Marvel Studios Villains - Mid Phase 2

The new era of Marvel films has been a lot of fun. But the thing I’ve been disappointed with the most has been its treatment of villains. Think back on some of the great superhero movies we’ve had in the past. Its heroes have been that much more heroic because of the wonderful villains that have been faced. Superman II (1980) had General Zod. Batman (1989) and The Dark Knight both had Joker. Spider-Man 2 had Doctor Octopus. X-Men had Magneto. The Marvel Studios movies today seem to just drop villains in and hope they will excel based on their own merit. They don’t. Where are our 4 star villains? I don’t mean someone truly evil or insane. Just someone who acts as the protagonist, but is an actual fully fleshed out character. 

Captain America was SO heroic, but does anyone remember the threatening menace and power of Red Skull? 

What about Iron Man 3? On my second viewing of it, I enjoyed it more than the first. But still, the Mandarin (whichever incarnation you choose to see) is just a blip on the villain radar. The movie was more about Tony’s suits falling apart like a bunch of Legos. 

Iron Man 2’s big villain was Vanko. Or was it Whiplash? Everyone refers to him as Whiplash but I don’t remember Vanko being referred to as such, nor can I see any sort of resemblance with the rather obscure villain in the comics. Either way, I just see another 1 star villain. It’s great that they got Mickey Rourke, but he doesn’t do much except mumble some stuff about a bird and making God bleed.

However, I will concede and give 3 stars to Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer. This “puppeteer” was the real villain of Iron Man 2. He has this huge presence of his own making that he is trying to maintain just to get out of the shadow of Tony Stark. He wants to be popular. He wants to be loved by the masses. He has a ton of money, just like Stark. And he doesn’t get why Stark is always the hero. It’s not in his nature to think of others and he assumes that everyone thinks this way. He is too wrapped up in himself and in his desperation for success to worry about anybody else. He thinks that breaking the law is something that everyone who has money does to achieve their goals. And he certainly can’t be villainous if everyone is doing it. He would never murder someone. He would agree that it’s tragic when people are killed, but if he doesn’t witness it then why should he concern himself over it – even if it was as a result from a direct order to his subordinates. This villain is what keeps Iron Man 2 floating more than it should. 

The first Iron Man gives us Iron Monger (derived from a throwaway line from Jeff Bridges’ character). The presence of a bald bearded Jeff Bridges is heavy. His intimidation of Pepper at his office, and Tony at the mansion, is very strong - and discovering that this fatherly guardian with the voice of reason is the very one who sold Tony to terrorists even BEFORE he was Iron Man is pretty traumatic. But I just summed up all of his villainous aspects in one (run on) sentence. He gets 2 stars for at least not being a blip.

Abomination was the villain in The Incredible Hulk. It was taken again from a character’s throwaway line. Okay. I can’t say that. Tim Blake Nelson’s delivery of that line was a gleefully fantastic moment, and I still have my fingers crossed that he’ll show up in a future Hulk movie as The Leader. We’ll see. But primarily, the villain went by Blonsky. The Incredible Hulk was a different movie in that I felt the villain overshadowed the hero in terms of depth. By the end of the movie, Blonsky was a monster – quite literally. But at the beginning, he was working for the government with no other motive than to complete his mission. His transformation from mercenary, to super soldier, to monster was just wonderful. Blonsky doesn’t want to rule the world. He doesn’t have a mad passion to kill and destroy. His villainy comes from his own insecurities about himself. He was once a warrior and a soldier in his prime. He still seems himself this way, but he knows that he’s getting too old. He’s in his 40s. He is losing his identity. He sees this weakling scientist, Banner, holding this power that he doesn’t even want or need. He agrees to undergo a makeshift supersoldier process a la Captain America with a formula scrapped together since the original was lost in the 40s. Where else does he have to go in his life? Why not? And it WORKS! He is a HUNTER again! He doesn’t hate the Hulk. He doesn’t hate humanity. All he wants is to prove himself a warrior once again, and so he pits himself (body, mind, and ego) all up against the Hulk. And every bone in his body is shattered. Now, the challenge of the Hulk is too great for him to let go. He was beaten and humiliated. Maybe it’s the botched supersoldier serum that is driving him mad. Or maybe it’s the red haze of his own ego. But now, he can’t focus on anything else than to become like the Hulk and put him in his place. And if civilians have to die – well, that’s just the casualties of war, isn’t it? Tim Roth as Blonsky/Abomination was fantastic. And even though the end was just like the end of Iron Man (CGI Iron Man fights bigger CGI Iron Man – CGI Hulk fights bigger CGI Hulk), as a villain, Blonsky gets 3 stars.

