History Characters / MCUOtherSupervillains

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: [[spoiler:He has to live with constant pain since the night of the explosion. While that is terrible, it's still no excuse to make tons of people suffer for him.]]

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:After Tandy and Tyrone bust Andre's trafficking ring, Andre runs out of {{human resource}}s to deal with his pain. To cope with it, he asks his accomplice, Lia, to bear with his pain. He promises to Lia that [[ExactWords it would be the last time he would make her feel pain]], and fulfills this promise by killing her. No longer being of any use to him, he drops off her corpse by the road.]]

* BadPowersBadPeople: His ability is shown to be more or less inherently dangerous (even a simple thing like compelling someone to give him their jacket is shown as a traumatic violation), and it's also indicated that being able to get anyone you want to do anything you want anytime you want is so inherently corrupting that it'd be tough for anyone with such an ability to turn out normal, let alone good-- especially since he developed his powers in childhood, and thus never learned about reciprocal relationships; as far back as he can remember, everyone in the world only exists to fulfil his desires.

* AdaptationalHeroism: His comic counterpart and that of his father were ''literal Nazis'' who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did (''eventually'') grow out of the former, he still tends to try the later. Here, despite [[spoiler:being on a black ops killing team]], his motivation is much simpler and more sympathetic. Neither have any ties to HYDRA, either.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/00000_000001_03_copie1.jpg]]

->''"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."''

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' | ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' [[note]](archive photography)[[/note]] | ''The Falcon and the Winter Soldier''

* BigBad: The lead villain in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' as well as the upcoming ''The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'' Disney+ series.

* MisplacedRetribution: [[spoiler:Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still ''his'' idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.]]

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' | ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' [[note]](archive photography)[[/note]] | ''The Falcon & Winter Soldier''

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' | ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' [[note]](archive photography)[[/note]] | ''Falcon & Winter Soldier''

* BigBad: The lead villain in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar''.

!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' | ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' [[note]](archive photography)[[/note]]

** He does however make a habit of referring to Erik as "boy" throughout the movie, which is a disparaging term commonly used during the times of U.S. slavery, segregation, and South African apartheid towards men of color, implying their subservient status. Considering that Klaue is a South African raised during the apartheid it is unlikely he wouldn't know this.

* AdaptationSpeciesChange: [[spoiler: D'Spayre, the character Andre is based on in the comics, is a demon. Andre himself is an enhanced human.]]
* BigBad: [[spoiler: Of ''Cloak and Dagger'' Season 2. He is behind the human trafficking ring, abducting women to feed off their despair.]]
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: [[spoiler: To both Peter Scarborough and Detective Connors, the BigBadEnsemble of season 1. Unlike them, he represents a single antagonist to both protagonists, and whereas Scarborough and Connors represented the {{Mundanger}} aspects of a CorruptCorporateExecutive and a DirtyCop, respectively, Andre is an enhanced individual, [[EvilCounterpart much like our protagonists]]]].
* EmotionEater: [[spoiler: He feeds off despair.]]
* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler: Just like Lia, he is revealed to be this.]]
* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler: To both Ty and Tandy. Like them, he received powers when the Roxxon oil rig exploded nearly a decade ago. However, instead of using his powers to help people, he instead uses them to take away his own pain at the expense of others and seek godhood]].
* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: [[spoiler: He has to live with constant pain since the night of the explosion. While that is terrible, it's still no excuse to make tons of people suffer for him.]]
* AGodAmI: [[spoiler: After speaking with Chantelle, he realizes he can use his powers to attain godhood, which becomes his end goal]].
* HopeCrusher: [[spoiler: He removes his pain by draining the despair from others, meaning he has to invoke that despair himself. This includes trafficking young women as sex slaves]].

* KnightOfCerebus: [[spoiler: Once he's revealed as the true BigBad, the series takes on a much darker tone, given that he is one man responsible [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil for a sex trafficking ring to feed off human despair]]]].
* NiceGuy: He is nice and supporting towards everybody. [[spoiler: It's all an act.]]
* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler: Andre accuses Tandy of this, since she also went around stealing people's hopes not too long ago. She is disgusted by it.]]

* [[Characters/MCUErikKillmonger Erik Killmonger]]

* [[Characters/MCUUltron Ultron]]

[[folder:King Laufey]]
!!''King Laufey''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_3877.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You're nothing but a boy, trying to prove himself a man."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Frost Giant
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/ColmFeore
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Sebastián Llapur (Latin-American Spanish dub), Gonzalo Abril (European Spanish dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/{{Thor}}''

->''"You've come a long way to die, Asgardian."''

The King of Jötunheim and a Frost Giant. Over 1,200 years ago, Laufey invaded Earth (Midgard) in an attempt to conquer it, but Odin and the Gods came to Earth's aid and pushed them back to Jötunheim and defeated them, and took the Casket of Ancient Winters, a powerful artifact, from them. Since then, Laufey desires peace first, but if possible, to get the Casket back.

* AbusiveParents: Left his weak and tiny (for a Frost Giant) infant son out in the cold to die. Said son, Loki, was then found by Odin and raised as his own. [[KarmicDeath Said son later kills him in order to gain the approval of his adoptive father.]]
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: He's still a villain, but Laufey is far from the sadistic brute that he was depicted in the comics. When reuniting with Loki in the comics, Laufey expresses nothing but open distaste for his son and doesn't hesitate in trying to kill him. In the original script of the film, Loki told Laufey who he was and Laufey responded: "Ah, the bastard son. I thought Odin had killed you. That's what I would have done. He's as weak as you are." This scene was never filmed.
* AffablyEvil: Almost always calm, even-toned and polite when talking to the Asgardians.
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Like all Frost Giants, he has blue skin.
* ArtifactOfDoom: The Casket of Ancient Winters, a device that can freeze entire landscapes and his old weapon.
%%* CoveredWithScars: Because of the war.
* CreepyMonotone: Laufey always speaks in a calm, steady voice.
* DiscOneFinalBoss: While Loki is revealed to be the one who allowed Frost Giants into Asgard, and makes a deal to allow them inside in force, King Laufey is assumed (at least in-universe) to be the primary antagonist of ''Thor''.
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: For such a mighty warrior, all it takes is two shots from Loki to disintegrate him. Though those two shots came from Odin All-Father's staff, one of the most powerful weapons in Asgard's general vicinity.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's clearly a malignant character, but even he doesn't want full-out war needlessly, as he has experienced it, and has seen the costs that come from it.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Frost Giants, whether openly violent toward Asgard or not, are [[AlwaysChaoticEvil always seen as evil]] when confronted, whether overtly or not.
* EvilPlan: In the Dark Ages, he wanted to plunge Midgard into a new Ice Age. Odin put a quick stop to that, but the results of that plan set the stage for the events of ''Thor''.
* EvilSoundsDeep: Speaks in a low, calm voice that demonstrates both his villainy and his authoritative demeanor.
* GenderFlip: In Myth/NorseMythology, Laufey is Loki's mother, and a Frost Giant called Farbuti is his father, but much like in the source comics, Laufey is the father and a unidentified female the mother.
* GenreBlind: Laufey cannot see how Loki is setting him up, even though Loki never makes any provision for Asgard in their agreement once he turns over the Casket. Why would any sensible ruler offer to return their enemy's most feared weapon and not make some kind of assurance that it won't be used against them later unless it's specifically trying to create a false sense of security?
* GoodScarsEvilScars: Has many claw-shaped ones across his face.
* AnIcePerson: Though he's more skilled at controlling it than other Frost Giants.
* KarmicDeath: The child that Laufey abandoned to die ends up being the one who kills him.
* OurGiantsAreBigger: Frost Giants are bigger than Asgardians.
* ParentalAbandonment: To infant Loki and later tells Loki that Odin should have left him to die instead of saving and raising him as his own son.
* PragmaticVillainy: Laufey is evil, but he's not stupid. He knows that Odin's a dangerous enemy, and wants to make sure that the Asgardians fire the first shot so he can [[VillainWithGoodPublicity have the moral high ground when he starts the war]]. Loki cleverly plays this trait against him by setting him up. He allows Laufey and a few Jötunns into Asgard to assassinate Odin (causing Laufey to believe he has an ally within Asgard) while he sleeps, but only so Loki can then turn the tables on Laufey, kill him, and give ''himself'' the moral high ground in order to start a war with Jötunheim.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He was prepared to let Thor and his buddies go after they invaded his nation and violated the truce, because he knows that Thor is an immature boy that doesn't understand war.
-->'''Laufey:''' You know not what your actions would unleash... [[WarIsHell I do]]. [[LastChanceToQuit Go now, while I still allow it]].
* RedEyesTakeWarning: All Frost Giants have red eyes, but his seem to glow to show the unique threat he poses.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Personally led the invasion of Midgard during the Dark Ages, wielding the [[ArtifactOfDoom Casket of Ancient Winters]].
* SparedByTheAdaptation: In the comics, he was killed by Odin centuries ago, when Loki was still a baby. In the film, he is left alive, but only temporarily. In the end, Loki kills him.
* TooDumbToLive: The fact that Loki was offering to let him have the Casket of the Ancient Winters back with no strings attached once Odin was dead should have raised several red flags. Loki's terms never provided for any sort of permanent immunity for Asgard once their plan had been carried out, which should have reeked of "too good to be true". If Loki were serious about the agreement, he would have made Laufey promise to stay out of Asgardian business once he had what he came for but instead Loki implies that Laufey will be free to do as he pleases once he enacts the assassination of Odin and Loki can be installed as ruler of Asgard.
* UnwittingPawn: Laufey is manipulated by Loki into boosting his reputation at the cost of Laufey's own life.
* VillainHasAPoint: He's right and quick to point out that pre-CharacterDevelopment Thor is just a boy who tried to prove himself a man, and he's also right about how much a war between Asgard and Jötunheim would cost both sides.
* WarIsHell: Tried to stop Thor from bringing on the fight because, unlike Thor, he knows the damage of war.
* WeaponOfChoice: Being a frost giant, he prefers a weaponized icicle.

[[folder:Malekith]]
!!''Malekith''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5c04f5341e8852f0a356acdd32418fc6.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Darkness returns, Asgardian. Have you come to witness the end of your universe?"'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Dark Elf
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/ChristopherEccleston
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Creator/ReneGarcia (Latin-American Spanish dub), Santi Lorenz (European Spanish dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld''

->''"Your Universe was never meant to be, Asgardian! Your family, your world will be extinguished!"''

Leader of the [[DarkIsEvil Dark]] [[OurElvesAreBetter Elves]] of [[DeathWorld Svartalfheim]], Malekith attacks Asgard following the end of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', setting in motion the events of ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld''.

* AdaptationalBadass: In the comics he's not a great fighter, and is much more prone to use his shapeshifting skills and various schemes than to face his opponents head-on. In the movie, his characterization is changed, probably so that he would make a more impressive BigBad (in the comics he's merely TheDragon). Another possible reason for the change is that the comic book version of Malekith, whose favourite tactic is to deceive his enemies by pretending to be someone else, would've been too close to the movie Loki.
* AdaptationalDyeJob: Traditionally blue-skinned in the comics, he has pale white pigmentation here.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: While Malekith in the film is still evil, he comes off as a decent person compared to his comics counterpart, who's even ''worse'' by being an AxCrazy saidist. Furthermore, Comics Malekith nearly killed Algrim just to get a chance to kill Thor, the film shows him having a genuine VillainousFriendship with Algrim.
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: He can communicate directly and fluently with Asgardians (who seem to speak English since they can converse with Americans). The Dark Elves have their own tongue but he is the only one seen using any language besides that.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Downplayed. He's certainly a great fighter and more badass than in the comics, but Kurse is stronger than him and at one point Frigga gives him a serious fight. Played straight after he gets the Aether.
* AnArmAndALeg: Gets both of his arms cut off by Thor in their final battle, though the Aether has started to reform his arms.
* BadassInCharge: He's TheLeader of the Dark Elves and quite skilled, even before he gets powered up by the Aether.
* BadBoss: He is very ready to throw his own men under the bus, should he need to.
* BigBad: Serves as the main antagonist of the second film, ''The Dark World''.
* BraidsOfAction: Keeps his long hair in one.
* CompositeCharacter: Malekith in the [=MCU=] bares a heavy resemblance to Knull, a Thor villain and an ancient [[GodOfEvil God of]] [[DarkIsEvil Primordial Darkness]] that predated the universe with the sole intention of returning the Universe to its pre-lit state. Even Malekith's use of the Aether resembles the nature of the Necrosword and Symbiotes, both of which are Knull's creations.
* CreepyBlueEyes: ''Very'' light and piercing, overlapping with IcyBlueEyes.
* DarkIsEvil: He and his race were born in primordial darkness, and they despise the universe of light it became.
* DeathByLookingUp: Had just enough time to see his mothership crash upon him after being teleported back to his homeworld.
* DirtyCoward: Threw his entire invasion fleet under the bus by depowering his ships to crush Asgard's forces when he lost the Aether during their first skirmish and to flee the battle, killing anyone who was on board at the time. He even has the gall to claim Asgard forced his hand and they will be the ones to pay for his own cowardice.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The moment he realizes he's going to lose against [[OurFounder King Bor]], he turns off his own battleships' power, [[ColonyDrop dropping them on the Asgardians]] and [[KickTheDog killing absolutely everyone on board (implied to be nearly the entire Dark Elf population)]] solely to clear his own escape.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Or rather, ''had''. [[http://www.blastr.com/2013-11-7/eccleston-reveals-some-thor-dark-world-scenes-didn%E2%80%99t-make-cut As revealed by Eccleston]], Malekith once had a wife and children, though exactly what caused their deaths isn't elaborated upon.
* EvilAlbino: He's pale enough to be mistaken for a vampire.
* EvilOverlord: Lord of the Dark Elves that lives in a barren land and seeks to extinguish other civilizations.
* EvilSorcerer: Of the SufficientlyAdvancedAliens variety. He nearly destroyed the universe at first, and then tries doing it again, using the power of the Aether.
* EvilSoundsDeep: Whether he's speaking English or his native tongue, his voice is quite deep.
* FantasticRacism: To other Asgardians and mortals. He considers them "light based vermin".
* FlatCharacter: His goals and motivations are relatively unexplored in comparison to other Marvel Cinematic Universe villains.
* GenericDoomsdayVillain: He's out to destroy the universe and return everything to darkness, but his motives for doing so are relatively unexplored. Apparently, they had intended to flesh out Malekith's character through additional scenes (according to Eccleston), but it was excised from the film proper.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: It should be obvious what kind he has, but just in case half his face burned by Thor's lightning because he invaded Asgard and killed its queen.
* HiddenDepths: Creator/ChristopherEccleston hinted several times in interviews that this is mainly because the movie was [[ExecutiveMeddling cut short by several scenes.]] The Svartalfar were subject to significant development, and there were reasons why they were ''all'' [[AlwaysChaoticEvil behind their king's plan]] to destroy the universe. As for Malekith himself, [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes he had a wife and child once]], and they were killed.
* HumanoidAbomination: After absorbing the Aether he turns into this freaky looking thing with CombatTentacles.
* {{Irony}}: At the end of the first war with Asgard, he [[ColonyDrop dropped his fleet]] onto the battling armies, slaughtering both sides to cover his escape. Jane Foster warps his collapsing mothership right on top of him, killing him after he was soundly beaten by Thor.
* {{Jerkass}}: Malekith, on the whole, appears to be a rather unpleasant individual, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and rude to boot]].
* KarmicDeath: He sacrificed most of his people by making their ships drop on them and his enemies. He's ultimately defeated by his own ship dropping on top of him.
* MakeMyMonsterGrow: During the climax of the Convergence, when Malekith starts releasing the energies of the Aether, he grows to about three times Thor's height. Though when Thor delivers the final blow on him with Mjölnir, he immediately reverts back to his normal height.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "Accursed". If you haven't got the message yet, then you're screwed.
* OmnicidalManiac: It seems that life and light disgust or "poison" Dark Elves in general, and he seems to treat both as threats that need to be put down.
* OneWingedAngel: After being powered up by the Aether, he transforms into a monstrous humanoid thing.
* OurElvesAreBetter: From a race of SufficientlyAdvancedAlien demi-gods with PointyEars called the "Dark Elves".
* PetTheDog: Seemed genuinely remorseful when he had to infect Algrim with the darkness to turn him into Kurse.
* PointyEars: He's a pointy eared Dark Elf.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: A god like the Asgardians. Probably older than them, since Loki says that Asgardians live for about five thousand years or so, but to remember "a time before the light" Malekith would need to be at least a few million years old. (See TimeAbyss below.)
* RedBaron: Malekith ''the Accursed''.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: After he absorbs the Aether.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: King of his people and the BigBad of ''The Dark World''. It's implied in interviews that in regards to his plan for destroying the Universe, his Elves are with him all the way.
* SpaceElves: Their king.
* TimeAbyss: He's older than Odin, and possibly older than the universe itself.
* TwoFaced: Due to half of his face being burned off thanks to lightning from Mjölnir.
* WeHaveReserves: To escape in the first act, set millennia in the past, he sacrifices reserves of his men, and then escapes with his lieutenant and a skeleton crew of elves.
* WhiteHairBlackHeart: He's a ''Dark'' Elf with white hair.
* YouKilledMyFather: Directly involved in Frigga's death, causing Thor and Loki to have an [[EnemyMine uneasy alliance]]. Ironically, cut content, according to WordOfGod, means that he once lost his own family.

[[folder:Algrim / Kurse]]
!!''Algrim / Kurse''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/algrim_tdw_8017.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Let my life be sacrificed. It is no less than our people did, or you have done."'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see him in his Kurse form]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kurse_thor_the_dark_world.png]][[/labelnote]]
!!!'''Species:''' Dark Elf
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/AdewaleAkinnuoyeAgbaje
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld''

Malekith's lieutenant who is one of the few Dark Elves to survive the war against Odin's father Bor, and continues to serve Malekith. Malekith allows him to use an ancient DangerousForbiddenTechnique, transforming him into the nigh-unbeatable Kurse.

* AdaptationDistillation: In the [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor comics]], Algrim/Kurse was a minor villain, whose only appearance had been in the same issue where he died, until an omnipotent CosmicEntity revived him and made him massively powerful as part of a [[ComicBook/SecretWarsII crossover]] that had nothing to do with the main plot of ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor''. For understandable reasons, the movie gives him a rather different backstory.
* AdaptationalVillainy: In the comics, Algrim/Kurse does work for Malekith for a time, but Malekith betrays him and Algrim -- a noble soul -- swears loyalty to Thor and Asgard, in fact being the one to kill Malekith himself. In ''The Dark World'', Malekith does sacrifice his own people but doesn't betray Algrim personally. Algrim has UndyingLoyalty towards his master and becomes Kurse as a result.
* BodyHorror: What happens to him (and all other Dark Elves) when transforming into Kurse; as described by the art book, his armor is basically ''grafted onto his body'', with no sign of it being reversible.
* CoolHelmet: He gets one for his transformation, which also obscures his identity during the TrojanPrisoner gambit.
* TheDragon: He's Malekith's most trusted and capable Lieutenant. He was already a great warrior, but when he becomes Kurse, he easily kills scores of Asgardians and Thor is no match for him in pure physical combat. Even Mjölnir causes little harm. Not only that, he completely overpowers Thor in battle, something that his master, even when empowered by the Aether, was unable to do.
* EvilSoundsDeep: He rarely speaks, but when he does, it's in a deep, baritone voice.
* EyeScream: His eyes are visibly ripped from their sockets by the black hole grenade that Loki set off.
* HeroKiller: As Kurse, he's both incredibly strong and not without a fiendish intelligence. He first kills his share of Einherjars, then is the one to stab Frigga to death, and during his battle with Thor and Loki, he [[FakingTheDead appears to]] kill the latter.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Loki manages to defeat him by activating the black hole grenade on his belt that the Dark Elves earlier used to great effect against the Asgardians.
* TheJuggernaut: As Kurse, he shrugs off everything that's thrown at him. It takes a black hole grenade to finally get rid of him.
* MightyGlacier: Slower than the Hulk, or Thor, but much stronger and tougher.
* NeckLift: A signature move once he becomes Kursed.
* NighInvulnerability: Kurse is only defeated by being sucked into a miniature black hole. Nothing else so much as puts a dent in him.
* NonStandardCharacterDesign: All the other Kursed have their doll masks become their faces in the prologue. Since Algrim was disguised as a Marauder, his Kurse form has a more expressive and demonic visage.
* NoSell: He smacks Mjolnir away like it's nothing into an entire mountain. Alongside [[Film/ThorRagnarok Hela and Eternal Flame Surtur]], he's one of the strongest villains in the Thor movies.
* PainfulTransformation: Algrim's transformation into Kurse has him ''burning from the inside out and thrashing wildly in his prison cell.''
* ScaryBlackMan: More so as Kurse because he's basically a demon, but also less so because his armor has been grafted on and thus conceals his skin.
* SuperStrength: As Kurse, he's more than a match for Thor, being able to beat up the thunder god in single combat.
* TimeAbyss: He's older than Odin, and possibly older than the universe itself.
* TouchOfDeath: As Kurse, he can fry people by grabbing them with a choke-hold.
* TrojanPrisoner: He's sent into Asgard disguised as a marauder prisoner just after being given the Kurse stone, knowing that when the transformation kicks in, he can break out with ease.
* UndyingLoyalty: Seems to be a racial trait. They might be evil, but Algrim and the Dark Elves in general are also unyieldingly loyal to Malekith, even after he sacrifices a whole fleet to escape. Taking up the "Kurse" is very much this: a Dark Elf will willingly submit to the painful and eventually ''deadly'' transformation into a giant monster, and fight for their people until it kills them.
* WorldsStrongestMan: He's much stronger than [[PhysicalGod Thor]], one of the ''very'' [[LightningBruiser strongest]] beings in the universe.

[[folder:Ulysses Klaue]]
!!''Ulysses Klaue''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcu_klaue.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Human life: Not a growth market."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Human (Cyborg)
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/AndySerkis
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Enrique Cervantes (Latin-American Spanish dub), Ramón Langa (European Spanish dub), Minoru Hirota (Japanese dub), Jérémie Covillault (French dub), Manuel Tadros (Canadian French dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' | ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}''

-> '''Klaue:''' Tell me something. What do you know about Wakanda?
-> '''Everett K. Ross:''' It's a third world country. Textiles, shepherds, cool outfits...
->'''Klaue:''' All a front. Explorers have searched for it. Called it "El Dorado". They looked for it in South America, but it was in Africa the whole time. I'm the only one who's seen it and made it out alive.

A powerful South African gangster and smuggler who knows Tony from back during his days as an arms dealer. He's the also the only mercenary to ever find Wakanda... and survive.

