Movie fans were treated to the exploits of dozens of incredible heroes over the course of 2024, who inspired and uplifted audiences with their courageousness. In some respects, though, heroes are only as riveting as the villains they must face and the horrifying situations they subject a protagonist to, resulting in audiences witnessing all manner of mayhem and monstrousness. Some of these figures were manifestations of ruthless brutality while others had objectives that viewers could empathize with, while others still were mixtures of both. Over the course of the year, audiences got to see characters they love, but just as important, they got to see characters they love to hate.
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Characters like Dune: Part Two‘s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen and In a Violent Nature‘s Johnny felt like the personification of villainy, as they laid waste to nearly every character that stood in their way. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes‘ Proximus Caesar had goals that could seem commendable, from a certain light, yet his methods were questionable at best and frightening at worst. Deadpool & Wolverine brought together two of the most iconic characters in Marvel’s cinematic history, so it only made sense that they’d set their sights on Cassandra Nova, who threatened to tear a hole in the entire fabric of reality. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga‘s Dementus, on the other hand, was a run-of-the-mill apocalyptic warlord who constantly surprised viewers and on-screen characters with the depths of his villainy. Still, only one antagonist could truly stand apart from the rest for Best Villain in 2024.
RELATED: Furiosa Wins Best Female Character (Golden Issue Awards 2024)
And the winner of the 2024 ComicBook Golden Issue Award for Best Villain is…
Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga!
Mad Max: Fury Road gave audiences one of the best villains of the last decade in Immortan Joe, and given the number of frightening villains the franchise had already given us to that point, it’s a testament to filmmaker George Miller and actor Hugh Keays-Byrne that Joe surpassed everything that came before him. With the bar being set immensely high, fans had their doubts about how Hemsworth’s Dementus would compare, and the beloved Marvel actor proved he was, well, demented enough for the challenge.
Fury Road‘s Immortan Joe was an all-powerful warlord who often chose to let his ruthless actions speak louder than his words, but with Dementus, fans were given a fast-talking tyrant whose vocabulary was as vast as his ideas of torture. In fact, it was the ways in which he could switch from being a seemingly charming, affable, and even funny character into a sadistic figure that made Dementus so compelling for audiences to watch.
Hemsworth’s breakthrough performance came as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and while he was often charming and had chemistry with his costars, it was arugably 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok in which viewers got a better taste of his talents, blending not only a rugged stoicism, but also an incredible sense of humor. In Furiosa, Hemsworth managed to channel all of those abilities, while also offering a figure at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Thor, shocking and terrifying audiences with the immensity of his brutality and becoming the Best Villain of 2024.
The nominees for the 2024 ComicBook Golden Issue Award for Best Villain are:
- Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin, Deadpool & Wolverine)
- Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) – WINNER
- Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler, Dune: Part Two)
- Johnny (Ry Barrett, In a Violent Nature)
- Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durant, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes)
