The Avengers just went up against their toughest foe yet in Thanos, but if you thought Thanos was tough, you'll be surprised to find that he's nowhere near the top of the list when it comes to powerful villains. The Marvel universe is filled with mutants and super-humans, sure, but it's also home to Gods.
A lot of these characters have decades of history to draw from, so I'll be doing my best to break down their main story in the clearest terms possible. I'm not insulting your intelligence here, but there's a reason you're reading this and not a scientific journal. OK, so maybe I am insulting your intelligence.
If one of these characters interests you I encourage you to further research because I am going to be 50% jokes and 50% facts. You have been warned. I don't have a Bachelor's degree in Marvel, after all (I have four more years at Brown), but I do know my Marvel characters. Check it out - #1 is a total beast, and the most powerful hands down.
Annihilus? They hardly know us! See? I told you I was going to throw in some jokes here (I never said they were going to be good). I do know this thing's origin though, so don't worry. You're about to get learnt up. Annihilus started as one type of life spore that an alien species was meant to spread around the world. The ship carrying Annihilus (this was before he was the artist known as Annihilus) crash landed on a planet, and as the crew died they released his spore. He became a bug, but ended up learning the alien's technology to become strong and intelligent. I make it sound easy, but it really wasn't.
That's right. The 50th strongest person in the Marvel universe started out as a bug. Talk about not letting your upbringing affect your future. What's your excuse?
Korvac has a long history, most of which doesn't even take place in our universe, so who really cares? I say "our universe" as if anything in Marvel is really in our universe, but you know what I mean. He's taken many different forms over the years, kind of like Seth Rogen. He was super powerful, but he felt like no one appreciated his power. He started being annoying, trying to impress everyone, but that got him into some trouble where a powerful being ripped him in half. You know, standard stuff that happens when you're being a bitch.
This dude hacked into Galactus to become more as powerful as a god, which is when he took his human-like form. Who hacks into Galactus though? I wonder if he stole any bitcoin from him. You know Galactus is rolling in bitcoin.
High Evolutionary is a college nerd whose experiments went so wrong that he became High Evolutionary. In college the only thing I did that made me a high evolutionary was smoking too much weed and talking about the Galapagos islands (and you thought you could escape the dumb jokes). So many scientists get turned into things in Marvel/other superhero stories from their wacky experiments. You never hear about that happening in real colleges. That's because they're all underfunded. You think a state school can fund a gamma ray? They can't even afford to pay their teachers.
Once High Evolutionary became his powerful form, he had a ton of plans, including evolving people using a bomb he made. He's that kind of smart. He's making bombs that evolve people. That'll win you first prize at the science fair. That's for sure.
Abraxas is a little confusing, like many of these people. What happened to characters who drank a super serum and got their powers? All these galactic beings have such weird backstories. Abraxas is an evil, strong dude who was born within another dude named Eternity. The only reason he couldn't go 'Sling Blade' on people was because Galactus could put him in check, but after Galactus died, Abraxas popped off. He threw Galactus' head at Earth. That started a whole thing with the Fantastic Four.
The Fantastic Four teamed up with Silver Surfer and some other people and ended up defeating him by resetting reality, or something like that (it's all made up science. Regular science is hard enough, don't make me learn made up science). After reality was reset, Abraxas wasn't there anymore. Moment of silence for Abraxas.
Chthon is a demon, which is a little unsettling. Not only are there normal bad guys with machine guns. There are also bad guys with super powers. Then you have to worry about celestial beings from different galaxies. As if all of that wasn't enough, there are demons as well. The heroes can't catch a break. You'd think that one mythos would break another one. For example, if there are beings from different galaxies, do they have their own demons? And I don't meant personal demons, like alcoholism.
Chthon was born on Earth with his sister Gaia, and his job was to be the first master of black magic. He kind of got set up to be evil with a job like that, didn't he? "That's my son, Chthon. He's a master of black magic... he's kind of a dick." It's like, what do you expect? It's like parents who name their kid Damian. That's an evil name.
