5 Most Pointless Marvel Villains

The sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe is known for their lackluster, vague villains, who don’t really offer up much of a challenge for our heroes.

Other than Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, most of the villains only last for one film with no real consequences. Not saying MCU villains are horrible, sometimes they are just a bit more subtle in their approach to world domination and terror.

Of course Marvel has also created some of the most lethal villains in comic book history, like Kingpin (who also appears in Daredevil on Netflix) Thanos, Doctor Doom, and Red Skull.

The most pointless Marvel villains originate from the pages themselves, as writers got bored and just spit out random useless baddies.

While we hope for more threatening villains in the future of the MCU (which we will most likely see), let’s take a look at the 5 most pointless Marvel villains from the comics…

Asbestos Lady

 I’ll get you with my special bullets Human Torch!

Asbestos Lady showed up in 1947 when the common construction material was very popular.

She was a natural foe of the Human Torch because her bullets were made of asbestos, which is resistant to very high temperatures of heat. Her putrid green outfit was also made of…asbestos.

Asbestos Lady frequently caused problems for the superhero team Fantastic Four, because no one wanted to get near her. 

Ironically, she died in 1990 from cancer due to long-term exposure to asbestos, after the dangers of the substance were discovered.

Marvel really taught us an important lesson with this one. 

 

 

Gin Genie

 I’m more powerful when I’m wasted!

Gin Genie is just embarassing for Marvel, mostly because alchohol addiction is no joke.

She showed up as an X-Men villain in 2001 who could emit strong siesmic waves depending on how much gin was in her system. However, she was also a really sad drunk who cried all the time. 

She was a member of the reality TV mutant group X-Force / X-Statix. Gin Genie died on a mission in fiery helicoptor crash with the then-named X-Force while trying to rescue the boy band Boys R Us. Really? She didn’t even get a decent death! 

It would have been better if she bled to death because all of the gin in her body thinned her blood preventing clotting. At least then we could have learned another lesson in the vein of Asbestos Lady.

Maybe Marvel was going for edgy with Gin Genie, but ended up with deeply depressing instead.

 

 

 

Critical Mass

 Super fat? More like super strength!

Critical Mass was exactly as his name suggested, an extremely obese man.

Arnie Gunderson was one Peter Parker’s fourth grade classmates. At some point, he developed mutant powers and gathered together several mutants called the Band of Baddies.

His claim to villain fame was his ability to shoot an explosive force from his grimey little fingertips. Alright fine, but why did they have to make him morbidly obese and give him a punny name?

Critical Mass eventually died in a warehouse fire when he kidnapped a young mutant named Mary.

We really can’t think of a good reason for Critical Mass to have ever existed at all. 

 

Stilt Man

 I’m taller than you, so you can’t catch me!

Daredevil has had his fair share of pointless villains, but Stilt Man takes the cake.

He thought that if he attached these technologically advanced stilts to his human legs, that he would be able to rob top floors of buildings without being caught…because he was taller than everyone else.

What? Stilt Man must have forgotten about stairs, helicopters, wall climbing, and even simple actions like jumping.

Lady Stilt Man was introduced later on in the comics, as if the first guy wasn’t ridiculous enough.  Her powers were legitmate and she donned an armored suit and telescoping legs. But she was defeated by an open man hole cover. 

One stilted villain was enough. 

 

Egg Head

 Eggs and ants don’t go together!

For a while there, Hank Pym wasn’t taken seriously as Ant-Man – but it was probably because his main adversary had the head of a well-shaped egg.

Egg Head began as smart government research atomic scientist, who was later dismissed for espionage, so he decided to use his genius to take down Ant-Man and even Wasp.

He created a device to communicate with ants and tried convincing them them to betray Ant-Man by leading him into a fly paper trap. Ant-Man tricked Egg Head into thinking his evil plan had worked, but later revealed that ants would never turn against him.

Egg Head was obsessed with Ant-Man for many, many story arcs. Probably too many.

Of course this list could go on forever, but let’s stop here before we uncover anything worse.

Here’s the future of more powerful Marvel villains and the destruction they may cause!