Because Marvel caught fire during the Silver Age of comics--an era dominated by science fiction themes including a lot of interplanetary travel--its back catalog of space invaders is quite diverse; not every enemy from beyond the stars looks alike or poses the same type of existential threat. So here is some background on several of the best options Marvel Studios could choose to complicate upcoming phases of the MCU:
Threats from beyond the stars (or at least from among them):
- #24 Terminus
- #25 The Shaper of Worlds
- #26 Annihilation Wave
- #27 Korvac
- #28 The Overmind
- #29 The Phalanx
- #30 The High Evolutionary
- #31 The Star Brand
- #32 The Triune Understanding
- #33 Star Thief
- #34 The Master of The World
- #35 The Stranger
- #36 Space Phantom
- #37 The Watchers
- #38 Secret Invasion byThe Skrulls
- #39 The Shiar
- #40 The Badoon
- #41 The Z'Nox
- #42 The Brood
Terminus: After saving Earth from Galactus's depredations on numerous occasions throughout the 60s and 70s, the Fantastic Four faced a new twist on the theme during John Byrne's legendary run on the comic in the 1980s. Terminus was a towering physical giant intent on plundering the planet of its resources. Standing roughly 150-feet tall, he was armed with a lance capable of generating powerful bolts of energy and--even more destructive--a seething cloud of plasma that could break down the landscape around him. After initially being driven down deep into the surface of the Earth, the would-be planet-killer escaped and--in battle with the Avengers--completely destroyed the hidden Antarctic dinosaur sanctuary known as "The Savage Land." So there'd be no "mini" to this boss.
The Shaper of Worlds: Another interesting twist on the above theme, I could see The Shaper translating very well into a movie universe. This character--who can't really be called a villain--revealed himself to be the sentience that had emerged from a cosmic cube created by the Skrulls (also mentioned below) in ages past. (Note: In the comics, the Tesseract--or "cosmic cube"--is a man-made device and it functions more like the Reality Stone from the MCU.) The Shaper toured the universe tapping into--and manifesting--the imaginations of various beings he'd encounter. But in an MCU looking to achieve realism within a fantastical world, I think it would be much more interesting to re-imagine The Shaper as a terraforming device or craft. You could still keep much of the same backstory--he could hail from Skrull space and could look to transform planetary surfaces using brain engrams from willing collaborators--but you could skip the part where he looks like a giant blue Skrull sitting in a tank. (Yeah, that's what he looks like.) So the MCU version could be more like The Caretaker from the pilot episode of Star Trek Voyager. (Yep--I buried a deep cut within another deep cut.)
Annihilus and the Annihilation Wave: Sometimes, you just want your villains to be straight-up terrors--which is what Annihilus and his Annihilation Wave represent. The bat-winged insectoid emperor of the antimatter universe known as The Negative Zone, Annihilus is himself a massively powerful being. His "cosmic control rod"--which he guards jealously--makes him the physical equal or better of virtually any hero or force he encounters, the absolute ruler of his domain. And then when you add the locust-like swarm of his insectoid army bent on, well, annihilating the lifeforms of the positive matter universe (as it's in the name Annihilation Wave), he'd clearly be a sufficiently formidable opponent to culminate the end of an upcoming phase of the MCU.
Korvac: While the Korvac Saga is one of my favorite stories, I'll admit that his appearance would be a longshot given his story's similarity to Infinity War. A cyborg who finds a way to tap into the essence of Galactus--and therefore imbue himself and his mate with nearly limitless cosmic power--Korvac is opposed by both the Avengers and the Guardians of The Galaxy in a tale that actually brings the teams together in a way that the Infinity Gauntlet comic does not. In the end, he and his love Carina fight a pitched battle with the groups and seemingly kill both rosters save for Thor and Moondragon before Korvac relents and gives his life to raise the fallen heroes.