* AbsurdPhobia: Apparently, he's afraid of, to the astonishment of the Maximoffs, cuttlefish, having been terrified by a documentary featuring them. He's fully aware of how absurd it is, and exploits this to mock Scarlet Witch's nightmare-inducing power and the Maximoffs' amateur intimidation tactics. Whether the fear is genuine or just made up to screw with the Maximoffs is left unclear.
* AdaptationNameChange: His name went from "Klaw" in the comics to "Klaue" in the movies, although it's still pronounced the same.[[note]]It should be noted that "Klaue" [[OlderThanTheyThink was also his birth name in the comics before he changed it]].[[/note]]
* AdaptationalNationality: He went from being Belgian in the comics to South African. Although the file the Avengers have on him in ''Age of Ultron'' still states that he has the Belgian citizenship and was born in the Netherlands.
* AmoralAfrikaner: He's a South African gangster.
* ArchEnemy: He is the longtime veteran enemy of Wakanda since the time T'Chaka took up the Black Panther mantle.
* AnArmAndALeg: Like in the comics, he loses one of his arms, this time thanks to Ultron.
* ArmCannon: Gets one after Ultron severs one of his arms. It's this in the most literal sense, as his robotic arm unfurls to reveal the actual cannon, which in itself is an ImprovisedWeapon, originally used for Vibranium mining. Klaue also used it in one scene as a SonicStunner, but to break glass rather than actually attack someone, though given what sonics do to vibranium in the film, it's entirely possible it's ''always'' been a sonic weapon.
* AscendedExtra: He has a much larger role in ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' than in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron''.
* AxCrazy: The arm he lost was presumably the arm he used to shake hands with sanity. Klaue is a violent maniac who takes joy in causing pain and suffering.
* BadassNormal: Managed to sneak into Wakanda, steal a quarter-ton of Vibranium, kill many Wakandans, get ''caught and branded'' at some point, and somehow make it out '''alive'''. As a result, he's been evading Wakanda forces for many years while also having enormous success as an illegal arms dealer. He also survives encounters with Ultron and the Avengers. He also has NervesOfSteel, doesn't bat an eyelid in the face of immediate danger and likes to taunt his captors at every opportunity. In short, Klaue is as tough as they come.
* BadassTransplant: His {{Artificial Limb|s}}, which contains an ArmCannon capable of shattering glass and blowing a car to smithereens.
* BatmanGambit: When T'Challa apprehends him in South Korea and has his claws at Klaue's throat, Klaue starts pathetically pleading for his life in [[BadBadActing exaggerated and]] [[LargeHam over-the-top fashion]], not because he's legitimately afraid, but because there's a large crowd gathering and Klaue knows how bad it would look for the WarriorPrince of a (supposedly) third-world country to murder an unarmed man begging for his life.
* BeardOfEvil: He has a moderately long one.
* BigBadWannabe: Was indeed Wakanda's ArchEnemy for years, works alongside Killmonger and clearly imagines them to be in a partnership with Klaue's aim being to steal and sell vibranium. However, from the start, [[spoiler:Killmonger was just trying to get Klaue in a relatively defenseless position so he could kill the arms dealer and use Klaue's death to help him realize his own grander ambitions to rule Wakanda.]]
* BloodKnight: He gets a massive charge out of causing violence with his own (prosthetic) hands. After tearing his way through a casino, he joyously remarks that it was awesome.
* CelebrityParadox:
** ''The Winter Soldier'' and ''Civil War'' acknowledge that the ''Franchise/StarWars'' franchise exists, which Serkis is a part of its Sequel Trilogy since 2015 (as Snoke).
** In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Iron Man calls Hawkeye "Legolas", which would imply that ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' exists. Serkis played Gollum in the films.
* CompositeCharacter: He has taken many elements of his father, Fritz Klaue, such as being a smuggler and ally to Baron Strucker, the unique spelling of his surname and overall look.
* DeadlyEuphemism: Klaue's introductory scene is him on the phone with a customer whom he's not happy with. He ends the conversation by warning them that if things aren't made right, "the next missile I send you will come very much faster."
* DerivativeDifferentiation:
** Klaue is ''not'' responsible for T'Chaka's death in this continuity, Helmut Zemo is; it's said that he ''was'' hired to kill T'Chaka at the Bilderberg Conference if he refused to open Wakanda to trade, but he failed.
** In the comics he lost his hand during his first attempted invasion of Wakanda; here, Ultron cuts it off in a moment of impulsive anger. The upshot of all this is that in the MCU, T'Challa sees Klaue as an enemy of his nation -- and [[ThatOneCase his father's last unresolved piece of business]] -- instead of his personal ArchEnemy.
* DieLaughing: [[spoiler:When Erik mortally wounds him, Klaue warns him that he'll never be able to just drop in on Wakanda. Erik then reveals that he has Wakandan heritage, after which Klaue quickly realizes who he is. This realization causes him to laugh at his own mistake, during which Erik kills him.]]
* DiscOneFinalBoss: [[spoiler:Gets killed off around half way through ''Black Panther'' by the real villain; Killmonger.]]
* EarlyBirdCameo: His first appearance was in ''Avengers: Age of Ultron'', three years before a ''Black Panther'' movie. His official description even refers to him as "A powerful new player in the Marvel Cinematic Universe".
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: To reintroduce the character and his larger role in ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}''. He breaks into a museum alongside Erik and kills a bunch of museum guards. He leaves one alive, assuring him that he can go free, but waits for him to run a few paces before shooting him in the head. When questioned about this he points that spreading out the crime scene makes the job look less professional to attempt to hide their involvement, then gleefully uses his ArmCannon to bust open the glass around a Vibranium axehead. The message is clear: for all his giddiness and comic relief value, he's still a clever and cunning criminal who knows what he's doing. It also offers some insight into how he has evaded Wakandan custody for so long.
* EvilIsHammy: He's a very exuberant, unhinged and fun presence despite his sadistic love of violence, particularly in ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}''. After causing an explosion at a casino, he joyously remarks that he 'made it rain'.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: For one thing, [[{{Irony}} he labels a wrapped-up piece of vibranium 'fragile']]. Oh, and he hides it in his pants so he can pretend to flash his junk when he takes it out.
* EvilSoundsDeep: He has a very deep voice and is evil to the core.
* EvilVirtues: Despite appearing, at first glance, to be nothing more than a slimy, double-crossing ArmsDealer, Klaue is afraid of ''[[NervesOfSteel nothing.]]'' Ultron and the Maximoff twins barely faze him, even after getting his arm sliced off he's still giving orders to his men. [[spoiler: Even after Killmonger shoots him at least twice, he's [[DieLaughing still laughing]] before being finished off.]]
* FacingTheBulletsOneLiner:
-->'''Klaue:''' Ah, to think I saw you as some crazy American...
* GigglingVillain: It's more prominent in ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'', but Klaue tends to be having a very good time no matter what he's doing. He's always snickering and smiling.
* GlassCannon: Almost literally. He's got an ArmCannon powerful enough to blast apart Vibranium armor (though the Vibranium nanites of the Black Panther suit are able to NoSell at least one shot from it), but is otherwise just a reasonably fit ordinary middle-aged dude. Once T'Challa finally manages to get close enough to land a punch on him it's pretty much over.
* GoOutWithASmile: [[spoiler:He dies chortling at the fact Erik was a Wakandan the whole time and he never knew, and has a big, stupid grin on his face when Killmonger shows his corpse.]]
* GracefulLoser: [[spoiler: He [[DieLaughing cracks up laughing]] when he realizes how much Erik has tricked him, right before being fatally shot.]]
* HaHaHaNo: A variation when Ross claims he stole all of Wakanda's Vibranium.
-->'''Klaue:''' I stole... ''[Bursts out laughing.]'' ALL of it?! I took a tiny '''piece''' of it.
* HiddenDepths: Has apparently made a mix-tape and offers to give Everett Ross a copy.
* IHaveYourWife: [[spoiler:Takes Erik's girlfriend hostage when they end up in a standoff. It doesn't work out because [[ShootTheHostage Erik just kills her himself]].]]
* ItsPersonal: His family and the Black Panthers have been going at it since the 19th Century.
* LargeHam: Klaue delights in being loud, keeping everyone off balance, and having a great time even when he should probably be more wary such as making kissy faces, laughing, and singing "What is Love (Baby, Don't Hurt Me)" loudly while in federal custody.
* LaughablyEvil: Despite being a villain, Klaue is an absolute laugh riot who provides a constant stream of quips and gags and gets some of the best jokes in ''Black Panther''.
* LeftHanging: At some point, the Wakandans ''caught'' Klaue, as evidenced by the "thief" brand on his neck. [[spoiler:Given that Killmonger kills him so as to exchange his corpse for passage into Wakanda, it's unlikely that story will ever be told]].
* MarkOfShame: He got [[http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/File:Thief_Wakanda.png a Wakandan symbol]] that translates as a derogatory word for "Thief" branded on his neck when he got caught stealing a massive amount of Vibranium.
* MythologyGag: He wears a necklace with a claw attached to it, which is both a pun on his name and a sign that he has had an encounter with T'Chaka.
** And of course, there's his SonicStunner ArmCannon mentioned above, though it's on his left arm rather than his right as in the comics.
** His insane singing and offhand mention of a mixtape may be a ''very'' subtle nod to his "made of sound" composition in the source material.
** His S.H.I.E.L.D. file mentions him being a former member of the Intelligencia, a supervillain group from the comics that Klaue was indeed involved with.
* NervesOfSteel: Nothing really fazes him. He is remarkably unafraid and unshaken by a visit from Ultron and the Maximoff twins, even offering the latter candy as if they were small children. He's also surprisingly collected after losing his arm, giving orders to his men to take out everyone that isn't on their side. Nor is he afraid of T'Challa, a man who has every reason to want him dead. In fact, he mocks him as Klaue is the only invader to find Wakanda and survive. [[spoiler:Even his death doesn't distress him overly.]]
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Subverted. He harbors a hatred for the people of Wakanda that surfaces on occasion, referring to them as savages, but it's a specific grudge against them due to the ItsPersonal nature of his feud with T'Challa and Wakanda. Also, for an old Afrikaner who grew up during Apartheid he's plenty tolerant -- his henchmen include men of African as well as European descent, he treats Erik as an equal partner in their operations and he doesn't appear to have a problem with black people in general. His dislike of the Wakandans comes from their culture rather than their race and the fact that they branded him, and he actually warns Killmonger that such "savages" would never accept "people like us" when telling Erik why going to Wakanda would be impossible, implicitly grouping himself and Erik together in contrast to the Wakandans.[[note]]It's also notable that he always refers to Erik as an American, which he is, while in the real world racists from outside the USA are known to only think of 'white' Americans as "real" Americans.[[/note]]
** He does however make a habit of referring to Erik as "boy" throughout the movie, which is a disparaging term commonly used during the times of U.S. slavery, segregation, and South African apartheid towards men of color, implying their subservient status. Considering that Klaue is a South African raised during the apartheid it is unlikely he wouldn't know this.
* PsychopathicManchild: Not so much in ''Age of Ultron'', but definitely in ''Black Panther'', where he does everything he does with ''extremely'' childish glee.
* SanitySlippage: Not that Klaue was a pillar of sanity to begin with, but in the time between his encounter with Ultron and being hunted by Black Panther, he's clearly lost his mind, acting less like the unfazed arms dealer he was and more like the PsychopathicManchild he's become.
* SeenItAll: The Maximoff Twins really don't faze him in the least; he indicates he at least knows of them through his association with Strucker. While he is freaked out by Ultron at first, he still takes the whole thing in stride, even trying to do regular business with an obvious murder-bot.
* SlasherSmile: He's a pretty happy guy, usually wearing a big horrific smile when committing vile acts.
* SoleSurvivor: Countless mercenaries and treasure hunters have tried to get into Wakanda and were killed for their troubles... except for Klaue. This is something that really ''unnerves'' T'Challa and is a source of shame and concern for the Wakandans on the whole.
* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: Klaue realizes that Ultron has some sort of connection to Tony Stark when Ultron uses a phrase Tony had said to Klaue in the past.
* ThatOneCase: Not tracking Klaue down after his escape was T'Chaka's greatest regret, and is something of a general black mark for the entire country by extension. [[spoiler:Killmonger uses his corpse as a bargaining tool to gain access to Wakanda.]]
* TookALevelInCheerfulness: In '' Black Panther'' Klaue is noticeably more of a hyperactive, if not carnage-inflicting thrill-seeker and a party animal then his stoic debut appearance in the last movie.
* {{Troll}}: Klaue gets great pleasure out of screwing with both enemies and allies. When he meets Ross for a deal, he gets overly touchy with him just to make him uncomfortable and even pretends to expose himself before revealing he's actually just taking out the vibranium axehead.
* UtilityWeapon: His sonic weapon was originally a Wakandan mining tool which he subsequently made adjustments to.
* VillainHasAPoint: All the things he says about Wakanda pretending to be something they're not are entirely true, and he's not wrong when he points out T'Challa and his friends are lying to Ross.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: During the museum robbery in ''Black Panther'' he pretends to allow one of the guards to leave, then shoots him InTheBack before he can get away. When Killmonger [[LampshadeHanging asks why he bothered]], Klaue explains that [[JustifiedTrope it makes the hit look like an amateur robbery, allowing them to cover their tracks]].
* YankTheDogsChain: He lets one of the museum guard go before shooting him in the back of the head.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:Killmonger disposes of him as part of the next step to his plan.]]
* YouKilledMyFather: A subtle example can be found [[FreezeFrameBonus if you look closely]] at [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/0/09/Klaue_SHIELD_File.png/revision/latest?cb=20171102095536 the dossier]] the Avengers have on him. The document mentions that he bears a grudge against the Wakandan royal family because his great-grandfather was killed by a past Black Panther during the 19th century. He was also hired to kill T'Chaka during the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group Bilderberg conference]] if he wouldn't start trading Vibranium.

[[folder:Darren Cross / Yellowjacket]]
!!''Dr. Darren Cross / Yellowjacket''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cross_darren_4.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"The laws of nature transcend the laws of man. And I've transcended the laws of nature."'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see Yellowjacket Suit]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yellowjacket_1.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]

!!!'''Species:''' Human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/CoreyStoll
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Juan Frese (Latin-American Spanish dub), Luis Bajo (European Spanish dub), Creator/ToruOkawa (Japanese dub), Pierre Tessier (French dub), Adrien Bletton (Canadian French dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/AntMan''

