6 Villains I Want to See on Future Marvel Netflix Shows
This past weekend, I rewatched Daredevil on Netflix, and it still holds up! I’m doubly excited now for the second season in March! Likewise, Netflix and Marvel have announced a second season of Jessica Jones, and there are rumors on the wind of a Punisher show as well. Clearly, this big Marvel experiment has been a huge success, and hopefully it’s only going to get bigger and better from here!
And with new shows and seasons comes a need for new bad guys!
Where are their Emmys?
The Luke Cage show is scheduled to debut later this year. Iron Fist is still in the works. And The Defenders will be here before we know it. It’s a great time to be a Marvel fan — and a Marvel villain! Everyone agrees that the bad guys who star in these shows are some of the best Marvel is putting out, possibly because we have a whole season to get to know them instead of a 2-hour movie. Wilson Fisk on Daredevil and Kilgrave on Jessica Jones have made for great TV, but who else can Marvel use on the small screen?
Join me after the jump for six super-villains that I think would be great for upcoming Netflix shows!
6. Bullseye
He’s a big Gambit fan
Alright, so Bullseye is a given. He’s going to show up on Daredevil, either in Season 2 or in some future Season 3. But I still want him on my list. He’s got to show up, and he’s got to be awesome. He’s got to be as evil as Wilson Fisk and Kilgrave. He’s got to be as dangerous as the Punisher. And he’s got to put Daredevil through his paces. I fully believe in the theory that Bullseye was the sniper cop in Daredevil Season 1. And I fully believe that Marvel and Netflix are going to play the long game with him. I’m totally in favor of that. I just hope that when he shows up, he’s worth the hype.
5. The Enforcers
If only criminals still wore fancy suits
Wilson Fisk is going to return to Daredevil one day, and he’s going to need firepower when he does. He’ll be gunning for Daredevil, while also trying to rise back to power. He could easily employ Bullseye as an assassin, but what about the nitty gritty stuff? Fisk is gonna need the Enforcers! Montana, Fancy Dan and Ox are three rough and tumble crooks who work for the mob in New York City. Montana favors a cowboy theme and a lariat, Fancy Dan is just plan fancy, and Ox is the strong man. They could be a bit cartoonish in the comics, but give them the realistic Netflix twist and you’ve got a couple of memorable henchmen who could, theoretically, give Daredevil a run for his money.
4. Shocker
Just think of the jokes!
I have been a longtime Shocker fan. I love his down-to-Earth attitude and personality. He’s not some megalomaniacal super-villain who wants to take over the world. He’s a street-level crook who is far more interested in getting paid than in getting revenge against Spider-Man. And that’s why I think he’d work out pretty great in one of the Netflix shows. Maybe downplay the quilted costume, and maybe adjust the gauntlets a little, but here’s a tough crook with a solid ‘power’ to put up a threat. He could take on Daredevil or Jessica Jones with ease, putting some zaps into their battles. I know Shocker is normally a Spider-Man villain, but Spidey’s gonna have his hands full with the occasional movie. Netflix is going to produce a lot of shows in need of a lot of street-level villains, and Shocker could really get his due!
3. Songbird
Look, I found a punkish picture!
I tried to think of a good villain for a second season of Jessica Jones, but she doesn’t really have a deep bench (or any bench) of adversaries. Netflix will have to draw from the general pool of Marvel baddies to give Jessica Jones a villain in season 2, and I think they should start with Songbird. I put Songbird on a lot of my lists, and I think she fits here too. Melissa Gold started out as a super-villain named Screaming Mimi, after all. I don’t think she could serve as a full season bad guy, but she’d be great as a henchwoman that Jessica Jones has to fight. Just give Melissa a punk makeover and keep her powers pretty simple (super scream) and you’ve got a solid adversary to give Jessica some trouble.
Plus, she could serve as a backdoor protagonist for an upcoming Thunderbolts TV show. If Marvel never gets around to making a Thunderbolts movies, they could easily use Netflix to start cultivating villains to bring together for the Thunderbolts. It worked for the Avengers, and the whole point of these Netflix shows is to bring them together for the Defenders. Just do it again for the Thunderbolts! And Songbird is the perfect lead character for a show like that.
2. The Slavers
Oh man, already they need to die
For the Punisher TV show, they’re going to want to use Jigsaw. He’s the closest thing the Punisher has to an archenemy. But you know who didn’t use Jigsaw? Garth Ennis. And who is the greatest Punisher writer of all time? Garth Ennis. I’ve said before how Ennis’ run on Punisher MAX is one of the greatest comic book runs of all time. And in the context of this potential Netflix show, I hope beyond all possible hope that the show runners use Ennis’ work as the blueprint, because it’s simply amazing and would be easily adaptable to TV.
