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Thanos, The Joker and the 25 greatest superhero movie villains of all-time

By Michael Patterson

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: A Joker costume from the 2008 film The Dark Knight worn by actor Heath Ledger and designed by Lindy Hemming is on display at the DC Comics Exhibition: Dawn Of Super Heroes at the O2 Arena on February 22, 2018 in London, England. The exhibition, which opens on February 23rd, features 45 original costumes, models and props used in DC Comics productions including the Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman films. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: A Joker costume from the 2008 film The Dark Knight worn by actor Heath Ledger and designed by Lindy Hemming is on display at the DC Comics Exhibition: Dawn Of Super Heroes at the O2 Arena on February 22, 2018 in London, England. The exhibition, which opens on February 23rd, features 45 original costumes, models and props used in DC Comics productions including the Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman films. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) /
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Marvel, MCU, movie villains
Vulture is slowed by Spider-Man’s webbing in Columbia Pictures’ SPIDER-MAN™: HOMECOMING. /

20. Adrian Toomes

Film: Spider-Man: Homecoming

One of the best things about 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming  was how unapologetically grounded it was. Yes, this writer is very well aware of the fact that he made that claim about a film that involves web-slinging teenagers and flying bird-robot gliders, but given how the out-there the MCU can get, “grounded” feels like an appropriate term for this one. That’s a philosophy that can also be applied to the film’s primary villain Adrian Toomes a.k.a. The Vulture.

One of the MCU’s shortcomings often stems from their rather one-dimensional underdeveloped villains who don’t really have a goal outside of what we see on the surface. Thus, instead of being a well-rounded character with a goal that just so happens to be evil, they are evil for the sake of being evil.

Adrian Toomes, however, was a man had been scorned one too many times by a world he was no longer capable of being in control of. Having felt increasingly powerless over a decade in which super-powered beings had taken so much from him, most importantly his own job, he decided to use his skills to create a business for himself so that he could provide for his family.

Though that job began to taint his morals, he continued to do it (and was even willing to kill Spider-Man to maintain it) because when all was said and done, he loved his family. In spite of everything he had done, his heart was (mostly) in the right place, as he was doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons – and that ultimately made him one of the MCU’s most compelling movie villains. And Michael Keaton made it rather easy to empathize with him (while also making us rather uneasy at the same time).

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