Manmademan
Member
Calm your tits, Batman fans. I know crazy quilt and cluemaster are the bees knees, but Cap's gallery needs some more recognition.
Cap has been around longer than just about any other marvel hero save Namor, making his first appearance in 1941. He's headlined not only his own book for most of that time, but also has been a near permanent fixture of the Avengers since that book launched in the 1960s. Inexplicably though Cap has long been considered one of the weaker heroes in marvel's roster until Avengers and Winter Soldier finally gave him the respect he deserves.
One of the things that makes cap interesting though is that Cap doesn't waste his time fighting crime. That's right, you heard me. Unlike Spider-Man, Captain America doesn't care that your purse got stolen, or that bank just got robbed. He's Captain Goddamned America 24 hours a day and he's too busy for that shit. Dial a hero with a dayjob if you want to stop cat burglars, Captain America is for putting down terrorist networks and global threats. His villains therefore, tend to reflect this.
But where to start? Let's talk about:
Arnim Zola! Movie fans may remember him from Captain America: The First Avenger.
Zola was a swiss biochemist during world war II, working for the Red Skull. That's (obviously) not his original body, Zola developed a process that let him transfer his mind into any number of artificial brains. Whenever a body is destroyed, Zola usually just escapes to another one elsewhere, making him very, very difficult to kill.
Zola has no real superpowers, (outside of that box where his head should be, that can be used for limited mental attacks) his true threat is his genius. Zola is notable for raising an entire mutant army in dimension Z with the intent of overrunning earth, and also for turning Captain America into a damn werewolf that one time.
Diabolical!
Nazi Scientists with a penchant for cloning and mind control not your thing? there's also:
Baron (Helmut) Zemo! This swank motherfucker may be the most stylish villain of all time. There are actually TWO Zemos, the first being killed by cap way back in early issues of Avengers, but usually when you hear "Baron Zemo" they're talking about number 2.
His accomplishments? Nearly too numerous to list here, though Zemo is notable for forming several of the incarnations of the Masters of Evil- Think of them as B and C list villains assembled into a sort of anti-avengers. There's been a few, but one of his more successful incarnations invaded Avengers mansion, crippled the butler, burned all of cap's WW2 memorabilia just to be assholes, and got hercules too drunk to fight then beat him into a coma so bad that even Zeus said "Damn."
Zemo returned to the Masters of Evil concept later on when the Avengers disappeared for a time, masquerading as heroes and calling themselves the Thunderbolts, led by Zemo himself under the name "Citizen V".
This concept worked a little TOO well, as many of the former Masters of Evil found that playing hero was a lot more fun than getting their faces punched in and thrown into jail.
Zemo typically has no powers, and is simply an excellent marksman, strategist and leader. Like most top tier villains he's a genius, though not a super scientist i.e. Zola, Doom, Richards, etc.
Zemo isn't the only rogue with a title, They'll apparently hand out a Barony to just about anyone, which leads us to:
Baron Wolfgang Strucker. I had to search a bit for a decent photo, because his typical outfit is just terrible.
He should speak to whoever does Zemo's designs.
Strucker was originally a Nick Fury villain, serving as an officer under Hitler. His standout moments though were as leader of HYDRA and persistent nemesis of Captain America. Those of you that watched winter soldier know that hydra's infiltration of SHIELD and the US Government was a big plot point, that's a plan that Strucker originally came up with- heavily infiltrating all layers of SHIELD with HYDRA sleeper agents and controlling it from behind the scenes for years.
Strucker has a habit of genetic experimentation, including his own children Andrea and And Andreas who operate collectively as the superpowered criminal group "Fenris." Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed strucker making a cameo at the end of winter soldier
.
Like zemo, Strucker has no powers, only a brilliant mind and a seemingly endless supply of money for hydra tech and bases. Strucker makes use of an age retarding formula to avoid looking as old as he actually is.
Switching gears a bit from nazi scientists to mercenaries, we have Taskmaster:
A personal favorite, this guy has fought captain america loads of times but has managed to be a thorn in just about everyone's side at least once.