You have to love the Asgardians. They are always sticking their neck out for Earth. That's why Destroyer was created. He's kind of like the statue of liberty, but instead of being a symbol of freedom, he's a symbol of "don't mess with Earth." You see, the Celestials are pretty much god-like characters, and their plan was for Earth to one day have judgement set upon it. If the Earth failed that judgement, they'd be killed. Odin was like, "hell no," and created Destroyer to fight off the Celestials if Earth got a failing grade. Eventually several people tried to use it to kill Thor, so it didn't work out perfectly, but the intentions were good.
You can't mess with a name like Destroyer. It says it all right there. Protector might be for fitting, but it doesn't have the bite that Destroyer has.
Tyrant is the type of guy who can't help but make enemies. He's a power-addict, so at one point he was ruling galaxies all over the place. Honestly, I don't know how you'd do that. Sure, his castle was an entire planet, but that's still a lot of ground to cover if your people start acting up. He started wars with anyone he could, but he made the mistake of messing with Galactus. Galactus ended up killing him, but when you're as powerful as Tyrant, you don't go down with one swing (even if that swing destroyed you).
After that he took on people like Silver Surfer and even Thanos, who he beat. Thanos is stronger than Tyrant, so I don't know how he pulled that off. We all have bad days, I guess.
If you're only familiar with the film's version of Ultron, then you may be shocked to find out the origin story is slightly different. What?! A movie taking liberties from the comic book?! MY WORD! In the film, Tony Stark creates Ultron (with a little help from Bruce Banner), but in the comic book world, Ultron is created by Hank Pym, Ant-Man. That's right, Ant-Man. Though in the movies Hank Pym is the creator of the Ant-Man suit, not Ant-Man himself.
Hank Pym made Ultron, imbuing it with his own personality. The only thing is that Hank Pym isn't a stable dude, so neither was Ultron. Combine instability with intelligence and you get a nasty robot hell bent on destroying humanity. Ultron has a point though. Humanity does kind of suck. Let us kill ourselves though, Ultron. We're doing a good job at it.
Mad Jim Jaspers is the biggest Uncle Tom to mutants. He was a senator who pushed legislation to remove and eliminate mutants, but get this... he was a mutant himself who could warp reality. Who sells out their own people like that? To be fair, he's completely insane, so it's not like he's doing it for any real reason. He just wanted to be the only mutant so he could do whatever he wanted.
After he succeeded in elimination mutants he went on crime sprees and had a good time, which got him the nickname Mad Jim Jaspers. It's not like he ran for senate with that name. Nick Fury ended up killing him by taking him into a void where there was no reality to warp. Bang. One bullet in the head and Mad Jim Jaspers was done.
The Grandmaster is one of the oldest living beings in the universe. He and his brothers (one of which is the Collector) don't even remember their beginninsg because they're that old. They are practically immortal, and super powerful, but Grandmaster doesn't use that power for anything except getting really good at games. For real. His thing is to learn how to master every game and come up with new games. That's like Rob Kardashian using all that wealth to make socks. It's a waste.
The craziest game he ever played was against Death. After his the Collector was killed, Grandmaster wanted to bring him back, so he played a game against Death (just like in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). He ended up winning, but then Death pulled the bitch move of saying, "OK, but you have to die to bring him back." Grandmaster did it and ended up saving Collector's life.
Dr. Doom should be pretty familiar to most people. He's what I would call the Fantastic Four's most recognizable villain. He was in the movies, after all. The movies don't even scratch the surface on what this guy is capable of though. He's the type of guy who messes around with other-worldly beings. Don't go to one of his house parties. Nobody chill will be there, and you'll end up being killed or enslaved.
Most recently Dr. Doom went after Thor's hammer after the fall of Asgard. He was so sure he would be able to wield the hammer, but guess what? He couldn't lift it. How frustrating is that? You're so powerful that you've even died and been resurrected, but you can't even lift Thor's hammer. I guess worthiness has nothing to do with how many lives you've ruined with your power. Sigh.
This one is going to get a little weird. The Ultimate Nullifier is a part of Galactus, so much like him, it looks different to different people. The general consensus is that it looks like a little motorola cell phone. Whatever it is or does, Galactus is afraid of it. I can only think of one reason you'd be afraid of something that was part of yourself - if you had a big, you know what. Anyway, enough about that.
