The Villains Thread

[psylockolussus]

Who should be the villains in this movie, that will make Valentina assemble the Thunderbolts?

Who would you like to see?

 

[Bayne]

Zemo leading a mysterious group.

 

[metaphysician]

I assume the main villains will be Zemo and Valentina herself.

 

[psylockolussus]

I would like to see the Zodiac.

 

[SirStrangefolk]

Why is the Contessa assembling them? Who knows. I do hope/think Zemo will be involved in some way. I also expect Val herself to be antagonistic in some way and I could see a scenario where someone like John Walker or Alexei turns against the team too. This being mostly focussed on anti-heroes and former villains muddies the water a bit.

Also a far out theory I had:

This is probably a long shot, but could this movie could bring back Leviathan from Agent Carter?

The Secret Warriors comics have been very inspirational for the MCU. This is the comic from which Hydra's infiltration of SHIELD originates, so this comic was highly influential on the CA:tWS movie. It was also a major inspiration for Agent Carter as this story also introduced the group Leviathan. (Also the Secret Warriors themselves were inspirational for AoS but that's neither here nor there.) It is revealed in this Secret Warriors comic that Valetina (who used to be just a SHIELD agent and Nick Fury love interest) is actually a triple agent who has infiltrated both SHIELD and Hydra but is ultimately loyal to Leviathan. Valentina's protrayal in the MCU so far definitely lines up with her portrayal as a treacherous, scheming operative with a hidden agenda from that comic more than her earlier portrayal as a good SHIELD agent who got close with Fury.

I found it notable that 3 of the Thunderbolts are former Red Room/Dreykov operatives and there's also Bucky who operated from Russia for Hydra. I wondered if Val's comic origins played any part in her choices for this team.

I know people generally don't see the abc shows as canon, but it should be noted that in the official book "The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe" Agent Carter is the only Marvel Television show mentioned to have "canon storytelling that would eventually dovetail back into future films.". It was also written by Markus & McFeely who also wrote Winter Soldier and Civil War, is the source for the thumbnail of Peggy's episode of Marvel Studios: Legends on Disney+ and was the only show to cross over into the movies before Daredevil through Edwin Jarvis in Endgame.

And even if it's not a direct link to Agent Carter, it could still be introduced in this movie as this storyline was clearly influential on past Marvel projects as well as Val's current portrayal.

 

[psylockolussus]

Red Hulk

 

[chamber-music]

Graviton could be fun. Have a reformed techno terror cell of AIM use Graviton as a human weapon.

Zemo leading a mysterious group.

They could introduce Zemo's masters of evil.

 

[psylockolussus]

Zemo is not even superhuman in the MCU, so I don't see how he could make a supervillain group. Like there are other choices for that role.

 

[Sithborg]

I think BP2 telegraphed who they are going to go against. sigh....

 

[SirStrangefolk]

Several scoopers are claiming there'll be some version of

Spoiler

Hyperion (and possibly the rest of the Squadron).
EDIT: Some are saying it could also be Sentry.

I'm not sure how the team lineup they've shown would go up against that.

 

[Spider-Fan]

The team seems way underpowered to deal with either

 

[Lily Adler]

The US Government and probably Red Hulk.

 

[psylockolussus]

Several scoopers are claiming there'll be some version of

Spoiler

Hyperion (and possibly the rest of the Squadron).
EDIT: Some are saying it could also be Sentry.

I'm not sure how the team lineup they've shown would go up against that.

If one of those is true, I would have 1 thing to forward to in Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts.