ITT: Characters with Rogues Galleries who have Potential

Iron Man has unironically a great bunch of villains, with lots of different gimmicks and ideals, but nobody ever does anything with them.

I mean, kind of? not really. Please correct me if i'm remembering wrong
basically any tech villain should be slaughtered easily by tony otherwise he's no longer the superior technician.. and that just leaves the other shit which is awkward for him to fight using tech. i mean i like fin fang foom and the mandarin but..

Realistically yeah, but... Same applies to Spider-Man, Batman, etc, etc. And to be fair, Tony's killed a whole lot of his villains. They just keep coming back or somebody else takes the mantle.

Even if you excuse the purely armor-based ones, you still have Mandarin, the King Arthur stuff, Fin Fang Foom, Controller, Ghost, Doctor Midas, Black Llama, Madame Masque & Count Nefaria, AIM to an extent. There's potential there.

Honestly, I've been saying that they should buckle down and fucking make a high budget Iron Man game already entirely because his rogues gallery, while mediocre in the comics, would make for AMAZING MGR-tier boss fights.

You're going to need a better thread starter than simply phrasing the topic line differently. Pick some villains, gives some ideas on how to use them, ask for other user's opinions/feedback. For example:

>Unicorn: give him the Armored Adventures costume and play up the fact that he's an ex-intelligence agent and should be resourceful and indirect rather than a mook villain

Now I really want Rocksteady to give Iron Man the Arkham treatment

The problem is that writers keep making Tony years, if not decades, ahead of all his villains technologically and writing Tony as constantly upgrading while at the same time making his villains stagnant. They're immediately neutered then simply slide into irrelevancy as a matter of authorial intent. It's frustrating from a dramatic standpoint and, considering how many of his villains are inventors and geniuses in their own right, doesn't make any sense in-universe that everyone stays the same while only Tony improves. There is no need to make Tony always be the best there is, and even if you wanted that there is no reason to make the disparity between him and his villains so large.

I tried that last time, and it didn't catch on, so I'm keeping that for latter, in case I need to save the thread from going to the Archives.

That'd honestly be really great. IM has tons of potential for Sup Forums material.

Tony suffers from the fact that he's good at one thing, so in order for him to keep up with the Marvel polymaths, he has to be the absolute best at it. Even then, you can still use stuff like FFF, Ultimo or MODOK which are above and beyond "mad scientist" stuff, but writers just aren't imaginative enough.

Tony has a host of techno-gadget villains that are surprisingly similar to Flash's rogues, who for whatever reason became a bit of a breakout favorite among fans despite being on paper some rather generic villains.

You're right, there is only so much that a guy with a whip is going to do against IM armor... the same way of putting the speed force up against a guy with a gun that shoots ice. It still works for the Flash, it could work for Tony.

Thanos is technically an Iron man villain.

Kinda, sorta... yeah. He’s Mar-Vell’s Primary Antagonist, but his and Drax’s FA were in Iron Man. Tony should just go cosmic at this point. Build some intergalactic corporation or something.

then its okay for tony to kill him in mcu

Captain Cold's gun doesn't shoot ice, it makes cold. It works against the Flash on comic book science interpretations of thermodynamics. A better example would be Heatwave, who has a flamethrower. Both IM2 and Armored Adventures succeeded in making a version of Whiplash that could stand up to Tony, even if IM2 dropped the ball.

The thing is you don't need to have Tony keep up with the polymaths; he's an engineer, he does engineering things. Could Reed make a better suit of armor than Tony? Sure, but Reed has neither the time, inclination, nor practical experience to actually make a functionally better suit of armor than Tony.

IM has so much Sup Forums potential it's amazing how little has been attempted with him.

>Wonder Woman
>Because Wonder Woman is the Iron Man of DC

Ares: The old and weary god of war - led by bitterness and false pride, he seeks mankinds demise

Angle Man: The suave italian thief - he inherited a powerful artifact, with whom he can shape the world around him. He actually wanted to be a Wonder Woman villain and playes the Rogue Villain part deliberately.