Generally Galactus keeps this thing with him, but he's let people borrow it in the past. He gave it to a guy named Quasar to defeat a guy named Magus, but that backfired and it worked against Quasar. It tends to float around the Marvel universe, sometimes back with Galactus and other times not, which they explain by our old friend Abraxas. Remember that whole situation where the reality was reset and Abraxas disappeared? That might have something to do with things bouncing around. You can't mess with reality.
The Alien Entity is actually very dope. He's an all-powerful being, which usually means that he's going to start a war or fight someone, but that's not the case with The Alien Entity. All the Alien Entity wants to do is travel the world to find the meaning of life. He's like a college stoner who goes on a backpacking trip through Europe. He's not up to any trouble. He's just trying to find his way.
He ended up going to Reed Richards, of Fantastic Four fame, and asking for help. I would have gone to a spiritual leader liker Ram Dass or Kanye West, but Reed Richards is a good bet too. Reed Richards was basically like, "dude, this world is too big to find any satisfying meaning. You're super powerful, why don't you just make your own reality so you can dictate the meaning?" The Alien Entity was like, "I never thought of that." Then he made his own reality and all was well.
The Gladiator is the leader of the guard for the Shi'ar Empire to uphold Shi'ar law, whatever that is. Shi'ar Law seems to be inline with human law though, because generally he's friendly towards Earth, but like any extra-terrestrial being, there are bound to be miscommunications.
My favorite story of The Gladiator is when he totally got played by the Skrulls. The Skrulls are shapeshifting people, so they are always causing trouble. The Gladiator chased one of their crashing ships down to Earth, but when he got there he found the Fantastic Four, who he thought were the Skrulls. He kicked their asses, but then the X-Men showed up and started fighting him. The Gladiator was super pissed that his friends were fighting him, but then Spider-Man and Captain America showed up and cleared everything up.
Vishanti is actually three entities in one body, or three separate entities that are all the same. It's kind of confusing, but that's what you get when you're dealing with all powerful beings. They don't play by our rules. Vishanti consists of Oshtur, a woman, Hoggoth, a tiger, and a sorcerer named Agamotto. Together, they are incredibly powerful, though not completely immortal. In fact, they've had to request help from someone familiar.
At one point Vishanti had to face a similar trinity named the Trinity of Ashes. Vishanti didn't' want to take any chances so they asked Doctor Strange for help. Doctor Strange said, "sure. Why not? Is this a weekend thing?" Then they told him the war might last a millenia so he dipped out. A millennia is a long time to commit to something. I can't even commit to finishing this article.
Eon was created with the big bang, so he's kind of a big deal. He's known for controlling the Earth's axis and being responsible for certain natural phenomena on Earth. Needless to say, he's a fan of Earth and its creatures. Overall he's all about life. His job is to ensure that the universe is well enough to sustain life. I wonder how he feels about Thanos' plan in the Infinity War movie. Yes, half of all living creatures will be killed, but that will make room for more life. What a conundrum. I sort of have the answer!
Speaking of 'Infinity War,' in the comics (which, let's face it, have no bearing on anything in the cinematic world), Eon tells Captain Marv-ell to save the world from Thanos, which with a team of other heroes, he does. Don't worry about Avengers 4 spoilers. The movie is so different that Captain Marv-ell isn't even a dude.
Two beings by the names of Master Order and Lord Chaos created the In-Betweener because they couldn't find balance with each other. It was kind of like when a couple who doesn't get along have a kid and it ends up saving their marriage because they have something to focus on besides their horrible relationship. The In-betweener's job was to always create balance in the world. That's a dangerous word though. Thanos was also looking for balance and look how that turned out.
The In-Betweener had the idea to gain balance by altering reality to his concept of balance, but Doctor Strange had a problem with that. After all, Doctor Strange's job is to keep reality composed. Doctor Strange ended up beating the In-betweener, but then he got himself into more trouble later, as all cosmic beings do.
This character is based off of a god in Japanese mythology. That makes it a great villain for Thor, seeing as though that's Norse mythology. Let's have a battle of the mythologies, people! It'll be fun! Amatsu-Mikaboshi was ruler of Earth before it even resembled Earth. Two gods came to it and decided to create life. The life they created were considered Gods to the Japanese, which pissed off Amatsu-Mikaboshi because it was the real OG god.
