Bad to the Bone

Last time, I cast my dream JLA movie. Well, not  my dream exactly, because I don't expect Elongated Man, Metamorpho or Red Tornado would really pull in the crowds. Now, what about Wheadon's Avengers cast?  I expect to see these guys, obviously:

 ..and they're probably going up against this guy:

...but, and I surprise myself here, Marvel Movies should have taken a leaf out of Bendis' book and included these two guys as Avengers:

 But there is one Marvel character who IS the Avengers, in my book. A stalwart from the end of the Silver Age through the first half of the Bronze Age: the first Synthezoid, the unearthly Vision!

An Avengers movie shouldn't come to the screen without the Vision and the character's been sadly neglected during the Bendis era.
 I think it would be cool (Am I too old to say that? Probably) to have cameos by these guys:

 Ben Grimm is the Greatest Character to come out of the Fantastic Four. Fact.

...and one tiny moment, on a mountain top, where this guy is bemoaning the madness of mankind:

While I'm putting together a wish list, I'd love to finally see that 70s/ Angie Bowie idea of a tv series for these guys, set in San Francisco:

Anyway, back to the Avengers movie. The Big Bad is presumably this guy:

But, and I'm doing it again, how cool would it have been to have an alliance between these guys?

 Having previously taken a look at some of my favourite DC super-villains, I'm devoting two posts to the creme de la crime from the House of Ideas. Let's start with the lower echelons of evil:

Blackie Drago, the second Vulture looks cooler and more predatory than the original. He should be the next Spider-movie villain. Mr. Fear is a more ghoulish-looking version of DC's Scarecrow but I'd definitely pitch him in my fantasy West Coast Avengers series. I first read his debut in Marvel Super-Heroes, when it was reprinting DD and X-Men stories.

 There's going to be a lot of love for Roy Thomas and John Buscema in this blog. The Dragon Man issue was another one of my cousin's Jim's 60s comics; you can't see that it also features Hercules and Fishnets Black Widow. Diablo the alchemist was avowedly one of Stan's less successful villains but I prefer his rather generic robed look here. I do like my Rogues Galleries and the second Masters Of Evil story is a huge favourite. I'm torn between the Whirlwind or the Radioactive Man as top (bad) dog here.

More Thomas and Buscema goodness (and Sal too!) from one of my favourite Sixties books. Tiger Shark was quite the fixture, appearing in several issues- a really memorable design. The schizoid Llyra was responsible for the deaths of Dorma and Namor's father and believed she had murdered Namora. A nod, too, to fellow Lemurian Naga, who incorporated elements of Gollum with those of Conan's archfoe, Thoth-Amon:

In the very final days before decamping to DC with his Fourth World, the King pencilled an Inhumans strip and gave this Red Chinese Iron Man adversary a bit of Kirby Magic:

More Roy the Boy and Big John: this issue was bought in Ayr and this was my first sight of the Grim Reaper. I liked long-time Avengers foe the Living Laser best, however.

What are the Avengers without a giant?

This monocular alien had a touch of H.P. Lovecraft with his worship of Elder Gods. What really excited me as a kid about this cover was that I thought the Falcon was joining- but that took nearly a decade. (I always preferred the non-flying Falc too).

There's going to be a lot of love for Gil Kane in this blog too. Here's a Kane cover for a Werner Roth reprint featuring Kukulcan, one of my favourite goofy Thomas villains:

Big fan of Marvel's framed covers

Immediately after Kirby's departure from the FF, only a couple of new villains appeared: the Over-Mind and the Air-Walker. They were Kirbyesque but I found the apocalyptic Gabriel slightly disturbing as a child:

 Here come two of the biggest losers in Marvel villain-dom. My Aunt and Uncle bought the Spidey book for me, alongside this comic which re-introduced the Man-Thing (and spooked me for months):

 The Gibbon is Hank McCoy gone wrong but essentially, he's just an acrobat, like this guy:

I'd read the Tumbler's debut in Tales of Suspense. While he can be derided, his gimmick is the same as Alpha Flight's Puck. Next, a weird and unsettling image: damsel-in-distress Betty Ross as the Harpy.

Finally, for this installment, a couple of early-70s revamps. First, originally from the debut of Hank Pym as Goliath, a withered old completist known as the Collector (hmm...sounds familiar)

This One will use any excuse to post a picture of Mantis

A former Iron Man villain, the Controller is a disfigured scientist who parasitically drains energy from his mind-slaves and made a hulking antagonist for Starlin's Protector of the Universe. I have a soft spot for the silver-haired Kree captain , who seemed poised to be a break-out character at the end of the Silver Age. Neither he nor his successors (Ms. Marvel, Legacy/Photon or Marvel Boy/Protector) have ever really caught on. Still, a good excuse to post another another Kane cover.

                                              I read these final four comics above as B/W UK reprints

Next time, we'll really raise the bar with some of the most memorable super-baddies from the Marvel stable.

The Legal Bit: All images are presumed copyright of their respective owners.