And the best story in Ennis’ MAX run is The Slavers. If you want a show that gets to the heart of the Punisher, you do The Slavers. If you want to expose the very depths of depravity in the human spirit, and then have that punished, you do The Slavers. It will chill you to the bone. And the Punisher will never more righteous.
On a cold Brooklyn night in the rain, the Punisher finds a scared young woman crying about her dead baby. She leads him to the world of underground human sex trafficking, and a group of Eastern European ex-soldiers who kidnap women and force them into secret NYC brothels. Slowly but surely, the Punisher digs his way into the heart of their operation in some of the most gruesome, but amazing, acts of punishment in his career. And it ends as powerfully as it began.
The Slavers has an amazing cast of villains to use on Netflix. From Cristu and Vera, the business-focused couple who runs the trafficking ring, to especially Tiberiu Bulat, the old warhorse father who started the operation, and whose violent passions drive the epic climax. These are characters who viewers will come to loath, and when they receive their punishment, it will be glorious.
1. Steel Phoenix
The marketing was already done for them
Making the Iron Fist TV show should be easy: just adapt Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Immortal Iron Fist comic from 2006. The series rejuvenated the character for the new century, and gave him a backstory and a whole host of villains worth watching. Chief among them is the Steel Phoenix, who originally debuted as an Iron Fist villain named ‘Steel Serpent’ in 1975. And I’m sure there were a lot of great Steel Serpent stories in the day, but when Brubaker, Fraction and Aja got their hands on him, he became something legendary.
Granted, Steel Serpent is probably automatically going to be the main villain in the Iron Fist show. But I want to go on the record saying not only do I want him as the villain, but he needs to follow this storyline.
What this comic creative team did was introduce two great concepts: 1.) Iron Fist is a legacy title, and there have been Iron Fists throughout civilization, protecting the weak and innocent; and 2.) Iron Fist is only one of half a dozen different Immortal Weapons, each one a champion of their tribe.
This should be a TV show already
Steel Serpent, otherwise known as Davos, grew up alongside Danny Rand, both of them training in martial arts in the mystical city of K’un-L’un. But in the end, it was Danny who become Iron Fist, not Davos, and that drove the villain to jealousy and madness. Well in this series, Davos teams up with another tribe and becomes their champion in order to fight Iron Fist. Davos teams with the enigmatic Crane Mother and becomes Steel Phoenix, fighting Iron Fist and the other Immortal Weapons. I could go into detail, but there’s just so much detail. Just know that it’s an amazingly entertaining story, steeped in cool martial arts mysticism.
Steel Phoenix is a powerful, monstrous, but not completely irredeemable villain who would make a great adversary. And his story could easily stretch over two seasons, or maybe Marvel and Netflix could cram the whole thing into their normal 13 episode schedule. It would happen, and it would be amazing.
Honestly, this whole list probably just exists so that I can insist the Iron Fist show just be a straight adaptation of Immortal Iron Fist. It’s that damn good. Plus you’ve already set up Daredevil’s Madame Gao as a potential for Crane Mother. Don’t pass that up!
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Who do you want to see show up in the Netflix Marvel shows? What villains deserve the same treatment as Kingpin or Kilgrave? Let me know in the comments!
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Posted on January 20, 2016, in Lists of Six!, Marvel, Punisher, Television and tagged Netflix, Netflix Defenders. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments.
Henchman-4-Hire 
Here’s my list of villains I want to see:
-Typhoid Mary: If we are talking Kingpin henchmen this is a must, Mary brings a more psychological theme into the show that not many would try and his conection with both Matt and Fisk would make for great drama.
-Mr Fear: I’m talking about the third Mr Fear here, where Brubaker turned him from a knock off of The Scarecrow into an evil villain that could give Killgrave a run for his money, arguably even more despicable, since unlike either Kilgrave or the Kingpin, Mr Fear actually wins!
-The Wrecking Crew: I think that in the netflix universe they could be something of a recurring villain, I would personally introduce a member or 2 in Luke Cage and have them be a team by the defenders, hence their need to team up.
Barracuda: If the new Punisher needs a recurring villain then how about the best recurring villain that Ennis himself created? Barracuda is a “funny” guy which would be a nice contrast with all the darkness it’s sure to fill the show.
Ooo, Typhoid Mary, good call! I’d forgotten all about her. And the Wrecking Crew is a good choice. They could be enemies of the Defenders when that show comes up. I’d been thinking Avengers vs. Wrecking Crew, but they would be good up against the Defenders.
