Marvel Comics has been giving readers some of the coolest villains in the history of the superhero medium. These bad guys more than have their work cut out for them. Marvel heroes might not be as powerful as those of their distinguished competition, but they have it where it counts. They’re skilled, intelligent protagonists and the only villains who can really challenge them have to not only have overwhelming power and skill, but also a lot of luck. In fact, luck has always played a huge role in the victories of many villains. Imagine how much easier it is to fight Spider-Man after he just ate a big meal or for Captain America to have a cold (if he can get colds; if he can’t just sub that out with something he can get) or for Tony Stark to have just lost his business. Skill is great, but sometimes luck is just as important.
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Looking at the history of Marvel’s villains, there are some bad guys who are way less lucky than others. They have the power and the skill, so they still get very far, but they are constantly plagued with all kinds of bad luck. They just can’t catch a break, no matter how hard they try, serendipity avoiding them completely. These five Marvel villains are their unluckiest, the events of their lives proving how luckless they are.
5) Morlun
Morlun was introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #30, acting as one of the main villains of the early stages of writer J. Michael Straczynski’s run on the hero. He’s an Inheritor, an energy vampire that hunts down those empowered by the spider totem, which led him after Peter Parker. While he might not seem like all that unlucky of a villain, there’s a perfect example of exactly how unlucky he could be. “The Other” was his second major story, with the vampire going as hard as he could against the Wall-Crawler. In fact, he was able to injure Spider-Man to a such an extent he ended up dying from his wounds before he entered a chrysalis stage that no one had ever seen before. Morlun didn’t kill Spidey and make it easier to steal the spider energy from the hero; instead he allowed the hero to become more powerful than ever. Since then, Morlun hasn’t been able to beat Peter, with numerous other Inheritors appearing in the various Spider-Verse books to help him out.
4) Kraven the Hunter
Kraven the Hunter is one of Spider-Man’s first villains and starred in what many consider the best Spider-Man story: “Kraven’s Last Hunt”. He was created back in the Silver Age, with Sergei Kravenoff a big game hunter who wanted to challenge his skills against the most dangerous animals. Spider-Man impressed him and he wanted to test himself against the Wall-Crawler. He spent years trying to defeat the hero, whether it be on his own or as a member of the Sinister Six. However, he got handed loss after loss over the years, unable to ever get the victory that he needed. This led to “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, a story that saw him finally get a victory over his hated foe. While that might not seem unlucky, think about it like this: if he had been able to beat Spidey at some point in the past, he wouldn’t have been pushed to suicide. If he would have been luckier, he might not have felt the suicidal despair that ended him.
3) Destiny
Destiny is the wife of Mystique and is one of the most important mutants that a lot of X-Men fans haven’t ever heard of. Irene Adler is a precognitive mutant who ended up meeting Mystique. The two of them fell in love and spent over a century together, working behind the scenes to create the kind of world they wanted. Precognitive powers might seem like lucky abilities to have, but it’s been exactly the opposite for Destiny and the best way to illustrate that is her death. She eventually started having visions of Krakoa years before the mutant country became a reality. She saw what it would mean to her people but she also saw that the only way for it to come about was if she died. Knowing this, she walked into her death on Muir Island. She knew that she would lose everything she loved, but she also knew that it would make the world a better place, even if for only a short time. Her powers made her life full of moments like this; knowing what’s going to happen means being resigned to fate and there’s nothing less lucky than having any agency.
2) Mister Sinister
Mister Sinister is Marvel’s most evil geneticist (which is saying something in a universe where the High Evolutionary exists) but that doesn’t mean that he’s lucky. Over the years, he’s worked out of the shadows, but his plans have always backfired. Look at his plan with Madelyne Pryor; the Jean Grey clone was meant to get him a child with Grey and Cyclops’s DNA to experiment on, but she fought against him, then went mad and became a demon queen. That’s a pretty heavy run of bad luck, but it would get worse. “Sins of Sinister” should have been his great triumph, all of his plans for Krakoa finally coming true. However, there was a problem with making everyone like him – suddenly everyone was as evil as him. He was no longer the mastermind and there was only one of him. He ended up having to figure out a way to fix his own mess. While these are only two examples of Sinister being unlucky, if you keep looking into his history, you’ll see more moments where his lack of luck has cost him.
1) Thanos
Thanos is Marvel’s most well-known villain, thanks to the MCU, so in that way he is pretty lucky. However, anyone with a knowledge of his history knows just how much luck has passed him by. It all began with his birth. He was unfortunately born with the Deviant gene; instead of looking like the other Eternals, he looked like one of their sworn enemies. This led to him being ostracized by everyone, with even his mother hating him. He was born under a bad sign and it only got worse from there. He eventually fell in love with Mistress Death, the ultimate expression of his nihilism, and his unluckiness would strike again because she never loved him at all. Eventually, she would even choose Deadpool over Thanos. The Mad Titan doesn’t get lucky, like some other villains; he works hard for her successes. However, if he had to depend on his own luck, he’d be completely screwed.
What Marvel villain do you think is the unluckiest? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
