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However, the same can’t be said for every Avengers villain. The Avengers have some amazing villains, but they also have some villains that could be a lot better if their stories were more worthwhile. These eight Avengers villains could be some of the best villains ever, if only they had a better story.
8) Red Onslaught
Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1) was one of the best Avengers series ever, introducing readers to the Avengers Unity Squad, which brought together the X-Men and the Avengers. Their first enemy was the Red Skull, who had exhumed Charles Xavier’s corpse and grafted the telepathic portion of the mutant’s brain to his own, a melding of Avengers and X-Men concepts that fit the book’s concept to a tee. That story would end with a tease of Red Onslaught, Red Skull as Onslaught. This was such a hype moment, but unfortunately Uncanny Avengers #24-25 and AXIS dropped the ball with the villain. Red Onslaught is something of an insane idea, and there’s so much that could be done with the Red Skull having supreme psionic power. Red Onslaught should have been an amazing villain, and instead is almost all but forgotten.
7) Proctor
Avengers in the mid ’90s was struggling, as Marvel put all their power into keeping the X-Men and Spider-Man at the top of the heap. However, that doesn’t mean they weren’t trying with the team, which brings us to Proctor. Proctor was an evil version of Black Knight from another Earth. On his Earth, Sersi had transformed him into what amounts to an Eternal, but then left him. This, combined with the curse of the Ebony Blade, drove him mad, and he decided to go after Sersi on Earth-616. Proctor is a cool alternate universe villain with great power, but he was put into a rather mid story from an era of Avengers that many fans don’t like (although, Steve Epting’s art back then was peak). Proctor could have actually become an A-list villain if Marvel had a better writer on the book back then, and it would be awesome if someone brought him back with the right story.
6) The Masters of Evil
The Masters of Evil are the Avengers opposites, a group of villains that has starred in some of the most beloved Avengers stories over the decades, like “Under Siege”. There have been multiple versions of the team over the years, but be honest — when was the last time anyone was actually excited for the Masters of Evil? A new version of the team showed up in One World Under Doom, and they were basically just cannon fodder to use against Doom. The last time the Masters of Evil were important was in Thunderbolts (although Jason Aaron tried to make the Multiversal Masters of Evil important at the end of run that most fans didn’t actually like), and it’s about time the team go another amazing story. The Masters of Evil are old school cool, and it should honestly be pretty easy to give them better stories in the 21st century.
5) Iron Patriot/Norman Osborn
Norman Osborn is best known as Spider-Man’s greatest villain, the Green Goblin, but that’s not all he’s done. Norman Osborn was an amazing Avengers villain, the chief antagonist of “Dark Reign”, a story that ran throughout the entire Marvel line, using modified Iron Man armor to become Iron Patriot and lead the Dark Avengers. Dark Avengers, the various The List one-shots, and Siege are all pretty great, but then he returned in the “Heroic Age” Marvel books, and just did the same story all over again, trying to use HAMMER and a new Dark Avengers to fight the Avengers. It was such a disappointing story after getting a year and a half of awesome Norman Osborn as an Avengers villain stories. Norman Osborn deserves way better, and had the potential to become an overall Marvel villain, instead of pigeonholed into the Spider-Man side of things.