Amatsu-Mikaboshi tried to destroy his enemies, but they bitch slapped him down to the Japanese netherworld for a long time. His main vendetta is against the gods that sent him to hell. Amatsu-Mikaboshi pretty much takes any opportunity to mess the gods that he can. You can imagine that after Asgard fell, he went wild with no one to stop him.
Molecule Man is another one of those scientists who messed up in the lab and got powers because of it. His powers are to manipulate the atoms of inanimate objects. I guess whether you become a good guy or bad guy after that all depends on what influences you have in your life. Molecule Man was in a very negative place when he got his powers, so he went the villain route instantly. His first action was taking over the Fantastic Four's building and declaring himself ruler.
The Fantastic Four couldn't beat him at first, but then after realizing that he could only control inanimate objects, they hid themselves in statues. When olecule Man tried to manipulate the statues, it hurt his brain and they beat him. That was only the first time he started trouble though. It never is.
Ego is another character who has been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though his origin is different in the movie than in the comics. I loved Kurt Russell's portrayal of him. Hell, I love Kurt Russell period. In the movie he is Peter Quill's father (Starlord) though that's not the case in the comic books. Now we get to live with the thought of a planet having sex with a woman.
In the comic books Ego tells Thor that he was created when a scientist merged with a planet. Here we go, another scientist getting into trouble with his science experiments. After threat he started to consume planets, spaceships, and anything else he could get his planet-sized mouth around. That's when he got on Thor's radar, who came to defeat him so that he wouldn't destroy anyone's world.
Mephisto is the ruler of hell, but it's not the hell you learned about the in bible. I guess that's a whole different place (?). I don't think Marvel has made any grand gestures towards acknowledging any one religion, so who knows. There could be twenty hells in their universe. We know there is at least one, and that's Mephisto's realm. If you think he looks like the Devil, you're right. He's obsessed with looking like the Devil, and even gets pleasure from it.
He has two kids who you may be familiar with: Blackheart and Mephista. Mephista's job was to destroy Doctor Strange, while Blackheart was to be Mephisto's heir. Crap, all my dad wanted from me is for me to work two days a week in the hardware store. I got off easy compared to these kids.
Cyttorak is a god-like creature who was banished from Earth so long ago that no one even remembers why. He had a crew of eight other gods who all thought they were the strongest. Instead of fighting it out, they put a fraction of their powers into different artifacts. If someone found their artifact, that person would become powerful. When all eight were found by their respective leaders, they would start a war among all of humanity until one power's army was left standing. And to think, they could have just had an arm wrestling match.
The famous X-Men character, Juggernaut, gets his power from Cyttorak's gem. THat's unlike the Juggernaut we see in 'X-Men: The last Stand' who is just a normal mutant. I like the comic book version much better. It has more of a mythos to it.
The Watchers are actually a race of people, but who we're talking about is Uatu. It's like calling Captain America, "the human." I guess that might be what you call him if he was the only human you ever encountered. Their job is only to gain more knowledge, not to interfere with anything that goes on. That means they wouldn't even save a puppies life if they could. You'd think they'd at least make a puppy exception.
This is what makes Uatu so special. He actually interferes with human affairs. Most notably he helped the Fantastic Four in several battles which eventually got him banished from The Watchers. What was Uatu thinking? Did he think that The Watchers weren't watching? They shouldn't act like they're so perfect, though. There have been other Watchers who have interfered. What can you do?
Black Bolt is one of the Inhumans, who are a race of superhumans, not unlike the superhumans that have developed as mutants. Thousands of years ago they got tired of human's bullshit and left to a secret place called Attilan. They are kind of like Wakandans in that way. They knew they'd just get the short end of the stick if they stuck around. It's one of two options. Either humans would kill them, or they'd want to exploit them. That's what humans do.
Inhumans are already superpowered, but Black Bolt is even more superpowered because his mother got exposed to something called Terrigen Mist. This guy is stacked with power. It's too much power, really. Share some of that power with a guy like me. I want to be able to do a pull-up one day.
