Board Thread:Movies/@comment-3048593-20171206004220/@comment-29908830-20180503000755

On the subject of Marvel's villain problem, I'd say it's about half-and-half. I prefer to look at it from a Phase perspective. Phase 1's villains, IMO, get more hate than they deserve. Iron Monger, Whiplash, and Red Skull were decent for me, and Loki was obviously great; the only truly bad one was Abomination. Phase 2, though, is where villains really took a downturn. For the most part, they ranged from incredibly bland (Ronan, Ultron, and Yellowjacket) to downright atrocious (Killian and Malekith); the only one I actually thought was pretty good was Pierce. Phase 3, however, has been consistently delivering solid villains. Zemo was decent overall, and Kaecilius and Hela were okay but still bland, but Ego, Vulture, and Killmonger were all phenomenal (I haven't seen Infinity War yet, but from what I've heard I'm probably going to love Thanos too).

For me, Hela suffers from the same problem as Kaecilius. They're intended to be foils to the protagonist due to a shared background or path in life, but we don't see enough of them to truly care. I also get what the directors were trying to do, but I think they needed more substance or even screentime for us to truly notice. Ironically, Killmonger not only pulled that off, but it's also considered one of, if not THE, best attribute about him.

As for whether or not it's a problem, I totally agree that the villains being bad has almost never hampered the quality of the film, and I would also add that these films should be taken individually. But I also believe that if something is consistent between films in a franchise, it should be subverted if it's good ("Don't fix what isn't broken" can only go so far) and worked on if it's bad. It's a good thing, then, that Phase 3 movies seem to have totally learned this lesson.