Taskmaster is a world renowned mercenary with the unusual ability to perfectly mimic any ability he's ever seen. This means Tasky has the combat abilities of everyone alive in the marvel universe right now, including Black Panther, Spider Man, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Elektra, Shang Chi, Wolverine, Black Knight, Punisher, Bullseye, etc etc. Any style he doesn't know can be learned and countered on the fly in a matter of seconds.
Taskmaster augments his abilities by carrying around perfect replicas to complement those styles, such as cap's shield, hawkeye's trick arrows, a sword of some kind, and a vast array of handguns, darts, bombs, poisons, etc.
As such he's extremely difficult if not impossible to defeat in hand to hand combat without plot devices or superpowers, and taskmaster and his mercenary network are used extensively by everyone who can afford him, heroes and villains alike.
just for fun, because I love this one:
Outside of his photographic reflexes and extensive arsenal, Taskmaster has no superhuman abilities, though he can execute combat maneuvers at twice their natural speed for brief periods of time, and has been known to perfectly mimic the voices of others.
As good as taskmaster is, he's not the most notorious mercenary killer in Cap's Rogues gallery, that nod would probably have to go to:
The Scourge of the Underworld!
Once upon a time, Marvel found itself with too many D-list supervillains. TOO MANY! Have you ever heard of such a thing! To correct this, brilliant writer/editor Mark Gruenwald came up with the Scourge of the Underworld to do a little housecleaning- (the below is liberally and shamelessly copied from wikipedia)
The Scourge is originally depicted as an individual vigilante dedicated to the assassination of criminals. This person, whose true name has never been revealed, is seen over the course of several months murdering known supervillains. The Scourge approaches a supervillain in disguise, shoots him or her with an explosive-tipped bullet, shouts his catchphrase ("Justice is served!"), and disappears. Scourge apparently killed Enforcer,Miracle Man, Hate Monger III, Melter,Titania I, Basilisk, The Human Fly, Death Adder and Blue Streak this way.
The fact that there was a supervillain serial killer running around in an era when no one killed ANYBODY so unnerved the supervillain population that they all got together and held a meeting to decide what to do about it. This particular meeting would forever live in infamy as scourge took it upon himself to show up disguised as the bartender, and the "bar with no name" massacre was born.
18 goddamn supervillains bit the dust that day, as Scourge wiped out Jaguar, Mirage, Hellrazor, Shellshock, Bird-Man, Cyclone, The Ringer, Turner D. Century, The Grappler, The Cheetah, The Vamp, Commander Kraken, Letha, Steeplejack, Mind Wave, Rapier, Firebrand, and Hijacker.
Captain America captures the Scourge the very next issue, and unmasks him, where scourge confesses to his killings and reveals his identity. Immediately after making this confession, the Scourge is himself shot and killed by an unseen assailant, who is heard to cry "Justice is served!" in the fashion of the Scourge's other killings.
Since then the Scourge identity has been used by a network of supervillain serial killers, almost all of which eventually are killed by someone else masquerading as "scourge". It's "scourges" all the way down...Up to this point there's been a serious lack of supervillains with PhD's in this list. Let me correct that omission:
Dr. Faustus is essentially an evil sigmund freud. This "master of men's minds" isn't a telepath, just a damn good manipulator. But don't let the dapper threads fool you, Faustus is built like a truck and has the body of a UFC Champ:
So what makes this guy noteworthy? Faustus is responsible for two HUGE arcs in Cap's personal storyline.
1.) After Rogers disappeared at the end of WW2, a second captain america and bucky took up the mantle of Captain America. unfortunately, the serum they used for this guy was unstable. Cap 2 (William Burnside) began to suffer mental breakdown, becomes paranoid and psychotic, and was eventually placed in suspended animation. On being revived in the modern era and placed into the custody of Faustus for "Treatment", Burnside is instead brainwashed and turned into the Grand Director
essentially "white supremacist captain america" with a wolverine hat, which is just as awesome as it sounds. When confronted by the original Captain America who he idolizes, Burnside has another breakdown, is horrified at what he's become and (presumably) suicides, burning himself alive.
2.) Faustus is also the one responsible for the mental manipulation of Sharon Carter. Under his control Carter (With assistance from crossbones) assassinates Steve Rogers while escorting him to the courtroom in the aftermath of Civil War. This makes Dr. Faustus the only person to successfully kill steve rogers, albeit indirectly. Faustus eventually falls from the good graces of the red skull and turns to the government, offering information and testimony in the winter soldier trial in exchange for a pardon- but not before manipulating the trial attorney into attacking the judge just to show how badass his mind control abilities are.