Surtur is like the Asgardian version of the devil. Even Odin fears this guy, so he stuck him inside the Earth's core. Unfortunately he's been freed a couple of times. If there was one person you'd guess to let Surtur free, who would it be? If you guess Loki then you guessed correctly. Loki is always causing trouble.
Surtur was in the movie 'Thor: Ragnarok' in a rather faithful depiction. His legend was always that he would destroy Asgard. That ends up being true when Thor unleashes Surtur so that Surtur can destroy both Asgard and Hela, the goddess of death. It's like the classic saying goes, "if you can't beat them, call an ancient demon to destroy your world." It's Thor's version of pulling the cord on the video game console just to avoid losing.
The Sentry is a lot like Spider-man if instead of being bit by a spider he was injected with a serum. He was just a teenager when it happened, so much like Spider-man, the first thing he did was beat the crap out of the school bully. After that he became a superhero and friend to many other superheroes. Everyone loved this guy. He was a mentor to Spider-Man, and a friend to the outcast, The Hulk.
The sad thing is that he had to be forgotten. A dark entity known as The Void came and attacked the Earth, killing millions of people. The Void was the dark version of Sentry, and it was far too powerful to defeat, so he had no choice but to make the entire world forget about him. Once he was forgotten, the Void disappeared. How sad... of course he comes back later, like all heroes do, so it's all good.
Apocalypse is one of the first mutants back in the time of ancient Egypt. His backstory is pretty interesting considering most know him from the X-Men cartoon series or the movie, 'X-Men: Apocalypse.' He was found by a group of nomads as a baby, but they were all later captured and made slaves. Apocalypse wasn't about that slave life, so he rebelled and was killed. Too bad Apocalypse doesn't stay dead. He came back and wiped everyone out. Not long after, he was the rule, traveling the world and spreading pain and death.
Apocalypse ultimately goes out like a sucker. His whole goal in life was to use the technology from a Celestials ship, but it turns out they didn't want him to use it. After he used it, he knew they were coming for him, so he tried to die to avoid punishment, but they resurrected him just so they could take him and punish him. Owned.
Considering he gets stronger the angrier he gets, the Hulk has a high potential for strength. Just put him in traffic on the 405 freeway. He'll be strong enough to crack the Earth in half. I have friends who are constantly angry. Even the smallest thing sets them off. They could do something as simple as enter their password incorrectly into Facebook and they get set off. If they had Hulk powers we'd be screwed. They just couldn't control it. You can't blame Bruce Banner for losing it. I applaud him for not going off every single day.
Many men have played Hulk over the years in the movies. Which one do you think has best portrayed the Hulk? It's hard to tell because not all of them are great movies. The playing field seems less than even.
Do you think you're patriotic? I bet you have nothing on Silver Surfer. Before he became the chrome-plated dude we know today, he was a regular humanoid alien man. One day Galactus showed up to eat his world, but the Surfer wasn't having it. He flew up to Galactus on a ship and said, "What do I have to do to make you not eat my planet?" Galactus said, "I guess you could be my slave and travel around looking for other worlds for me to eat." It's not like the Surfer could have backed down at that point, so he took the job. Galactus chromed him up and gave him a surfboard. Thus began the longest job ever.
That's gotta suck. Sure, your own world is saved, but you have to go around and doom other worlds too.
What's there to say about Zeus that hasn't already been said in Greek mythology? Zeus is the ruler of Olympus, so yeah, he's pretty powerful. He even beat the crap out of his own parents to get control of Olympus. Is that what I have to do to get my parent's lakeshore property? I'll invite them out there for a family trip. Once they show up I'll throw three swords on the ground and tell them, "whoever is left standing gets it." I really want that lakehouse.
After Zeus took over, he and his siblings just went around having sex with everything. They had sex with humans, aliens, balls of energy - you name it and they hit that. If you ever meet someone really strong who says they are the son of Zeus, believe them.
Everybody loves Thanos these days. 'Infinity War' brought this character to a whole new group of fans who hadn't read about him in the comic books. The thing is, in the movie he's somewhat sympathetic. His plan, although destructive, is for the good of the universe. That's not the case in the comic books. In the comic books he's just a dickhead. He tries to destroy humanity with the power of a Cube so he can impress Death and get with her. Even worse, he fails and she disses him.
