All 11 Major Supervillains Who Have Children in the MCU, Ranked By Power

These are the powerful supervillains who have children in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we certainly wouldn’t want them as our parents. Marvel Studios has explored many poignant themes in the MCU over the last 17 years, but the concept of family has been one of the most prominent. This has been at the heart of the actions of many of the MCU’s most formidable and terrifying villains, with many going to extreme lengths to protect their family—more often than not, their children.

There are eleven major supervillains in the MCU who have children, but many of these kids—some of whom have grown into adults and even heroes or villains in their own right—would surely wish they had different parents. Some of these antagonists date back to the very beginning of the MCU with Iron Man in 2008, while others have been introduced as late as Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man in 2025. Some of these villains are far more powerful than others, and are even the most powerful characters in the MCU, but this doesn’t make them any better as parents.

11) Eleanor Bishop (Kate Bishop)

First seen in Hawkeye in 2021, Eleanor Bishop (Vera Farmiga) is the mother of Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). Eleanor took over her husband’s deal with Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) after his death, getting her involved in the criminal underworld of New York City. Eleanor Bishop’s debut offers a fresh take on the villainous parent to a heroic child dynamic, as this is the only mother-daughter relationship featured on this list. Bishop is a sympathetic villain, given her inability to break the deal with Kingpin, as much as she may want to, and she has no power beyond her immense wealth.

10) Najma (Kamran)

Ms. Marvel had its problems, and one of the biggest was the ClanDestine, led by Najma (Nimra Bucha). As Djinn, Najma and her family have innate powers from their connection to the Noor Dimension, but the ClanDestine were killed off before these powers were clearly defined. Najma ultimately sacrificed herself to close a rift to the Noor Dimension, and gifted her powers—similar to those of Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) herself—to her son, Kamran (Rish Shah). Kamran is more violent and aggressive with the hard-light powers, but ends up seeking refuge and sanctuary with the Red Daggers in Pakistan.

9) Obadiah Stane’s Iron Monger (Ezekiel Stane)

Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) was the MCU’s original villain in Iron Man, as he stole Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) designs and forged himself his own huge Iron Monger armor. Driven by envy and greed, Stane ordered the original hit on Stark, and then conspired several times to bring the Stark Industries CEO down, souring his legacy as an icon of the weapons industry. This trickled down to Stane’s son, Ezekiel Stane (Alden Ehrenreich), who became both an ally and enemy to Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) in Ironheart.

8) Adrian Toomes’ Vulture (Liz)

Spider-Man: Homecoming included one of the MCU’s most dramatic and shocking twists when the villainous Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton), the Vulture, was revealed to be the father of Liz (Laura Harrier). Liz was Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) love interest in Homecoming, so connecting them was a horrible twist, but led to the strongest and most memorable scenes in Homecoming. Toomes used alien technology to commit theft and espionage, all in the name of providing for his family, so this is the rare example of a supervillain in the MCU actually being a good parent—albeit with questionable methods.

7) General Dreykov (Antonia Dreykov)

One of the MCU’s least memorable villains is also one of the most influential, as General Dreykov (Ray Winstone) had command over all the Black Widow assassins coming out of the Red Room. This included his own daughter, Antonia Dreykov (Olga Kurylenko), who acquired the ability to perfectly mimic others’ actions after Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) almost killed her by using her as bait during her defection to SHIELD. Dreykov’s control over the Black Widows was severed in Black Widow, allowing Antonia Dreykov’s Taskmaster to return as an independent agent in Thunderbolts*, but she was swiftly killed.

6) Thaddeus Ross’ Red Hulk (Betty Ross)

The MCU’s second movie, The Incredible Hulk in 2008, established this father-daughter relationship as an important one, but it wasn’t mentioned again until 2025. Thaddeus Ross (originally the late William Hurt, and later Harrison Ford) debuted as a formidable army general hunting Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) in The Incredible Hulk, and spent the subsequent years butting heads with the Avengers. Because of his hatred of heroes, his relationship with Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) was always strained, but after he transformed into the Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World, she returned, perhaps expecting him to have more understanding.

5) Norman Osborn (Harry Osborn)

While not technically in the main continuity of the MCU’s Earth 616, the animated Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series introduced one of Marvel’s most iconic and notable father-son bonds—that between Norman Osborn (Colman Domingo) and Harry Osborn (Zeno Robinson). Norman Osborn is the intimidating and powerful CEO of Oscorp, yet to become the Green Goblin, who takes Peter Parker (Hudson Thames) under his wing. Harry becomes Spider-Man’s ally, but there is some tension as his father seems to favor time with the wall-crawler than with him. This dynamic will be explored more in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 2.

4) Xu Wenwu (Xu Shang-Chi & Xu Xialing)

The Ten Rings and the Mandarin has been knocking around the MCU since the very beginning, but it was Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in 2021 that finally debuted the supervillain. Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung) was gifted longevity and other powers by his mystical bangles, the ten rings, but they also corrupted him to become an authoritarian father to Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), forging them into incredible fighters. Wenwu was a good father during the time he didn’t wear the bangles, but he took them up again when Ying Yi (Fala Chen) is killed.

3) Agatha Harkness (Nicholas Scratch)

The mother-son relationship between infamous witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) and her son, Nicholas Scratch (Abel Lysenko), in Agatha All Along is one of the MCU’s most tragic stories. Death (Aubrey Plaza) originally wanted to take Scratch during childbirth, but Agatha begged her for more time. This was only a matter of years, however, until Scratch became ill and Death took him in the night, starting the age-old rivalry between Agatha Harkness and Death. Agatha took the song they’d written together and turned it into “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road,” which she used to lure countless other witches into her trap over the years, and she even refused to move on as she didn’t want to face her son in the afterlife, so remained the ghostly guide to Billy Maximoff’s Wiccan (Joe Locke).

2) Ego (Peter Quill)

While Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) knew his mother was human, his father’s heritage remained a mystery until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. In 2017, it was revealed that Star-Lord’s father was actually the Celestial Ego (Kurt Russell), who took on a human form in order to travel the universe and enact his Expansion plans, but ultimately fell in love with Meredith Quill (Laura Haddock). As a Celestial, Ego is one of the most powerful characters in the MCU’s history, and some of this power was inherited by Peter Quill, but he lost the power when he and the Guardians of the Galaxy killed Ego, thwarting his Expansion and setting up Star-Lord for years of much-needed therapy on Earth.

1) Thanos (Gamora, Nebula & Children of Thanos)

When he finally collected all six Infinity Stones in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos (Josh Brolin) became the most powerful character in the MCU. As an intergalactic warlord, Thanos has a huge amount of influence, and even before finding the Infinity Stones, he traveled around wiping out half the population of many worlds using his formidable armies. During these missions, Thanos collected orphaned and abandoned children from various worlds, building the Children of Thanos and turning them into incredible fighters. This group of adoptive kids included the Black Order—Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary), Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon), and Corvus Glaive (Michael James Shaw)—as well as Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), both of whom became Guardians of the Galaxy and fought against their father.

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