Below, I break down a variety of scenarios drawn from the comics that involve either heroes or their allies becoming corrupted into fiends with the power to conquer or destroy the MCU.
- #54 Marvel Zombies
- #55 The Presence
- #56 The Magus and his doppelgangers
- #57 Deacon Frost and his vampire plague
- #58 Sentry/Void
- #59 The Maestro / Red Hulk / Mindless Hulk / Devil Hulk
- #60 Dragon of the Moon
- #61 Onslaught
- #62 Franklin Richards
- #63 Jamie Braddock
- #64 The Marquis of Death
- #65 The Squadron Supreme
- #66 The Corrupter
- #67 Psycho Man, The Hate Monger and the Microverse
Marvel Zombies: Continuing a story introduced in the pages of Ultimate Fantastic Four and written by Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead, this very popular mini-series may well qualify as a modern classic. Unlike many zombie stories, this one largely focuses on the zombies themselves--because the infected retain much of their intellect in spite of their overwhelming hunger for human flesh. This leads to poignant scenes of heroes grappling with the revulsion and guilt associated with their depredations, many of which involve them savaging those closest to them. So while many argue that the zombie genre is well past its peak, this feels like a legitimately fresh take. That said, it's hard to imagine the concept fitting into a PG-13 movie plot.
The Presence: An alternative to the above horror-heavy tale, I'd offer one of my favorite stories from Kurt Busiek's run on Avengers in the early 2000s. In this scenario, the Avengers are asked to investigate the disappearance of Russia's super-team The Winter Guard during a mission in Siberia. This investigation reveals that the team has been turned into translucent radioactive zombies connected to a hive mind controlled by the former Soviet physicist The Presence. (They look a bit like the ghost army from under the mountain in Peter Jackson's LOTR finale "The Return of The King.") Close contact with these zombies--unavoidable in combat--leads members of the Avengers team to gradually become irradiated until eventually only Thor remains uninfected. Though the heroes ultimately (and obviously) prevail, this is a dire threat that the cross-time conqueror Kang explains as having wiped out humanity on other less-fortunate earths. And it would offer a gore-reduced yet visually stunning take on the genre.
The Magus: While it's probably getting a bit ahead of the game to talk about an alternate version of a hero that Marvel has yet to feature in its movies, The Magus--an evil doppelganger of Adam Warlock--factors prominently in the comic book sequel to The Infinity Gauntlet. Even though the Magus had been introduced more than a decade earlier in Warlock's own comic, he had been believed eradicated along with the potential future timeline that had spawned him. But finding his way back to the land of the living as a byproduct of the events in Infinity Gauntlet, The Magus sets out to claim the gauntlet and confronts the assembled heroes of the Marvel comics universe with nightmarish doppelgangers of their own. At one point, an expeditionary force of many of the franchise's most powerful characters finds itself in battle with a literally infinite army of doppelgangers that absorbs the fallen and recycles and replenishes its numbers. I'd love to see this depicted on the big screen--as it's clearly cinematic in scope.
Deacon Frost: We've talked about zombies, but you can't forget their undead brethren the vampires. While the OG vampire Count Dracula has been a major player in Marvel comics dating back to the days of his own book, Tomb of Dracula--and in spite of his repeated skirmishes with Doctor Strange and Blade--I'm guessing that the MCU would favor its own unique creation over one borrowed from public domain. I'm supposing then that Deacon Frost--Blade's arch-enemy--would be the natural stand-in. The recurring Captain America villain Baron Blood would be another possibility.
The Sentry and The Void: This character's story took a while to pay off, but there's no denying that the results were pretty spectacular. Robert Reynolds is portrayed as a hero from the early days of Marvel continuity--but one who has been wiped from the memories of both his peers and the general public alike. It's eventually revealed that this massively powerful being--who touts himself as having the power of "a billion exploding suns"--was complicit in wiping everyone's memories to save the world from his arch-enemy The Void, with whom he has some mysterious connection. Coming out of his self-imposed retirement, Reynolds demonstrates a shockingly wide range of abilities--near limitless physical strength, flight, near-invulnerability, apparent serial immortality, etc.--as well as an equally shocking amount of mental instability. The core mystery behind the character's origins and his ties to The Void would make for a slow burn that could culminate in his betrayal of his teammates--much as Reynolds would end up fighting all combatants in the climax of Marvel's Siege crossover in the comics.
Various incarnations of The Hulk: There is no shortage of stories from Marvel's back catalog focusing on the power of The Hulk.
- The Maestro - An alternate future version of the character who has wiped out all of his former teammates.
