Avengers 5 having a villain who can be stronger than Thanos will be easy enough to accomplish, but that’s not the issue the movie will have to deal with. As powerful as Thanos may be, there are plenty of characters in the Marvel Universe who can beat him in a fight, and even the MCU’s version is already outclassed by several characters who either already exist or are being set up for an appearance. There was far more to Thanos’ character than just his power, though, and that fact is where the dilemma for the next Avengers movie stems.

Thanos is widely regarded as one of the best villains in the MCU not just because of how powerful he is, but because of the writing surrounding him. While it’s easy enough to poke holes in his plan in Avengers: Infinity War to exterminate half of all life in the universe and the hypocritical nature of some of his actions, the fact that he came across as so genuine in his desire to help people made him a complex villain, and his moments of genuine vulnerability - such as when he cried as he sacrificed Gamora for the Soul Stone - gave him dimension beyond most other villains of his ilk. Thanos only starred in two movies, but both of them did a lot to make him a villain with a great amount of depth compared to other MCU antagonists and resulted in a figure who more than justified all the years of buildup given to him.

Related: Why MCU's Next Endgame Will Not Take As Long (Despite No Avengers 5 Yet)

All of that goes into the real issue with whoever ends up the villain of Avengers 5. It would be easy enough for Marvel's Avengers 5 to feature a villain at least as strong as Thanos such as Galactus, the Beyonder, or even Doctor Doom, but part of what made Thanos so iconic a villain was how engaging he was made through his character work. Whoever ends up the villain of Avengers 5 will end up compared to Thanos in that regard, so if they’re not a compelling character in addition to being powerful, then it’ll be that much harder for the audience to care about them.

Thanos In Infinity War Watching Sun Rise Ending

That being said, the next Avengers villain lacking depth wouldn’t automatically make them a poor follow-up to Thanos. In certain cases, a villain can be lacking any sort of meaningful characterization and just be an evil person, but they’ll still be engaging purely because of how evil they are and the lengths to which they go to show that off; Spider-Man's Green Goblin is a perfect example of this sort of character. If the Avengers 5 villain was someone like that, then them not being as compelling as Thanos would be perfectly acceptable, and the dichotomy between them and Thanos could even help sell them as a character by further emphasizing how evil they are.

Nothing is known about Avengers 5 at the moment, but it’s still clear that it has a lot to live up to in regards to its villain. Thanos’ stellar character work made him a standout villain in the MCU, and that alone means that it’ll be hard for the villain of Avengers 5 to follow him up and connect with the audience in their own right if they don’t receive a similar degree of character work. Picking a villain who’s at least as strong as Josh Brolin's Thanos, if not stronger, will be easy enough, but there’s no reason to think that just that should be good enough.

More: Avengers 5 Needs To Be A Smaller MCU Team-up Than Infinity War & Endgame

Key Release Dates