10 Ruined MCU Characters The Franchise Can Still Redeem

It’s not too late for the MCU to redeem several characters who have been mishandled by the long-running franchise. The MCU has found success built on the back of memorable heroes and villains played by wonderfully talented actors, but for one reason or another, some of them haven’t lived up to their potential. Over the expanding timeline of the MCU, some heroes and villains have changed for the worse, soiling what may have been a more previously well-like character. Other times, characters miss the mark from the start.

Fortunately, the very nature of a long-running franchise means that upcoming MCU movies and TV shows can still make good on previous mistakes. Even characters who have tied could find their way back to the big or small screen as the MCU continues to navigate its multiverse saga. However it happens, fans of these popular characters would be well served by righting some of Marvel Studios’ rare but disappointing wrongs.

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10 Taskmaster Can Still Be Given A Personality

Appears In Black Widow

Black Widow makes a big change to Taskmaster – a character with the ability to mimic any action they see – for their live-action debut, and it almost works. The movie changes Taskmaster from a former SHIELD agent named Tony Masters to Antonia Dreykov, the daughter of the film’s primary antagonist, who is controlled with a chip in her brain after Black Widow and Hawkey’s assassination attempt on her father’s life almost kills her. The gender swap is largely inconsequential, but tying Taskmaster to Widow’s checkered past makes narrative sense.

What doesn’t make sense is removing Taskmaster’s iconic, sarcastic wit and making the character a silent, mind-controlled assassin. Despite being a mercenary for hire in Marvel Comics, Taskmaster often has an attitude akin to MCU Tony Stark and even doesn’t mind chatting with the good guys once in a while – after all, he’s only in it for the money. Fortunately, Antonia is returning as part of the Thunderbolts cast, where her years away from her father’s mind control may let more personality shine through.

9 Quicksilver Died Far Too Soon

Appears In Avengers: The Age Of Ultron

While Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, has had a long and complex character arc through the MCU, her twin brother wasn’t quite so lucky. Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson did well with the role, but given Pietro dies at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, he simply isn’t given the screen time he deserves in a movie already full of characters. Given that Wanda and Pietro are the children of Magneto in Marvel Comics (depending on the continuity), it’s possible Quicksilver could return however and whenever the X-Men and related characters fully join the MCU.

8 Iron Fist Deserves A Better Chance At Success

Appears In Iron Fist Season 1 and 2 & The Defenders

Of the Defenders Saga’s lead heroes, there’s little doubt that Iron Fist was the most divisive. While Finn Jones is a talented actor, the show was forced into a truncated timeline for fight choreography, meaning that a character centered on incredible martial arts only delivered dull fight scenes. Iron Fist season 2 was an improvement, but damage to the series’ reputation had already been done. With other Defenders-era characters like Daredevil and Kingpin back in the MCU, the time is right to bring back Danny Rand with a better fight choreographer.

7 Sif Has Been Sidelined For Too Long

Appears In Thor, Thor: The Dark World, Loki Season 1, & Thor: Love And Thunder

Thor has had a long run in the MCU, but his supporting cast of characters has often been treated confusingly poorly. The Warriors Three were quickly and unceremoniously killed by Hela, and while Sif is still alive, she’s had little more than cameo appearances for most of her tenure. Most recently, Sif has a few minutes of screen time in Thor: Love and Thunder, but her life-threatening injury was played off as a joke, and she wasn’t seen again after one scene. With an actor as talented as Jamie Alexander, the rumored Thor 5 would do well to revisit the Asgardian warrior.

6 Nick Fury Started Strong But Been Misused By The Modern MCU

Appears In Several MCU Movies & Shows, Including The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier & Secret Invasion

Despite possessing no superpowers, Nick Fury, the former Director of SHIELD, has remained an iconic part of the MCU since his cameo appearance in Iron Man. His early appearances showcased his tough, no-nonsense attitude and painted him as a force of good willing to bend moral boundaries to protect humanity. Unfortunately, Nick Fury’s first and only feature project – Secret Invasion – is one of the MCU’s worst and paints Fury as confusingly incompetent. However, The Marvels gives glimpses of the man’s better years and may be a sign that future projects will use him to better effect.

5 Rhodey’s Confusing Secret Invasion Twist Retroactively Makes His Character Worse

Appears In Several MCU Movies & Shows, Including Iron Man, Captain America: Civil War & Secret Invasion

James “Rhodey” Rhodes has been in the MCU since its first movie, but the Secret Invasion series manages to retroactively make his journey worse. Rhodes was the only superhero revealed to have been a Skrull, and while the show doesn’t specify how long the on-screen War Machine has been an alien imposter, director Ali Selim claims Rhodey has been a Skrull “a lot longer than we suspected.” The Skrull twist could have worked, but it was done with no nuance or feeling of impact in Secret Invasion and instead turned a formerly likable character into a two-dimensional antagonist with little fallout.

Fortunately, War Machine still has time to be redeemed. He will return to the MCU in the upcoming Armor Wars movie, which has been set for the big screen after initially being presented as an upcoming TV series. Though details on the project are scarce, a movie centered on Rhodey can undo the damage from Secret Invasion and re-establish him as the grounded franchise mainstay he previously was.

4 Wasp Has Been Relegated To A Side Character

Appears In Ant-Man 1-3 & Avengers: Endgame

It’s understandable that Hope van Dyne didn’t suit up in the first Ant-Man movie, given it was already busy establishing Scott, and Wasp was given a much more substantial and satisfying role in Ant-Man and the Wasp. However, it’s been downhill since then, as Hope was relegated to an inconsequential side character in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Wasp is a founding Avenger in Marvel Comics, yet she’s only briefly appeared in a team-up film. Whatever’s next for the Ant-Man franchise, Wasp deserves to truly spread her wings.

3 Hulk’s Biggest Moment Happened Off-Screen

Appears In Several MCU Movies & Shows, Including The Incredibly Hulk, Avengers 1-4 & Thor: Ragnarok

Though the Hulk only has one solo movie in the MCU, the franchise was well on its way to successfully telling a compelling story for Bruce and his alter ego across several other Marvel movies. Thor: Ragnarok sets up an interesting balance between a slightly smarter Hulk and Bruce, but it’s all undone off-screen in between Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. Bruce had struggled to handle his Hulk personality for years, and hiding the biggest and seemingly final climax to that journey seems incredibly misguided. Fortunately, with Banner still alive, it’s possible he’ll get a better narrative close soon.

2 Kaecilius Deserves To Return On Casting Along

Appears In Doctor Strange

Kaecilius is a perfectly serviceable villain in Doctor Strange, who’s inner depth is only briefly touched on in service of giving more screen time to Strange’s evolution into a powerful sorcerer. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for the fact that Kaecilius is played by Mads Mikkelsen, an incredibly talented and acclaimed actor deserving of a more weighty part. Fortunately, Kaecilius succumbs to the Dormammu’s Dark Dimension at the end of the film. In Marvel Comics, Dormammu frequently uses a human avatar, and he could use Kaecilius as a shell if he appears in Doctor Strange 3.

1 Ultron Can Always Find A Way Back

Appears In Avengers: Age Of Ultron

In Marvel Comics, Ultron is a terrifying recurring villain who’s almost impossible to permanently defeat by virtue of him being a machine intelligence. While Ultron’s body can be destroyed, he always has a way to store or copy his consciousness in another host form or online. As such, even after Ultron was defeated far too quickly and never comes quite as menacing as he should in Avengers: Age of Ultron, it’s still possible for the metal tryant to return in a relevant movie. While several MCU projects could work, he seems particularly fitting for Armor Wars, given he was created by Tony Stark.