Marvel Comics in the ’60s was something fresh and new in many ways, including the art. Jack Kirby’s energetic pencils took the de facto method of drawing superhero musculature – characters were big, but they weren’t what you would call cut – and tweaked it, like he did everything else. There was a sense of muscle to characters like the Hulk, the Thing, and Thor that you didn’t get back then, even from someone like Superman (although, for my money, Wayne Boring and Curt Swan’s renditions of the Man of Steel are some of the most powerful looking superhero looks ever) and artists like John and Sal Buscema, Don Heck, John Romita Sr., and the others took Kirby’s cues and expanded on them, with Marvel characters getting bigger and bigger.
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While Marvel has always had some swole heroes, many of their villains also didn’t miss a day at the gym. While some villains are more about brains or tech than brawn, some of them go in for being the biggest, strongest, most intimidating baddies out there. They are mountains of evil muscle, using their supreme physical strength to batter anything in front of them. These are Marvel’s five most swole villains, each one bigger than the last.
5) Absorbing Man
Thor faced off against powerful villains in the beginning, with Loki being the top of a villainous pyramid of power. Numerous bad guys tried to beat the God of Thunder at his own game but kept failing, so the God of Mischief decided that they needed someone who could take all Thor could throw at someone and throw it right back. This led to their creation of the Absorbing Man. Crusher Creel was a big, strong criminal that Loki gave the ability to absorb anything, as well as super strength, invulnerability, and a magical ball and chain. Right from the beginning, Creel was massive and he’s only gotten bigger over the years. His entire character was based around the fact that he was a bruiser and artists have drawn him bigger and bigger (which is honestly pretty normal for modern comics; everyone is bigger than they were). He fights Hulk and Thor still to this day – his latest fight was against Wolverine of all people – his massive size letting everyone know that this fight is going to hurt.
4) Abomination
I’m going to level with you here – from here on out, we’re going to be getting a lot of gamma. This makes sense, obviously; gamma radiation, the power of the One Below All, has made some of the most physically powerful beings in the Marvel Universe and one of the biggest has always been the Abomination. Emil Blonsky was a communist spy (they were everywhere in the Silver Age Marvel Universe; you couldn’t spit without hitting a Soviet spy of some kind, something that has definitely aged those older stories), out to get his hands on the plans for the gamma bomb. After Bruce Banner became the Hulk, Blonsky exposed himself to gamma radiation and became something monstrous. While he doesn’t get stronger as he gets angrier, he’s still massively strong (it used to be said that he was twice as strong as base Hulk, so the Jade Giant always had to get angry to beat him) and he looks it. He’s always been one of the most muscular villains in the Marvel Universe and probably would have been the most muscular if it wasn’t three later Hulk villains.
3) Red Hulk
Numerous Hulk villains have gotten upgrades over the years, with General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross finally getting the power he always wanted, allowing him to take the fight to the Hulk in a way he never had before. Over the years, Ross has done his level best to destroy the gamma-powered tital, even piloting various war machines (no relation to James Rhodes) into battle against the Green Goliath. He was constantly beaten, but all of that changed when he allowed the Intelligencia to remake him. Gamma power could fight gamma power and Ross was transformed into the Red Hulk. Suddenly, he was the massive musclebound monster. Ross didn’t gain the power to get stronger as he got angrier – instead he gained strength through absorbing energy – but one thing that didn’t change was his size. Red Hulk is massive. He’s about the same size as the Hulk, which automatically puts him above just about anyone out there. Some artists have actually drawn him bigger, but his average size easily puts him in the number three spot.
2) Infernal Hulk
Infernal Hulk has been fantastic, giving readers a new look at the monstrousness that is the Hulk. In the previous volume of The Incredible Hulk, Marvel’s favorite rage monster had been battling Eldest, an ancient horror who wanted to awaken the Mother of Monsters. However, this ended up being a ploy, as Eldest was able to separate Bruce Banner and the Hulk, taking over the leftover body and rising as a new kind of monster. This new Hulk has all of the powers of the old, as well as the added powers of Eldest, allowing him to control and create monsters. The Jade Giant has always been one of the largest beings on Earth (technically, someone with Pym Particles or other size-changing powers could be bigger, but that doesn’t really count) and this new infernal version is no different. He’s huge; there are times when it seems like he’s bigger than when Banner was in control of the body. He has used this power to become one of the most dangerous beings on Earth, with the heroes scrambling to try to stop him.
1) Maestro
The number one for this list was actually hard to decide on, since both Infernal Hulk and Maestro should be the same size. They are technically in the same body, so they should match completely. However, I think the Maestro is bigger and more swole than his infernal counterpart. The Maestro came from a future devastated by nuclear war, absorbing the ambient radiation and becoming more powerful than ever. He eventually took over the world, believing that his way was the only way to ensure that the world would continue living and has been showing up from the future ever since. So, the Hulk can grow in size when he absorbs more energy – one of the best examples of this is Onslaught: Marvel Universe #1, when he absorbs a bunch of energy and his fist grows in size – and it stands to reason that since the energy absorption in this case would be permanent or at least self-sustaining into he absorbed it all, he would grow in size. He always looked bigger than the younger version of himself, and that’s why he earns the number one spot here.
Who’s your favorite over-muscled Marvel villain? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
