvel’s most well-known villains. He went from a ’70s B-lister to the most dangerous villain in the universe because of the blockbuster story Infinity Gauntlet. However, what a lot of people don’t realize is that Infinity Gauntlet isn’t a story that is meant to give Thanos his most villainous acts. Instead, it’s a story that lays the seeds for Thanos’s redemption, which would be a key plot in the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe throughout the ’90s. Thanos realized the source of his pain — that his nihilism came from his own lack of self-worth — and did his best to do better, even protecting the universe that he had endangered for the majority of his existence. Thanos wasn’t exactly a hero, but he wasn’t about to try to destroy the universe so that Mistress Death loved him. However, the dreaded superhero reset struck, and Thanos has since gone back to his nihilist murderer roots. While there have been some cool Thanos stories since then, none of them are nearly as good as the stories that came from the ’90s. Marvel just needs to allow Thanos to grow and change, allowing him to become a powerful protagonist against the threats the universe faces.
Doctor Doom has been on the road to redemption for a long time, and he’s honestly lost a lot of edge in the years since. Doctor Doom is still a great character, and an argument can be made that he should be shifted back to full villainy. Doctor Doom is a monster, and that’s been missing for a long time from the character. At this point, it’s about time for Doctor Doom to just go full-blown hero and be done with it, or just go back to being the most dangerous villain on Earth. However, there’s more for Doctor Doom do as a hero than a villain. Doctor Doom spent the vast majority of his time as a villain, so there is more story potential for the character as a hero than a villain. Doom as a mouthy protagonist has made for great stories over the last decade, and the best way to get more stories like that is a full-blown redemption.
What Marvel villains do you to get redemption for? Sound off in the comments below.
Marvel has long been full of amazing villains, and this has led to villains becoming very popular. The best Marvel villains are the best villains in comics, and they’ve gotten the kind of attention that proves it. Attention means more stories starring the villain, and that means that they get fleshed out, which often results Read More