From badass we go to bad...literally the worst of the worst. You might think it's red skull, but no, it's-
HATE MONGER. Why this guy? Because...
SURPRISE HITLER! Yes, Hate Monger is actually, literally Adolf Hitler- with mind control superpowers. What, you want to know who Hitler is? Read a history book you filthy animals.
Since I mentioned the Red Skull, now is as good a time as any to throw him in:
Ah, Red Skull. where to begin with him? Generally considered Captain America's nemesis, but is one of those breakout villains that's so awful he's ended up menacing everyone at LEAST once.
Originally a top officer of Hate Mong..er...Hitler in WW2, Red Skull was responsible for cutting a swath of death and destruction across europe in the 40s with the Nazi Army, as well as organizations it later "inspired" such as HYDRA, AIM, and ULTIMATUM.
Unlike your typical villain, Red Skull isn't crazy (Carnage, Joker), or a megalomaniac with a messiah complex (Doom, Magneto) He's just straight evil. He's hated and despised by even other supervillains- even Joker doesn't want anything to do with him:
We've seen a few times what kind of world Red Skull would create if given unlimited power, and the result isn't pretty. Skull's ideal world seems to be guided by an overwhelming philosophy of "fuck humanity."
While the above was accomplished with the power of a cosmic cube, Skull normally has no abilities beyond his own skill and cunning- though given an opportunity to seize power he rarely hesitates, having cloned the body of captain america for his own use, and most recently digging up the body of charles xavier and stealing his brain- Turning Red Skull into the world's most powerful telepath:
This last bit of business eventually led into Red Skull becoming "Red Onslaught" and the recently concluded AXIS event- but the less said about that event, the better sadly.
This is actually longer than i planned but I'm leaving out quite a few interesting villains-
M.O.D.O.K.
Crossbones
Batroc
and Viper
At least deserve a mention. With any luck, we'll be seeing some of these smiling faces in a future film, maybe even Captain America 3 or Avengers 2!*
*No, that wasn't Viper in "The Wolverine." Just...er..a clever impostor. Nothing to see here, move along, citizen...
Cap has been around longer than just about any other marvel hero save Namor, making his first appearance in 1941. He's headlined not only his own book for most of that time, but also has been a near permanent fixture of the Avengers since that book launched in the 1960s. Inexplicably though Cap has long been considered one of the weaker heroes in marvel's roster until Avengers and Winter Soldier finally gave him the respect he deserves.
One of the things that makes cap interesting though is that Cap doesn't waste his time fighting crime. That's right, you heard me. Unlike Spider-Man, Captain America doesn't care that your purse got stolen, or that bank just got robbed. He's Captain Goddamned America 24 hours a day and he's too busy for that shit. Dial a hero with a dayjob if you want to stop cat burglars, Captain America is for putting down terrorist networks and global threats. His villains therefore, tend to reflect this.
But where to start? Let's talk about:
Arnim Zola! Movie fans may remember him from Captain America: The First Avenger.
as well as a massive surprise appearance in winter soldier
Zola has no real superpowers, (outside of that box where his head should be, that can be used for limited mental attacks) his true threat is his genius. Zola is notable for raising an entire mutant army in dimension Z with the intent of overrunning earth, and also for turning Captain America into a damn werewolf that one time.
Diabolical!
Nazi Scientists with a penchant for cloning and mind control not your thing? there's also:
.jpg)
Baron (Helmut) Zemo! This swank motherfucker may be the most stylish villain of all time. There are actually TWO Zemos, the first being killed by cap way back in early issues of Avengers, but usually when you hear "Baron Zemo" they're talking about number 2.
His accomplishments? Nearly too numerous to list here, though Zemo is notable for forming several of the incarnations of the Masters of Evil- Think of them as B and C list villains assembled into a sort of anti-avengers. There's been a few, but one of his more successful incarnations invaded Avengers mansion, crippled the butler, burned all of cap's WW2 memorabilia just to be assholes, and got hercules too drunk to fight then beat him into a coma so bad that even Zeus said "Damn."