The only reason he goes for the Infinity Gauntlet is because he needs to get some street cred back after messing things up with the cube. In the end he's defeated and killed, but Death comes through for him and resurrects him. I knew she'd come around.
It's not doubt that two of the strongest mutants are Professor X and Magneto. Mutants are graded by levels, I believe, and these two are level fives. Now imagine if you combined them. Now imagine even further. Not only did you combine them. You combined the darkest parts of both of them. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Onslaught. He looks more like Magneto than anyone else, but I bet once you take off that helmet he's bald just like Professor X.
His plans was to destroy everybody, humans and mutants alike. Deep down, that's probably what both Professor X and Magneto knew was right. It's like when your parents would turn the car around because you and your sibling were fighting. "Screw the whole thing! It's over!" Luckily the X-Men gathered with some other heroes, including Thor, and killed him.
Dormammu is another one of those dudes from a far off distant dimension. We're talking about the type of place where he was pretty much just a big ball of light. Eventually he took a human form when he entered another dimension with humanoids. He's not even in the Earth dimension by this part of the story. In fact, there's a whole lot of otherworldly stuff to his story before he even messes with our big blue planet.
You may remember Dormammu from the 'Doctor Strange' movie as the main villain (sort of). He's the main villain but he's only in one final battle. He beats Doctor Strange multiple times, which is kind of cool to see, but he doesn't win. Doctor Strange uses the time stone to reverse time so that Dormammu can never actually win.
Odin is Thor's father and ruler of Asgard. Obviously you've got to be a strong guy to be the ruler of Asgard. It doesn't help that he absorbed his slain brother's power after they were killed by Surtur. That's about the time that Odin threw Surtur into the core of the Earth. That's just one of the many enemies that Odin has fought. At one point he built the Destroyer just so he could fight off the Celestials, who are extremely powerful.
Odin has had his own run in with Thanos as well. He beat him, but that's not the end of the debate there. Considering that Thanos has gotten stronger since there fight by using enhancements, it's possible that it isn't always true that Odin could beat Thanos. Also Thanos could just snap his fingers with the Infinity Gauntlet and hope that Odin was one of the guys who disappeared.
Thor, the strongest Avenger. He's really the dude they need to lean on in every battle, because he's on a whole other level. Last time I checked, he's the only God on the team. I mean, Thor is the type of guy who gets excited about fighting the Hulk. That means something. In fact, he's the only reason they beat Thanos in the 'Infinity War' movie, and sure that's just the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and sure, Thanos ultimately won, but a few inches higher and Thor would have been 100% victorious instead of 98% victorious.
You can't blame Loki, Thor's half brother, for being jealous of Thor. Everybody loves Thor, especially Odin. Loki had no choice but to be evil. What else was he going to do? Be second place? I'd rather be first the worst than second best.
Beyonder is a bunch of energy that turned into a person. Confused? Let me explain. A group known as the Beyonders, which just mean people who are so beyond what we think of as people that it's best just to call them Beyonders, put these Cubes of energy out into existence. The purpose of the Cubes was to alter energy. I guess that's the sort of thing Beyonders do. After Molecule Man took the last Cube, the leftover energy became the Beyonder.
The Beyonder checked out Earth for a while, then got bored so he faked his own death. Kind of irrational to me, but people do what they do. Eventually the other Cubes told The Beyond what he is, "my man, you're just a cube." That's when Molecule Man found him and was like, "Dude, should we merge completely?" so they did and became a Cosmic Cube again.
Captain Universe is a title similar to Green Lantern. Sorry to mix my universes, but it's the quickest analogy I could think of. No one person is Green Lantern. The Green Lantern is whoever the ring chooses. That's the same with the the energy that makes Captain Universe, well, Captain Universe. Some alien/celestial beings from another world sent out the energy (the Uni-Power), but no one really knows anything about them, so screw 'em.
At one point the Uni-Power found Spider-Man, though he didn't get all of the powers. It's a good thing he got them though, because his next set of battles would require all of the power he could get. Some people get all the luck. Not only does Peter Parker get bit by a radioactive spider, he gets the Uni-Power too. I can't even get a good parking space.
