https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRGPwppK1Zc
The MCU has hit after hit, but their villains have been dud after dud. Somehow though, they recently got better and better. What're they doing now that's different from before?share
I think the noise about M.C.U. villains being weak is a straw man argument based on a phony claim.
The phony claim is the villains lacked depth or motivations.
Last I checked the roster of their villains have a backstory you can understand, even break down into categories.
1) Revenge:Whiplash (Stark Sr. stole his dad's idea), Loki (sibling rivalry, always being second, desire for power and praise), Zemo (death of family due to destruction of Sokovia by Avengers) and Killmonger (for father's execution and thirst for ethnocentric revolution).
2) Messiah Complex:Thanos (kill half of all living things to save the other half).
In the categories above, you have fleshed out villains - two of which (Thanos and Loki) have made appearances in more than one M.C.U. movie. All the others have very personal reasons for their actions.
The villains in the latter categories have much less impacting reasons for their actions, save desires for base things.
3) Power and Money: Obadiah Stane (control of Stark Industries), Darren Cross (duplicating Hank Pym's research and assuming power through Hydra), Red Skull (ruling the world through Hydra), Dormammu (absorbing the realm of Earth into the Dark Dimension through his convert Kaecilius), Sonny Birch (money from stolen technology), Ronan the Accuser (power to destroy all his enemies), Alexander Pierce (using SHEILD as a cover for Hydra takeover).
That's how I'd arrange them and there are minor villains - Crossbones and Ghost for example - who also fall into the first category. An argument for less developed villains makes sense with them, as their backstories are fairly simple and don't require a lot of exposition.
Most of the arguments used against the M.C.U. have been by those who don't like the success of the M.C.U. and want to find something (anything for that matter) to use in order to take shots at that success.
Anyway, that's my take.
Imagine spending this much time analyzing children’s films.
jfc...
I always thought the "Marvel villains suck" argument was overdone, probably mainly propagated by butthurt MCU-haters. Sometimes it's entirely appropriate to keep the focus on the hero characters and have a thin villain (e.g. Ronan). Not every villain needs to be the Joker.
How is Red Skull a "weak villain"? What more do you want in a WWII Captain America movie?
Malekith did suck though.
Red Skull was a great villain, a classic golden age comics baddie!
You wrote "Not every villain needs to be the Joker." I agree but what's really telling is that when you look hard at Heath Ledger's version of that character, he had no background. Now Nicholson's Joker from the 1989 movie did.
Don't misunderstand, I love the character! However often find it ironic that those who scoff "MCU villains aren't developed" seem to ignore that certain portrayals of the Joker lack development as well. The same could even be said of Jared Leto's version of the Joker. He's not that developed either.
I never bought into it. Stane, Venko, Red Skull, Killian, Ronan, Ultron, and Darren Cross were all fairly generic but had enough moments that gave them character here and there.
Loki was able to become a better villain primarily because they let him live and continue to build his character. Hela had enough personality to also break from the pack but I can understand people putting her in with the ones above because she only had one movie to do it. And the same goes for Kilmonger. Klaue had a previous movie to build from which gave Andy Serkis a long time to think about his character. That probably goes for Brolin and Thanos too.
The only terrible villain I can think of in the MCU is Malekith who added absolutely nothing to the story. The rest were either ok because they had only one movie or they rose above because they could build. So it seems the secret is to let the villains live.