Zemo returned to the Masters of Evil concept later on when the Avengers disappeared for a time, masquerading as heroes and calling themselves the Thunderbolts, led by Zemo himself under the name "Citizen V".
This concept worked a little TOO well, as many of the former Masters of Evil found that playing hero was a lot more fun than getting their faces punched in and thrown into jail.
Zemo typically has no powers, and is simply an excellent marksman, strategist and leader. Like most top tier villains he's a genius, though not a super scientist i.e. Zola, Doom, Richards, etc.
Zemo isn't the only rogue with a title, They'll apparently hand out a Barony to just about anyone, which leads us to:
Baron Wolfgang Strucker. I had to search a bit for a decent photo, because his typical outfit is just terrible.
He should speak to whoever does Zemo's designs.
Strucker was originally a Nick Fury villain, serving as an officer under Hitler. His standout moments though were as leader of HYDRA and persistent nemesis of Captain America. Those of you that watched winter soldier know that hydra's infiltration of SHIELD and the US Government was a big plot point, that's a plan that Strucker originally came up with- heavily infiltrating all layers of SHIELD with HYDRA sleeper agents and controlling it from behind the scenes for years.
Strucker has a habit of genetic experimentation, including his own children Andrea and And Andreas who operate collectively as the superpowered criminal group "Fenris." Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed strucker making a cameo at the end of winter soldier
as his experiments with loki's staff result in the creation of quicksilver and scarlet witch
Like zemo, Strucker has no powers, only a brilliant mind and a seemingly endless supply of money for hydra tech and bases. Strucker makes use of an age retarding formula to avoid looking as old as he actually is.
Switching gears a bit from nazi scientists to mercenaries, we have Taskmaster:
A personal favorite, this guy has fought captain america loads of times but has managed to be a thorn in just about everyone's side at least once.
Taskmaster is a world renowned mercenary with the unusual ability to perfectly mimic any ability he's ever seen. This means Tasky has the combat abilities of everyone alive in the marvel universe right now, including Black Panther, Spider Man, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Elektra, Shang Chi, Wolverine, Black Knight, Punisher, Bullseye, etc etc. Any style he doesn't know can be learned and countered on the fly in a matter of seconds.
Taskmaster augments his abilities by carrying around perfect replicas to complement those styles, such as cap's shield, hawkeye's trick arrows, a sword of some kind, and a vast array of handguns, darts, bombs, poisons, etc.
As such he's extremely difficult if not impossible to defeat in hand to hand combat without plot devices or superpowers, and taskmaster and his mercenary network are used extensively by everyone who can afford him, heroes and villains alike.
just for fun, because I love this one:
Outside of his photographic reflexes and extensive arsenal, Taskmaster has no superhuman abilities, though he can execute combat maneuvers at twice their natural speed for brief periods of time, and has been known to perfectly mimic the voices of others.
As good as taskmaster is, he's not the most notorious mercenary killer in Cap's Rogues gallery, that nod would probably have to go to:
The Scourge of the Underworld!
Once upon a time, Marvel found itself with too many D-list supervillains. TOO MANY! Have you ever heard of such a thing! To correct this, brilliant writer/editor Mark Gruenwald came up with the Scourge of the Underworld to do a little housecleaning- (the below is liberally and shamelessly copied from wikipedia)
The Scourge is originally depicted as an individual vigilante dedicated to the assassination of criminals. This person, whose true name has never been revealed, is seen over the course of several months murdering known supervillains. The Scourge approaches a supervillain in disguise, shoots him or her with an explosive-tipped bullet, shouts his catchphrase ("Justice is served!"), and disappears. Scourge apparently killed Enforcer,Miracle Man, Hate Monger III, Melter,Titania I, Basilisk, The Human Fly, Death Adder and Blue Streak this way.
The fact that there was a supervillain serial killer running around in an era when no one killed ANYBODY so unnerved the supervillain population that they all got together and held a meeting to decide what to do about it. This particular meeting would forever live in infamy as scourge took it upon himself to show up disguised as the bartender, and the "bar with no name" massacre was born.
18 goddamn supervillains bit the dust that day, as Scourge wiped out Jaguar, Mirage, Hellrazor, Shellshock, Bird-Man, Cyclone, The Ringer, Turner D. Century, The Grappler, The Cheetah, The Vamp, Commander Kraken, Letha, Steeplejack, Mind Wave, Rapier, Firebrand, and Hijacker.
