The 100 best Marvel characters ranked: 80-61
Mighty Thor, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, and Ms. Marvel are among the favorites in the second installment of our big Marvel countdown
Film Features Miles Morales
The A.V. Club’s countdown of the top 100 Marvel characters continues today with a look at the heroes, sidekicks and villains who were placed from 80-61. Read on to see where the likes of War Machine, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, and Drax the Destroyer land on this portion of our list.
And to check out the previous installment of the countdown, which covered characters in the 100-81 group, click on that big Marvel-red button directly below:
39 Comments
I quite like Fassbender’s Magneto. It’s a great performance, I just wish he’d got better films to appear in.First Class is a movie which I like a lot of but it’s got such a weak middle with the introduction and almost immediate break-up of the team when half go to work for Shaw.Days of Future’s Past is by far the best of the lot, while Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix give him very little to do.
Yeah, if the Wolverine movie hadn’t done poorly, we would have gotten a solo Magneto movie instead of parts of it getting folded into a standard X-Men story.
DoFP is probably my favorite of any X-Men movies, simply because it runs at a decent pace and actually has a great story and especially acting. Granted I haven’t seen it in a few years, but I’ll easily revisit it before even any of the original trilogy movies. Apocalypse is a movie that I have entirely forgotten about, aside from that reminder about Quicksilver saving the school. I honestly think I could watch it again like it was the first time, because it’s entirely forgettable. And Dark Phoenix…haven’t ever seen it and probably never will.
Hawkeye not showing up dead last automatically invalidates this attempt at ranking.
Drax is 67? That’s absurd. Adding a DC character to the list would’ve been less absurd.
You’re right, he doesn’t look a day over 55.
In lieu of actual content, the AV Club is proud to present a 100-slide slideshow, split into five separate posts and stretched out over as many days.
I hope Romijn (for the music score associated with her alone) or animated Mystique are higher on the list, they are 90s/early aughts queer icons in their own right. Those versions of Mystique were easy to align with, and for me made more sense than Charles or Magneto’s vision.
Jennifer Lawrence is a great actor and she brought a lot to Raven in the first two movies. But her blue makeup didn’t let her emote or project at all.I’m still waiting for a live action Mystique who gives off that one woman army sense that if you cross her she’ll obliterate you.
Oh yes Lawrence is great, but her character was given a confusing arc compared to the much more “one woman army” you speak of. I kind of liked the mysterious nature of Romijn’s mystique, who didn’t have to give us much insight into her internal dialogue for us to see someone developing a separate identity from Magneto and around her ideas of mutant freedom.
I haven’t seen everything she’s been in, but from the 10 or so movies I have, I haven’t seen anything to indicate she’s anything more than an incredibly mediocre actor. And that is especially true of her portrayals of Mystique. Go back and watch Romijn’s Mystique, and notice the actual effort and skill put into presenting a very specific identity: sleek, mysterious, incredibly dangerous. Lawrence evidenced exactly none of that. All she put forward was a basic, uninteresting person who mostly whined and complained in the most featureless personality possible. Every scene she’s in is worse for having her in it, particularly when you consider the opportunity cost of wasting screen time on her versus further developing better-acted characters (or introducing new ones). A random woman pulled off the street could have put more character into Mystique than Lawrence ever did.
Welcome to installment 2 of AV Club’s Completely Random list of Marvel Characters which may or may not also be marketing for the next MCU movie.
Thank you for remembering that The Runaways existed.
Joan Jett was my favorite Runaway
Now we’re moving into hero and icon territory.
Lyrica Okano did an incredible job as Nico. She came across as a teenager feeling powerless and overwhelmed, AND a teenager with a chance to unleash righteous fury. And, in Season 3, that teenager grown up and all too practiced at the sadness and work of being who she is.
She was excellent. Would be great to see her show up in the movies or one of the Disney plus shows.
Can you make up your mind maybe? Is this MCU Heroes? Or MCU heroes, sidekicks, and villains, and random MCU characters? It also includes tv shows? Then you negate all of that by saying Best Marvel Characters, which insinuates the comics matter, in the first sentence? Which is it? What are the criteria for ‘best’? Did you even bother to think that far? Or are you just spitting out shit trying to get edgelord fanboys like me to clickhate comment bomb this moronic list?
Turning J. Jonah Jameson into a Glenn Beck-ian internet streaming kook was indeed a good idea.
Well, that’s one way to get 100 clicks.
