10 Hyped Movie Villains Who Turned Out To Be Just Henchmen

Another bad guy who succumbed to the MCU's villain problem, Ronan The Accuser - played by Lee Pace - was a member of the Kree race whose goal was to lay waste to the planet Xandar, exterminating its Xandarian inhabitants.

Guardians Of The Galaxy was a big risk for Marvel - practically no-one had ever heard of these characters before - and they needed it to work. Fortunately, it looked unique, funny and subversive, and everything about it - including the addition of a strong supporting actor like Pace - generated a lot of buzz.

But the final movie revealed that Ronan wasn't quite as cool and badass as he looked. The character was actually working on behalf of the mighty Thanos, who had tasked Ronan with tracking down a powerful orb. Ronan's mission was to deliver this orb to Thanos, who would destroy Xandar in return.

Funnily enough, Ronan didn't even know the orb was an Infinity Stone until late in the movie, at which point he turned on Thanos, took the orb's power, and went to destroy Xandar himself.

Obviously, he failed - beaten by the power of dance, of all things - and he probably wishes he'd just held up his side of the bargain. Thanos is much more powerful than Ronan will ever be, and with barely a few minutes of screentime, the Mad Titan manged to overshadow - and intimidate - the character who was supposed to be the film's big scary bad guy.