Rewrite a hero's rogues gallery

[Hybrid]

Not everyone got to have a rogues gallery as good as Spider-Man or the X-Men. Here is where we rewrite the rogues gallery of different characters, such as how we would ravamp different villains, what kind of new villains we would add, and just what we would do in general. Let's say we're doing this for an alternate universe, and thus not confined to the established continuity.

For starters, Iron Man seems perfect for a good rogues gallery, it just wasn't utilized all that well giving us his infamously anemic set of villains. I feel like written today, he could have one that lives up. The core theme is technology, leaning heavily into the sci-fi aspect, and reflecting different elements of both the technology and Stark himself.

Here's how I would do it:

• As a general rule, like with Batman, very few villains have true superpowers. Instead, they have either their wits, their advanced tech, or connections, with some exceptions.
• The basis of his bad guys are either industrialists, profiteers, saboteurs, or just people using technology in general.
• Many of his villains are evil reflections of himself, such the idea of Tony going as far as he does without any morals, or if Tony remained a war profiteer, or if Tony abandoned all of ties in the pursuit of greed.
• Villains I would keep are Blizzard (heavily reworked to have an advanced suit of cryogenic armor), Ghost (kept the same, but maybe a former employee of Stark who stole and reworked his technology), Melter (heavily reworked to become badass and use heat-based weaponry), Spymaster (as an undercover threat), Justin Hammer (representing Tony Stark's evil reflection, rather than Iron Man), Iron Monger (representing Iron Man's evil reflection), and Mandarin.

New villains I would add include:

• An adrenaline junkie using a suit giving him super speed.
• A hacker using nanomachines and the connected web to mess with Stark Industries and his suits.
• A rogue, upgraded and dangerous Super-Sentinel sent out to hunt Iron Man.
• A mad scientist who pilots a mini-mecha and uses drones.
• A mutant supremacist, who views Iron Man as part of the human anti-mutant agenda and targets him.
• Another billionaire in a suit of armor, but represents all the opposite personality traits of Iron Man (as in, nice but only as a front, sadistic, greedy, uncaring of the safety of others)
• Someone who practices legitimate sorcery, representing the thematic conflict between magic and science.

What ideas do you have?

[Michael Watkins]

I would like the Living Laser to develop a destructive obsession with Monica Rambeau. he was basically stalking two different women in his origin story. it might be time to get him back to those roots. I picked Monica because she can realistically defend herself against a crazed individual with the ability to move at the speed of light and cut through Iron Man's armor.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

With Kamala, I would play up the fan angle and take more off a look at fandom's dark side. Some villains might be rookie supervillains like Chuck the Hydra Hipster but for other villain groups like AIM or the Hand. Others might be like Control Freak who is pastiches of toxic fandom itself. Don't worry we'd move on from neckbeard potshots soon enough.

[MichaelC]

With the Mandarin I'd play up how similar his upbringing was to Stark, yet uglier. Do Black Mask/Penguin type stories with lots of flashbacks.

[PCN24454]

In the case of Iron Man, I think it’s more that most of his gallery is outdated rather than straight up bad. They just don’t carry the same meaning to most people born after 1995.

[Raye]

New villains I would add include:
[LIST][*]An adrenaline junkie using a suit giving him super speed.

So.... Blue Streak and his gang. Sure, he's goofy, and one of the gang got killed recently in Valkyrie, but... tech based speedster, there you go.

With Kamala, I would play up the fan angle and take more off a look at fandom's dark side. Some villains might be rookie supervillains like Chuck the Hydra Hipster but for other villain groups like AIM or the Hand. Others might be like Control Freak who is pastiches of toxic fandom itself. Don't worry we'd move on from neckbeard potshots soon enough.

ooh, I like that. I maybe would try and tone it down a smidge, so it's more in the character's backstory, rather than their gimmick, that would seem a bit too 4th wall breaking for me. (would work in Gwenpool, maybe just not Ms Marvel) but how she's inspired by the aspirational and positive side of superhero fandom, there are some others who take from the dark toxic aspects of fandom, and it could inspire them to do bad things.

[davew128]

In the case of Iron Man, I think it’s more that most of his gallery is outdated rather than straight up bad. They just don’t carry the same meaning to most people born after 1995.

Agreed. Foes like Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and even Mandarin don't carry weight in 2019 like they did in the silver age. More likely foes Obadiah Stane are either dead or ruined by MCU. Who could take Justin Hammer seriously after Iron Man 2?

[Derek Metaltron]

It does always bother me that the Fantastic Four Villains outside Doom, Galactus and Annhilus (all of whom have transcended their original enemies) have probably dated badly. I like Diablo and Mad Thinker of course but they seem pretty generic today.

[Hybrid]

To be fair, I kinda alluded to this. Much of the issue is that Iron Man’s power armor tech wasn’t so cool in the ‘60s and feels a lot more relevant in today’s technology-driven world. As such, his villains suffered for tying into the Cold War or having a bad gimmick. If they did a reboot or an AU that starts fresh, they could easily make a better rogues gallery using technology as the core theme. Like I suggested, I’d reinvent his old rogues and add some new ones that fit.

