The 2010s have undoubtedly been the decade of Marvel. With super-massive hits like Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel has done a spectacular job of not only cementing itself as one of the greatest publishing companies in the world but also shining a light on the often-underappreciated art of comics.
While Marvel has done a magnificent job of highlighting some of its greatest characters onscreen, the company hasn’t forgotten about the characters offscreen either. Over the past decade, Marvel has introduced some of its most fearsome villains and even reinvented some of their old favorites. So let’s dive into the greatest Marvel villains that have been introduced over the past decade.
10 Tenfingers
Originally a member of The Hand, Tenfingers left the organization in order to found a shady, secret organization of his own, but not before stealing some magical powers from The Hand. With his stolen abilities, Tenfingers would begin trying to take over Chinatown and with it, organized crime and all that goes along with it.
Tenfingers would go on to found the church of the sheltering hands and use this religion to provide a legitimate cover for the actions of his crimes as well as providing him with tax-exempt status and legal protection for his organization. While he was later killed (and then resurrected and killed over and over again by The Hand), Tenfingers served to truly test Daredevil and his new sidekick Blindspot.
9 Cindy Moon Of Earth 65
While the Cindy Moon of Earth-616 is a very talented and noble Spider-person, much like Peter Parker, the Cindy Moon of Earth-65 is not quite as noble as her counterpart. While this version of Cindy Moon originally started out in much the same way as her counterpart, Silk. Spider bite, superpowers, working for the side of good (S.H.I.E.L.D), the whole shebang.
She eventually rebelled against S.H.I.E.L.D. and went on to form her own organization S.I.L.K. After the formation of S.I.L.K. Cindy Moon would go on to fight Captain America, Silk, Ghost-Spider and many other heroes.
8 The Golden Skull
While the Red Skull has been holding things down since the 1940s, the Golden Skull is making sure to keep a tight lock on the future of the Marvel universe. While he may not be as racially motivated as his crimson counterpart, the Golden Skull has still managed to cause quite a bit of trouble for his version of Captain America (Danielle Cage, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones).
As his 24-karat dome may suggest, Golden Skull is much more motivated to accumulate vast sums of wealth than “purifying” the world through any sort of genocide like his antiquated rouge grandfather in crime.
7 Eddie Brock (Toxin)
Much like their parent, Venom, Carnage also gave birth to a child. This child, the symbiote Toxin eventually made its way to Eddie Brock. While Eddie Brock, now Toxin, is not exactly what one would call a through and through villain, he certainly isn’t a hero.
Heroes often tend to concern themselves with protecting life, no matter if the life in question happens to be fighting to end theirs. Toxin, on the other hand, is not so concerned with who lives and who dies, which may be why Eddie Brock has been able to reclaim his title as “lethal protector”.
6 The Inheritors
While Marvel’s Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse was one of the most successful films to have ever been animated, it was (somewhat) based on the Spiderverse comics that came before it. In the comics, Spider-Men (and women) from universes all throughout the multiverse were being hunted by the dangerous and powerful Inheritors.
This family of supervillains travels throughout the multiverse killing every spider totem they can find, as it has been prophesied that this would be the totem that would eventually overthrow them. They manage to kill many spider totems along the way, but when the likes of Peter Parker, Silk and Superior Spider-man get involved, well, they’re found wanting to say the least.
5 Superior Octopus
To say that Doc Ock has been through some pretty monumental changes over the course of the last decade is tantamount to saying that Peter Parker has climbed some walls. Which is to say that it’s seriously underselling the character.
The octopedal doctor has gone from villain inching nearer and nearer to death, to superior superhero, right back to villain and then to a superior villain. After hijacking Peter’s body and then a “perfect” clone of Peter’s body, Doc Ock has really taken himself and his villain game to the next level.
4 Red Goblin
Not to be upstaged as Spider-Man’s greatest foe, Norman Osborn has truly taken his villainy to the next level in order to become the best baddie that he can possibly be.
After losing his ability to become the Green Goblin, a desperate Norman Osborn has a few henchmen steal the Carnage symbiote and after bonding with it, he convinces Carnage to not only remove the nanites repressing his ability to become the Goblin but let him stay in control. Green Goblin was already one of Spider-Man’s greatest foe but, with the help of Carnage, he has become so much more.
3 Dark Carnage
Much like Doc Ock and Norman Osborn, Cletus Kasady has been been on a bit of a journey as well.
While he may have technically been dead which inhibited him from being the carrier of the Carnage symbiote any longer, thanks to a group of crazy cultists set on bringing Knull (the symbiote god) back for another round of carnage (get it?) Cletus Kasady was resurrected with the help of the Grendel symbiote. As fans can imagine, what happened after that was, well, carnage.
2 Orchis
Relatively new to the scene, Orchis has recently become a major player in the aftermath of Jonathan Hickman’s run of the X-Men.
Composed of some of the greatest agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., S.T.R.I.K.E, S.W.O.R.D., A.R.M.O.R., A.I.M., H.A.M.M.E.R., HYDRA and Alpha Flight, Orchis is dedicated to making sure that the human race doesn’t experience an extinction-level event. While the X-Men have discovered the keys to immortality, the human race does not seem too keen on their newly-found independence.
1 Captain America (Stevil)
Over the course of the last decade, Marvel introduced new villains, reintroduced villains with new power sets and abilities, but perhaps one of the most stunning moves that they have made recently is turning one of their greatest heroes into one of their greatest villains.
With Secret Empire, Marvel has taken their staple boy scout, Captain America (the man who brought MCU fans such lines as “Hey! Language!”) and turned him into a sleeper agent for Hydra, subtly manipulating the heroes and the government to conform to his will over the course of many years. Who woulda thought that the 2010s would’ve seen Captain America himself break bad?