The Avengers‘ most iconic villains of the 1990s were not all big names, but they remain interesting additions to the team’s history. The 1990s were a rough time for Marvel Comics, as storylines began to falter, the company faced bankruptcy, and it seemed the comic book line was headed for a crash. However, the company pulled out of it by the end of the decade, and while many comics were promoted for special covers and gimmicks, there were still some solid storylines that came out during that decade. This includes the Avengers, who went through several years with a less-than-stellar lineup, only to finish the decade with one of their strongest runs.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The 1990s also included a few very familiar faces when it comes to the Avengers’ most important villains of the decade. However, there are a couple of names readers today might be unfamiliar with, despite their importance in that past decade.
10) Lord Templar
Lord Templar debuted in Avengers Vol. 3 #13 (1999) during Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s “Heroes Return” run. This was an important period in Marvel Comics because it completely eliminated the post-Onslaught reboot. It brought the heroes back to the mainline, returning them to the form that readers had fallen in love with for the past three decades. However, they needed a new villain, and this was Lord Templar, a brute pagan that the manipulative Jonathan Tremont unleashed to test the newly returned Avengers. While Tremont was the main antagonist, Templar was the more powerful enemy of the Avengers, and one that would remain a threat into the 2000s.
9) Magus
The Magus is the evil future self of Adam Warlock, originally created in the 1970s by Jim Starlin. However, he became one of the Avengers’ most dangerous enemies when he returned in “The Infinity War” in 1992. After the Avengers helped stop Thanos in “The Infinity Gauntlet,” Adam Warlock took the gauntlet itself and then ended up split from Magus, who chose to seize the ultimate power. Magus then created evil doppelgangers of Earth’s heroes, including the Avengers. Magus threatened all of reality, making the Avengers only one of the players in this crossover event. He ranks lower than others, though, because he wasn’t an Avengers-only villain, and they were only part of the battle against him.
8) Proctor
Proctor was the main villain in “The Gatherers Saga,” which ran through Avengers Vol. 1 #343-375 (1992-1994) by Bob Harras, Steve Epting, and Tom Palmer. Proctor was revealed to be an alternate-universe counterpart of Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, and he led the Gatherers (Swordsman, Magdalene, Sloth, Cassandra), survivors of alternate Earths whose Sersi went mad. His goal was to destroy the Sersi and Avengers of Earth-616 while attempting to kill every version from every Earth in the multiverse. He even had a captured Watcher helping him. Proctor was one of the most dominant villains in the early to mid-1990s, a threat built around one of the team’s core members of the decade.
7) Thanos
Thanos was the first major Avengers villain of the 1990s, but he was also a threat to the entire universe, and not just the Avengers. Thanos was created in 1973 by Jim Starlin, and his landmark 1990s appearance came in “The Infinity Gauntlet” (1991) by Starlin, George Perez, and Ron Lim. This was where Thanos gained the Infinity Gauntlet and then snapped away half of all lives in the universe, including many of Earth’s heroes. He also returned in the “Infinity War” (1992) and “Infinity Crusade” (1993) follow-ups, which also pulled in the Avengers. In this case, Thanos was a universal threat, and the Avengers were one of many teams in the coalition to try to stop him.
6) Immortus
Immortus is the older, time-mastering future-self of Kang, someone who gave the Avengers problems all the way back to the 1960s. His importance in the 1990s came thanks to the 12-issue miniseries Avengers Forever (1998-1999) by Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, and Carlos Pacheco. Serving a trio of cosmic entities called the Time-Keepers, Immortus sent his agent Tempus to kill the ailing Rick Jones to suppress humanity’s growth into a cosmic threat. He wielded the reality-controlling Forever Crystal and sought to keep mankind limited, positioning him as the true puppet-master behind decades of Avengers time-meddling. This was one of the best Avengers stories of the 1990s, and with Immortus as the main antagonist, it proves his importance. However, when Kang turned on him, it changed things down the line.
5) Morgan le Fay
Morgan le Fay was the first major villain that the Avengers defeated in the relaunched Avengers Vol. 3 #1-3 (1998). The “Morgan Conquest” arc opened Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s “Heroes Return” run that brought the Avengers back to the main timeline. In this storyline, Morgan le Fay, the ancient Arthurian sorceress and half-sister of King Arthur, kidnapped Scarlet Witch and used her chaos/reality warping power to fuse her own elven magic with the Asgardian Twilight Sword. This created Earth-398, and the Avengers became her armored knights. As a reality warping villain, she helped bring the team back to the present time and set the stage for the next few years, with a very much overpowered Scarlet Witch.
4) Iron Man
Iron Man was a founding member of the Avengers and has always been one of their best members. However, the Avengers storyline, “The Crossing,” changed everything. This was a storyline that crossed over about 25 comic book issues from 1995 to 1996, with the core Avengers comics being issues #390-396. This story revealed that Iron Man was a double agent all along and had always been working as a brainwashed servant of Immortus, in the guise of Kang. Iron Man then killed the time-displaced Yellowjacket and the Inhuman nanny Marilla to protect his secret. The Avengers ended up bringing a teenage Tony Stark from an alternate timeline in to stop his older self, and the older Tony ended up sacrificing himself to save the Avengers. Having a founding Avengers member prove to have been a villain all along made this one of the most polarizing Avengers stories in history.
3) Ultron
Ultron has been a consistent Avengers villain since his debut in Avengers Vol. 1 #55 (1968) by Roy Thomas and John Buscema. Every time the Avengers beat Ultron, he would rebuild himself in a new form. His defining 1990s story is “Ultron Unlimited,” from Avengers Vol. 3 #19-22 (1999) by Kurt Busiek and George Perez. This is widely considered one of the best Ultron storylines of all time, and in it, Ultron exterminated the entire nation of Slorenia, sending robot legions that killed everyone in the country within hours. This is where the Marvel Cinematic Universe got its idea for Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The 1990s saw Ultron at his most monstrous, and it further established Hank Pym’s connection to the robot menace he created.
2) Onslaught
Onslaught is another Marvel Comics threat that was not just an Avengers enemy, but something so much bigger. After Charles Xavier shut down Magneto’s mind, their combined trauma and anger created a separate being known as Onslaught, who had the powers of both mutants on a massive level. In the line-wide “Onslaught Saga,” this creature ended up killing the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and even part of the Hulk, before he was finally defeated. This is a rare Avengers story where the team not only loses, but they actually die in the end. Of course, Franklin Richards saved them and sent them to a pocket universe for a year, but seeing the Avengers lose made Onslaught one of the most important villains they ever faced in the 1990s.
1) Kang
Kang remains the most important villain for the Avengers in the 1990s. For one thing, before it was retconned, it was Kang who the comics showed had influenced Iron Man in “The Crossing,” so even though that was changed later to be Immortus, Kang was still the more important name when the event took place. That wasn’t all that defined Kang in the 1990s. In “Citizen Kang” (1992), the Avengers had to battle against his city, Chronopolis, and the Anachronauts. He commanded the Council of Cross-Time Kangs, continuing through “The Terminatrix Objective” (1993), and his relationship with Ravonna was developed across the decade. He returned in Avengers Forever (1998-99), where a young Kang teamed with the Avengers to fight Immortus. The best Kang story, “Kang Dynasty,” came in the 2000s, but he was a threat throughout the entire 1990s, leading up to that point.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
