A good hero is only as good as his villain. Oftentimes, villains in superhero movies can either make or break the movie. There have been plenty of fantastic villains in comic book movies, including The Joker and Thanos. However, not all of them can be great. Many of them become the most hated part of a movie, and not for good reasons.
It is challenging to create a character who is both complex with understandable motivations and still an intimidating foe. Some of these villains never even come close to reaching that status. Here are the 10 worst superhero movie villains.
Electro - Amazing Spiderman 2
There was a lot around hype for Electro, as this was the first time that audiences would see the villain on the big screen. Unfortunately, there were no sparks with this character. Jamie Foxx is a great actor, but his performance choices here were odd, to say the least. He is way too quirky and delivers a bunch of weird one-liners that often just come off as overly cheesy.
Dane DeHaan's Green Goblin and Paul Giamatti's Rhino are capable contenders as well for poor villains, but Electro stands out as the worst of the trio.
Nuclear Man - Superman IV: The Quest For Peace
In arguably one of the worst comic book movies of all time, audiences are given one of the worst villains of all time. Nuclear Man was born after being inside of a bomb that was hurled at the sun. He has many of the same powers as Superman, but his weakness is lack of exposure to the sun. Also, he has super long nails that he uses to scratch Superman.
The fights between Nuclear Man and Superman are laughable and many feel that Nuclear Man is boring and bland. It's also hard to find a villain threatening when his greatest weakness is a cloudy day.
Vuk - Dark Phoenix
Jessica Chastain is an amazing actress, but even she couldn't make this villain work. Many feel that Vuk is absurdly boring and never seems to be having any fun, which never allows her to connect with the audience. It's also unclear what her plan is. Her motivation is that she wants to use the Phoenix Force that destroyed her planet to conquer Earth, but she never says how she would use it.
The Phoenix Force is an unpredictable entity that is almost impossible to control. Vuk tries to, and it completely backfires, leading to her inevitable destruction.
Enchantress - Suicide Squad
The worst type of villain is always one with a boring plan and very little motivation. Enchantress fits this model perfectly. Played by Cara Delevingne, Enchantress is yet another mundane and stale villain who has an equally non-threatening army that is easily dispatched by the main heroes.
Her brother is just as plain and feels rather pointless. She also uses the sky beam that used to be a popular trope in many comic book movies. Not to mention, Delevigne is doing a strange, goofy hula dance throughout her performance that is rather distracting.
Venom - Spiderman 3
Despite Venom not necessarily being the best movie, it is obvious that Tom Hardy is a much better version of this character than Topher Grace. While the design itself isn't bad, Venom is one of the most powerful Spiderman villains and that doesn't come through in this movie.
This is partly because Venom feels rather tacked on and not necessarily important to the central plot. Grace is also just a misguided Eddie Brock. Brock is not a one-dimensional villainous character. He has an internal battle with the symbiote and struggles between good and evil, but that is sidelined in this movie for a surface-level evil character.
Laurel Hedare - Catwoman
It almost seems too easy to hate this abomination of a film that cleaned up at the Razzies, but nevertheless, the villain still deserves a mention. Laurel Hedare, played by Sharon Stone, is a former model for a cosmetics company that was replaced by a younger model.
To get revenge, she plans on releasing a cosmetic that must constantly be used, or else that person's skin will begin to deteriorate. This villain does nothing to save this movie and just adds more fluid to the dumpster fire.
Poison Ivy - Batman And Robin
It's hard to say what's worse: Uma Thurman's performance as this character or the fact that Batman tried to purchase a date with her using a bat credit card. This movie gets a lot of things wrong and a lot of that is its villains. Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze is another potential candidate, but he at least seems to be aware of what movie he is in.
Many fans feel that Thurman as Poison Ivy is way too over the top and is often awkwardly sexual. Poison Ivy is known to be a seductress in the comics, but this representation is too goofy to be taken seriously.
Doctor Doom - Fantastic Four (2015)
It should not be difficult to bring one of the most powerful and famous Marvel supervillains to the big screen correctly. Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer could be said to have already botched it twice and this entry is arguably the worst offender.
At least the other movies got the design a bit correct, but here, he looks more like an alien tree. His creation leads to a painfully unexciting climactic battle. It's hard to even blame actor Toby Kebbel for this disaster because most critics agree that this whole movie is anything but fantastic.
Galactus - Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
This is another testament to just how poorly the Fantastic Four have been portrayed on the big screen. Galactus is an insanely powerful villain who eats planets in the comics. How could this be boring? Simple. Turn him into a cloud.
This was not only disappointing to Galactus but many saw it as insulting to Marvel fans who were anticipating seeing this villain on the big screen. Here's hoping that Kevin Feige can give Galactus and the Fantastic Four a proper movie in the MCU.
Deadpool - X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Deadpool is known as the merc with the mouth for his comedic lines, fourth-wall-breaking, and crude language. This movie went ahead and sewed his mouth shut, thinking that for some reason audiences would be ok with that. Luckily, Fox knows that they completely botched this and treat it as a joke now, to the point where a post-credit scene in Deadpool 2 featured Deadpool going back in time and shooting this abomination in the head several times.
Ryan Reynolds did finally get the chance to do the character justice when Deadpool got his own movie in 2016, turning him from a hideous villain to a lovable anti-hero.