Nemesis is the physical embodiment of all six Infinity Stones. She was chilling, just doing her then, but then, get this, she got so tired of living that she just burst herself into six stones and scattered them across the galaxy. That is the ultimate case of "I'm over it" that I've ever heard of. Imagine being at a party that sucks, so you suddenly just burst into gems. I think everyone would take the hint at that point. Your party sucks, bro.
You can't blame some of these eternal beings for getting bored with life. When you're super strong and can live forever, what are you supposed to live for? No wonder so many of them are either hell-bent on killing things, or constantly fighting each other using elaborate plans that span decades and galaxies.
The Celestials are a supreme race of beings who stand 2,000 feet tall and are clad in armor that no one has seen them without. Their actions make them sound like your standard alien. You know, like they are so far beyond our species that they end up doing weird, evil things to us. For example, they've come to Earth to do experiments on people. That sounds pretty alien, right? They even created a sub-species of humans called the Deviants and the Eternals. Thanos is an Eternal, for reference, though he looks like a Deviant, which must be why he's so angry.
These are the creatures that Odin created the Destroyer to fight against. At 2,000 feet tall each, I don't think the Destroyer would stand much of a chance. Especially with Loki trying to steal it constantly.
Before he was Galactus, the world eater, Galactus was just a normal humanoid alien. This was all before the Big Bang. I know a lot of you Stephen Hawking fans are thinking, "what do you mean BEFORE the Big Bang?" This is comic book land, people. Stick with me. Before the Big Bang, everything was sucking up into one little egg of matter, including his planet. As it sucked everything in, the Phoenix Force (the same one that inhabited Jean Grey in X-Men) resurrected him as the Big Bang happened. Thus, Galactus was formed.
What does a creature reborn out of the Big Bang eat? Planets. Makes sense. At first he was pretty chill about eating planets. He'd only eat the ones that didn't have any life on them, but after a while you start to run out of places to eat. That's when your morals go out the window and you start chomping on life-infested planets.
Adam Warlock almost seems like just a normal dude. He has a normal dude name after all. That's the type of name for a cool tax guy. The reason why he's so human-like is because he was created to be the perfect human by a group called the Enclave. It's not like these Enclave guys had good intentions with Adam Warlock, which is something he found out while in his little growth pod. Not about to be some kind of human slave, he broke free and teleported out of there.
Since he's practically a child in a grown man's body, he doesn't really know what he's doing and gets into trouble. At one point he tried to force himself on Sif, Thor's love interest, which got his ass kicked to next Sunday. You don't mess with Thor's girl, dude.
Remember the Big Bang that created Galactus? Well, a few other beings were created from that including Infinity, who defines all of space. Try to wrap your head around that concept. I'm having a hard time myself. She's basically the concept of space. What's crazy about these types of entities is that they mess with the world at all in their physical embodiments. Imagine one day if Gravity just showed up and was like "what's up, ya'll? Anyone wanna go out drinking?" It wouldn't make any sense.
Wouldn't you be a little scared fighting Infinity? I wouldn't be afraid of losing. I'd be afraid of winning. When you kill infinity (if that's even possible), do you pretty much destroy all of space? Suddenly we'd be spaceless beings. Again, all of those stuff is hard to wrap your head around.
Oblivion is another creature created from the Big Bang who is the opposite of Infinity. Oblivion defines all the space that isn't occupied. I feel like I need to take a physics class just to understand this. What was going on where they had to come up with all of this? It makes it hard to care about Spider-Man arresting some robbers at a bodega when I know that the living concept of Oblivion is walking around somewhere.
No one really knows the true relationship between all the entities that came out of the Big Bang, but Oblivion claims to be the main entity. After all, when everything is gone, Oblivion will still exist. You can't argue with that kind of logic. Even if you killed Oblivion, you'd just be making more Oblivion. Whoa. Trippy.
Like Infinity and Oblivion (depending on who you ask) The Phoenix was created right in the middle of the Big Bang. At the perfect moment when nothing else existed (except Oblivion), the Phoenix popped up and was like, "what's up, bitches?" The first thing it did was create Galactus, as I had mentioned earlier. X-Men fans probably remember when Phoenix entered the body of Jean Grey. Many people think of that Phoenix when anyone even talks about the Phoenix, but the Phoenix can go into anyone.