Who do we have left? Oh yes. Loki. I’m not going to say much about him because I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t seen Thor 2 yet. But I will say this. In the first Thor, Loki was a fantastic 3 star villain. All he wanted was to prove his worth to his father – in hopes that he could rule. He maintained this 3 star status in the Avengers, partly because of his history with Thor. When you look back at the devastation in Avengers, Loki’s motives and manipulations all stem from the simple fact that he just wants a world of his own to rule. If he won’t be allowed Asgard, then why not the far inferior Earth? It’s primitive. And pointless in the eyes of Odin. And of all the stinking worlds that he has his mind set on, Thor has decided to proclaim himself protector of this one. Or maybe, Loki subconsciously picked this one BECAUSE of his brother. His brother who has everything – looks, strength, an actual Asgardian bloodline. His brother who keeps showing him love and forgiveness and makes it so hard for him to hate – and thus he resents him further because of it. In Thor 2 we have Malekith and Kurse who are both 1 star blips. But all is forgiven thanks to Loki’s elevation to a 4 star villain. 

He begins as a caged rat, imprisoned by his own father for doing nothing. He didn’t invade Asgard. He broke some rules and ran away, but how many times has Thor done that now? And wouldn’t you run away if you just found out you were adopted and lied to? All he wanted was for his father to love him more than Thor, but how can that possibly happen now that he isn’t even his real son? Loki is hurt. He knows now that he has frost giant blood and thinks that maybe he should just stop trying. Maybe he was bad from the beginning. He never considers the fact that Odin saw him as a baby and loved him as his own blood from that very moment. And so in the first Thor film a couple Asgardian soldiers died and he took off. He wreaked some havoc on a world (Earth) that Odin couldn’t care less about. But now Thor has grabbed him, brought him back to his father, and tattled on him – throwing a hissy-fit over an insignificant world. And Loki finds himself in prison – on a time out. All of this character depth he has carried over into this one, and he just keeps going. In Thor 2 we get to see lots more of Loki. By the end, he is a 4 star villain. He is a full fledged character. He is someone deserving of a Comic Con fanbase.

