The 100 best Marvel characters ranked: 60-41
Star-Lord, Doctor Strange, and Green Goblin land on our list as we continue our countdown of Marvel's film and TV heroes
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The A.V. Club’s countdown of the top 100 Marvel characters continues today with a look at the heroes, sidekicks and villains who rank from 60-41 on our list. Read on to see where the likes of Star-Lord, Doctor Strange, and Green Goblin land.
And to check out the previous installments of the countdown, click on the big Marvel-red buttons below:
44 Comments
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.
This slideshow actually is what they call “content”. It’s entertainment journalism, the thing that it isn’t.
lol what even is this list?
Green Goblin-top 10 for me. I never really grasped the lack of compelling villains everyone was talking about until the recent Spider Man movie.(Olsen has given the best MCU villain performance as Wanda in the Multiverse film, but they rushed that storyline way too quick sadly).Also Famke Janssen was such good casting as Jean Grey(those movies really knew how ti cast).
I’d also put Dafoe’s Goblin top 10
Agreed. Love Dafoe.Famke Janssen is so good as Jean. Love her performance.
You guys put Darcy Lewis above Drax and Michael Pena’s Luis? I mean, WandaVision was the best outing we had with Kat Dennings and her character, but that’s really all the good we get, and she’s not even in the first few episodes. Michael Pena’s character is probably the best comic relief character to appear in the MCU and is probably one of the most meme worthy characters as well. Drax is close to the most quotable and consistently awesome characters ever brought to the MCU—so much so that it’s lightyears ahead of any other role Bautista has ever had. Drax should honestly be higher on this list due to the uniqueness of his comedic responses (failing to understand anything that isn’t literal).
DARCY IS TOP 10
I am just happy Darcy is on the list after her long absence & then triumphant return in WandaVision
If I ever put together a list of most annoying characters in the MCU you might just get your wish!
I do agree with your opinion regarding (Kid’s Choice Award-winning actor) Willem Dafoe though.
Show!!
Fun character, sure, but Darcy Lewis above much of the previous two lists? What was the criteria here?
There is none
I want to see the top 40, no way 20 of them are better than Rocket! No way! Granted they used cartoon of Wolverine already so we may get some of the cartoon characters up their and Spectacular Spider-man better be on that list!
This is literally just a list of Marvel characters. There is no world in which these rankings make sense lol
Some good username / comment anti-synergy going here.
I don’t mind a spread-out ranking like this to attract readers on slow days but there seems to be zero effort put into this. What was the criteria or methodology for ranking these characters? Put them all in an Excel spreadsheet and sort based on a random number generator?There are so many random supporting characters or characters with minor / understated roles here. I just don’t get how these are the top-100. Like the write-up of Storm even says her actual appearances were less than impressive…
Glad for Coulson and Daisy to get deserved recognition. Daisy in particular I think still has story left to tell now that she has joined SWORD with her sister and new partner Sousa. Teaming up Daisy & Sousa the last season of Agents of SHIELD was something I did not see coming & made so much sense the way it happened
Daisy and Sousa works with both their issues too: her daddy issues and his (unintended?) break up with Peggy Carter, or more precisely, his kink for women that can beat the shit out of him. Which, tbh, he shares with every MCU fanboy. That they basically admit their issues to each other, makes them one of Marvel’s more mature pairings.
It didn’t seem like Daisy and Sousa should work—she is an alien and he is from another time—but it just did & it even sort of makes sense, like you say (also does not hurt both always had chemistry with everybody).
Inhumans weren’t exactly aliens, though?We don’t talk about whatever was going on on the moon.
I am oversimplifying
We don’t talk about whatever was going on on the moon.
Yeah but if it all led up to that moment in Dr. Strange 2, it was worth it, imo.
I genuinely do not understand this list. There’s no criteria whatsoever, are you just listing 100 Marvel characters in random order? I feel like #1 is going to be like Howard the Duck for absolutely no fucking reason or like “Mjolnir” is gonna be #3 like, what are you doing with this list. And Jesus, God, WHY is it a fucking sideshow. I can’t enjoy this because there’s no criteria to the rating and I feel like I’m just reading a write up of 100 characters, major, minor and otherwise.
Darcy was not the only funny bit of the pre-Waititi Thor movies. Well, the first one at least. Thor’s whole confident fish-out-of-water vibe in the first movie was pretty damn amusing, like when he smashes the coffee cup in the diner, or this great exchange in a pet store: Thor: I need a horse!
Pet Store Clerk: We don’t have horses. Just dogs, cats, birds.
Thor: Then give me one of those large enough to ride.
There’s lots to like about the first Thor movie. Never understood why it is so lightly regarded. I also enjoyed the bit where he carried the very drunk Selvig back to the RV with the quote “We drank, we fought – he made his ancestors proud”
Yeah as much as Waititi made a great movie (and he did), he didn’t infuse the comedy into Thor. It was already there, in the writing and in Hemsworth’s fantastic and underrated comic chops. It was dialed up and sharpened, sure, but the building blocks were already there.
It’s possibly because The Dark World was a bit grim that people overreact to the course correction in Ragnarok.
I always forget about that line, and it’s arguably the funniest in the film.
Also, the running gag (that was continued in The Avengers) of Thor being knocked out of frame by something bigger than him. (Hit by a car twice in Thor, hit by Hulk in Avengers).
The Warriors Three have several amusing exchanges as well.
I like in The Dark World when they’re in that cave and they hear a phone ring and Thor says ‘it’s not me’ so perfectly like he’s been using a cell phone his whole life
MCU Rocket is just named Rocket, not Rocket Raccoon, and I have no IDEA why the Ancient One is so high up on here. Was this just based on number of Google hits or something?
Yelena is easily my favorite Marvel character currently. I unbiasedly wouldn’t put her top 10, but top 20 for sure.
Me (to Yelena): “Stop making me love you!”Yelena: “Sorry, I can’t.”
It’s Chloe Bennet.Bennet is her father’s first name as she found she was having less success with her actual surname Wang.
Nice to see some rare Halle Berry / Famke love.
Dr. Strange at 47?!?! Dr. Strange is a Top 20 Marvel character! This aggression will not stand, man!
Korg only #54? Boo.I like Strange. Or rather, his snark.
This is worse than NoobMaster69 calling him a dickhead on Fortnite.
60-41 Review: This section is ominous for the rest of the countdown to me because dumb, jokey characters are starting to rank really high…“remember [Mysterio’s] maniacal laughter once he gets Peter’s AI glasses and his real purpose is revealed? Extraordinary.”-Can’t argue with that. He makes Far From Home worth the watch.
Fuck slide shows. What is the point of this? As a comics fan, I clicked on this and none of this is comics. This should be called like Best Marvel Multimedia characters.
I think it’s pretty clear why we all blamed Starlord for messing up that plan in Infinity War. It’s funny to think how it was destined to fail because Starlord can’t help but being stupid