The current head of Pym Technologies and creator of the Yellowjacket suit. Originally a close protege of Hank Pym, he grew distant due to Hank's unwillingness to share his Pym Particle research with him and has been driven to get the same results as the Pym Particle without Hank.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: To Hope, who he seems to have feelings for. They may be romantic or platonic, but he does like and respect her.
-->'''Cross:''' You know, I came to the house the other night to kill him, but you were there.
-->'''Hope:''' You're sick and I can help you. Just put the gun down.
-->'''Cross:''' I wasn't ready to kill you then, but I think I am now!
* AdaptationalSuperpowerChange: In the comics, he had SuperStrength and later mood-based size-shifting abilities. As the Yellowjacket in the film, he can use lasers and can change his size at will.
* AgeLift: In his original comics appearance he was a middle-aged man with an adult son; in the MCU, he's played by Corey Stoll (late 30s) and is heavily suggested to be close in age to Hope (who is, specifically, 35 years old).
* AscendedExtra: He was a very minor villain in the comic who became the BigBad of the movie. Conveniently, the 2015 ''Ant-Man'' comic book have him and his company as the main villain.
* AnimalThemedSuperbeing: His suit is black and yellow with protrusions on the back that evoke the image of a wasp.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: Just like Scott's suit, his utilises Pym Particles to shrink.
* ArchEnemy: To Scott. With Darren's jealousy and hatred over Pym favoring Scott over him and Scott destroying his company as well as Darren threatening Cassie, the enmity becomes mutual for both of them.
* AxCrazy: A subdued version that gets scarily worse over the course of the movie. Hank suggests it to be from exposure to the Pym Particle, and Darren was already unstable to begin with before he began to work at replicating his mentor's technology.
* BadassBoast: "The laws of nature transcend the laws of man, and I have transcended the laws of nature".
* BadassBookworm: He's a MadScientist who fights Ant-Man with his own, upgraded suit.
* BadBoss: He kills several of his own men in his attempt to murder Scott.
* BaldOfEvil: Darren has his head shaved in a film where all the heroes have hair, even the old man.
* BigBad: As the one who created and plans to sell the Yellowjacket suit, he is the main villain of the film.
* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler:During their first fight, Scott (hilariously) swats him into a bug electrocutor that temporarily kills him, before electrocuting him back to life. If Cross wasn't royally pissed off then, he was BEYOND pissed after that.]]
* CardCarryingVillain: You have to be a self-professed villain to straight up tell someone that you're selling the Yellowjacket suit to [[spoiler:''HYDRA'']] with a smile on your face.
* CharacterTic: Putting a reassuring hand on someone's shoulder, in a way that's not the least bit reassuring.
* ChewingTheScenery: Once he dons the Yellowjacket suit, he unhinges even further as he fights Scott, until he's shouting while blasting things to bits with his lasers.
-->'''Darren:''' ''[After stepping on, and accidentally activating, an [=iPod=]]'' '''I'M GONNA DISINTEGRATE YOU!!!'''
-->'''Siri:''' [[SoundtrackDissonance Now playing "Disintegration" by The Cure.]]
* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: The Yellowjacket suit gives him very similar powers to Ant-Man, although it comes equipped with shoulder-mounted lasers while the Ant-Man suit does not have any weapons at all.
* CombatTentacles: Two tentacles that fire energy blasts like stingers.
* CompositeCharacter: Of ''four'' characters from the comics:
** This version of Yellowjacket is not an alter-ego of Hank Pym, but instead a villain and alter-ego to Darren Cross.
** In the comics Cross is a StarterVillain for Scott Lang that has nothing to do with the Yellowjacket title. Though this later [[RetCanon gets introduced back into the comics]] due to the film's influence.
** He also shares some personality traits with ComicBook/{{Ultron}}, such as his "daddy issues" with Pym and Hank seeing a darker version of himself in him.
** The choice to make Cross completely bald in the film is probably a reference to Pym's original MadScientist ArchEnemy in the comics, Egghead.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Cross is the CEO of his own company and thinks nothing of shrink-killing people who disagree with him [[spoiler: and supplying weapons to HYDRA.]]
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:It's hard not to cringe as different parts of his suit start shrinking at different times, agonizingly crushing him.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: He's usually ready with a quip or put-down.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: In ''Ant-Man'', he is killed when his Yellowjacket suit (tampered with by Scott Lang) crushes him to death, but in the comics, he dies of natural causes (essentially a heart attack) during a fight with Scott.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: He murders a coworker who offhandedly speaks out against his work after stating that he has 'transcended the laws of nature.' He's a cold-blooded murderer with an ego beyond reproach. [[MadScientist He even does it with his shrink ray.]] [[KickTheDog Then flushes what's left of him down the toilet.]]
* EvilCounterpart:
** To Scott Lang, who he could also count as a {{foil}} to. While Scott is an ex-con who uses the Ant-Man suit for noble purposes, Cross is the powerful CEO of Pym Technologies and uses the Yellowjacket suit for power and destruction.
** He could count as one to Hope as well. Both hold a grudge against Hank Pym by the start of the movie. But while Hope manages to reconcile with Hank, Cross does not and wants to prove himself better than Hank at any cost.
* EvilGenius: His inventions are fueled by complete disregard for the safety of others and they're being sold to [[spoiler: Hydra!]]
* EvilIsHammy: '''I'M GONNA DISINTEGRATE YOU!!!'''
-->'''[[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Siri]]:''' [[SoundtrackDissonance Now playing]] "Music/{{Disintegration}}" by Music/TheCure.
* EvilPlan: Re-invent the Pym Particle and make a commercial success of it in order to [[SurpassedTheTeacher prove himself better than his mentor]].
* FauxAffablyEvil: He usually acts friendly and cheerful, even as he commits horrible acts like murder.
* {{Foil}}:
** An emotionally unstable business executive desperate for Pym's approval and holds stark similarities to him, in contrast to Scott, who's the criminal disciple of Pym, but is less similar and holds much greater emotional maturity.
** There is also a sharp contrast between the Antman suit and the Yellowjacket suit. Hank emphasizes the Antman suit carries no weaponry, with Scott utilizing size changing discs and his ant buddies in combat, while the Yellowjacket is chock full of deadly weapons. There's also the fact the Antman suit is designed for infiltration and camouflage, while the Yellowjacket is bright and let's enemies know its presence.
* ForScience: One of his earlier motivations, along with WellDoneSonGuy, is to recreate the Pym Particle formula.
* ForTheEvulz: He uses lambs as test subjects for his fatal shrink ray rather than cheaper and less [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute empathic]] mice for no discernible reason. Then he flicks the container like a kid with insects.
* GoneHorriblyRight: Hank choose him as his apprentice because he saw himself in Cross. Then he distanced himself because he started seeing ''too much''.
* GranolaGuy: A minor case from his morning meditations, a reference to the NewAgeRetroHippie elements of Silicon Valley. He doesn't have any other traits.
* GreenEyedMonster: There's more than a little jealousy in Darren's hatred of Scott, who is Hank's new pupil.
* HeelRealization: Averted: there are a few times where he seems a little unsure of himself. After killing Frank, he stares at himself in the mirror. He later shows some vulnerability by asking Hank why he was pushed away. [[spoiler:Cross was also conflicted about killing Hope, and had to engineer a situation where he seemingly had no choice to be 'ready'. Finally, he seems a little affected when Cassie asks him if he's a monster.]] Of course, whenever he comes close to showing an inkling of morality, he swerves hard in the other direction.
* InstantCostumeChange: He unshrinks and dons the Yellowjacket suit in about five seconds while Scott is distracted.
* ItAmusedMe: One of the reasons he sold the Yellowjacket suit to [[spoiler:HYDRA]], other than to spite Hank, is because he "enjoyed himself".
* JawDrop: [[spoiler:His reaction upon seeing Pym's work facility explode, ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill then implode]]'' on the night it was going to be given to him]].
* {{Jerkass}}: Outright bullying to Pym in his actions, and taunts Scott throughout their battle.
* JerkassHasAPoint: What IS the difference between testing on a mouse or a goat? Both are feeling creatures.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Darren's weapon of choice before donning his suit is a Pym Particle device that causes people to turn inside-out as they shrink. Scott sabotages his suit during their final battle, causing Darren to slowly and painfully implode in a similar process.]]
* LackOfEmpathy: He does not seem to care ''at all'' that he killed a number of his own employees trying to kill Scott, and even less that completely innocent people would likely die as a result of him selling the Yellowjacket to HYDRA.
* LargeAndInCharge: Darren towers over many people including his former mentor Hank, and the more lanky Scott. Corey Stoll is 1.87 metres (6' 2") in height and fairly muscular, making his portrayal physically imposing -- especially when he puts on the Yellowjacket suit.
* LudicrousGibs: [[spoiler:He uses an imperfect version of the Pym Particle device to cause people to shrink and implode into tiny red blobs]].
* MadScientist: He was able to to reverse engineer the Pym Particles, after all -- and suffered SanitySlippage as a result, due to unprotected exposure.
* MadeOfIron: Gets stung by multiple bullet ants at once, [[spoiler:then later swatted into a bug zapper and repeatedly electrocuted]], but still doesn't go down. Hank even rightfully [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat believes him dead at one point]].
%%* ManipulativeBastard
* MoodSwinger: This guy can go from professional, to manic, to enraged, to depressed, and then back to manic again over the course of a half-hour.
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Darren has a way of getting very close to people he's having chats with that tends to get very menacing, especially when his off-kilter behavior is added into the mix...
* NotSoDifferent: Hank took Darren on as his apprentice because he saw some of himself in him. [[spoiler:Seeing too much of himself in Darren is also why he pushed him away.]]
* PetTheDog: He's largely a good boss to Hope and is very respectful of her, possibly due to certain unspoken feelings. She's virtually his OnlyFriend.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: His suit allows him to fight on equal footing against Scott.
* PrimaryColorChampion: Inverted. His predominately yellow suit has small red markings and allows him to fire bolts of blue energy, but he's the BigBad of his film.
* PsychopathicManchild: His MoodSwinger tendencies plus his clear desire for attention from Hank makes him come off as very childish most of the time -- as well as petty, selfish and unstable.
* APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil: Hank Pym was his mentor and Cross went down a dark path. Now they're enemies.
* RetCanon: Both Darren Cross and Yellowjacket existed in the comics as established characters, but in 2016 Cross took up the mantle of the Yellowjacket identity, due to the events of the film.
* RevengeBeforeReason: [[spoiler:His initial goal of escaping with the Yellowjacket suit is tossed aside in favor of taking revenge on Scott for imploding his building and all the research in it, and then smacking him into a bug zapper. It's likely that Scott's actions (and being zapped) finally drove him [[SanitySlippage completely over the edge]].]]
* SanitySlippage: He wasn't all that stable to begin with, and a combination of the Pym particles and his own insecurities cause him to grow more ruthless and psychotically paranoid over the course of the film.
* ShadowArchetype: He's inherited not only Hank's Yellowjacket identity but also the MadScientist and SanitySlippage traits typically associated with it, and serves to demonstrate why Hank stopped using the Ant-Man suit in the first place. Invoked late in the movie.
-->'''Darren Cross:''' All those years ago, you picked me. What did you see in me?\\
'''Hank Pym:''' I saw myself.\\
'''Darren Cross:''' ''[hurt]'' Then why did you push me away?\\
'''Hank Pym:''' Because I saw ''too much'' of myself.
* SharpDressedMan: He's wearing a three-piece suit for much of the movie until he dons the Yellowjacket suit near the climax.
* ShrinkRay: He carries one, which he uses on those who disagree with his ideas. Since it's imperfect, it also turns them into a lifeless, tiny pile of mush.
* SizeShifter: He can shrink like Ant-Man using the Yellowjacket suit.
* TheUnfettered: He's willing to use Hank Pym's technology as a weapon and do everything from murder to working with [[spoiler:HYDRA]] to make it happen.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:He is already suffering a SanitySlippage as the movie progresses, but when he sees his company being obliterated by Pym's plan coming to fruition, he completely snaps, puts the Yellowjacket suit on and spends the rest of the movie trying to get revenge on Scott. Then Scott throws him into a bug zapper, which shreds whatever sanity was left.]]
* VillainRespect: Downplayed example -- Darren can't help but admire that despite [[OldSuperhero his age]], Hank can still throw a mean right cross.
-->'''Darren:''' Wow! ... ''Wow!'' I mean, I saw that punch coming a mile away, but I thought it'd be all weak and pathetic!
* WellDoneSonGuy: Darren considers himself a surrogate son to Hank, and the feeling was returned. Much of his motivation stems from a desire to both prove himself and outdo his mentor, since he feels abandoned and betrayed by him.
-->'''Cross:''' What do you call the only man who can arm the most powerful weapon in the world?
-->'''Hank:''' The most powerful man in the world.
-->'''Cross:''' You proud of me yet?
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Cross became mentally unstable due to unprotected exposure to [[ToxicPhlebotinum Pym particles]] over thousands of experiments trying to reproduce Hank's technology.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: A heavy YMMV on this one, but one has to wonder to what effect the Pym Particles have affected his mind. He's certainly not on speaking terms with sanity, and he has little moments of vague humanity. [[spoiler:It's also oddly affecting to see him watch his beloved company crumble to the ground right before his eyes.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:He has zero qualms about threatening Cassie and was fully prepared to kill her.]]

[[folder:Helmut Zemo]]
!!''Colonel Helmut Zemo''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/00000_000001_03_copie1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I have experience, and patience. A man can do anything if he has those."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DanielBruhl
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Javier Olguín (Latin-American Spanish dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' | ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' [[note]](archive photography)[[/note]]

->''"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."''