Cheetah: Evil female Moon Knight mixed with evil Lara Croft - she finds meaning as the instrument of her god, who may be just a delusion of her mind. She still is a cunning adventuress with contacts and powerfull objects.

Circe: A self-centered bitch with dangerous charm. manipulates people around her to gain more influence and power. As an immortal Ancient sees the world as a game to play with.

Doctor Cyber: A former pupil of Professor Ivo, she too wishes to become immortal but not with mystical manner but with technical. She leads a transhuamnist cult that has various corporations under her wing, they worship as their mother-godess. - Likes to insult Diana - A bit like Shodan.

Iron Man is decades stuck on the "he only needs a good writer" phase.

The potential is there, just waiting for the good writer. But where is he?

>You like to play Metroid don't you, Mr.Stark?

The TechnoGolem was a good villain. It was an Inhuman that could control machines. Bendis had Tony struggle against her, then had Riri catch her easily.

The traditional Iron Man villains like Ghost, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, etc have disappeared.

It seems like writers continue to try rewriting Armor Wars over adding new wrinkles to old villains.

I am desperate for writers to do this. Warren Ellis proved on Moon Knight that single-issue stories still work just fine. I want writers that will come into a book and take like twelve issues to do single-issue stories about the deep-cuts into a character's rogues gallery. There's literally no reason why nearly every superhero who's been around long enough shouldn't have a villain list as good as The Flash's at least.

>Tony doesn't have to keep up with the Polymaths
Well, depends. The Base-Character doesn't, but if you want to go full Transhuman, just go with it. Give him an intergalactic corporation, have his books be set in colonies and other planets. As it stands, he gets upgrades, but does nothing with them. It's the MODOK/Leader situation. Just head towards that direction and go all Mass Effect/Halo on his books.

>Sup Forums potential
My God, this. Customizable armors, GTA-esque gameplay for Stark (estates, holdings, stock market, connections, etc), MGS-style story, Zone of the Enders gameplay... Why is nobody doing this?!

>where is he?
With a little luck the new guy after Bendis leaves will be actually good. IM has been fucked with so much, there's nowhere but up to go.

You've posted it again, but... probably. Slidding timescale and all, Samus was probably his first waifu.

>Bendis comes up with mildly interesting thing
>completely butchers it
Who would've thought? besides, we've seen Technopaths in Marvel before.

Carol has a pretty great gallery, but Marvel doesn't want to use half of it since Claremont made them X-characters. Even the newest ones, Dr. Eve & Mim, are good.

Iron Man: Armored Adventures did a good job in showcasing the untapped potential most of Iron Man's rogues gallery presents.

Shit, those look like some TOR-Era Star Wars designs.
>Unicorn
>Whiplash
>Fixer
>???(Living Laser?)
>Ghost
>Black Knight
>???
>Madame Masque
>???
>Ultimo
>Fin Fang Foom
>MODOK
Do you have a link to more such concept art from the show?

>???(Living Laser?)

Yup.

>Black Knight
>???
This one is Count Nefaria.

The power suit next to Madame Masque is the show's version of Blizzard.

First guy is Killer Shrike, not Unicorn.

This is the show's Unicorn.

I liked Armored Adventures' Controller, but I miss him also being a physical powerhouse on top of the mind control powers he displayed in the comics.

Alright.

Ah,they went all Mafia/Magia with him.

Okay.

Hmm.

Yeah, it fits more.

Dang,I liked the Darkseid-esque look.

>tfw never ever

I'd enjoy a Iron Man (and Captain America) game with a MGS/MGR-esque setting with a ton of side things to do like in the GTA series a lot. Especially if you throw in Yoko Taro for writing if you want some suffering.

On one hand, I'm disappointed with the design a little since I wish this take on Crimson Dynamo had more red to him in the show beyond the red star. On the other hand, I like the "suit designed for space operations piloted by an astronaut gone mad" angle they were going with here. It helped inject some personality to this take on Crimson Dynamo beyond simply being an evil Russian counterpart to Iron Man.

Speaking of an evil counterpart to the Iron Man suit...

Mandarin in this show was very different, to put it mildly. Still used rings, though.

Unused designs for Mandarin.

