With the success of Joker in theaters and on the awards trail this year, we would expect to see other films attempt to follow in its footsteps. Director Todd Phillips has revealed that he pitched ideas for a few DC characters other than the joker who could benefit from the gritty treatment, but it got us thinking about the Marvelous Competition.
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe and previous film franchises have introduced a few of Marvel’s more tragic villains, there are still a few characters who would work well with Joker’s grounded and gritty take on origin stories, so we’ll be exploring a few of those Marvel villains today.
CARRION
While the identity of Carrion was originally established as a damaged clone of Spider-Man villain Professor Miles Warren/Jackal, it’s the second version of the character that we find the most tragic. Malcolm McBride was a student at Empire State University who found one of the Jackal’s old labs and became infected with a strain of the Jackal’s Carrion virus.
McBride was transformed by the virus into the zombie-like Carrion with a deadly touch and the ability to alter his density, though his memories were clouded and he forgot his true identity initially. A film adaptation might be more horror-based than Joker was, but we’re okay with that.
THE LIZARD
The Marvel Universe has no shortage of human characters turned into monsters, but The Lizard’s story stands out, especially due to more recent events in the criminal’s life. Dr. Curt Connors originally began experimenting with reptile DNA in the hopes of regrowing his lost arm and helping other amputees like him.
Unfortunately, his research ended up transforming him into the Lizard and he spent years fighting the cold reptilian side of his personality until he lost that battle and devoured his son, finally releasing the monster to the world. We’ve seen the Lizard brought to the big screen in The Amazing Spider-Man, but his story wasn’t explored much beyond his connection to Spider-Man.
MANDARIN
With the Mandarin’s story finally set to be told in the upcoming Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings after being teased and abandoned in the Iron Man franchise, it might seem odd to see a solo movie based on the character.
However, we’re not sure how much of Mandarin’s origin might be told in the film, and we’d love to see his escape from his abusive childhood that led to the discovery of the alien ship and his decision to kill the alien and steal its power for his own, charting his villainous course for the rest of his life.
DOCTOR OCTOPUS
We’ve already seen a great version of Doctor Octopus’ origins in the still amazing Spider-Man 2 and we don’t really need a retread of that event or the creation of his tentacle arms that earned him the name Doctor Octopus. Instead, we’d like to see a film exploring Otto’s final plans before he became the Superior Spider-Man.
While Joker succeeded in keeping most of the comic book elements out of the story, we could see a film exploring Otto’s many failures as a criminal that left his body broken and dying, resulting in one, final, master plan to bring down the world in “Ends of the Earth,” with his former allies in the Sinister Six potentially serving as the foil to his doomsday plan.
MAGNETO
There has been no shortage of films that explored Magneto’s origins as a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp and his eventual evolution into the mutant criminal known as Magneto, but as one of Marvel’s most tragic characters, we still want to see more of the character on the big screen.
X-Men: First Class introduced Micahel Fassbender before his time as Magneto, during a period where he was actively hunting down former Nazi criminals and taking them out with his mutant powers. This era of Erik Lensherr is the one we’d like to see explored as he struggles with his past and mission of revenge.
GALACTUS
The Fantastic Four and their related characters are primed for a new debut in the MCU, though we are likely a few years away from seeing the first family of comics adapted for the big screen again. However, the MCU is in need of another huge threat, and we would love to see the origins of the next cosmic villain explored in a solo Galactus film.
Galactus was originally known as Galan, an explorer who spent years traveling the galaxy looking for a way to save his doomed reality. Galan would travel to the center of his dying universe where he would merge with a cosmic being and reborn into a brand new reality due to a cycle of multiversal rebirth as Galactus, Devourer of Worlds.
GOBLIN QUEEN
Madelyne Pryor is set to make her return to the comics in the upcoming Hellions series as the Goblin Queen, a twisted clone of Jean Grey with a desire for revenge and in some realities, the power of the cosmic Goblin Force. Pryor is not on anyone’s list of characters that need a solo film, but she’s kind of perfect for it.
The story of Madelyne Pryor when stripped down without the X-Men front and center is one of a woman struggling to hold her new family together as she deals with the constant suspicion that her life might not be her own while cosmic beings and mad scientists fight for control of her powerful body.
THE VOID
Marvel retro-actively introduced the character of the Sentry in his own series before the character would later join the Avengers as one of Marvel’s most powerful characters. Unfortunately, the Sentry had a dark side that also made him one of Marvel’s most dangerous characters, which is something that we’d love to see explored on the big screen.
The film could follow loveable loser Bob Reynolds as he discovers two secrets that threaten to destroy his sanity, and the world, forever. The first secret is that he was a former superhero erased from the minds of the world, and the second is that he has a dark, villainous side to that heroic personality known as the Void that could make for a hauntingly terrifying film.
DOCTOR DOOM
Another Fantastic Four villain that is primed to take the MCU by storm is Doctor Doom, who we’ve seen adapted on the big screen a couple of times now though never faithfully. And while we can’t wait to see the armored despot in the MCU, we would definitely be interested in a film exploring the years before Doom.
While Joker partly focused on the relationship between a child and his mother, a Doom film could also explore the relationship between Victor and his sorceress mother, whose dark magics eventually resulted in the loss of her soul to Hell, which launched Doom’s lifelong study of the mystical arts so he could save his mother from Hell.
THE HOOD
Parker Robbins is one of the newer Marvel villains on the list, but his story lends itself to the grittier Joker-style film. Robbins was a small-time criminal who interrupted a mystical ritual that summoned a demon that Parker was forced to kill. he then stole the demon’s enchanted cloak and boots, which gave him mystical abilities he used as the Hood.
Robbins’ secret life as a family man grounded the character even as he used his newfound abilities and growing reputation among Marvel’s supervillain community to become a new crime boss in New York City, all while trying to fight off the influences of his demonic cloak as it whispered in his ear.