[Derek Metaltron]

Its easy to imagine even without the MCU today that if Iron Man was being introduced for the modern world, Ultron would be one of his biggest threats and almost certainly partly his creation. Ultron certainly feels relevant today when he’s written well.

Extremis was a great addition to the problems Stark faced, I definitely think more should have been done with it outside just movie promotion with IM3.

[Hybrid]

Ghost imo is pretty cool, and has a neat design and power set. While the MCU version was alright, even as a female Ant-Man villain, I felt like something was lost by her not being a hacker, firearms expert or corporate saboteur. To be fair, Ghost was made much later when they moved past Cold War and into industrial billionaire.

I also look to the MCU with how they can make outdated costumes cool, just look at Yellowjacket and Vulture. I think you can apply that to villains like Blizzard and Melter as well to make them badass.

[Michael Watkins]

So.... Blue Streak and his gang. Sure, he's goofy, and one of the gang got killed recently in Valkyrie, but... tech based speedster, there you.

Can't believe no one mentioned Speedfreak. He was literally a drug addict tech speedster. Anyways I think Tony needs more villains that are the product of industry. There should be someone churning out super villains to make Stark bleed. Tony's business rivals should be spending a fortune on self augmentation or their own super soldiers. Tony's fear is not controlling progress. Why is Kang the only time traveler to come for the futurist?

[Hypestyle]

With Captain America you have the two major ideologies at work: Political foes and non-political foes.
Some people really like the former. Some people really like the latter. There tends to be a prominent push and pull with these factions. And one’s own personal politics tend to color the lens of how one sees the concept of how a Captain America title should function now.
The Serpent Society are examples of essentially non-political enemies: each person has a name after a snake, but the gimmicks and powers vary, including those that technically have nothing to do with the snake itself. Diamondback—threw gimmick diamonds. She didn’t have a poison bite or anything. If I were to revisit this concept, I would give everyone “proper” snake powers or gadgets. I realize that actual snake powers would run out after a few people, so this wouldn’t be the “legion” that the Serpent Society became at one point.
Red Skull: whether or not to bring back Johann Schmidt, who knows. It might be worth looking into some new person, or maybe a couple of folks, “fine people” who marched at Charlottesville, who stumble upon a secret hidden base of the Skull, and they take on some of his weapons and gadgets and launch terror campaigns in different countries. Their true identities can be mysteries at first.
Alexander Lukin- I don’t know if the story with him has gone as far as it can go. But we’ll see. Could be worth having foes based out of North Korea, Iran, Venezuela.

The US Agent, John Walker, when written well, can/should be a conservative, but not… ahem… Rush Limbaugh-with-super-powers. He’s sometimes an adversary, sometimes an ally, but not a villain.

Flag-Smasher- I could see a new version of him, tapping into fears of globalism. Maybe it’s the “Anti-Cap” from the short-lived Priest-written Cap/Falcon series.

The Green Skull as an eco-terrorist would be good to follow-up on.

Cap could probably stand to have some political enemies who aren’t “comics style” villains: Say, a senator (Independent) who feels that Steve Rogers exploits have become too culturally disruptive, especially in the aftermath of the “StEvil Rogers” era.

[H-E-D]

For Iron Man, I think the dude needs more foes who aren't using power armor. The most interesting villains a heroes has are always the ones that are different from him. It gets boring, forgettable, interchangeable otherwise, and that's what Iron Man's rogue gallery is.

You reference Batman. Batman isn't going around fighting other billions with advanced bat-themed gadgets. Batman fights a deranged clown, a guy that uses fear gas, a steroid-powered criminal mastermind, a guy that is obsessed with word puzzles, a woman who can control plants, a guy that freezes things, a mutated crocodile person, the immortal head of a secret society, a man who makes all this decisions based on the flip of a coin...

But Iron Man, he tends to just face other people with power armor. It's boring.

[Michael Watkins]

Ghost imo is pretty cool, and has a neat design and power set. While the MCU version was alright, even as a female Ant-Man villain, I felt like something was lost by her not being a hacker, firearms expert or corporate saboteur. To be fair, Ghost was made much later when they moved past Cold War and into industrial billionaire.

I also look to the MCU with how they can make outdated costumes cool, just look at Yellowjacket and Vulture. I think you can apply that to villains like Blizzard and Melter as well to make them badass.

They could update the Roxxon villainess Saboteur with elements of movie Ghost. She is obscure enough for that kind of overhaul. Doesn't necessarily need to be an Ant-man rogue. Likewise, Spencer updated Scott Lang in a way that allows, for example, past history with the man who became Ghost.

Me, I think they've overlooked a real threat in Trapster. He is fighting outside of his weight class with the FF. Scott is the opponent who could give him a fair fight. They are both underdogs who rely on cleverness to survive the job. Plus Pete's look is that of an exterminator.