That was my favorite saga in the X-Men series. For some reason it really affected me as a kid. Like many fans, I could relate to Wolverine and his love for Jean Grey. Unrequited love, I must add. When she became the Phoenix and he couldn't help her, it was heartbreaking.
I know you're getting sick of hearing me talk about them, but Death is also one of the beings created out of the Big Bang. It gets really confusing because some of them are sisters, while others are just random dudes like Galactus. I told you, you might have to do further research. This character is basically the living embodiment of Death, except she doesn't go around and choose every single person who dies. That's too hard of a job. It's like being the sad version of Santa Claus.
Death is generally portrayed as a female skeleton in a dark hood, though she can take many forms. When you're born from the Big Bang, you can pull off any look, in my opinion. The funny thing is that Thanos got the hots for her and tried to kill half the universe just to get with her. Some dudes will do anything for some tail.
If you're a fan of Drax, you'll want to know about Kronos. Kronos was a scientist who messed around with cosmic energy and paid the price for it. After Drax and his family were killed in the Mojave Desert, Kronos found his energy (I guess when you're a cosmic being you just come across people's energy?) and he made Drax into a super-warrior to stop Thanos. You can see where the inspiration for the movie Drax came from, but it is still very different. I don't remember the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Drax being from the Mojave Desert.
Kronos was defeated by Silver Surfer and the Hulk on different occasions, but since he can reconstruct himself over time, he'll be back. I wish I could reconstruct myself. Sometimes that's what I feel like I'm doing after a five hour nap.
The Living Tribunal is the second in command of the universe. Let that sink in for a moment. The only person above him is number one on this list. He existed before, and despite, the Big Bang (Jeez, I wish I could stop bringing up the Big Bang, but it's a big part of these larger-than-the-universe characters). He gives the ultimate judgement calls on all universes, not just one. That excludes universes created by other characters, but still, that's a lot of power.
Even Infinity, Eternity, and Death listen then the Living Tribunal speaks. Hell, anyone named the Living Tribunal deserves attention. That wouldn't be a bad name for a kid. If anyone ever made fun of him he could say, "you dare speak to the Living Tribunal that way?" You can't pull that off with a normal name.
Eternity is the last of the cosmic beings like Infinity, Oblivion, and Death. He's made up of everything living in the universe, with the exception of the Living Tribunal and The One Above All. You better believe that Eternity felt it when Thanos snapped his fingers. That must have taken Eternity's breath away at the very least, although I'm not sure how much Eternity actually cares about life. If you are life, then you better understand that life is fleeting or else you'd be one sad dude.
Think about this, if Eternity is every living thing, he is also all the annoying people in the world. Do you think he sees someone like Guy Fieri and just wants to hit up Death, "hey, bro. Can you take out this Guy Fieri guy. I don't want him in me anymore."
The Fulcrum is the second most powerful person in the Marvel universe next to The One Above All, but that's only if you aren't one of the people who believe that he is actually The One Above All. Both have been depicted as Jack Kirby, and it's also a bit odd that The Fulcrum would be so powerful and just hang around bartending. That's right, he's a bartender in a bar for the Eternals in the afterlife. That sounds like The One Above All just trying to fit in with the homies. You know they wouldn't act cool if they knew The One Above All was around.
He goes by "Jack" or "the bartender," and I'm sure his bar is the kind where everybody knows your name. That's what we need. A superhero version of 'Cheers!'
We've talked a lot about Gods and creators in this list, but when you talk about THE God of the Marvel universe, you have to talk about The One Above All. You can tell he's something special because he hasn't done much in the Marvel universe. He has taken the form of a female and male, and doesn't live in time the way we do. For him, everything has already happened and is happening at the same time.
Generally, it seems that The One Above All is a force for good. He even disguised himself as an old woman to give Peter Parker some support. That sounds like the type of God that they taught me about in Bible school. I hope this character remains a mystery, because that's what's so intriguing about a powerful character. We shouldn't even ever have to see their power.