I’ll have to respectfully disagree about James Marsden’s Cyclops being anywhere on this list, as I thought the actor was nowhere near up to the task of capturing the character or going toe-to-toe with Hugh Jackman.Yay for Melinda May! She is indeed among the best. And I absolutely adore James McAvoy’s Xavier – I never thought I would see a better fit for the roles of Xavier and Magneto than Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, but Days of Future Past changed my mind.
I love Ming-Na as May far too much to offer any cohert critique of her ranking. I will just say that her combination of action, comedy, and drama was unique & a couple of her scenes with her surrogate daughter Daisy (quipping about racism while on the run in the Framework, wordlessly holding hands when they think they are about to get blown up in the back of a truck by an anti-Shrike bomb) were really cute.
The First Class version of Magneto number 69? I don’t get this list nut i guess i’ll have to wait to see what the author is really going for.
80-61 Review: If the cartoons are gonna count, this is game over for X-Men. The best versions of every one of them is animated- including Wolverine.
Kilgrave should be higher on this list: at the very least a top five villain for Marvel MCU (TVU?)
“War Machine” is an extra suit of Iron Man armor that flies around and explodes things.“James Rhodes” played by Don Cheadle is a top MCU character. Cheadle’s chemistry with Downey is one reason Iron Man 3 is so underrated and their scenes in Civil War pay off so well. Cheadle gives him a weight of history and conviction and not just a supporting foil. His Rhodey could step in and be the main character. I hope Armor Wars will be worthy of its lead.
James Rhodes is War Machine. Sorry to break it to you.
I tried finishing the list – just in a daydreaming/fill 59 more slots kind of way. The top 15 or so are pretty locked. So the middle is where things are more interesting. I found Drax to be a good, natural benchmark:Will Groot chart? Higher than Drax? No. Groot should not chart.David Haller? Higher than Drax? Mmm-maybe. It’s close. Lenny? Lenny was great — but higher than Drax? I don’t think so. (David higher than Hawkeye, btw? GTFO)Mobius? Higher than Drax? Again, its close. Old Loki made the list, so Mobius, probably.Elena “Yo-yo” Rodriguez? Higher than Drax? Arguably she had more screentime. Though awesome, sadly, she’s not higher than Drax. Contessa Valentina etc. etc. … No.Baron Zemo … kinda but no.
A few randos I hope show up in the rankings, as well as Yo-Yo, who I agree with you aboutWard Meachum from Iron FistGrant Ward from Agents of SHIELDPolaris from The GiftedDarcy from Thor & Wandavision
Hawkeye seems a few slots too low. I can see Kate Bishop and Yelena Belova ranking a bit higher than Clint because they’re both so outrageously charming. I mean, they’re hands down the Tony and Cap of the (presumably coming soon) Young Avengers. But still, higher than Hawkeye … stings a little.Darcy would be fun.Malina May made the list! So Fitz-Simmons, Grant Ward, and Daisy are on the table. Coulson is a given.Mockingbird and Enoch would have been fun too.
I understand why Kate and Yelena will probably place higher than Clint, but I agree, that does seem a little disrespectful. But Kate is sort of his legacy I guess…
Boo. I dont like this.
How about a tip of the hat to a) the casting directors who found and hired these actors, and b) the directors who were able to get these performances out of them – often over several movies?It’s gotten to the point where it’s not easy to imagine anyone else in the roles….
come on! JK Simmons’ J Jonah Jameson should be top 10
I won’t be surprised if Cheadle’s Rhodey gets his own show, they announced it like three years ago.
Kilgrave is arguably the MCU’s best villain (he’s sure as hell more interesting than Thanos anyway) and you just dump him in the mid-70’s? It’s no wonder why people keep clinging to the “MCU has no good villains” myth when all the good ones get overlooked like this.Anyway, JJJ also deserves to be higher up. JK Simmons was so iconic in that role that every screen version of the character since then has either been played by Simmons, or by someone doing an impression of him. Not many actors can come along and completely redefine a character who’s been around for 40 years, let alone do it with less than ten minutes of screen time.
JJJ is the one that I immediately reacted to, and I think it maybe comes down to the specific wording here? Like I can see the argument that the character himself is a little one-note and doesn’t get a lot of development compared to, say, Iron Man, but in terms of actors nailing the role? Simmons owns this list. He’ll still be the definitive on screen portrayal in a hundred years.
Comic book JJJ minus drop ceiling tiles yellowed from cigar smoke = JK Simmons JJJ.