Monsters

Monsters.  What is it that we are so afraid of?  And if they frighten us so much, why do we keep coming back for more?  I think the last thing that most of us want is to be confronted with a true monster.  With horror movies, we get to walk all the way up to the edge of the abyss of death and look over without any real fear of falling in.  Our most popular monsters involve two things that frighten us the most.  The first one is death.  The second involves putting a mirror in front of our faces to confront the hidden horrors that exist inside all of us. 
Zombies
Popular culture has transformed zombies from lone mindless slaves of voodoo masters into armies of cannibalistic corpses, shuffling along with no other purpose than to satisfy their hunger with the living.  The living undeath spreads like a disease from which no one is immune.  The older we get, the faster we approach death.  Parts start breaking down.  Friends and family pass away.  We age and decay before our own eyes.  Death becomes like a disease that consumes us.  It’s not difficult to see why we fear and relate to stories of death eating life, spreading and spreading, throughout the world, until we focus on a handful of survivors who do everything in their power to keep death from consuming them.  This may be the most terrifying monster of them all.  Death doesn’t discriminate.  It takes the young and the old.  The sick and the healthy.  The good and the evil.  It is mindless, hungry, violent, and it never stops chasing you.  There is no cure.  If you manage to outrun it for a time, it will still consume all of those around you until you are alone in the world. 
Ghosts 
Popular tradition tells us that a ghost is the spirit of a deceased person whose soul is still wandering in the physical world.  Death scares us all.  But what happens when we die?  Is that the end?  Will we just end?  What if I’m not done being alive?  There are so many things I still want to do!  I want to tell my wife one last time that I love her.  I want to see my grandchild’s first birthday.  I want to cure cancer.  I want to finish my hamburger.  It’s likely that we will never be ready for death.  So who gets to go to heaven, and who becomes trapped in the world they couldn’t let go of?  How does it all work?
Ghosts combine our fear of death with fear of the unknown – the afterlife.  When we die, what spirits will come to claim us?  The idea of being haunted by an invisible presence that knows all of our secrets unnerves most of us.  Humanity is filled with choices that we regret or secrets that we prefer to keep hidden, like skeletons in a closet.  The thought of those secrets coming back to torment us is the root of our fear of being haunted. 
Quite often, our greatest desire is to keep on living in some form or another after we die, or else what is it all for?  From the murderous banshees of The Grudge to the benign spooks of The Sixth Sense, we often think of ghosts as spirits who are unable to let go of the life they left behind.  Maybe they can’t let go of their loved ones, or their money.  Maybe they are trying to communicate one last message.  Maybe they want revenge for their untimely murder.  Whatever the reason, they are so singularly obsessed that they are unable to move on.  Many of us have dealt with this kind of obsession in our own lives.  We dwell on the poor choices that we have made or on the things that have been done to us.  We wait for that lover or child or career that we’ve lost to come back to us.  We become so lost in the past or a present that “might have been” that we forget to live.  Life stops and we become ghosts ourselves.  Maybe a resolution will solve this undeath.  Maybe if we wait long we will get that apology, or long lost love, and our world will be fixed.  But it’s not likely.  We are the only ones that can choose to start living regardless of what life sends our way.  And so it is the ghosts that we are afraid of becoming, that scare us the most. 
Werewolves
Werewolves are portrayed as cursed individuals with a beast inside of them that they are unable to tame.  There are violent places in a man’s soul that he’d rather not admit that he has.  Even to those of us who haven’t experienced this violence first hand, there’s always the thought of “what if”.  What if the animal gets out?  What if I can’t control my anger?  Or my lust?  What if the beast wins?  What if I hurt someone close to me?  What if I say something so awful that I can’t take it back?  What if I allow that haze of fury to blind me to my own actions, and when the dust settles and I wake up, I discover that I am not fit to be a husband or a father?  What if that ONE time that I let the beast out, it hurts someone so much, that they feel entitled to just ONE time of letting the beast out?  And so the cycle of the werewolf continues.
Vampires
  Ever since Bram Stoker gathered up all the vampire myths and published them in his penultimate novel, Dracula, 114 years ago, the world has been fascinated by vampires.  And why not?  Here you have our first “monster” that is in control.  A very human looking figure with supernatural strength, shape-shifting skills, powers of seduction, and immortality.  The devil never looked so good.  But make no mistake, his primary goal is to consume your life and eventually, your soul.  This “devil” can’t enter your world unless you invite him in.  Once there, he will come to you when you are sleeping and your defenses are down.  Night after night, he will subtly suck your life away.  You probably won’t even notice it.  Friends may notice you shying away from things of the light that once gave you joy.  One day you will wake up and wonder what you ever saw in your friends in the first place.  Who understands you now?  At this point the vampire will make himself known to you as someone who just wants a friend.  After all, this person understands you.  They “get” the dark.  They aren’t afraid of it like your friends are.  Maybe the vampire will even let you in on what has been happening to you and you’ll feel like it’s really no big deal.  It’s okay now.  He can drink your blood if he wants.  But now he wants you to drink HIS blood back.  You are repulsed.  But you have to make a choice.  Embrace the darkness?  Or flee from it?  Maybe if you just go along and push through this repulsion, everything will be okay.  But it’s not.  You’ve stepped over the threshold by your own free will and there is no going back.  You find yourself hiding in the night.  Sticking to the shadows.  You’re more at home with the things that happen in the dark and you’d rather others not see what you’ve become.  You can’t stand the sight of yourself anyways.  You get rid of all mirrors, because you know if you looked into one, the person staring back would be a harsh reminder of how far you’ve fallen.  It’s better to get rid of all the mirrors and hide yourself from your own undeath.  Crosses and religious symbols used to bring such light to your world.  Now you flee before them to escape those reminders that burn you and stab at your heart.  A heart that no longer beats for anything.  You remain seduced by the dark.  And still you are repulsed by yourself for allowing to be seduced by the dark.  You have nothing to love and no one left to love you back.  It’s just you and the dark.  Your heart aches with hunger pangs.  You’d do anything to FEEL again, and wake up from this undeath.  So you seek someone out.  Someone that you can befriend.  And seduce.  And bring down to your level.  Someone to feed off of.  And it will ease your pain and satisfy you.  For a time.  These days, vampires have been watered down.  We’ve given them capes, and souls, and glitter.  We think that maybe we can rescue them and fall in love so they won’t be so lonely.  And in return they can protect us from other things that go bump in the night.  But deep down, we walk that dangerous edge with full knowledge that one day they may try to seduce us.  And we may like it.