Captain America captures the Scourge the very next issue, and unmasks him, where scourge confesses to his killings and reveals his identity. Immediately after making this confession, the Scourge is himself shot and killed by an unseen assailant, who is heard to cry "Justice is served!" in the fashion of the Scourge's other killings.
Since then the Scourge identity has been used by a network of supervillain serial killers, almost all of which eventually are killed by someone else masquerading as "scourge". It's "scourges" all the way down...Up to this point there's been a serious lack of supervillains with PhD's in this list. Let me correct that omission:
Dr. Faustus is essentially an evil sigmund freud. This "master of men's minds" isn't a telepath, just a damn good manipulator. But don't let the dapper threads fool you, Faustus is built like a truck and has the body of a UFC Champ:
So what makes this guy noteworthy? Faustus is responsible for two HUGE arcs in Cap's personal storyline.
1.) After Rogers disappeared at the end of WW2, a second captain america and bucky took up the mantle of Captain America. unfortunately, the serum they used for this guy was unstable. Cap 2 (William Burnside) began to suffer mental breakdown, becomes paranoid and psychotic, and was eventually placed in suspended animation. On being revived in the modern era and placed into the custody of Faustus for "Treatment", Burnside is instead brainwashed and turned into the Grand Director
essentially "white supremacist captain america" with a wolverine hat, which is just as awesome as it sounds. When confronted by the original Captain America who he idolizes, Burnside has another breakdown, is horrified at what he's become and (presumably) suicides, burning himself alive.
2.) Faustus is also the one responsible for the mental manipulation of Sharon Carter. Under his control Carter (With assistance from crossbones) assassinates Steve Rogers while escorting him to the courtroom in the aftermath of Civil War. This makes Dr. Faustus the only person to successfully kill steve rogers, albeit indirectly. Faustus eventually falls from the good graces of the red skull and turns to the government, offering information and testimony in the winter soldier trial in exchange for a pardon- but not before manipulating the trial attorney into attacking the judge just to show how badass his mind control abilities are.
From badass we go to bad...literally the worst of the worst. You might think it's red skull, but no, it's-
HATE MONGER. Why this guy? Because...
SURPRISE HITLER! Yes, Hate Monger is actually, literally Adolf Hitler- with mind control superpowers. What, you want to know who Hitler is? Read a history book you filthy animals.
Since I mentioned the Red Skull, now is as good a time as any to throw him in:
Ah, Red Skull. where to begin with him? Generally considered Captain America's nemesis, but is one of those breakout villains that's so awful he's ended up menacing everyone at LEAST once.
Originally a top officer of Hate Mong..er...Hitler in WW2, Red Skull was responsible for cutting a swath of death and destruction across europe in the 40s with the Nazi Army, as well as organizations it later "inspired" such as HYDRA, AIM, and ULTIMATUM.
Unlike your typical villain, Red Skull isn't crazy (Carnage, Joker), or a megalomaniac with a messiah complex (Doom, Magneto) He's just straight evil. He's hated and despised by even other supervillains- even Joker doesn't want anything to do with him:
We've seen a few times what kind of world Red Skull would create if given unlimited power, and the result isn't pretty. Skull's ideal world seems to be guided by an overwhelming philosophy of "fuck humanity."
While the above was accomplished with the power of a cosmic cube, Skull normally has no abilities beyond his own skill and cunning- though given an opportunity to seize power he rarely hesitates, having cloned the body of captain america for his own use, and most recently digging up the body of charles xavier and stealing his brain- Turning Red Skull into the world's most powerful telepath:
This last bit of business eventually led into Red Skull becoming "Red Onslaught" and the recently concluded AXIS event- but the less said about that event, the better sadly.
This is actually longer than i planned but I'm leaving out quite a few interesting villains-
M.O.D.O.K.
Crossbones
Batroc
and Viper
At least deserve a mention. With any luck, we'll be seeing some of these smiling faces in a future film, maybe even Captain America 3 or Avengers 2!*
*No, that wasn't Viper in "The Wolverine." Just...er..a clever impostor. Nothing to see here, move along, citizen...
.jpg)