I'm glad to see armored adventures getting the attention it deserves here. They really did do their research and gave Iron Man's rogues gallery the respect it deserves. Whiplash from that show is probably my favourite incarnation of him in general. Shame the show is kinda meh beyond the character design most of the time, and has kinda pointless obnoxious sidekick characters.

I'm glad they didn't go with the big hands.

>Dang,I liked the Darkseid-esque look.

So do I user, so do I. Not a bad take on the character, but I feel like they dropped the ball by not playing up that other aspect to him.


I really liked what they did with Whiplash in the show. His whips were even more versatile than usual, and incorporating more tech to his design while not going into big power armor territory like Iron Man 2 did is a nice balance and way to have him keep up with Iron Man, I felt.

This Whiplash looks like an EU Sith hooked on some BDSM gear... I like it. A lot.

I was extremely skeptical about the show given its premise and setting, but the main characters, as changed as they were for the show, ended up endearing themselves to me slowly over time. It also helps that the show was more concerned about focusing on the more exotic parts of Tony and friends' lives rather than focusing too much on the school. It was far from perfect, but it worked better than I thought it would.

The biggest highlight is definitely the love and care that went into the villains, though. That's easily the show's strongest point. Even after I warmed up to the other aspects of the show, I was still tuning in mostly to see the rogues gallery and situations they created.

Not much to say about AIM. Their designs looked nice in the show, but didn't stray much from the usual beekeeper look.

AA was a mixed bag, but I'll give the show credit for both using obscure characters, and giving them kick ass designs. I still love this version of Unicorn.

Ghost's design on the show is one of my favorites of the batch. Like always, he was also a fun character to see in action.

He's also a perfect example of how Iron Man's rogues gallery has a lot of untapped potential. In the past decade, Ghost has been a regular, reoccurring character in the Thunderbolts books for much of it--and people loved him there. He was actually given time to shine and things to do rather than just stand around to job in a group shot or otherwise sit around unused and ignored.

I feel like most Iron Man villains can get that same kind of fan reception if more writers gave a damn about doing something with them. The current train of thought Iron Man writers have had for the past ten years now has been along the lines of ignoring Iron Man's rogues gallery outside of one or two exceptions, depending on the writer (usually Mandarin and/or Madame Masque), and otherwise creating brand new villains instead. But none of these villains ever caught on, only the writers who created them bothered to use them (remember Detroit Steel? Most people don't). In trying to "fix" Iron Man's rogue gallery problem by creating new characters they think will be cool, they end up making bland characters that also could possibly have potential, but is squandered even harder.

Don't even get me started on Bendis deciding that any villain that wasn't his waifu Madame Masque was worthless, declared that he would make a new, bombastic, robust cast of villains for Iron Man to fight, and proceeded to make a generic ninja group that felt like a knockoff of the Hand.

I like frail Controller more than buff Controller - Tony fights a lot of strong guys, a mind--power villain is a more unique threat. He should use robots as drones
- I would give him a more insectoid bio-technological look, make his mind-disk based on the cordyceps fungus.
Play the horror part up.

That reminds me, in Ultimate Armor Wars Tony had to fight against classic horror villains - Ghost (Ghost), Dr. Frankstein (Modok), Vampire (Black Knight.
This may have potential:

Controller - Mummy
Living Laser - Demon

More of Controller.

The main reason why I liked the comic version of Controller is because there's so many mind control villains in the Marvel setting, that it was refreshing seeing one that also had strength to back up their mental abilities if it came down to it.

Within the bubble of Iron Man and Iron Man alone, though, you're right in that a frailer Controller presents an even more unique angle to the character. He's already one of the lower tech characters, relatively speaking; all of the other enemies have tech of some kind that are usually offensively minded, whereas Controller was more focused on making other people do the hard work for him.

I'd have loved a frailer Controller more if they had done more with it like what you suggested. Setting him further apart from the usual tech enemy by having it take on a different, biological note to it all would be fun. Mind control characters lend themselves to horror pretty easily after all.

Speaking of which, here's AA's Maria Hill, who in the comics, ran across Controller mind controlling an entire town, then got caught herself and ended up becoming traumatized by the whole affair.