 We watch horror movies.  We get scared.  We laugh.  And we tell ourselves that they’re only stories.  But in reality, the horrors in these tales that we fear exist in all of us.  We are zombies.  We are ghosts.  We are werewolves.  And we are vampires.  Say your prayers at night and hope the dawn comes swiftly.

The Spirituality of The Dark Knight

I thank God for movies. It may sound shallow. But a good movie allows us wisdom and understanding by telling us something we already know through another perspective. Christ relied on this method for most of his ministry. I've seen The Dark Knight twice in the theatre and lots more at home. It's probably one of the best movies I've ever seen. On my first viewing, when the credits rolled after the closing scene, I felt my heart pounding and tears flooded my eyes. I know it's ridiculous to have that kind of reaction. And at the time I didn't fully understand what I was reacting to. Even on the surface, The Dark Knight is an amazing movie. It's about the Joker using his genius to create these impossible odds, and Batman using every ounce of himself to beat those odds. The Joker says at one point, "This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object." And that's it in a nutshell. But underneath it all, we have something deeper. We have a very spiritual movie. And Batman and the Joker echo respective caricatures of Christ and Satan.

When Batman first arrives on the scene in Batman Begins, it's all about changing a city from the inside out. Is the city worth saving? Ra's Al Ghul has tried to give the city a chance but it's so corrupt that he sees no other choice but to burn it to the ground and start anew. Bruce Wayne was born in this city. His father's life was based on assisting the less fortunate, though in the end, he was slain by the less fortunate. Bruce could have sought revenge. He could have just turned his back on the city and walked away. But when the smoke cleared he chose to save this corrupt city, because he loved it. The city is corrupt indeed. Most of the cops are dirty. The mob operates relatively untouched. And life goes on in Gotham City. No one feels they are doing anything especially morally wrong. This is just how life is. And it's up to the Batman to show them otherwise. And he does. He teaches these Pharisees and leaders what they are doing wrong. He puts fear in them without sinking to their level. And he speaks to Ra's Al Ghul on behalf of Gotham. Batman believes that the city is worth saving. At the end of Batman Begins we get a no holds barred brawl between Ra's and Batman. Now while we believe that Christ speaks as our defense attorney to God, He certainly doesn't go after God with bat-shaped ninja stars in a giant cage match. After all, let's not forget that this is a comic book movie. As the movie closes, the city has been given not just a protector, but hope.

