Many years ago, Marvel Comics gave readers wonderful insights and weird facts on the back of their 90's trading cards. According to Senior Vice President of Publishing at Marvel Comics Tom Brevoort, many of the stats on the backs of these cards were completely random.
By 1992, Marvel ditched arbitrary wins and losses and simply ranked characters by various power metrics, including speed. Here, we rank the 10 fastest Marvel supervillains as determined by Marvel Universe, Series III trading cards. Even without wacky, random stats, these results are amazing!
10 Carnage
Serial killer Cletus Kasady comes in at the bottom of the list, the 10th fastest Marvel villain. Given that Carnage is generally portrayed as much more lean and bloodthirsty than his counterpart Venom, this is a surprising result. But just like a photocopy degrades the quality of the original, it looks like Cletus's version of the symbiote from Klyntar can't quite measure up to Venom on speed. Maybe Sony will give this bad ol' boy a power-up in Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage.
9 Venom
Venom has been terrifying and exciting Spider-Man fans since 1988, going from out-and-out villain to anti-hero to out-and-out hero. With that kind of range, it's not surprising that Eddie Brock beats out Carnage as the fastest symbiote on this list.
Between the success of the Venom movies, Donny Cates' great current run in the comic, and an upcoming Venom cartoon, we are in the midst of a Venom renaissance. He may not be as fast as the others on this list, but he's running away with the hearts and minds of Marvel fans.
8 Hobgoblin
A pattern begins to emerge. Just as Carnage was not faster than Venom, here we have the second iteration of the Goblin. Although Green Goblin is just an angry guy in a mask, Hobgoblin has demonic powers and was hideously transformed into the monster we know from the comics. One would think that demonic powers would be enough to beat out the Green Goblin, but I suppose this is just further evidence that there's nothing like the real thing.
7 Green Goblin
The Green Goblin who comes in seventh here is not Spider-Man's old nemesis Norman Osborn, but his on-again-off-again buddy Harry Osborn. This has got to be a real gut punch for Jason Macendale, the Hobgoblin. At least losing a foot race to the O.G. Norman is a good story at The Bar With No Name. Coming in after Harry Osborn on this list is like getting beat one-on-one by Michael Jordan's son, Jeff. It's just embarrassing. But good on Harry for faithfully riding his father's tunic-tails to a respectable finish.
6 Sphinx
In an unbelievable turn of events, an obscure New Warriors villain is actually the sixth-fastest villain in the Marvel Universe. Meryet Karim was a nomad who found and was possessed by the spirit of the mystical Ka stone, giving her the power of the Sphinx.
What was most surprising about this character was the fact that having the power of the Sphinx makes you one of the fastest supervillains in the Marvel Universe since the most famous sphinx in the world is famous mostly because it hasn't moved in thousands of years.
5 Necrom
Not to be outdone by Spinx, another villain comes out from the back rows of the Marvel Universe to claim the fifth spot on our list. Necrom was created by Alan Davis in late 1991. Necrom's raison d'etre was to steal the Phoenix Force from Jean Gray in her Phoenix form and use to conquer the multiverse. As the saying goes, if you come at the queen, you best not miss. The bad news is that Necrom definitely missed. The good news is that he's so fast that even the Phoenix Force couldn't catch up with him, so he was able to retreat into the darkness.
4 Magus
Like Hobgoblin and Green Goblin, there are several different Magus's (Magii?) in the Marvel U. Three of them are evil versions of Adam Warlock. The super-speedy bad guy we're interested in here is the second iteration of Warlock's devilish counterparts. Another surprising entry, especially this high on the list. One might expect that a villain with flight, like Sauron, would be among the fastest, but Evil Adam Warlock is just off the podium at number four.
3 Maelstrom
Maelstrom is the son of a banished Inhuman geneticist and a Deviant and was credited with killing Quasar during an effort to make the entire universe collapse into the singularity of a black hole. While it is unknown whether Maelstrom's father had a hand in breeding him for his speed, it is known that as of 1992, he was the third-fastest supervillain in Marvel's stable. Perhaps he's just gotten fast over the years because he's running from the pain of the fact that his own mother was put to death for having him. That's enough to make anyone want to destroy the universe.
2 Thanos
Not a man who is used to losing, the Mad Titan comes in second here. Another very surprising entry because, despite Thanos's tremendous power and fighting ability, he is always portrayed as big and bulky.
He is not known for speed at all, yet, he is faster than all but one villain on this list. Thanos taking the number two spot here is just further evidence that he is truly one of the greatest Marvel villains and one of the best in all of comics.
1 Mephisto
I really did not see this one coming. Mephisto, who may be the biblical devil, but also may not be, is the fastest villain in the Marvel Universe. This is so surprising because Mephisto simply isn't known for his speed. He uses greed, lust, envy and general human frailty to turn heroes against each other or themselves. Mephisto is a manipulator of the mind, not a hand-to-hand threat. Yet, the fact remains that he was the only villain to reach the Marvel Universe Series III's highest speed ranking.