Marvel Studios introduced many powerful and terrifying supervillains to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2025. While every Marvel project released in 2025 focused primarily on the impressive heroes of the MCU, they each went up against some of the franchise’s most formidable antagonists yet. Marvel Studios released eight projects in 2025, including three feature films and five TV shows on Disney+, each showcasing remarkable villains—some of which we never expected to see depicted in the MCU.
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Ever since the dawn of the MCU, Marvel Studios has brought some of Marvel Comics’ most notable and powerful villains into live-action. This includes the likes of Thanos, Killmonger, Ego, Ultron, Loki, the Vulture, and many more, but 2025 has been a seminal year for supervillains in the MCU. Villains teased for many years finally made their MCU debuts, others sought redemption from previous disappointing live-action adaptations, and some made their first appearances in unexpected places and out of the blue. These villains may continue to pose a threat in the MCU for years to come.
5) The Leader
Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) first appeared as an ally to Bruce Banner (Edward Norton, later Mark Ruffalo) in The Incredible Hulk in 2008. At the end of the Phase 1 movie, his open head wound was exposed to Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood, beginning a transformation—the product of which we finally saw in Captain America: Brave New World. While Sterns was already in the MCU, 2025 debuted the Leader. Banner’s blood enhanced Sterns’ intelligence and probability prediction abilities, allowing him to manipulate events to get Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) in the White House before transforming him into the Red Hulk.
4) The Horde
This was not on our bingo card. The Eyes of Wakanda miniseries was the first animated project to be set in the MCU’s main continuity of Earth 616, establishing the Horde as possible villains in the future. The Horde are an insectoid race of aliens who invade Earth and wage war against the last Black Panther (Anika Noni Rose) in Eyes of Wakanda’s finale, “The Last Panther.” The Black Panther traveled back to fix history and avoid the Horde’s attack. In the comics, the Horde are extremely powerful, as they are capable of killing Celestials.
3) Galactus
Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps reboot not only reinvented the Fantastic Four themselves in their new retro-futuristic 1960s setting, but also reimagined one of their most iconic adversaries. After Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer ruined Galactus in 2007, we finally got a comic-accurate live-action version of the Devourer in First Steps. Ralph Ineson did an incredible job of bringing this villain to life, equipped with the Power Cosmic, his right-hand-woman, Shalla-Bal’s Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), and his planet-consuming ship and armor. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for Galactus in the MCU.
2) Mephisto
The demonic ruler of Hell had been the subject of intense speculation and ever-growing fan theories for years to come, but it was Ironheart in 2025 that finally brought Mephisto into the MCU. Mephisto (Sacha Baron Cohen) was the man behind the curtain of Parker Robbins’ (Anthony Ramos) villainy, and ultimately struck a deal with Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), setting him up as a major threat in the MCU’s future. Mephisto has a command over magic and mysticism that is unmatched, but Ironheart barely scratched the surface of what makes him so terrifying, so we’re excited to see him again.
1) The Void
Thunderbolts* not only debuted one of the MCU’s most powerful new superheroes in the form of Robert Reynolds’ Sentry—a super-soldier with the power of a thousand exploding suns—but also introduced his dark alter ego, the Void. The Void, a manifestation of Reynolds’ depression and trauma, had the power to spread his shadow over the world, and anyone who it is cast over would be thrust into a nightmarish hellscape of the traumatic events in their own histories. The Void is pure nightmare fuel, and an unbelievably powerful villain only quieted in Thunderbolts*, rather than actually being defeated. This opens the door for the Void to wreak havoc again in the MCU’s future, and with Lewis Pullman returning as Reynolds in Avengers: Doomsday, this might happen sooner than we think.
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