10 Messed Up Marvel Villains You Won't Believe Exist

9. Styx

Styx Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics

So, there are actually two characters called Styx in the Marvel Universe: one who was a homeless person called Jacob Eichorn, who gets turned into a living cancer whose only source of pleasure is killing other beings (charming), and the other being a personality of Legion, aka David Haller.

Both fit the bill here though, because they both boast genuinely creepy designs and have committed equally awful acts in the years since their respective debuts.

Eichorn's Styx (pictured above) became a terrifying mercenary following a pharmaceutical trial gone wrong. Whereas the drug was intended to cure cancer, it ends up creating a monster whose touch renders all organic matter withered and dead within minutes. He's all kinds of messed up, even if he himself was a victim too.

Styx Legion
Marvel Comics

Then there's Legion's Styx. One of Haller's many personalities, Styx separated from Legion's physical form in the wake of Fortress X, and boasts a design that quite honestly could've been right at home in the pages of Vertigo's Sandman comics.

Styx looks desiccated, has razor-sharp claws, and can absorb the souls of his enemies. Throw all of that on top of Legion's base powers, and you're left with one of the X-Men's most terrifying - albeit temporary - adversaries.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.