Iron Man's rogues can be pretty terrifying.

Great post. The thing with Tony's villains is that each of them represented a certain POV or political alignment, but ever since Marvel went all "vague left is the only correct opinion", Tony has no strong convictions to contrast with them.

Buff!Controller looks like Darkseid though, and that's always cool... I get what you're saying, but a guy with such tech would have the means to turn himself into a towering monster.

>Universal Monsters
Yeah,I liked that aspect as well. Faustus/MODOK was creepy as Hell.

If you want a purely mental villain, just fleshout Mentallo. Controller being a mental threat and a fucking terrifying Earth-Bound Darkseid is a great concept.

To clarify, I still prefer Controller as an "Earth-Bound Darkseid". I was just saying that since the show moved away from that to make him a frail guy, that if that was really the direction they felt like going down, in hindsight I probably would have liked that take of the character better if they had gone even further like the other user mentioned.

Controller is a character that should, at the end of the day, instill terror on people. If you're going to take away his Darkseid qualities from him, playing up another angle to compensate is necessary, I feel. It would have made the Armored Adventures version of him stand out more, at any rate.

Oh yeah, I get you. But considering Mentallo is rarely used, you could use him for the purely mental stuff, and let Controller be Darkseid-lite. Hell,if it were me, I'd just Mass Effect the shit out of the Iron Man books and have him turn people in Husk-esque creatures,taking over whole colonies.

I dig the show's Ghost design, but I like Ghost with a more spooky look. The show's Ghost was more Spymaster than comic Ghost, - his recent "success" ( She will be the main-villain in Ant-Man 2) was because his personality is quite charming.

Spymaster I feel is fine as is,but I'd rework Crossfire into Stark's Deadshot-esque villain. AA Ghost is similar to what I'd redesign him as. I liked the AC vibe.

>AC vibe
?

>Great post. The thing with Tony's villains is that each of them represented a certain POV or political alignment, but ever since Marvel went all "vague left is the only correct opinion", Tony has no strong convictions to contrast with them.

That's another issue, certainly. Tony's been too safe these days. In Bendis's run, he even goes out of his way to congratulate Riri for stealing resources from her campus to make her own suit based on his stuff. In the past, he'd have flown in there to try to take the armor away from her--and rightfully so, because she barely knew what she was doing in it. Instead, Bendis had him ask her to join his side of the fight in Civil War II, which was a fight that didn't even need to happen since it was over nothing and the only reason they were there at that SHIELD building had already been accomplished without any conflict.

It's depressing to think that the first time in ages that Tony had anything resembling a political stance was in a Bendis book, and said "stance" made about as much sense as an abstract painting.

With Bendis leaving Marvel soon, I'm curious to see who tries to fill in writing duties for Iron Man. It's more of a morbid curiosity, since every time I thought that maybe the next run would be better, it only seemed to get worse. Not that I had any hope at all when Bendis was announced for Invincible Iron Man, but even then he managed to surpass my expectations in how terrible of a fit he was for it.

This entire thread has been about characters with rogues galleries that have potential if a single writer bothered to give them respect. For someone that's supposed to be a flagship character of Marvel these days, it's amazing how little respect anyone writing him seems to have for the character, his cast and his antagonists.

This take on Black Knight was fun.

Assassin's Creed. Y'know, the white get-up, the hood. AA Ghost looked a lot like an Assassin.

>Ree-Ree
I remember when kids using leaked Starktech got them a legal spanking, not being "da legacy of Tony Stark". Seriously, the page where she and his Rocker Momma get inside the Hall of Armors made my blood boil.

>political stance
Marvel just cannot comprehend that not every character can be the same. Tony was one of the few right-leaning guys, and now there's nothing even resembling that. You have tons of confirmed liberal characters, some which I do enjoy (like Green Arrow), but the one right-leaning capitalist just has to be turned into a centrist.

>Bendis leaving
I hope the next guy is actually competent. I have a feeling it's gonna be Spencer which... could be good. Hate the HYDRA run, but it was a solid book. For whatever it's worth, he would bring back politics to Iron Man.