The Overmind: Mentioned in passing in my last post, The Overmind is essentially a living weapon that combines--into one persona--the minds of hundreds of millions of beings from a long-dead space-faring race. In theory, it should have unparalleled mental powers--though its comics appearances aim low and focus on subjugating individual heroes (Mr. Fantastic), teams (The Squadron Supreme), and--at the high end--leaders from numerous nations. But the underlying concept is pretty fertile ground that could be expanded--perhaps into a story like the "World War 3" storyline from Grant Morrison's run on DC's JLA. (That story saw a powerful alien entity make entire civilizations tear themselves apart from the inside--fomenting rioting and worldwide war.)
The Phalanx: Moving on from mental domination to physical domination and transformation, we should also consider The Phalanx--a race of techno-organic beings first introduced in the pages of The New Mutants. Much like the Borg--yes, another Star Trek reference--The Phalanx can infect other lifeforms and have been shown in various guises: their own natural state, merged to humans bent on the eradication of mutant-kind, and, finally, being used by Ultron to enslave the denizens of the Kree Empire.
The High Evolutionary: Technically, the High Evolutionary is a threat from Earth that has spread itself across the stars. Starting off as a human scientist named Herbert Wyndham, the High Evolutionary was a geneticist who experimented with his own genetic code--granting himself a wide variety of powers ranging from super-intelligence to energy manipulation. He would then in turn leverage these abilities to "evolve" other creatures--including numerous animals he anthropomorphized into a group he called his "New Men." Based first in Europe, Wyndham ultimately decided to create his own world--a parallel "Counter-Earth" orbiting on the opposite side of the Sun. The power required to accomplish such a feat definitely cements the High Evolutionary as a major player--and his interest in playing God through the advancement and regression of whole societies would generate plenty of opportunities for conflict with the heroes of the MCU.
The Star Brand: I'll probably delve into this more in a future post, but the short history of the Star Brand is that it was introduced as part of Marvel's ill-fated New Universe comics line in the 1980s. Without going into the other comics in the line here, the flagship story revolved around an auto mechanic who found himself branded with an alien tattoo--one conveying the curse of seemingly unlimited energy powers that would continue to grow exponentially with use. In the end, the Star Brand would destroy a city and bring the Earth of the New U to the brink of global war--as well as make itself a prize sought by alien races across the Marvel multiverse. Not a bad post-Infinity Gauntlet macguffin.
The Triune Understanding: The Triune Understanding is actually the name of a pseudo-religious organization that opposed the Avengers during Kurt Busiek's run on the book. The Triune Understanding used its status to undermine the credibility of the superhero group through a well constructed PR campaign that framed the Avengers as intolerant aggressors. Tied to the origins of an obscure hero named 3-D Man--and his successor Triathlon--the leadership of the Triune Understanding was eventually revealed to be pursuing ultimate power in the form of an eldritch pyramid on a collision course with Earth. As luck would have it, the Avengers would find a way to use the pyramid--a fragment of pure evil from another universe--as a weapon against the armies of their perennial adversary Kang. (Another potential macguffin.)
The Star Thief: There have been three unrelated incarnations of the Star Thief which could support stories with very different stakes. Speaking to the smaller scale first, the third Star Thief was a human man imbued with cosmic powers in a satellite accident that killed his family and destroyed his physical body. An energy being, this version of the Star Thief would be more of a pawn rather than a boss-level threat--but a powerful pawn nonetheless, as Ditmil Pirvat was capable of fighting off the entirety of the group called the New Warriors. The first and second uses of the name Star Thief--on the other hand--belong to respective characters who were able, though physically unconscious or insensate, to reach across the universe and affect reality on a cosmic scale including the disappearance of entire stars.
The Master of The World: As I've mentioned before, I was a big fan of the first few years of the Alpha Flight comic back in the early 80s. So it only makes sense that I'd have an interest in the character who effectively serves as their arch-nemesis. The man who styles himself the "master of the world" started off as a caveman who had the misfortune to stumble across a spaceship sent to Earth 40 thousand years ago by the warlike Plodex race. The icebound Plodex vessel would capture and vivisect him--but would retain his consciousness for study, a mistake that would later lead to his mind infiltrating the systems of the ship and rebuilding his body. The Master (for short) would first encounter various members of Alpha Flight, the Sub-Mariner, and the Invisible Woman in a campaign that would lead to them unwittingly freeing him from his erstwhile prison. He would go on to oppose them many times after that--often using Plodex technology in his bids to conquer the world to which he'd so recently been reintroduced.
