2. Johann Schmidt/Red Skull - Captain America: The First Avenger
Hypocrisy! I hear you cry. I know that multiple times throughout this article I have talked about how a good villain needs to be complex and multi- layered, and the Red Skull from 2011s Captain America comes across as your run of the mill world-dominating Nazi lunatic that appears on Saturday morning cartoons every week. However this rather simplistic, old-school type of villain suits the campiness of the film, as well as its World War 2 setting. What makes The Red Skull and Cap such good counterparts is that the Red Skulls utter evilness and demon-like appearance is at exact odds to Chris Evans patriotic, all American man of the people. For me, Hugo Weaving is a criminally underrated actor, and one of the best go-to-guys to play a really great villain in Hollywood. Over the past few years, Weaving has portrayed some of the most popular villains and morally ambiguous characters on screen, from the anarchist V from V for Vendetta, to the booming voice of Megatron from the Transformers trilogy, to probably one of his greatest characters, the emotionless yet relentless Agent Smith from the Matrix trilogy. The look of The Red Skull is incredibly important, as not only is it instantly iconic and recognisable to any Marvel comic book fan, but it is also very simple, and it is this simplicity that couldve made the image of The Red Skull look ridiculous and laughable. However, I find that Marvel did a great job with the make up and prosthetics for the character, and I like the plain yet functional uniform. The old-school charm and classic adventure feel that the Captain America film has makes it one of my very favourite films from Phase One of Marvels Cinematic Universe. The plot is simple, the costumes and sets look stunning, and as it is a period film, it was totally out of Marvels comfort zone. With the Red Skull, Marvel introduced a fun and entertaining villain to film fans. My fear, however, is that due to the ending of the film, and the seeming disintegration of the Red Skull due to the Tesseract, we may never get to see Weavings brilliant Red Skull in another Marvel film. Now for my numero uno villain from Marvel's Cinematic Universe...