10 Harmless Comics Villains Who Became Badasses

While being a reoccurring villain to the Thunderbolts isn't a bad gig by any means - they're not an unpopular team, and them generally consisting of reformed villains does make for an interesting angle - it's also not a position for a 'major' supervillain.

This is why Ghost going from taking on the Thunderbolts, to taking on Iron Man marks a big step in both his badass levels, and in people's awareness of him outside of him being 'that creepy dude in the grey armour'. Ghost would even go on to play fairly crucial roles in both the Stark Dissasembled storyline and several regular Iron Man issues prior, which marked the grey menace's move to being considered a pretty cool - and pretty lethal - villain.

While the Ghost would go back to being an enemy of the Thunderbolts, he did so with at least with a little extra rep behind him - and the hate of Iron Man, which is presumably like gold to a supervillain.