A former special ops colonel with a grudge against the Avengers.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: He's quite handsome here, while his comic counterpart has to wear a mask to hide his hideously charred, disfigured face. This is actually true to his first appearance in the comics as a one-shot villain, before he was scarred upon becoming a recurring character.
* AdaptationalHeroism: His comic counterpart and that of his father were ''literal Nazis'' who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did (''eventually'') grow out of the former, he still tends to try the later. Here, despite [[spoiler:being on a black ops killing team]], his motivation is much simpler and more sympathetic. Neither have any ties to HYDRA, either.
* AdaptationalIntelligence: Although he is not nearly the fighter his comic-counterpart is, his cunning and strategic mind allow him to achieve something he never did in the comics: [[spoiler:drive the Avengers apart.]]
* AdaptationalNationality: In the comics Helmut Zemo is German, but here he is [[spoiler:a Sokovian.]]
* AdaptationalWimp: In the comics Zemo is a major adversary of Captain America and the Avengers. Here he's reduced to just an [[TheEveryman everyman]] who serves as a [[CharactersAsDevice plot device]] to spark the Avengers Civil War. Most of the Avengers barely notice him being there and even though he did have a major hand in causing trouble, he poses nowhere near as much of a threat as his comics counterpart did.
* AdaptationDistillation: His backstory is much more watered down, without any ties to HYDRA or Germany. Here's he's just a victim of the Avengers' collateral damage [[spoiler:seeking revenge for his family's deaths.]]
* AffablyEvil: He's the BigBad of ''Civil War'' and is more than willing to commit mass murder to achieve his ends, but the times he acts polite or remorseful seem genuine. He states he'd rather avoid unnecessary deaths if he can, [[EvenEvilHasStandards has a few standards]], apologizes to [[spoiler:T'Challa for killing his father]], and has [[NiceToTheWaiter regular courteous interactions with a staff member of the hotel he's staying at]]. Considering he's [[spoiler:just a normal, grieving man who's dedicated to avenging the deaths of his family]], it makes sense he wouldn't act like a cackling madman.
* AntiVillain: Despite the grim and often hypocritical in hindsight actions he resorts to, he does have some good traits and was hoping for a cleaner way to get what he wanted first. Also, his motive -- [[spoiler:revenge for the collateral damage-induced loss of his family]] -- is at least a little sympathetic.
* AppleOfDiscord: [[spoiler:His EvilPlan is to find evidence that Bucky Barnes murdered Tony Stark's parents while under HYDRA control and show it to Stark, so Bucky's friend Steve Rogers and Tony will turn on each other over whether to spare or kill Bucky, and the Avengers will be ripped apart as they side with one leader or the other.]]
* BadassNormal: Compared to the Avengers, he's relatively normal. But, his greatest strength comes from his patience and manipulation.
* TheBadGuyWins: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. [[spoiler:He accomplishes his main goal in dividing the Avengers and is content with this. However, none of them end up dead and the potential for reunion, however far off, is given. He also remains alive in the end, despite trying to commit suicide.]]
* BatmanGambit: He's good at finding ways to make other people do things for him by exploiting their predictable behavior.
** [[spoiler:He framed Bucky Barnes for bombing the United Nations, then relied on everyone else including Captain America hunting him down for it, and further that no one but the Avengers would even be capable of killing Bucky, to get access to Barnes and his knowledge of HYDRA bases.]]
** [[spoiler:He arranges for his ruse to be discovered by the media, relying on Tony to find out and make amends with Captain America, so they'll both find the Siberean compound where Zemo reveals to them that Bucky killed Tony's parents.]]
** [[spoiler:His entire plan is based on assumptions from the S.H.I.E.L.D. intel on the Avengers he's studied that Captain America's over-protectiveness of his friends and Iron Man's complex over the death of his parents would mean not only that the two would turn on each other if Bucky's involvement in the Starks' death was revealed, but that Steve wouldn't have talked to Tony about Bucky's potential involvement beforehand.]]
*** [[spoiler:His setup gambled on the fact that it is a conflict that only works if there are no voices of reason to hold either of them back. The fact that the airport fight left only 2 active members of the avengers, Bucky and a third party present in the Hydra compound in a place where no one would interfere was a happy accident for him since most of the Avengers present could have prevented things from reaching the breaking point.]]
* BigBad: The lead villain in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar''.
* TheChessmaster: He plays all the Avengers like pawns. [[spoiler:He frames Bucky for a crime, to have the world hunt him and lure him out of hiding. This partially causes the Avengers to turn on each other, divided over Bucky's innocence. He takes the UN interrogator's place, extorting information out of Bucky and using the trigger words to activate Bucky's soldier conditioning. Before finally showing Tony the tape of what really happened to his parents, sending him into a murderous rage to kill Bucky.]]
* ColonelBadass: He used to be a Colonel [[spoiler:in the Sokovian Special Forces]] and he is one of the most effective foes the Avengers have faced.
* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: He's never called "Baron Zemo," the title he goes by in the comics. [[spoiler:Justified, since he is not German nobility in this version. His title is ''Colonel'']].
* CompositeCharacter: [[spoiler:He takes Klaw's role as the man who murders King T'Chaka.]]
* CrusadingWidower: [[spoiler:His wife was among the civilian casualties in Sokovia. He keeps a recording of her last voice message on his phone]].
* DeathSeeker: [[spoiler: Once he has put Iron Man against Bucky and Cap, he first attempts to persuade Black Panther into killing him, then decides to shoot himself. Black Panther catches the bullet before snagging him a headlock so he can face justice.]]
* DivideAndConquer: [[spoiler:His plan against the Avengers, seeing that there's absolutely no chance he can fight them on his own. He even compares the Avengers to some sort of a mighty empire, which can only be felled by using this tactic.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Subverted. He attempts to kill himself by shooting himself in the head after getting Iron Man to fight Bucky and Cap, and after Black Panther decides not to kill him for revenge. Black Panther stops him from killing himself so that he can turn him over the authorities to face justice for the crimes he committed in the film.]]
* EarlyBirdCameo: According to a set visit, he will have a bigger role in the MCU down the line. Bruhl further confirmed in March 2018 that Marvel already has future plans for the character, though the specifics are a mystery for now.
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: He was a colonel in [[spoiler:EKO Scorpion, Sokovia's black ops kill squad. Even if Sokovia was a developing Balkans country, that still makes him pretty dangerous.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** In a stark contrast to his comics depiction, he lacks ties to HYDRA and outright states that they can all go to Hell.
** Despite his profound hatred of the Avengers, [[spoiler:he refuses to unleash the other five Winter Soldiers, as they're worse than Bucky and would do untold damage to the world]].
* EvilGenius: Aside from his abilities as TheChessmaster, [[spoiler:Zemo was able to [[TheCracker crack]] the HYDRA files on the Winter Soldier that Black Widow released to the Internet and build an [=EMP=] bomb.]]
* FourEyesZeroSoul: When he infiltrates the UN compound to activate the Winter Soldier, he wears a pair of glasses as part of his disguise.
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler:His wife, father and son were crushed by Sokovia's debris when it fell from the skies.]]
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Zemo was "just" a special forces operative, [[spoiler:but when his family was killed, he used his intel on HYDRA to take on the Avengers and came closer to destroying the team than any previous villain.]]
* GambitRoulette: The final part his master plan relies on little other than his assumptions on the personalities and capabilities of various characters after studying thousands of pieces of H.Y.D.R.A. / S.H.I.E.L.D. intel that Black Widow dumped online back in ''Winter Soldier''. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...
** [[spoiler:A) Captain America and Bucky had captured Zemo before Iron Man arrived.]]
** [[spoiler:B) Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.]]
** [[spoiler:C) Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.]]
** [[spoiler:D) Black Panther had actually succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their three fights during the course of the film (of course it’s highly unlikely that he even knew the Black Panther ''existed'').]]
** [[spoiler:E) Captain America actually told Iron Man that his parent's death were orchestrated by HYDRA.]]
* HeadsIWinTailsYouLose: Even if any of the above had happened, Zemo still would’ve won because his entire goal was for the Avengers to disband - whether through an amicable parting-of-ways or a bloodbath - it was always a matter of how big his win would be. The only real flaw in his plan was the [[spoiler:interference of Black Panther, and the creation of the Sokovia Accords, both of which he’d have no way to account for]].
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler: He wants to take revenge for the death of his family which he blames on the Avengers. In doing so, he is responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people himself. He even earns someone coming after ''him'' for revenge in T'Challa.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: His motives remain unclear for much of the film.
* HighCollarOfDoom: He does the MarqueeAlterEgo and NotWearingTights the whole film, but his winter gear in the third act features a large collar turned up, giving off this vibe.
* {{Hypocrite}}: [[spoiler:Zemo hates the Avengers after the collateral damage they caused killed his family. So he decides to split the team up and in the process causes collateral damage that kills other people's family members. At least by the end, he appears to recognize this and it's a motivator behind his AttemptedSuicide.]]
* InNameOnly: Aside from retaining his name, relationship with his father, [[TheChessmaster keen strategic mind]], and hatred of Captain America, Zemo has nothing in common with his comic book counterpart (who is a costumed villain known as Baron Zemo, a wealthy German noble, the son of one of Captain America's greatest foes, and wears a mask to hide his hideously disfigured face).
* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler:After explaning his motivations to T'Challa and apologising for the death of his father Zemo tries to shoot himself in the head. T'Challa however has none of that and stops him to make sure he pays for his crimes and turns him over to the authorities.]]
* ItsPersonal: Zemo has a personal vendetta against the Avengers. [[spoiler:His family was killed during the Battle of Sokovia and he simply wants revenge on those he holds responsible.]]
* KillAndReplace: [[spoiler:Murders the psychologist who was supposed to be evaluating Bucky and takes his place, taking the opportunity to activate the brainwash in Bucky during the evaluation.]]
* KnightOfCerebus: He's a VillainousUnderdog, but [[spoiler:manages to tear the Avengers apart through tactics. Unlike previous villains, his methods includes manipulating Tony into trying to execute Bucky to avenge the deaths of his parents and turning on Steve in the process.]]
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** [[spoiler: He uses Bucky's TriggerPhrase while the latter's locked in an apparatus, making him go on a rampage. By the end of ''Civil War'', he himself is locked in the same apparatus.]]
* MarqueeAlterEgo: Unlike the comics, Zemo does not wear a mask -- or any kind of costume at all.
* MisplacedRetribution: [[spoiler:Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still ''his'' idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.]]
* MoralMyopia: [[spoiler:He seeks to avenge his family, but he ends up killing multiple innocents who surely had family of their own. He does seem to acknowledge this, seeing as how he apologizes to Black Panther for killing his father.]]
* MovieSuperheroesWearBlack: Instead of the purple and gold costume he had in the comics, he sticks to dark civilian clothes. Near the end of ''Civil War'', he has a pitch-black coat with [[HighCollarOfDoom a large collar.]]
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: While his plan does succeed in its goal, it does allow [[spoiler:Steve to find Bucky, after fruitlessly spending two years scouring the Earth for him, and gives them an ally who can get the brainwashing out of Bucky's head.]]
* NoNonsenseNemesis: Zemo is an ''extremely'' pragmatic man who knows full well that he's just an ordinary person in an [[WorldOfBadass extraordinary world]], and realizes that it will give him no quarter if he were to dally about with regards to his vengeance. He has no choice but to be utterly cutthroat if he wants to complete his goal.
* NonActionBigBad: He never directly fights any of the Avengers, acknowledging that he could never physically stand up to the likes of them. Instead, he relies more on subterfuge and deception.
* NothingLeftToDoButDie: [[spoiler:After getting Tony to fight Steve and Bucky, Zemo decides to listen to his wife's voicemail one last time, before deleting it and attempting to commit suicide]].
* NothingPersonal: [[spoiler:He tells T'Challa that he is sorry for killing his father and that he seemed like a good man.]]
* NotWearingTights: He doesn't wear anything remotely resembling a costume here.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: [[spoiler:His son was a casualty from the Avengers' fight with Ultron.]]
* PapaWolf: The reason he's out to destroy the Avengers? [[spoiler:His family was killed in their fight with Ultron.]]
* PyrrhicVictory: Zemo succeeds in [[spoiler:fracturing [[TheTeam the Avengers]] and getting the majority of them branded as fugitives, but he is also captured by Black Panther and still has to face prosecution for the murders he committed. It also works vice versa on his capture being a PyrrhicVictory for the heroes.]] Best summarized by the following exchange:
-->'''Everett K. Ross:''' So how does it feel? To spend all that time, all that effort, and to see it fail so spectacularly?\\
'''Helmut Zemo:''' [[WasItReallyWorthIt ... Did it?]]
* RevengeMyopia: [[spoiler:Getting his revenge was worth anything -- including inflicting upon others the same pain he complained about suffering.]] Lampshaded at the end of the movie, when T'Challa observes that the revenge he seeks has consumed him.
* ASinisterClue: Zemo is left-handed and is the BigBad of ''Civil War''.
* SuicideByCop: [[spoiler:After apologizing to T'Challa for killing his father, he says that he seemed like a good man "with a dutiful son", saying this last part with a meaningful glance, obviously hinting that he's fine with T'Challa taking vengeance upon him now. When T'Challa refuses to do so, Zemo attempts to just shoot himself, but T'Challa thwarts this effort as well.]]
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: There's nothing from his looks that would suggest that he's more than just an everyday guy.
* TragicVillain: [[spoiler:He wants to take revenge on the Avengers for the death of his family in Sokovia.]]
* TranquilFury: Despite spending the whole movie on a murderous crusade, Zemo avoids all the theatrics of Loki or Ultron and seldom even raises his voice. [[spoiler:This includes when he finally spells out his motives to the heroes.]]
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler:By breaking up the Avengers, Zemo left the world unprepared for when Thanos and his alien hordes show up.]]
* VillainousUnderdog: He's not a PhysicalGod, not an alien, not a SuperSoldier or even an extraordinarily capable BadassNormal. He's just a former military colonel with patience, a simple yet effective plan, and ThePowerOfHate.
* XanatosSpeedChess: He's not in control of everything that happens in ''Civil War'' (for one thing, he has nothing to do with [[spoiler:the Sokovia Accords]]), but he's good at taking advantage of unexpected situations to further his plans.

[[folder:Surtur]]
!!''Surtur''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_3871.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You have made a grave mistake, Odinson!"'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Fire Demon
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/TaikaWaititi (motion-capture)
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Creator/ClancyBrown (English), Víctor Covarrubias (Latin-American Spanish dub), Benoît Rousseau (Canadian French dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/ThorRagnarok''

->''"I am Asgard's doom, and so are [[Characters/MCUThor you]]. All will suffer, all will ''burn''!"''

A giant fire demon and the ruler of Muspelheim who is prophesied to bring about "the end of everything" during Ragnarok.

