Marvel's Scariest Villains That Have Yet To Appear In The MCU

A good villain isn't just there to oppose the hero. Of course, being a force that opposes the hero is important, though. Obviously. But an effective villain sometimes leaves the reader feeling a sense of dread. They create an atmosphere of terror that extends beyond the page or screen. They hit the reader.

Marvel Comics has their fair share of great villains. Cool villains. Sympathetic villains. However, they also have a vast amount of horrifying villains; villains that scare and shake us to our cores in ways that we as readers simply cannot anticipate.

However, for all the great scary Marvel villains, the MCU has incorporated few—if any of them—into their films. There is a multitude of scary Marvel villains, but how long will it take before they make their debut in the MCU?

10 10. Dark Beast

While Beast has appeared in the X-Men films (and will inevitably appear once Disney acquires the rights to the Fox Marvel characters), Dark Beast has, as of yet, never appeared on film. This is probably a good thing since Dark Beast is profoundly disturbing.

Marvel has a lot of evil twin villains. Unlike most evil-counterparts to established heroes, Dark Beast exists as a Josef Mengele character, experimenting and toying with genetic material and lives like it's all a fun game to him. To see how easily Beast, a fun loving and brilliant hero, could have turned out to be so sociopathic and cruel...that might be the most frightening part. A few changed events and the 616 Hank McCoy could've been this bone-chilling supervillain.

9 9. Arcade

Arcade might not seem too scary at first. He's a showman who makes death puzzles for his own entertainment. He plays games with heroes, but, for years, Marvel Comics never really presented this villain as much more than a normal C-List bad guy...

Until Avengers Arena.

Murderworld, Arcade's arena, became a blood-bath. Tons of young characters were put into a battle royale-esque scenario, which left so many carved open bodies behind. This is the story that made Arcade one of Marvel's scariest villains.

8 8. Mad Jim Jaspers

Mad Jim Jaspers isn't a super well-known villain, but he has a truly monstrous power: the ability to shift and twist reality. Ordinarily, this would already seem like a pretty intense power, but add to the fact that Mad Jim Jaspers is, well, mad...and you get something out of a David Lynch nightmare.

Mad Jim Jaspers regularly twists the world into the nightmare hellscape he believes reality to be. And this, as you can imagine, leads to some imaginative, horrifying scenarios. The MCU would be plagued by this horror should he ever be unleashed there (especially if they introduce his nemesis, Captain Britain).

7 7. Shuma-Gorath

Shuma-Gorath may be familiar to players of the Marvel vs Capcom series as that weird Marvel character no one ever heard of before. They may figure he's just some weird alien thing. A minor bad-guy that's not too powerful.

In actuality, Shuma-Gorath is a Lovecraftian horror. A cosmic entity, he ruled Earth before history and returns time and time again to reclaim his territory. If not for the efforts of Dr. Strange, Earth's former master would reclaim his throne. This is the sort of thing that would drive lesser men into madness.

6 6. The Brood

The Brood bares a strong resemblance to Xenomorphs — and for good reason. They are an alien race that feasts and infests biospheres, replacing and consuming them from within.

A common enemy of both the X-Men and Captain Marvel, it feels as if the Brood's appearance in the MCU is an inevitability. You should fear the day these slimy, grotesque monsters finally make their appearance in the MCU. They've been ravaging the Marvel Comics Universe for some time.

5 5. The Skinless Man

A panel from Marvel's Uncanny X Force series shows the Skinless Man with his hands raised

Everyone knows that Logan is Weapon X. The Weapon Plus program had many applicants, but Harry Pizer was Weapon III. But, unlike Logan, who gained adamantium claws, Pizer gained elastic skin and incredible strength. In order to depower him, Britain flayed him.

Yet he lived on.

The Skinless Man looks like something out of Clive Barker's Hellraiser rather than Marvel Comics. It seems all but impossible this grizzly hero will ever appear in the MCU. Still, if he does, he will remain the stuff of nightmares.

4 4. Annihilus

Annihilius is the lord and master of the Negative Zone, a parallel universe that causes anguish and terror just by lingering in it. He stands as a cosmic entity from beyond time who hungers for more worlds to conquer.

Again, like Shuma-Gorath, he exists as a Lovecraftian cosmic horror, with power beyond all imagining. While his insectoid appearance may leave a few shaken, it really is his other-worldly presence and power that makes Annihilus so scary. Much like Dormammu, he exists as the Lord of his Realm.

Imagine what sort of horror he could unleash should he conquer Earth?

3 3. Mr. Sinister

Mr. Sinister has been teased in the X-Men films rather than the MCU proper, but it remains inevitable that he be mentioned here. Sinister is an immortal geneticist who toys around with lives. It is thanks to him the Summers family exists. Because of him, demons tried to consume reality in the Inferno event. He is the progenitor of the Legacy Virus, a mutant killing disease. He destroyed the Morlocks.

And all for the sake of scientific investigation.

What makes Sinister so sinister is that the stone-cold way he views the world. He has no empathy. No pity. No emotion. He just wants to understand, and this obsession leaves entire lives ruined in his wake. Fear him.

2 2. Nightmare

Ever have a nightmare? Well, if the Marvel Comics are onto something, it's because of this evil spirit.

Nightmare is one of Dr. Strange's most persistent adversaries, being the ruler of a plane of terror and fear. He infests the world with horror to gain and further his own power over reality. And these aren't hallucinations. These are visits into his own world where the laws of reality are his to bend.

Nightmare will probably be making an appearance in Dr. Strange 2, and when he does, fans of the MCU can expect to be left in a state of absolute terror.

1 1. Carnage

Woody Harrelson will be playing Cletus Kasady in Venom 2 (which is MCU-adjacent, so pseudo-canon?) so superhero fans won't be waiting long to see this troubling villain on the big screen. However, take it from the Marvel Comics fans: Carnage is truly horrifying.

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Long before encountering the spawn of Venom, Kasady enjoyed a life of murder and mayhem. Being an extreme nihilist, he wanted to convince the world that life was truly meaningless in order to "free" humanity from the laws of society. To do so, he'd throw women in front of cars, murder children, slaughter families...

His quest to "liberate" humanity from law and order only became worse when a symbiote grafted itself to his very blood, giving him the ability to sprout weapons from his flesh and split people into pieces with bare hands – all while looking like some demon out of a horror story.

This is a guy so troubling that he even grossed the Joker out in a Marvel/DC crossover event. Carnage is no laughing matter.