>Villains
Modern writers just think villains are a thing of the past. They try to tell "stories" without clear antagonists, but they end up being lame.

One thing I wasn't keen on about Armored Adventures was when it would repurpose certain villains into temple guardians protecting the rings. Firebrand is the second-worst offender of this in my opinion, going from characters that used technology (with one exception being a mutant) to being a spirit that possessed people. I don't mind the supernatural angle here, but having Firebrand limited to one appearance and not having its true form highlighted much at all was disappointing.

The biggest offender was their treatment of Melter. They re-imagined Melter as a guardian of one of the rings as well, but had it beaten off screen with no proper showing.

The same happened to Grey Gargoyle, come to think of it.

The show did wonders for most of Iron Man's rogues gallery, or at least did a better job than the comics have in the past decade or two, but they dropped the ball in some places.

>If you're going to take away his Darkseid qualities from him, playing up another angle to compensate is necessary
Make him Granny Goodness.

Riri could have been an interesting addition to Iron Man. Tony trying to be paternal would be a great place for some character work.

Doom Patrol's villains should appear more often outside of their comics.

>Riri could have been an interesting addition to Iron Man. Tony trying to be paternal would be a great place for some character work.
No. Stark's the epitome of the manly but smart white guy, complete with a black best friend. Having his legacy be a Niglet female is disgusting. He just needs to man up, get married to some hot blonde and have a son.

Black Knight really is one of those characters who nobody knows what to do with.

Speaking of, Dreadknight would be an awesome IM villain. Now that Doom is reformed, have him take over his "job" and just become Tony's new nemesis for a while.

Dreadknight really needs to be removed from Doom. You can't really build on a character who essentially Doom's bitch lackey at his constant beck and call.

I liked how in season 2 Unicorn got superspeed and could impale people with his horn

This. That’s probably what I loved most about this show.

Dynamo would work best as a villain for period pieces rather than contemporary stories unless you'd make him some sort of weird soviet throwback who believes that by battling a prominent capitalist like Tony he can bring the Soviet Union back somehow, or at least inspire likeminded people to attempt to do so. I guess having him as some sort of answer to Iron Man funded by russian oligarchs could work but that's boring and overlaps even more with other "Tony but evil" villains, so probably trying to salvage his link to communism is the best option.

Lots of these aren't Wonder Woman villians, 3rd row 3rd from the right, I'm pretty sure started out as a Tim Drake Robin villian. A petty thug who lucked into a magic lapel pin that went through his chest.

Let's do a headcount of Tony's villains:

>Zeke Stane
>Iron Monger
>Unicorn
>Melter
>Firebrand
>Firepower
>Whiplash
>Crimson Dynamo
>Titanium Man
>Controller
>Ultimo
>Mandarin
>Hammer(s)
>MODOK & AIM
>Gremlin
>Grey Gargoyle
>Madame Masque
>Spymaster
>Crossfire
>Ghost
>Dreadknight
>Count Nefaria
>Living Laser
>Blizzard
>Fin Fang Foom
>Fixer
>Killer Shrike
>Atom-Smasher
>Adaptoid
>Beetle
>Sunset Bane
>Black Llama
>Chemistro
>Chessmen

And that's just his own, and I'm deliberately ignoring some minor foes. With some tinkering the guy could rival Spider-Man. Hell, with some revitalizing, he could surpasshim and stand next to Batman. The gallery is rich and ripe. It's not like they're just 10 villains. He has an honest-to-God gallery.

No this is a version of the Duke of Deception

The one thing that he needs alongside somebody using his villains, is a proper love interest. That Amara bitch is so bland and soooo not his style.

He had Pepper and Madame Masque

I'd actually like to see him with some kind of hippie protester girl to play off of his whole "billionaire industrialist" aesthetic.

Currently Crimson Dynamo is a Russian government hero, but older versions of the armor, along with schematics, have leaked into the international arms black market. There have also been a few rogue Dynamos. For a villainous Dynamo you'd probably be best sticking him in a fictionalized socialist nation or making him an international Marxist terrorist supervillain.