The Stranger: Though this was not revealed during the initial appearances of the character, The Stranger was the counterpoint to the Overmind--a collection of the minds of the other civilization that had perished in the same galactic war that destroyed the Overmind's people. But unlike the Overmind, the Stranger sought mostly to observe the actions of lesser beings rather than conquer them. Pursued by the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants--both of whom mistakenly assumed he was a powerful mutant--The Stranger whisked Magneto away to his planet, but did so more for the sake of study and evaluation instead of punishment. The Stranger would repeat this type of activity over the years--continuously evaluating and re-evaluating the viability and worthiness of various races including humanity, leaving the door open for him to be included in the MCU as either friend or foe.
The Space Phantom: Not to be confused with Hanna Barbera's "Space Ghost," this character is one of the first villains encountered by the assembled Avengers in the early 1960s. A shape shifter, Space Phantom also had the ability to send the person he was impersonating into a timeless limbo. In time, it was learned that whole planets could be cast into limbo and that there was an entire race of space phantoms--not a singular entity. So this would be a scaleable threat.
The Watchers: While the Watchers are among the better known alien races in the Marvel comic book universe--known specifically for their vow non-interference in the affairs of the beings they observe--not all Watchers have, in fact, chosen to abide by that directive. Uatu, Earth's Watcher, has, on multiple occasions, acted to thwart extinction-type events involving humankind; but there are other other rogue members of his race--most notably Aron--that have sought to use their massive godlike powers for their own machinations and experiments. The Fantastic Four also learned that the Watchers are mortal enemies of the Celestials and that only a fragile detente between them prevents a reality-threatening war between the groups.
Stormtroopers: Made you look. (Ha.) In this instance, I don't mean the fighting force from the Star Wars films. Instead, I'm more generically referencing all of those alien armies that would seek to enslave the human race with a combination of massive armadas and boots on the ground. Their number would include:
- The Skrulls - For those who haven't seen the Captain Marvel movie, I'm just going to bookmark this race--and their foes the Kree--to avoid spoilers. But I will say that the Secret Invasion storyline is one of the most memorable of the 2000s and that the concept of Super Skrulls--Skrulls modified to allow them to duplicate the power sets of multiple super beings such as the rosters of the Fantastic Four and X-Men--would be awesome to seen adapted on the big screen.
- The Shiar - Sometime foes and sometime allies of the X-Men, this is the race involved in the original telling of the Dark Phoenix saga. At first, they are led by the mad emperor D'Ken who seeks to unleash the power of the M'Kraan crystal--a gem containing an entire galaxy within it, and the artifact that the Phoenix force first emerges to defend. It's also worth noting that the Shiar have their own super beings--a group called the Imperial Guard that clashes with the X-Men on the surface of the moon in a battle for the life of Jean Grey, one of the most memorable fights in Marvel comics history. They'd be more than a match for virtually any assemblage of heroes in a future-phase fight.
- The Badoon - Introduced in the 1970s as a reptilian force that conquered the Earth in the original Guardian's alternate future, they would come to plague numerous super-teams in the present of the Marvel comics universe as well.
- The Z'Nox - Another X-Men foe, these aliens were repelled only after Professor X went into seclusion for many months to construct a defense based on the collective consciousness of all of the humans on Earth.
- The Brood - Yet one more foe of the X-Men, these are quite literally nasty buggers. Think xenomorphs but with different heads and somewhat more insectoid bodies. Also like xenomorphs, they leave eggs in hosts--though these simply transform one into a Brood member rather than erupt from the chest. (Not saying it's a trade up--just different.)
So did I miss any other cosmic menaces you'd have included? There are so many--and some can be so repetitive--that I intentionally kept this summary somewhat surface-level, excluding threats like the floating space maw Galaxy Master or the race of metal masters--both from the pages of The Incredible Hulk--as they felt a bit too campy to me.
Let me know if you'd have included them or others I omitted in the comments below.
Next time: Part 4 - Blasts from the Past--or Future!
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