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?