* AccidentalHero: By plunging his giant sword into the ground (Hela on the other end of it), burning and shattering Asgard, he ironically ends up saving its people from Hela.
* AdaptationalWimp: In the comics, he's basically equal to Odin. Here, he gets [[CurbStompBattle effortlessly trounced]] by Thor at the beginning of the movie. Though this is a justified case, as Surtur walks with a noticeable limp and seems to clutch his side, indicating that he had not yet fully recovered from his previous battle with Odin. After his crown is put on the eternal flame, he's back to the same level as his comic counterpart, treating the ''Incredible Hulk'' as a minor annoyance.
* AffablyEvil: Aside from bouts of InsistentTerminology, he's ''remarkably'' patient with Thor's antics and well-mannered at the beginning of the film.
* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: Surtur already stands at around 30-feet tall in his normal form, but says he grows "as tall as a mountain" when fully empowered. The reality is actually much, much bigger, as he can be seen dwarfing Asgard's mountains when finally unleashed.
* BadassBoast: Even though they fall on deaf ears considering that he's laying waste to an empty city, many of his lines are this.
-->'''Surtur:''' Tremble before me, Asgard! I am your reckoning!!
* TheBadGuyWins: The heroes are forced to allow him to come back and destroy Asgard to stop Hela from getting any stronger. The citizens of Asgard survived due to being evacuated, but he still destroyed their homeworld.
* BigOlEyebrows: Thor admits he thought his crown were actually giant eyebrows or something.
* BigRedDevil: Well, he's a house sized demon made of magma, so he's pretty much this by default.
* CameBackStrong: Loki resurrects him by putting his skull and crown in the Eternal Flame, which brings him back to his original strength as a skyscraper-sized monster.
* ChekhovsGunman: After appearing and seemingly being defeated in the opening, he returns to destroy Asgard and kill Hela.
* TheComicallySerious: Unlike Hela and the Grandmaster, Surtur never snarks or cracks a joke and is entirely serious, which contrasts with Thor and his light-hearted antics and quips.
* CreatorCameo: Taika Waititi, the film's director, did the mo-cap work for Surtur.
* CrownShapedHead: Surtur's HornsOfVillainy is also his crown. Despite his serious, threatening demeanor, he gets a little defensive about his crown.
-->'''Surtur:''' ''This'' is my crown.
-->'''Thor:''' Oh, that's a crown? I thought it was a big eyebrow.
-->'''Surtur:''' ''[annoyed]'' It's a crown!
* DecoyAntagonist: After initially being presented as the villain that will destroy Asgard he's [[CurbStompBattle easily trounced]] by Thor and Hela becomes the major antagonist instead. He only appears again when the heroes actually ''choose'' to revive him at his full power in order to stop Hela.
* TheDreaded: At his prime, Surtur's influence is so powerful that even ''Hela'' is horrified when he's revived by the Eternal Flame.
* EvilIsBurningHot: He is a fire demon who desires nothing else but to raze Asgard to cosmic dust.
* EvilIsHammy: He is normally serious most of the time, but as soon as he is brought back to life and starts laying waste to all of Asgard, he starts hamming it up.
-->'''Surtur:''' I AM ASGARD'S DOOM!!!
* EvilSoundsDeep: Fitting his demonic appearance, Surtur speaks in a deep, gravelly voice.
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Hela expected his crown to be bigger.
* GenericDoomsdayVillain: He wants to destroy Asgard because that's what he was prophesied to do, and that's basically it. He doesn't even seem to care if his actions actually end up harming anyone or not [[AndThenWhat or what happens after that]], only that the physical place of Asgard is destroyed. This, by the way, is pretty accurate to the original myths, where Surtur gets little mention, and is more or less there to bring the curtain down at the final fate of the gods.
* GodzillaThreshold: The only reason Thor brings him back is because he's the only one who can permanently get rid of Hela.
* HornsOfVillainy: He looks like a classic devil and his crown is decorated with two horns. Please, don't mistake them for the eyebrows.
* HorrifyingTheHorror: The ''only'' time [[InvincibleVillain Hela]] loses her smug, confident composure is when she realizes Surtur's full power has been awakened. It's the one time she appears [[OhCrap genuinely worried]].
* IdenticalStranger: More like Identical ''Sounding'' Stranger, as Surtur's voice actor Creator/ClancyBrown had previously played Colonel Ray Schoonover in Season Two of ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}''.
* InsistentTerminology: He is rather picky with wording. First off, his magnificent crown is not a "big eyebrow" -- it's a CROWN! Secondly, when said crown is placed into the Eternal Flame, he'll grow as big as a MOUNTAIN! ''Not'' as big as a house. It's all very important.
* InvincibleVillain: In the brief scene where he's shown at full power he swats away the Hulk like an annoying flea and he barely reacts when Hela (who herself trounced Thor, Valkyrie and Loki like it was nothing) hits him in the chest with multiple skyscraper-sized spears.
* MagmaMan: He seems to be made of eternally burning lava and rocks.
* MakeMyMonsterGrow: He starts off several times Thor's size, but once he's exposed to the Eternal Flame he grows to Kaiju-sized proportions.
* MeaninglessVillainVictory: He gets to destroy Asgard, like he always wanted... after everyone but Hela has already evacuated. Then he explodes, and, because Asgard is destroyed, his PurposeDrivenImmortality goes with it. The most he could possibly get from it is peace of mind from ''finally'' getting to fulfill his singular purpose in life.
* NoSell: Hela hits him with ''skyscraper-sized spears'', and he barely reacts.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Despite his serious, threatening demeanor, he gets a little defensive about his crown.
-->'''Surtur:''' ''This'' is my crown.\\
'''Thor:''' Oh, that’s a crown? I thought it was a big eyebrow.\\
'''Surtur:''' ''[annoyed]'' It's a crown!
* OffWithHisHead: Thor kills Surtur early in the movie by knocking his block off. Ultimately, it doesn’t stick.
* PersonOfMassDestruction: Becomes this at the end when his helmet is thrown into the eternal flame and he destroys Asgard.
* PlayingWithFire: He's literally a giant made of fire.
* PurposeDrivenImmortality: Surtur claims that he cannot die until he destroys Asgard. He succeeds in this goal at the end of the movie, annihilating both Asgard and himself.
* PutTheLaughterInSlaughter: He starts enjoying himself a little too much when he begins his destruction of Asgard.
* ResurrectiveImmortality: Surtur can be killed, but it’s implied that he will eventually come back to life after a long time if Thor’s comment about Odin killing Surtur "half a million years ago" is accurate. Also, he cannot truly die until he brings about Ragnarok and destroys Asgard. Putting his skull into the Eternal Flame allows him to come back immediately.
* SerkisFolk: He is rendered in CGI. Who performs the motion capture? Why, Creator/TaikaWaititi (the director of the movie) himself!
* SummonBiggerFish: Upon running out of solutions to stop Hela, Thor decides to unleash Ragnarok itself to take her out, by ordering Loki to put Surtur's skull in the Eternal Flame. Surtur ends up destroying Asgard with his gigantic sword, defeating Hela in the process. This is particularly driven home by Hela's realization immediately before her defeat that her attacks, which utterly destroyed the other Asgardians she fought previously, can barely even scratch the fully empowered Surtur.
-->'''Hela:''' You can't defeat me.\\
'''Thor:''' No, I know. But ''he'' can!
* SuperToughness: Hela throws spears at him that rival the size of Asgard's buildings, and he doesn't even flinch after the first one.
* SwordBeam: He can shoot streams of fire from the tip of his sword.
* SwordDrag: Drags his sword behind him as he's about to execute Thor as the latter is his prisoner at the beginning of the film.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Stabs Hela with the tip of his flaming sword through her platform down into the planets core, unleashing a pyroclasm that engulfs the city, instigating a wildfire that quickly spreads throughout the world, before breaking Asgard in half, and then having the burning planet explode shortly after, with Hela in the direct center of it all.
* TookALevelInBadass: At the start of the film, Thor apparently kills him. By the end, the Hulk is swatted aside like a pest after getting in a good hit, and although Hela manages to get in some good stabs, she's clearly outmatched.
* TheWorfEffect: At full size and power, he tosses Hulk away with one hand like a rag doll and easily defeats even ''[[BigBad Hela]]''. This demonstrates that how powerful he truly is, and underscores his WorfHadTheFlu claim.
* WorfHadTheFlu: His swift defeat at Thor's hand at the start of the film is justified, given that he was deprived of his power source and thus nowhere near his prime. He's also walking with a noticeable limp, indicating that he has yet to fully recover from his battle with Odin.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: He could potentially live forever as he is fated to never die unless he brings about Ragnarok, but he just hates Asgard ''that'' much.

[[folder:Ava Starr / Ghost]]
!!''Ava Starr / Ghost''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghost_antmanandthewasp.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You have no idea what I'm capable of."'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see her as Ghost]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghost_58.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]

!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/HannahJohnKamen, [=RaeLynn=] Bratten (young Ava)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp''

->''"They call it molecular disequilibrium. A rather dull name I think. Doesn't quite do justice to what it means. Every cell in my body is torn apart and stitched back together, over and over every day."''