I had the idea to use Titanium Man as the superhero equivalent of Russian "little green men" when they need superpowered foreign intervention that can't be led back to Russia.

Several of those aren't exclusively IM villains and some, like Killer Shrike, have more connections to other heroes.

Champagne socialist or one of those Angelina Jolie, UNICEF types would work better than hippie, unless you mean hardcore, wealthy, Green Party type that is pretty out of touch about the details and ramifications of the massive paradigm shift her politics would entail. Bethany Cabe and Rumiko Fujikawa also made pretty decent love interests.

I can't believe there's no video games for the MCU. Injustice 2 sold great

>Several of those aren't exclusively IM villains and some, like Killer Shrike, have more connections to other heroes.
I assume you're reffering to MODOK, but Killer Shrike & Crossfire are unknown enough and with no real nemesis, so it's not hard to absorb them. Point is, he has a big enough gallery,thatwith some tinkering and "adoptions" could really be something.

Pepper is shit though, goign way back to Tales of Suspense, and Madame Masque is "never stick your dick in crazy" tier. She tried to rape him, for fuck's sake.

>hippie
No. It'd be incompatible, and wouldn't fit Tony's usual character. People don't remember this, but he used to be a casual flirt, but also a pretty serious and solemn person. He needs someone who has the mettle to stand next to him next time there's a corporate attack, or he's head of SWORD or whatever. Maybe a scientist/politician or a fellow businesswoman.

Killer Shrike's only connection to IM is Armored Adventures. That being said, he desperately needs a redesign and a win to have a better standing among villains. Shrike was one of the few villains whose AA design wasn't very good.

I gotta see if I can find my notes on an IM game I brainstormed awhile back.

His core villains should be:

Iron Monger - Evil Tony Stark
Hammer Industries - Evil Stark Industries
Crimson Dynamo - Evil Iron Man
Mandarin - Counter Iron Man
Ghost - Counter Tony Stark
Controller - Counter Stark Industries
Madam Masque - Fatale

Huh,really? Maybe I mixed him up with something. Still he's even got those Cyborg-Samurais, Devastator, Scarecrow, lots of C/D-List villains.

What I'm saying is, with some effort by a competent writer, he really could have a great gallery.

That's good enough for a core group, but you need your Bs, your Cs, your Ds. He has the numbers and faces, they just need to be dusted off.

That's actually a pretty shitty core group and falls into the trap that a hero's villains must be reflections of the hero. Most of those villains listed don't even line up with the role they're given.

I didn't say I agreed with the classifications, but as an "All-Star" group, they're good. They're his most recognizable villains,which means they'rethe A-List. What's needed is to lift up the rest of them.

Stane and Hammer are redundant unless you use Zeke Stane, unfortunately that makes him intimately tied in with Hammer. Mandarin is also tied in with Hammer through his son.

I'd probably run Mandarin, Spymaster, Ghost, Madame Masque, the Hammers, and Whiplash as his primaries, with Unicorn, Dynamo, Titanium Man, Controller, Gremlin, and Sunset Bane as his secondaries.

Mystique was a originally Carol's enemy. No?

That would be so dope! Like Star Trek except the cool womanizing captain wears a suit of armor.
But without a prime directive he could take resources and tech from other planet's to use on earth and meddle with intergalactic politics that will ultimately end with him putting on the armor and slapping some shit

Technovore was terrifying.

Tabitha St. Germain is a legend.

Dreadknight's AA counterpart(s) suffered from the 'revamped into temple guardian' thing, unfortunately. Serviceable in the role they were given to do, but the role itself wasn't much.

Correct. Sort of like how Wolverine first showed up as an antagonist in a Hulk book and Sabertooth first showed up as an antagonist in Iron Fist.

Dreadknight's backstory is kind of a mess and his powerset is pretty lackluster. They need to go full technofantasy with him.

I've always thought Dread Knight and Lucia von Bardas should team up and become a Latverian Legion

I think excising Doom from Dreadknight's backstory would be a good move, but I like the idea of him being a player in Latverian foreign operations. Plus von Bardas herself could use more attention and autonomy.