5 Smart Marvel Villains Who Make Really Dumb Decisions

Marvel Comics has turned the concept of intelligence into a superpower, which isn’t too far from the truth. Geniuses in the Marvel Universe are often akin to gods; just look at all the stuff Tony Stark and Reed Richards can get up to if you give them a box of scrap and a transistor. They could basically build their own Internet with a walkie talkie and about 8 gigs of RAM. Intelligent Marvel villains are some of the most dangerous out there. Sure, no one wants to deal with a Carnage or a Sabretooth, but it’s the smart villains who are always the most challenging. They make the most complex plans and constantly create technology that can trump the powers and abilities of their enemies.

The most intelligent Marvel villains have shaken the universe itself, but here’s the thing – they always end up losing and often times it’s because they made a really dumb choice. While the smart heroes also make stupid decisions, intelligent villains often take it to the next level when it comes to making choices that are as smart as they are. These five Marvel villains are supergeniuses, but they make some very dumb choices to their own detriment.

5) Ultron

Ultron is the Avengers’ most dangerous enemy. The mad android hates humanity with a passion, mainly because his “father” Hank Pym tried to shut him off when he became sentient, and has spent years upgrading himself, becoming ever more deadly, durable, and intelligent. Ultron is mostly known as a near-unstoppable powerhouse, the ultimate physical danger to the Avengers. However, he’s also always been very, very smart. Well, about some things. I think the best way to illustrate how bad Ultron is at decision-making is his tendency to create partners that betray him. It started with the Vision, who for some reason Ultron gave free will to and didn’t just program him to destroy the team. He’s created brides for himself and both of them have betrayed him, with Jocasta joining the Avengers and Alkhema desiring the destruction of her creator. He knows how to create drones that will do his bidding, but for some reason, he keeps deciding to create machines with free will that grow to hate him for a variety of reasons.

4) Thanos

Thanos is Marvel’s most feared villain and it’s honestly by a wide margin. An argument can be made that people in the Marvel Universe fear the Mad Titan more than Galactus, or at least on the same level. Thanos is known for being one of the craftiest bad guys out there; he’s constantly searching the universe for secrets and sources of power. Even gods fear him and the reason is simple – he can come up with a way to defeat anyone. However, one of Thanos’s biggest problems is his own proclivity towards self-sabotage. Thanos will make stupid choices because he knows he’s not worthy of winning. My favorite example of this is Infinity Gauntlet #5. Thanos had just got done killing the heroes that attacked when the cosmic beings show up. After an epic battle, he ends up defeating all of them, including Eternity. He then decided to take Eternity’s place as the embodiment of creation, leaving his body, with the Gauntlet, empty. Nebula, who he had been tormenting the entire time, took that chance to take the Gauntlet off him. Thanos is dangerous, but give him long enough and he starts making the stupidest decisions you can imagine.

3) Loki

Loki is one of the most dangerous Asgardians in the Marvel Universe and that’s because of how intelligent they are. Taken by Asgard from the Frost Giant Laufey, Loki was never going to be the strongest Asgardian out there, so instead they focused on being the smartest. The former God of Mischief was all about enmeshing their enemies in plots that weakened them enough for them to destroy them. However, their hubris is often their undoing. As far as it goes, Loki constantly underestimating everyone else is what messes up their plans, like in “Dark Reign”. The current God of Stories teamed up with Norman Osborn because they wanted to rule Asgard, allowing the former Green Goblin to take power and keep the Void on a leash as their ultimate weapon. They engineered the entire assault on Asgard in Siege, pushing Osborn to attack the city, which led to the Void taking complete control of the Sentry and almost destroying the prize that Loki coveted. Of course, they realized how stupid that choice was and sided with the Avengers, leading to yet another of their deaths. Loki didn’t think the whole thing out and it ended up costing him everything for a time. It shows that it doesn’t matter how smart Loki is, they will always find some way to mess up their own plans.

2) Doctor Octopus

Doctor Octopus is one of Spider-Man’s first and most dangerous villains. Otto Octavious created his arms to help with his research but an accident led to them being fused to him. He’s since become one of the most dangerous criminals in New York City. Spidey is no slouch in the smarts department and Otto has been able to out-think him numerous times, creating plans and technology that baffle the Wall-Crawler. It’s actually harder than you think to find dumb decisions from Otto, other than the basic ones. However, there’s one thing that he did that is dumber than it seems – founding the Sinister Six. The Sinister Six is an example of a team that seems powerful and dangerous, yet their own squabbles always destroy them. Otto thought that the best way to fight Spider-Man was to overwhelm him with power, forgetting that each of them on their own is quite duplicitous and don’t exactly relish teamwork. The team constantly betrays each other, allowing Spidey to use that against them in battle. So many of their fights have devolved into the six of them turning on each other and that was honestly super duper predictable, showing how dumb a choice this was.

1) Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is Marvel’s greatest villain. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them. Intelligence is basically Doom’s whole thing. He’s one of the smartest people on the planet – the smartest if you ask him. He’s created insanely complex technology over the years, all while mastering magic and ruling his kingdom, dealing with his subjects and his neighbors. However, Doom also makes the most terrible decisions imaginable, often fueled by his hubris. So, far example, instead of believing Reed that his math was flawed, Doom assumed that Richards was wrong, which led to the machine he created to save his mother’s soul exploding in his face. He left college and trained with monks, having them forge his armor. He had them place the still hot faceplate on him, burning himself further. Usually, if you inject Reed Richards into any situation, Doom suddenly gets really, really dumb. Look at One World Under Doom; Reed was able to sucker Victor into a debate, which gave the heroes time to learn his terrible secret and then used the debate as a platform to disseminate the information. Doom is a genius, but he’s actually pretty bad at decisions.

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