A mysterious individual can phase through solid objects.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: The comics version of Ghost is an older, plain-looking man. In ''Ant Man and the Wasp'' she's played by Hannah-John Karmen, a beautiful woman.
* AdaptationalBadass: This version of Ghost doesn't need the suit to use her powers, and is a significantly better hand-to-hand combatant who appears to have some kind of enhanced strength. That said, she [[AdaptationalWimp loses some of the other talents in the transition]].
* AdaptationDeviation: MCU Ghost nails the look and power-type in regards to comic accuracy, but the similarities end there.
** MCU Ghost is a younger, mixed-race woman. Comics Ghost is an older, white man.
** MCU Ghost got her powers from a freak accident. Comics Ghost is [[ClothesMakeTheSuperman tech-based]] and draws all of his power from the suit.
** MCU Ghost relies entirely on hand-to-hand combat and has some kind of SuperStrength. Comics Ghost mainly relies on evading his enemies and using weapons and gadgets.
** MCU Ghost has her origin related to Hank Pym and menaces Ant-Man and the Wasp. Comics Ghost has had nothing to do with Pym and is chiefly an ComicBook/IronMan villain.
** MCU Ghost has a sympathetic backstory and is looking out for her survival. Comic Ghost in comparison has a [[TheSpook murky]] backstory and is a anti-corporate terrorist willing to die for his beliefs.
** MCU Ghost has ties to Elihas Starr (Egghead) and Bill Foster (Goliath) as her biological and adopted parent, respectively, and was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Comics Ghost had nothing to do with any of them.
* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler:Unlike her comic book counterpart, who is a paranoid terrorist, Ava's just looking for a way to stabilize her condition and only explicitly wants to kill Janet out of necessity... Until it turns out that she doesn't have to. Although it has to be said that Comic Ghost did act quite heroic during his time as Thunderbolt, saving his teammates' lives and the world]].
* AdaptationalWimp: The comics version of Ghost was an expert at firearms and explosives, and furthermore was a skilled hacker (being a corporate saboteur and all) who could disrupt enemy electronics and would've definitely proved useful against our heroes. This version doesn't use guns at all, nor can she hack anything. That said, she [[AdaptationalBadass gains more in the way of direct combat skills]].
* AffablyEvil: in the loosest sense as she is not evil (though she is Scott and Hope's main enemy throughout the film), she does show respect for Scott and refuses to kill anyone who she doesn't have to.
* AgeLift: Ghost is [[https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/62014/1228415-prv5120_pg7.jpg an old man]] beneath the mask in the comics, but here Ghost's actress was only 27 at the time of filming.
* AllThereInTheManual: Her last name, Starr, is only explicitly identified in the credits, though her father is mentioned as having the same last name during the film proper.
* AntiVillain: [[spoiler: Her only goal is to stop her powers from killing her, with the only villainous aspect of her character being that she is willing to do anything to do that. Even that aspect is a result of her desperation to avoid dying and the effect her condition is having on her mind rather than any kind of malice.]]
* AxCrazy: A subtle but justified example in that it's clear that feeling as much pain as she does all the time and knowing that her life is ticking away is causing her to become unhinged, to the point where [[spoiler:Bill Foster]] looks alarmed when she suggests [[spoiler:kidnapping Cassie.]]
* BadassBiker \ BikerBabe: She commandeers a motorcycle from one of Burch's {{Mooks}} during the climactic chase scene, and proves plenty skilled with it.
* BigBadEnsemble: Alongside Sonny Burch, she's one of the main villains of ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp''.
* BlessedWithSuck: [[spoiler:Her intangibility powers are slowly killing her.]]
* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: Subverted. Ava does not in fact need the suit to use her powers, though it does help her control them and keep her solid. Scott was surprised to learn this. It's also another contrast to her comics version, which played this entirely straight.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Although she has body-altering abilities like Darren Cross did, they're based on intangibility rather than size-shifting. Also, while Darren came to hate Pym, his mentor, and was driven by unhinged megalomania, Ava is merely motivated out of a desperation to survive, and cares about her [[ParentalSubstitute parental-figure]] [[spoiler:Bill Foster]]. Even their approaches to [[spoiler:Cassie Lang are different. While Cross has zero qualms about kidnapping her and is more than willing to [[WouldHurtAChild hurt her]], Ava proposes it out of desperation and is easily talked out of it after Foster [[WhatTheHellHero rebukes her]] for suggesting this.]]
* DarkActionGirl: A deadly, highly intelligent, and extremely athletic thief. She fights on even footing with both Scott and Hope at multiple points throughout the film, and even overpowers them on a few occasions.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: [[spoiler:Her father was disgraced by Hank Pym. In a desperate bid to restore his name he attempted an experiment that backfired and caused the deaths of her parents, and cursed her with intangibility that seems to cause her constant, progressively worse pain. She was then used by S.H.I.E.L.D. to do their dirty work, for which she claims she feels as though she lost her soul.]]
* {{Determinator}}: Ava's sole motivation is [[spoiler: finding a cure for her powers, which are gradually killing her]]. She's willing to do ''anything'' if it means achieving that goal.
* EasilyForgiven: [[spoiler:Instead of being mad at Ava for trying to kill her, Janet stabilizes her condition. Scott, Hank, and Hope don't seem that worried either.]]
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[spoiler:She genuinely cares for her father-figure Bill Foster and panics slightly when he's in danger.]]
* EvilBrit: Creator/HannahJohnKamen retained her normal accent while portraying the role, though Ava's ethnicity is never commented on. Oh, and she's a DarkActionGirl who serves as one of the film's villains.
* FateWorseThanDeath: She sees her quantum instability as this, being forced to live in a state of constant pain all while her very existence is slowly being drained away. She still doesn't want to die though, and her whole objective is to find a cure for her condition.
-->'''Ghost:''' [[spoiler:My parents were dead. I wasn't so lucky.]]
* {{Foil}}: To [[BigBadEnsemble co-antagonist]] Sonny Burch. Ghost is a young mixed-race black woman who's an AntiVillain at worst, does all the fighting herself without any minions, and is merely looking out for her own survival. In contrast, Sonny Burch is an older white man that has little-to-no sympathetic qualities while acting FauxAffablyEvil, doesn't do any of the fighting and instead [[ZergRush sends his minions to do all the dirty work]], and is chasing after what he knows will be the next gold rush.
* GenderFlip: Ghost is a man in the comics, but is portrayed by a woman in the MCU.
* HeelFaceTurn: She wasn't all that evil in the first place, [[spoiler:but once Janet stabilizes her, she's distraught at everything she's done and tries to surrender herself to the authorities. The heroes are all quick to forgive her, however, and Bill stops her from doing that. In the mid-credits scene, Scott mentions that the reason they're gathering the Quantum Realm energy is to continue healing "their new ghost friend."]]
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: She wears her face-concealing helmet less and less as more of her TragicVillain nature becomes clear, and is unmasked for a majority of the climax after Scott breaks the faceplate.
* IntangibleMan: She has the ability to phase through solid matter.
* {{Invisibility}}: Her molecular instability also means she can phase out of the visible spectrum, and thus make sneak attacks more easily.
* InNameOnly: Apart from the name, appearance and powers, this version of Ghost has little in common with the comics version of the character.
* InTheHood: Her costume sports a hood much like her comic counterpart's classic outfit. It helps add to her enigmatic presence.
* ItsAllAboutMe: A rare [[TragicVillain sympathetic version]]. While anyone in her shoes would also be desperate to stay alive, she constantly puts her own needs above everything else -- berating the very man who devoted his whole life to saving her, callously attempting to drain the life out of Janet for personal use and even seriously considering [[WouldHurtAChild kidnapping an innocent child]] (before [[EveryoneHasStandards Foster puts his foot down and warns her that's a bridge too far]], anyway). The implication is that the constant pain and agony she endures every second of every day has taken its toll on her psyche, to the point of overwhelming her compassion and empathy. [[spoiler:Once she is cured, at least temporarily, she has a HeelRealization about this and feels she should face consequences for it.]]
* KnightOfCerebus: She's pretty much the only character in ''Ant-Man And The Wasp'' that has zero comedic qualities, and the film's normally lighthearted mood gets ''significantly'' darker and more serious whenever she's on screen.
* LethalHarmlessPowers: The film raises the implication a few times that her {{intangibility}} could theoretically cause horrible injuries were she to turn solid inside another person, notably when she threatens Hank by phasing an arm through his throat. She also kills [[spoiler:Agent Stoltz]] by phasing her hand into his chest and doing ''something'' that leaves him critically injured.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: While considered a villain and having done some less-than-savory things, she's ultimately just scared for her life and doesn't ''truly'' wish to be evil. This is in comparison to co-antagonist Sonny Burch, a very clear-cut villain motivated by greed.
* LightIsNotGood: Her costume is all white, but that does not reflect her alignment. [[spoiler:[[DownplayedTrope Though it does indicate she's not a horrible person.]]]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:She's horrified when Janet, the person she'd planned to sacrifice to save herself, willingly helps stabilize her condition. She's so consumed with guilt that she considers turning herself in.]]
* MythologyGag: Though her costume is mostly modeled after Ghost's modern design from the ''Comicbook/{{Thunderbolts}}'' comics, she still wears a hood, much like Ghost originally did in TheEighties.
* NamedByTheAdaptation: The name of her comic book counterpart is unknown, unlike the MCU version, whose name is Ava Starr.
* NecessaryEvil: Her goal is [[spoiler:saving her own life]] and while she wants to avoid any amount of unnecessary pain to get there, she's not too picky on who she hurts if it means getting what she wants.
* NeverMyFault: Ava blames Hank Pym for the death of her parents and ruining her life. In her flashback however, had Ava listened to her father and left with her mother, not only would she lose only her father, she would not have gained her powers.
* NoNonsenseNemesis: She does ''not'' waste time in pursuing her objective; no comedic gags here.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Hannah John-Kamen maintains her English accent, despite no indication Ghost is actually from there.
* OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain: The Younger Villain (albeit an AntiVillain) to Ant-Man and Wasp's Older Heroes. She's in her twenties, compared to the other two being older by at least a decade.
* ParentalSubstitute: [[spoiler:Bill Foster serves as adoptive father after her parents die.]]
* PartsUnknown: It's not quite clear where she's from. It's implied that she might be Argentinian, but has a British accent, her birth and adopted father are Americans, and her child actress is American herself while in the flashback she makes no attempt at an English accent. It's never explained.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Hannah John-Karmen stands just 5''6 tall but her abilities, including what appears to be some degree of SuperStrength, allow her to toss much larger opponents around like rag dolls.
* PowerIncontinence: The longer she goes without resting in a special chamber [[spoiler: built for her by Bill Foster]], the more out-of-control her {{intangibility}} grows. Her suit goes a ways towards stabilizing the problem, but doesn't fully diminish it.
* RaceLift: Ghost is Caucasian in the comics, but is portrayed by a British-Nigerian actress here. It's suggested that she's Argentinian.
* RelatedInTheAdaptation: [[spoiler: In the comics, the Ghost had no relation to Egghead. Here, the Ghost is Elihas Starr's daughter. She's also the adopted daughter of Bill Foster, whereas the comics versions of them had no connection.]]
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: Ghost is a rival to Iron Man in the comics, but confronts Ant-Man in her debut film.
* SanitySlippage: The side-effects of her powers, combined with her DarkAndTroubledPast, make Ava not entirely stable even when first introduced, and she only gets worse as her condition (and with it, her desperation to find a cure) worsens.
* SlasherSmile: Gives Scott a rather unhealthy grin when she first captures him and shares her backstory.
* TheSlowWalk: She rarely moves quicker than a casual strut, even during fights and chase scenes. Given that her powers allow her to ignore any and all obstacles, on top of making her functionally NighInvulnerable, she doesn't really ''need'' to go any faster. It's basically her SignatureMove.
* StringyHairedGhostGirl: Her new look counts as an AstonishinglyAppropriateAppearance, not to mention the element of vengeance in her backstory.
* SuperheroMovieVillainsDie: [[spoiler:An aversion. She simply gets her condition stabilized and manages to run off with Bill Foster. The first Stinger indicates the Pyms had figured out a way to gather energy from the Quantum Realm to heal her.]]
* SuperStrength: Though the film never explicitly calls attention to it, Ava performs a number of feats throughout the film that suggests she's gained some level of enhanced strength in addition to to her other powers, including knocking people out with a single well-aimed hit, blowing Scott through a wall with a kick, and throwing full-grown men around like toys.
* TheseHandsHaveKilled: [[spoiler: S.H.I.E.L.D., or possibly a HYDRA cell within the organization, trained her as an assassin from childhood, and we get to see her dispatch at least one victim with a brutal NeckSnap. Towards the end of the film, when she tries to get Bill to GoOnWithoutMe, she states that she isn't worth saving since she's killed people.]]
* TragicVillain: She is probably the straightest example of this trope in the entire MCU of an evil-doing woobie. [[spoiler: In a childhood accident with her father's tech, Ava lost both her parents and gained powerful but unstable abilities that leave her in constant pain and are slowly phasing her out of reality, with the only end possibilities being death or [[FateWorseThanDeath something much worse]]. The skills she uses in the film were honed by black ops missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. (or maybe HYDRA). Every single action she undertakes in the film, even as they grow increasingly heinous and brutal as time goes on, is exclusively devoted to fixing her condition which is destabilizing her mental state. All of the good guys recognize her as a victim of circumstance, and she ultimately [[EasilyForgiven gets away with zero consequences]] once all's said and done]].
* TwoFirstNames
* TykeBomb: [[spoiler:She was trained by S.H.I.E.L.D. (or possibly HYDRA) to be an assassin from a young age.]]
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: It's left unknown at the end if she survived Thanos' fingersnap or became one of the unlucky few who disintegrated. And even if she did live, we don't know if she'd survive for long, since the only person on Earth with access to quantum healing energy was stuck in the Quantum Realm with no way to get out for five years. Even after the events of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', the odds of her survival are still unknown, because while all those vanished by Thanos' snap have returned, there's still a chance she was spared by the snap but didn't survive five years without quantum healing energy. She isn't present in the final battle in ''Endgame'', and there isn't even any mention of her existence.]]
* VillainousBreakdown: A relatively subtle one in the climax. [[spoiler:Her increasing anger and desperation, as well as possibly her condition worsening, results in her fighting somewhat more sloppily than she usually does. While Ava had the upper hand on Hope during their first fight, Hope gets a few good hits on Ava in the final battle]].
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:Hurt is a stretch, but she proposes kidnapping Cassie Lang to use as a bargaining chip against Scott and the others. It's more out of her desperation than any malicious intent, and she is easily talked out of going that route.]]
* YouKilledMyFather: Downplayed. [[spoiler: She considers Hank Pym responsible for her father's death, but it ultimately has little to do with her motivations. While she's more than willing to get his wife killed if it means curing her condition, that's more out of her own desperation rather than a desire for revenge against Hank.]]
* YourDaysAreNumbered: [[spoiler: Bill Foster tells her she has about two weeks left before her unstable nature reaches a point of no return.]]

[[folder:Lorelei]]
!!''Lorelei''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lorelei_aos_9700.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Men kneel before me. I do not bow to them."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Asgardian
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/ElenaSatine
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Gloria Núñez (European Spanish dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' (appears in ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E14TAHITI Episode 14: "T.A.H.I.T.I."]]'', ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E15YesMen Episode 15: "Yes Men"]]'')

->'''Lorelei:''' And women can rule your land? Can they not?\\
'''Rooster:''' You'd be the first.\\
'''Lorelei:''' Yes. I will.

An Asgardian who arrives on Earth shortly after the team's discoveries at the Guest House facility.

* AdaptationalBadass: In the original comics she has no fighting skills whatsoever. This version, is able to give Lady Sif a good fight, which would put her in the same league as Loki.
* ArchEnemy: "Yes Men" establishes her as one to Sif, both because they're {{foil}}s and also because of what happened to another man in Sif's life.
* BodyguardingABadass: Although Agent Ward is a Badass, Lorelei is almost as strong as Loki and Thor.
* BreakingThemByTalking: Her method of choice when dealing with women standing in her way. Both May and Sif end up on the receiving end.
* CatchPhrase: "Do you prefer her to me?"
* CompellingVoice: She has the ability to make men do whatever she tells them to. If they can resist the voice, making physical contact will overpower them. It explicitly doesn't work on women, and doesn't seem to be reliant on sexual preferences one way or another.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Puts up a good fight against Lady Sif.
* {{Crossover}}: It is indicated that Lorelei escaped from confinement during the prison break that Kurse initiated in ''Thor: The Dark World''. Astute readers who watched the movie will note that Loki has somehow supplanted Odin and has taken his place while maintaining his likeness. So when Sif says that Odin wants her back alive, it's actually Loki speaking. In other words, Loki has some unknown plans for Lorelei.
* CruelMercy: Sif spares her because Odin orders her to, though Sif does acknowledge killing her would be the easy way out. Leaving her alive is more painful for Lorelei because she'll be unable to talk, imprisoned in a tiny cell, presumably for life.
* DoubleStandardRapeSciFi: She brainwashed and raped Ward. While she is a villain anyway, no mention of it is made later, and Ward is treated as partially at fault for not being strong enough to resist her. Also qualifies as DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale and a form of DoubleStandardRapeDivineOnMortal.
* EvilRedhead: She's a villainous Asgardian with scarlet hair.
* EvilPlan: Find strong men, build an army, take over some place, and rule as queen.
%%* FauxAffablyEvil
* FemmeFatale: As Sif notes, ''wars'' have been started by her feminine ''uber''-wiles.
* FishOutOfWater:
** When she arrives on Earth, she begins her first conversation by talking about Earth as "Midgard" to a total stranger, calls Death Valley (where she landed) the "Valley of Death" when told its name, and [[DeliberateValuesDissonance simply takes a water bottle someone is holding when she needs a drink]], not seeming to realize it would be more reasonable to ask.
** She expected gold to be used as currency on Earth, like it is on Asgard:
--->'''Lorelei:''' I ask you for gold and you bring me ''paper!''
* {{Foil}}: To Sif; while Sif is a {{Tomboy}} who loyally fights for Asgard despite having rejected its gender norms, Lorelei is a GirlyGirl who performs femininity to TheVamp extremes and wants to rule. It could be argued that [[NotSoDifferent the two both had discontented reactions to the limitations imposed on women]] and then went opposite routes -- Sif beat them by joining them, Lorelei beat them by making them beat each other. "That's the difference between you and me -- I don't ''take'' orders."
* FunctionalMagic: Her mind control is explicitly called "sorcery" by Sif.
* HelloNurse: It's even part of her modus operandi to seduce men.
* {{Jerkass}}: Said to prefer taking men who are already spoken for. On two occasions, she then rubs this fact in the other woman's face.
* KneelBeforeZod: "I don't kneel to men. Men kneel to me."
* NormalFishInATinyPond: By Asgardian standards, she's a Squishy Wizard. By human standards, she is super strong.
* SexForServices: Her favorite "reward" for particularly "strong" men.
* SquishyWizard: By Asgardian standards, she is a delicate magic user.
* SuperStrength: By Earth standards, she could beat their strongest warrior in arm wrestling.
** Not restricted to that though. She pimpslaps May across the room into unconsciousness, and then matches Lady Sif on a push-off.
* TheVamp: Lorelei has the ability to seduce men into doing her bidding, be it with her CompellingVoice or through physical contact.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It is unclear what has happened to her following Asgard's destruction in ''Ragnarok''.
* WomenPreferStrongMen: She "upgrades" twice in her debut episode. From an average Joe to the leader of a group of bikers, to [[OneManArmy Agent Ward]].

[[folder:Kilgrave]]
!!''Kevin Thompson / Kilgrave''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thompson_kevin.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'm a man of my word... if I feel like it."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DavidTennant, James Freedson-Jackson (young Kilgrave)
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Cristián Lizama and Rodrigo Saavedra (young) (Latin-America Chilean dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/JessicaJones2015''

->''"Jessica, I'm the only one who matches you. We're inevitable."''

A menacing, shadowy figure from Jessica Jones's past who's responsible for her current state. He's a sociopathic man with the power to control the minds of others, which he uses to obtain money, food, shelter, pleasure and even get his victims to commit violence against others and themselves.

