Marvel Cinematic Universe after Thanos: Who should be the next big bad?

3. Adam Warlock/Magus

Adam Warlock and his evil counterpart, Magus, will be a tough needle to thread into the next major threat of the MCU. We know Adam Warlock is coming, following the teaser in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The details of his origin will be different in the movies, but the basics should be the same: he’s designed to be a perfect being, and that comes with heightened physical abilities and an affinity for cosmic energies. He’s powerful enough to be a serious threat, but Warlock himself is a good guy. He’s actually pivotal to Thanos’ defeat in “The Infinity Gauntlet” arc that’s inspired Infinity War, but we’ve known for a while he won’t be appearing in the movie.

So where does Magus come in? Magus is the Hyde to Warlock’s Jekyll. He’s emerged as an insane future version of Warlock, and later as the distilled evil of Warlock’s soul. Either way, Magus shares all of Warlock’s powers and is bent on conquering reality, often by wielding the Infinity Gauntlet or other powerful cosmic objects.

And there’s the main problem: Magus could scream of redundancy. After Thanos, another villain obsessed with mega-McGuffins will only cheapen the MCU. To be interesting, Marvel will have to clearly distinguish Magus’s motives and methods from those of Thanos.

Fortunately, it helps that Magus is the founder of a fanatical cult-turned-religious empire, The Universal Church of Truth. This is the logical approach to Magus: a depraved, self-proclaimed messiah out to purify a chaotic and ugly galaxy. His arc could culminate in Earth being the last bastion of resistance, and the Avengers reassembling to defeat him in space.

How the MCU would draw the line from Warlock to Magus is anyone’s guess, but, with the start of Phase 4, there’s plenty of time to do so. For offering an interesting but narrow path for another major crossover event, I rank him third.