- The Red Hulk - A mysterious counterpart to Bruce Banner's alter ego, this ruthless assailant operated much like Scourge from the pages of Captain America in the mid-80s--full of malice and cunning and fueled by inscrutable motives; he'd later prove to be a pawn of the group called The Intelligensia--a cabal including Modok, The Leader, Doctor Doom, The Wizard, and the Red Ghost
- The Mindless Hulk - My favorite bet for a phase-ending threat, this is the mindless engine of destruction that resulted from Bruce Banner being separated from the Hulk persona; this version of the character was literally an avatar of unfocused rage capable of leveling entire cities and tossing the Avengers' most powerful characters like rag dolls
- The Devil Hulk - I'm less familiar with this one, but I believe the idea is that this is the ultimate version of the character--the full destructive potential combined with an independent evil intellect, a force of nature unchained
The Dragon of The Moon: Another combination of an enemy from within and an enemy from without, the Dragon is an ancient being that seeks to enter the world through its pawn--the aptly named would-be hero Moondragon. A human raised by monks on Thanos's home world of Titan, she is a mentalist and martial artist whose haughty demeanor and arrogance leave her vulnerable to the at-first-subtle influence of the dragon. In time, this influence spreads until it takes her over completely and puts her in mortal combat with her teammates among the New Defenders--resulting in the deaths of half the team, herself included.
Onslaught: While this isn't necessarily a popular story, it was nevertheless a landmark event and one that could be commemorated in the MCU--though presumably not until well after mutant-kind has been incorporated into the movie continuity. A gestalt of the consciousnesses of Magneto and Professor Xavier, the Onslaught entity--once revealed--opposed both the X-Men and Marvel's human heroes while exhibiting massive, reality-warping psionic and energy powers. The story saw Earth's human heroes shunted to a pocket dimension where they relived updated versions of their origins before finally finding their way back to Earth-616.
Franklin Richards: Another option that would have to wait on the introduction of characters whose movie rights were--until recently--retained by Fox, you could cover any of the numerous stories involving Franklin Richards, son of Reed and Sue Richards, whose reality-altering powers will one day rival those of Galactus. Over the years, Franklin has been treated as a macguffin by various villains who seek to tap his enormous potential (Doctor Doom, Onslaught, others); and he has served as a threat in his own right, as universe-bending power in the hands of a child can obviously present a precarious situation.
Jamie Braddock: The mutant brother of Brian Braddock (Captain Britain) and Elizabeth Braddock (Psylocke), Jamie poses a threat similar to that of Franklin Richards--though much smaller in scope, as he can only twist reality in his immediate vicinity. But I could picture Marvel up-scaling his abilities if they wanted him to serve as a stand-in for Franklin. His mental instability--which fluctuates between whimsical and terrifying--might also make him a more interesting foe. (When I read through his dialogue bubbles, it brings to mind--for me, at least--a drunken Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of The Caribbean.)
The Marquis of Death: While discussing characters with massive reality-shaping powers, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Clyde Wyncham. Wyncham first appears in the mini-series "1985" where he is shown to be the only mutant on Earth-1218--an institutionalized, brain-damaged individual who unintentionally begins to draw beings from other more fantastical realities to his "real world" Earth where superheros and super-villains only exist in comic books. An alternate future version of this character--one who has unlocked his full potential and has full use of his cognitive abilities--becomes the self-styled Marquis of Death, an ally to Doctor Doom and destroyer of countless Marvel realities until confronted by both the Fantastic Four and the Clyde from the "1985" storyline. The Marquis is one of very few villains whose powers dwarf Thanos's abilities--as they also dwarf those of pretty much everyone else on this list including Franklin Richards.
The Squadron Supreme: Mentioned elsewhere in this blog--in one of the earliest installments, in fact--the Squadron was originally something of a parody of DC's Justice League. They've since taken on a life of their own however--first in Mark Gruenwald's thought-provoking 12-issue Squadron Supreme mini-series and then in various ongoing series in the 2000s. Reflecting the fact that DC heroes are somewhat over-powered compared to their Marvel counterparts, the Squadron members are all potential world-beaters--Hyperion (i.e., Superman) specifically. So any story that would involve the Squadron visiting the MCU and meting out their often-brutal brand of justice would set the stage for a cataclysmic showdown.
The Corrupter: The Corrupter is a fairly small-time villain with the ability to influence the minds of others. To the extent that he has been responsible for some major throw-downs--between the Squadron Supreme and the Avengers, for example--he could be the catalyst for a phase-ending battle even though he's not capable of posing that level of menace on his own.
Psycho Man and the Hate Monger: Psycho Man and the Hate Monger, on the other hand, do have the potential to wreak havoc on a global scale by manipulating emotions in a way that could drive whole civilizations to tear themselves apart. A tyrant from one of the many microverses within what the MCU now calls "The Quantum Realm," Psycho Man enjoys corrupting characters by bringing their baser emotions to the surface--as he most famously did in turning Sue Richards, the Invisible Woman, into the being known as Malice. (Yes--I know--there's a more complicated back story there with a disembodied entity that moves on to inhabit other characters, but we'll stick with the simplest version here.) Teamed with any incarnation of the Hate Monger, they'd make a terrible twosome easily capable of raising armies to challenge the heroes of the Marvel cinematic universe.
So are you ready for next week's dramatic conclusion? How many of the stories I've touched upon seem like plots you'd want to see in the MCU? Would any of them rival your interest in Infinity War and Endgame? Let me know down in the comments section below.
Next time: Part 6 - The Return of The One-Hit Wonders!
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