The Top Ten Villains of the Avengers

In 2012, Earth's Mightiest Heroes will finally be hitting the big screen. That's right, The Avengers will finally be getting a Hollywood motion picture. For those of you unfamiliar with the excellent Rogues Gallery of the strongest team in the Marvel Universe, I'll give a run down of the greatest foes they've tackled over the years.

#10 - Enchantress
Who is this character?
Enchantress is an Asgardian, most closely associated with Thor. Often after Thor's affection and extremely jealous of Thor's other female interests, Enchantress is volatile and extremely deadly.

What are her powers?
Enchantress is extremely powerful and has a host of Superman-esque abilities including superhuman strength, speed, density, stamina, durability, healing factor, anti-aging, and reflexes. Most importantly, she has considerable mastery in the usage of magic.

#9 - Grim Reaper
Who is this character?
Grim Reaper is the brother of Wonder Man, a member of the Avengers. As a young boy, he burned down their house and felt considerable mental trauma. Eventually, he grew into an evil being with an obsession for all things death.

What are his powers?
The Grim Reaper has limited necromantic powers, including the ability to reanimate the dead. He also has the ability to teleport, fashion illusions, summon demons, and possesses clairvoyance. He also utilizes his trademark scythe weapon.

#8 - The Red Skull
(This information is taken from my other article ''The Top Ten Villains of Captain America''.)
Who is this character?
Captain America's nemesis and arch villain, Johann Schmidt was a simple street thief when he was hand picked by Hitler to be bred and grown into a being known as the greatest evil the world has ever known.

What are his powers?
The Red Skull is able to psionically transfer his mind into other living beings, effectively making him immortal. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant masterminds in the Marvel Universe, especially in the fields of politics and subversion. He has single handedly led many of the world's most powerful terrorist organizations simultaneously without ever being caught. His strategic plans and organizational ability have made him a threat to the entire world since his birth in the 40s. Furthermore, he is a fearsome and accomplished martial artist, almost being Captain America's equal. His marksmanship is near perfect, having shown excellent aim with guns and knives. The most famous of Red Skull's weapons is the ''Dust Of Death'', a dust created by Johann himself that contains a chemical agent to kill foes. This chemical agent induces a withering of the skull and often the mortally wounded foes take on a visage similar to Johann's own.

#7 - Loki
Who is this character?
Loki is a usually mistaken for an Asgardian. Though he is most closely associated with Thor, Loki is only Thor's half brother. Fueled by jealousy and a thirst for power, Loki remains one of the Avengers' most potent villains.

What are his powers?
Loki has many Asgardian related powers which are similar to Superman's. These include superhuman strength, density, stamina, durability, anti-aging, and healing factor. He has a complete mastery of magic, along with considerable psionic power. He also makes considerable use of his shape shifting ability. Mentally, Loki is a great tactician, strategist, and a generally brilliant schemer.

#6 - Baron Zemo
(This information is taken from my other article ''The Top Ten Villains of Captain America''.)
Who is this character?
Zemo was a highly regarded scientist during Nazi Germany. He invented a completely permanent adhesive named ''Adhesive X''. During a struggle with Captain America, the adhesive bonded Zemo's purple cowl to his face permanently and he has sworn revenge ever since. As far as the Avengers go, he assembled the first ever Masters of Evil. This team has gone on to be one of the most powerful Avengers foes in all of it's incarnations.

What are his powers?
Zemo has perfected a chemical agent that slows his aging to a near standstill, effectively making him immortal in terms of aging. Baron also has shown to be a paragon of science, creating many inventions such as special adhesives, gene altering, laser armaments, robotic androids, and lethal weapons of all kinds. Furthermore, Zemo is adept at many forms of martial arts.

#5 - Taskmaster
Who is this character?
Taskmaster learned of his powers at an early age and simply decided to take advantage of them. His main objective is training the henchmen of other super villains. He mostly avoids confrontations with super heroes, but his services make him a deadly foe to The Avengers.

What are his powers?
Taskmaster has photographic reflexes which allows him to learn and understand movements by studying them visually. Thus, he has learned the martial arts abilities of many of the greatest martial artists in the Marvel Universes and has himself become one of the most feared fighters around.

#4 - Count Nefaria
Who is this character?
Nefaria is an Italian aristocrat who simply desired more power. He has deep ties with the Maggia, Marvel Universe's Mafia, and as such was an inevitable target for The Avengers.

What are his powers?
Nefaria is an Ionic being, making him virtually immortal. He can also create temporary objects with his Ionic powers, not unlike Green Lantern. In addition, he possesses the full array of Superman-like powers including superhuman strength, speed, durability, stamina, and agility. He even has the ability to fire lazer beams from his eyes.

#3 - Korvac
Who is this character?
Michael Korvac was a computer technician from the future who was accidentally turned into a cyborg. After the death of his father and acquiring abilities to rival cosmic entities, Korvac sought to conquer the universe.

What are his powers?
Korvac downloaded information from Galactus' ship, giving him God-like abilities that rivaled many of the Marvel Universe's strongest beings. His powers were nearly limitless at one point.

#2 - Ultron
Who is this character?
Ultron is a robot constructed by one of the Avengers founders, Hank Pym. He gained sentience and an extreme hatred of humans soon after.

What are his powers?
Ultron's metal alloy is famously composed of adamantium, making him immensely hard to fight. Additionally, he has superhuman strength, superhuman speed, flight, and a variety of beams. These beams include concussion blasts and tractor beams. The weapon he most utilizes is an encephalo ray which puts it's targets into a death-like coma. Ultron also has the ability to transfer his programming into other mechanical constructs.

#1 - Kang the Conqueror
Who is this character?
Nathaniel Richards, the master of time travel. He's bent on conquering all eras of all universes. In this regard, he has mostly succeeded and has amassed frightening power.

What are his powers?
Mentally, Kang remains one of the most powerful beings in the Universe. He possesses technology far beyond that of Iron Man, Reed Richards, and Doctor Doom. Additionally he is a brilliant tactical and strategic master. He has also honed his martial arts abilities to be the near equal of Captain America's. Also similar to Captain America, his will is unbreakable. As if that weren't enough, Kang possesses the greatest technology that's ever been, including a suit that grants him superhuman strength, superhuman durability, gravity control, communications that stretch into other universes, concussive bolts, object teleportation, electricity manipulation, flight, and body transference. Specific weapons he is known to use include an anti-matter defense screen, electromagnetic amplifier, handgun sized missile launcher, paralysis generator, nerve gas inducer, and molecular manipulator. Most importantly, Kang possesses time travel technology with a complete mastery of it's uses. With all these powers, it should be noted that Kang actually did take over the Earth for a short while, defeating every superhero in the world with tactical genius and superior skill.

And that's it. Who is the villain for the Avengers movie? It could be any number of these! Here's hoping the movie turns out to be entertaining and successful. Avengers Assemble!