And Barracuda almost made my list. I was definitely considering him. I forget why I didn’t go with him though, but he’d be pretty spectacular too. Any and all Ennis characters would!
6. Stilt-Man. Ok relax, I don’t actually mean Daredevil is going to fight a dude in a stilt-suit. I mean that they can do Armor Wars on a small scale Netflix show. Someone steals Stark Tech. It doesn’t have to be Stilt-Man, but Beetle is Sony, Stingray should be a good guy, I don’t think the Guardians should ever show up….and I can’t remember who else stole armor from him. Porcupine? He’d do. But someone steals the tech and starts using it to commit street crime. No grand designs. No schemes. Just using stolen tech to steal other things. So Tony can’t let the fact that his tech has fallen into the wrong hands get out. So Maria Hill (or whoever replaces her) hires a private eye who knows how to keep her mouth shut, to recover the tech. Perfect for Jessica Jones. PI work that ends with a super slugfest.
5. A Chitauri. Everyone pretty much agrees that having all the aliens from Avengers drop when the mothership explodes is kind of a cop-out. So what if one of them didn’t? What if one of them was special and immune to the hive mind wipe? So he hides. He hides for years living on the streets of New York. In the sewers. In the shadows. He’s an urban legend. He’s hungry and he’s started eating people. The Monster of Hell’s Kitchen. Daredevil answers the call and tracks the monster back to its lair, and discovers his alien secret. What a twist! But also I think it points to one of the most important thing about Daredevil: The Avengers and SHIELD are too big to clean up their own messes. We need street-level heroes to actually care about people on a scale smaller than City-dropping.
4. Constrictor. Poor man’s Shocker. Everything you said about Shocker except I assume Sony gets the Shocker. But the Serpent Society is all Marvel.
3. Ghost Rider. Once Dr. Strange comes out, then the magical mystical Marvel opens up. I think it is high time for a non-Nic Cage Ghost Rider. And though these Netflix shows are very down to earth, we did get some magic in Daredevil. I think maybe Daredevil teams up with Ghost Rider for something, then Daredevil finds out he’s in over his head. But then, Ghost Rider comes for Punisher and gives him the Penance Stare; but it doesn’t affect him at all, because the Punisher will never feel remorse for what he must do. (Or conversely it affects him deeply and we get to see a side of a 40 year old character that we rarely get to see. Emotional depth works better for TV protagonists than the scary boogeyman-vibe. That’s more a comic book thing.)
2. Taskmaster. I read somewhere that Deadpool can’t use him because he’s all Marvel. Makes sense since he started in a Captain America book…I think…and am too lazy to look up. But I think photographic reflexes is a really good TV power. In fact, Heroes had a kid who could do photographic reflexes (he used it to mimic Rey Mysterio’s West Coast Pop). But Taskmaster fighting Daredevil to a standstill using his own fighting style, then Elektra jumps in and Taskmaster fights both using the other’s moves on them…glorious.
1 Grant Ward. Boom. Mic Drop.
I would be down for a Grant Ward appearance…except for whatever weird change he’s gone through in the last finale. Not sure if I want that Grant Ward to show up anymore. But an Armor Wars on Netflix? That’d be pretty ballsy…I could see Armor Wars for Iron man 4 though!
Also, Penance Stare on the Punisher would be cool…but if it works, there goes the Punisher. And if it doesn’t work, then there goes Ghost Rider.
I actually saw a suggestion for Typhoid Mary as a Jessica Jones antagonist. The show handled PTSD in a fantastic way, so it’s safe to assume they’d handled Dissociative Identity Disorder just as well. She could continue the show’s themes of abuse and how people react to it and how cycles of abuse perpetuate. The split personality also makes her a difficult antagonist to deal with, as hurting her hurts an innocent woman, and it strikes me that Jessica would be much more torn by that sort of conflict than the Netflix version of Daredevil would be.
Jessica Jones has also proven that it doesn’t view female sexuality as a bad thing at all. It embraces female sexuality. So it would have a much easier time getting away with a sexual aggressive antagonist like Typhoid Mary. With Daredevil, it would a lot tougher for them to have Mary as sexually empowered without carrying undertones of that empowerment being bad.
Plus, it would be easy to tie her into the IGH story. Tie her more directly to Jessica than she could be to Daredevil.
Typhoid Mary’s not an intuitive choice for a Jessica Jones antagonist. But once the idea’s planted, the potential of it just grows more and more.
Leave it to you to come up with the most genius idea on this list!
It wasn’t my idea. Someone else came up with it. I just loved it.