For those who haven't yet seen The Dark Knight, flee from this page lest your eyes behold spoilers! 'Cause from here on out there's spoilers a-plenty! As The Dark Knight opens up, the city is in a much different place. The mob still lives but operates in secret. They fear the police now instead of working with them. Thanks to Batman, Gotham City is on its way to becoming morally self-sufficient. Granted, Gotham still has a long way to go. Batman copy-cats are everywhere and their involvement does't make the city any better. Christ had to deal with a similar problem with the zealots. Basically, although they mean well, they end up causing more trouble than helping. What the citizens of Gotham needs is someone that they can aspire to be. And Batman, as a masked vigilante, doesn't exactly fit that role. Enter Harvey Dent. The everyman. The Christian. He believes in what Batman stands for. He believes in beating the criminals without sinking to their level. And for the first time, Gotham has a hero without a mask. This is that someone that the average citizen can aspire to be. He respects Batman, and acknowledges Batman's way of going around the police and their laws while never compromising his morality. But unlike Batman, as a public figure, he is bound by the law. And therefore, quite human. Harvey Dent is Gotham's proof that Batman can take a filthy city, give them their hope back, show them that they can be better, and that they can produce good fruit. Once, Batman was Gotham's guardian. But now they no longer need one. The people of Gotham protect their own. This is no longer a city where criminals are welcome.

Enter the Joker. Here is a criminal who appears to have no motives. He does't care about money, or fame, or power. He seems to have come from nowhere. What he tells us about his past is later revealed to be lies. It seems that perhaps he is motivated to "kill the Batman", but we later learn this to be false. His existence is only motivated by being the exact opposite of Batman. He could care less about breaking the police's laws. Rather, he lives to break all the laws of morality and to prove that the city of Gotham, by human nature, is just like him when pushed hard enough. He wants to watch the city burn. He lives for chaos. He loves seeing the citizens of Gotham sin against each other. And yet his number one target isn't Batman. He knows he can't corrupt Batman. He knows Batman is his opposite. But then, Batman isn't the city's White Knight. That position belongs to Harvey Dent.

And so the Joker bends all his forces to tearing Dent down. Batman is Gotham's guardian. But Dent is the city's heart and hope. If he falls, the city falls. Joker pushes and pushes and pushes. And when Dent falls, he falls hard. His belief in the justice system has failed. His belief in right over wrong has cost him everything. All his work in cleaning the city, while abiding the laws has been in vain. And so he turns from his faith to a new law. If justice does't work, then his new god is luck. And as a human, he sticks to this new rule ruthlessly. He used to believe that Harvey Dent creates his own fate. Once a master of his own fate, now he has given up and allowed fate to be his master. He is tired of fighting and so has chosen to let fate decide where justice lies. The laws of humanity no longer apply when confronted with unstoppable fate. And in his faithless logic, how can he be held accountable for what fate brings to his victims? This is a Christian who has lost his faith. Pushed too hard by Satan. In the end, Harvey commits unspeakable sins against the city, trying to comply with his new fate-based justice. And though Batman has to stop him, in the end he chooses to take the sins of Harvey Dent on himself. No one needs to know that these crimes were Dents doing. He knows the city will lose hope in itself if they learned this truth. And so to show his love for Dent, and his love for Gotham, Batman takes the blame for Dents crimes.

The final frames show Batman persecuted by the city that he came to protect. Persecuted not for his crimes, but for theirs. For no other reason than love and a belief that man can be better. The credits roll. The lights go up. And in my tears is the realization that Christ's sacrifice reveals Himself as a real life superhero. And though I've lived my life in sin, He will not allow me to die a villain. It's not a perfect comparison. After all, Christ didn't tell this story. Christopher Nolan did. But for a tale of spiritual morality, it makes for some pretty sublime viewing.