* AbusiveParents: He claims that his parents were scientists who [[spoiler:used him as a guinea pig in their laborious and frequently painful neurology experiments, then they abandoned him at ten years old when his mind control powers developed.]] Or that's how he experienced it anyway, because they never told him what they were doing. His parents were [[spoiler:experimenting on him to find a cure for a degenerative brain disease he was born with, and they succeeded, giving him his powers in the process. They only ran away after he made his mother burn her face with a clothes-iron in a fit of childish pique.]]
* AchillesHeel: Surprisingly, several:
** Surgical anesthesia shuts down the exact part of his brain that creates his powers, instantly ending any control he's currently putting out, and he'll still be without it for a while after waking up.
** His power has limits. After about ten hours, if they're not in his immediate presence, his victims start to shake off the effects of his control. He also has to be in his victim's physical presence when giving orders, which means he can't control someone over the phone or via the internet.
** If someone he's controlling can be fooled into thinking they've completed their commands (or if they ''[[ExactWords technically]]'' completed them), [[LogicalWeakness they'll stop]]. Presumably, this dependence on exact wording also means that his power only works if the person targeted understands the language he's speaking.
** His power is useless if the intended victim can't actually hear him -- such as someone wearing noise-cancelling headphones, or remaining outside the airtight room he gets sealed in -- and he obviously can't use his powers if he's unable to talk. Jessica uses a MundaneSolution to capture him by shoving a napkin into his mouth.
* AdaptationDyeJob: Unlike the comics, his skin isn't purple here since it would just look silly in contrast with the show's serious tone. He's still [[ColorMotif associated with the color purple though]]; it's his favorite color to wear and people affected by his mind control see the world covered in purple light. [[spoiler: Although in the finale, he ''does'' start turning purple after getting a power boost, but even that is more subtle than the deep shade of his comic book version.]] In a more minor example, his hair and eyes are Tennant's natural brown, rather than the [[DependingOnTheArtist black or purple]] from the comics.
* AdaptationNameChange: [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast His last name]] in the comics is made more subtle here through a slight change in its spelling (Kilgrave instead of Killgrave). [[spoiler: It's later revealed that his real name is Kevin Thompson rather than Zebediah Killgrave]].
* AdaptationalNationality: He's Croatian in the comics but British in the TV show.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Perhaps not the best word for this particular change, but, remember that oh so funny scene when Kilgrave tells everyone in a restaurant to be quiet? In the comics, he told them to ''stop breathing''.
* AllegoricalCharacter: Of Rape Culture, Toxic Masculinity and Male Entitlement.
* AntagonistAbilities: Almost every one of the MainCharacters is a much tougher physical threat than Kilgrave is; Jessica and Luke have SuperStrength, Simpson was military special operations [[spoiler:who had participated in ''SuperSoldier'' experiments and is still on the short list to continue them]] before he became a cop, and even Trish has enough combat training to hold off Simpson for several minutes despite her slighter build. However, none of that means a damn thing because no matter how great their strength/skills are, Kilgrave's powers overrides the mind that controls them. One word, and ''your'' strengths and abilities are now ''his''.
* AndIMustScream: His victims experience this. They don't want to do what he commands but They're utterly powerless to resist him.
* AtrociousAlias: After they find out his real name, Jessica and her allies find it ridiculous that he would [[spoiler:name himself Kilgrave ''on purpose''.]]
* AwesomeMcCoolName: Admit it, Kilgrave sounds awesome. [[spoiler: It's also an alias; his birth name is [[SpecialPersonNormalName Kevin Thompson]].]]
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: When Jessica finally snaps his neck, it only made everyone's lives easier.]]
* AxCrazy: He's an unstable, sadistic man who commits acts of violence as easily as breathing. When he gets angry, which [[HairTriggerTemper is often and with minimal provocation]], no one is safe from his wrath.
* BadBoss: To everyone he uses in his schemes, even people he isn't actively controlling. At one point, he orders two people to tear the skin off each other's faces if he doesn't return in a certain time and he is quite fond of forcing people to commit suicide when he no longer has any use for them.
* BadPowersBadPeople: His ability is shown to be more or less inherently dangerous (even a simple thing like compelling someone to give him their jacket is shown as a traumatic violation), and it's also indicated that being able to get anyone you want to do anything you want anytime you want is so inherently corrupting that it'd be tough for anyone with such an ability to turn out normal, let alone good-- especially since he developed his powers in childhood, and thus never learned about reciprocal relationships; as far back as he can remember, everyone in the world only exists to fulfil his desires.
* BaitTheDog: When he tries to get a new start with Jessica, he seems to make genuine efforts to improve, refusing to use his power to control her, buying her old house legally and hiring people to work for them rather than controlling them into doing it. It soon turns out that while he won't control Jessica directly, he has no problem about [[LoopholeAbuse threatening to make the people he has hired kill or mutilate themselves if Jessica makes him unhappy]]. And to make it worse, [[spoiler:it later turns out he wasn't really making an effort by refusing to control her directly: he just no longer ''can'' control her anyway.]]
* BeardOfEvil: Kilgrave sports a five o'clock shadow.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies:
** He's a textbook [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who routinely engages in UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming and {{Gaslighting}} (manipulating a person into questioning their own sanity/validity of how they perceive the world around them). A major example is when Kilgrave adamantly claims to Jessica that he ''genuinely believed'' he had seduced her willingly, because he can't tell when he's using his mind control powers and when he isn't. ''All other'' evidence in the TV series indicates that he knows full well that his powers are on ''all the time'', to the point that he has to carefully word mundane requests to people he doesn't explicitly want to control. The excuse that he doesn't even know if he's forcing people to do things appears to just be a half-hearted explanation he tells himself so he doesn't have to feel guilty about anything.
** Apart from genuinely believing he's the real victim, and not guilty of anything, he also doesn't want to believe he uses mind control ''all'' the time out of pride. He refuses to acknowledge that he has "raped" dozens of people (in many cases literally) because he has truly convinced ''himself'' that he's such a likable demigod-like figure that people must or should adore him like that. In reality, even the few people he doesn't use mind powers on are still manipulated in some fashion (money, drugs, threats, etc.) It becomes painfully obvious that due to a lifetime of constantly having mind control powers (since he was 10 years old), he is ''laughably unskilled'' at having normal conversations with regular people whom he isn't manipulating through either mind control or other threats.
** This is also one of his weaknesses, as he is very vulnerable to false praise. Well, zig-zagged: he is smart enough to be worried about people pretending to be under his mind control or praising him, but ''fundamentally'', he has an unwavering belief that deep down, everyone ''wants'' to obey him, and Jessica obsessively loves him.
* BerserkButton: He really doesn't like being called a rapist.
* BigBad: He's the main source of Jessica's problems. His status as this is also {{lampshade}}d by Jessica when she says to Trish that she can only deal with "one BigBad at a time", referring to [[spoiler:the PsychoSerum enhanced Simpson]].
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: He doesn't like the word 'rape', despite it being exactly what he did to Jessica, Hope, and almost every woman he's encountered. He seems to acknowledge that's what he did when Jessica confronts him on this, but denies it at first and later mutters that he doesn't like what he does being described that way.
* BlessedWithSuck: Kilgrave gets to make a reasonably convincing argument that mind control could be a spectacularly-crappy super power that could cause untold damage to a person's relationship with reality. He has to parse his words ''very carefully'' to close the sale on the house, because he's trying to make an honest deal. (Ironically, he has to command the owner to keep the sale "above-board.")
-->"I once told a man [[IWasJustJoking to go screw himself]], can you even imagine?"
** The show makes it very clear that Kilgrave has lived his life as an isolated, nomad vagabond, because his powers ironically ensure that he cannot function as part of normal society.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: In the opinion of [[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/david-tennant-interview-jessica-jones-actor-on-feeling-sympathy-for-kilgrave-and-the-golden-age-of-a6740856.html David Tennant]], this is how Kilgrave should be seen -- how can a man who has the power to make people do whatever he wants, perhaps even without meaning to, possibly be able to retain any normal sense of ethics? As far as he knows, everyone in the world is his absolute servant. That's his "normal"; the way the world is ''supposed'' to work. When Jessica fled him, it was if gravity stopped working, or the sun went out. It's all but stated that ''anyone'' would be warped and changed by this power, and would be unable to see the world the rest of humanity does. [[spoiler: That he was ten years old and had been subjected to frequent and painful experimentation when he developed this power lends itself to this interpretation.]]
* BorrowedCatchphrase: Like [[Series/DoctorWho the Tenth Doctor]], Kilgrave has the occasional tendency to modify his statements with a stressed "Well."
* BreakoutVillain: Easily the most popular character on ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', with David Tennant receiving critical acclaim for his portrayal. He was even featured in [[http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/lists/40-greatest-tv-villains-of-all-time-20160209 Rolling Stone's list of 40 greatest TV villains]]. Likely due to his popularity, [[spoiler:Kilgrave will be returning for Season 2 despite [[CharacterDeath being killed]] in the Season 1 finale.]]
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Throughout the season, Jessica insists on not killing him because she needs him alive to prove that mind control is real to get Hope exonerated on her parent's murder by proving that he made her to do it and in that sense is not responsible for their deaths. [[spoiler:Hope kills herself specifically to free Jessica from this burden.]]
* CardCarryingVillain: Averted. Unlike his comic counterpart, he doesn't consider himself to be a particularly bad person, mostly because [[NeverMyFault he's pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility]].
* CatchPhrase: "Smile."
* CelebrityParadox:
** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' has numerous {{Shout Out}}s to ''Series/DoctorWho'', as well as ''Franchise/HarryPotter''. David Tennant's best known role is as the Tenth Doctor, and before that he played Barty Crouch Jr. in ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''. It is also worth noting that David Tennant's first episode as the Doctor has him derailing the villain's plans by revealing that they were bluffing and that it is not possible to hypnotize someone into suicide.
** After Kilgrave performs a JediMindTrick, Jessica gives a ShoutOut to Obi-Wan Kenobi of ''Franchise/StarWars''. David Tennant also had a guest role in the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', specifically as Professor Huyang.
* TheChessmaster: This is a given considering he can make anyone do anything he wants, whether it's directly through his CompellingVoice or indirectly through manipulation. Most prominently shown with the immense grasp he has over Jessica's life. Jessica even noted Kilgrave could make her do what he wanted without him saying a single command.
* ChildHater: When he invites himself in to a couple's home, the first thing he does is crush their young son's remote control car, declares that children should be neither seen ''nor'' heard, and then commands the kids to lock themselves in the closet while he helps himself to dinner. The girl of the pair has to go to the bathroom, but he just makes her pee in the closet.
* ColorMotif: Heavily associated with the color purple.
* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: Played with. He's being referred to as Kilgrave in press materials, rather than The Purple Man, his alias in the comics. Probably because unlike his comic incarnation, Kilgrave's skin isn't purple. Then it's later revealed [[spoiler:"Kilgrave" is technically this version's codename, as his real name is Kevin Thompson.]]
* CompellingVoice: He has the power to make anyone do as he says, just by speaking. There are a few caveats (a maximum range, physical proximity, number of victims at once, etc.), but no real ''limits''. His control violates even basic instincts like self-preservation.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: An almost-to-the-letter example. [[Series/{{Daredevil2015}} Wilson Fisk]] is a gigantic juggernaut of a man, and the head of a vast criminal organization. Kilgrave is small, slight, reliant on his [[CompellingVoice non-physical superpower]], and operates entirely alone. Fisk has grand ambitions and semi-defensible motivations, if not methods, Kilgrave is all about his momentary wants and petty desires. Fisk regrets the harm caused by his methods, Kilgrave refuses to admit he's done anything wrong. Fisk desires only an honest and completely consenting relationship with the woman to whom he's attracted, Kilgrave is willing to use any unhanded means to force her into one. And so on, and so on...
* TheCorrupter: "I've never killed anyone. Can you say the same?" Over the course of his spree, he turns Jessica, Jeri, Hope and Pam into accessories to murder. Of course, he was also responsible for the derailing of Jessica's crime-fighting career.
* CrazyJealousGuy: [[spoiler:He straight up makes Ruben commit a very messy PsychicAssistedSuicide, when the latter blurts out that he loves Jessica. He is also not pleased when he meets Luke.]]
* CrazyPrepared: [[spoiler:He usually has several different people compelled to cover all his bases, and when he learns Jessica has found out his weakness, he also starts hiring security for real who will still protect him even with his powers turned off.]]
* CulturedBadass: Is WickedCultured and a lethally dangerous ManipulativeBastard.
* DeathByIrony: In "AKA WWJD?", he whines that he's incapable of having a personal relationship with anyone--unable to determine if that's what ''they'' want, or if they're just following his commands. [[spoiler:Jessica remembers: in the finale, Jessica mimes being under his control again, and Kilgrave is so blinded by happiness that he walks right into arm's reach of her, whereupon she pinches his mouth shut and snaps his neck.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution: Most of his cruel actions are directed at people who simply made the mistake of annoying him or being in his vicinity when he's in a bad mood.
* DoNotCallMePaul: It doesn't come up much but he seems to really not like being called by his birth name [[spoiler: Kevin.]]
* TheDreaded: Anyone who interacts with Kilgrave, especially Jessica, is utterly terrified of him.
* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: He's drunk on his power, and uses it for petty reasons.
* EleventhHourSuperpower: Towards the end of the season he [[spoiler: enslaves his father and other biochemists to work on ways to ''upgrade'' his power; from being able to control a dozen people at once to controlling hundreds, from having a range of a dozen feet to a dozen yards, from his orders lasting ten hours to lasting a full day (this last one permits him to use Luke as his spy despite Jessica's precautions), to working over a public address system (throwing everyone in a hospital at Jessica), and ultimately overcoming Jessica's immunity to his powers--although this last one is just Jessica faking him out for the few seconds it took to snap his neck.]]
* EnfanteTerrible: When he got his powers, he changed from being a normal kid to one of these, torturing his parents, even making his mother burn herself with an iron, and eventually forcing them to abandon him. He, [[SelfServingMemory of course]], will never mention any of this.
* EntitledToHaveYou: How he feels towards Jessica (and basically everything, but her in particular), is that they are his for the asking, and taking.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Twice. Jessica's early PTSD-fueled visions of him sets up his obsession with Jessica. In his first appearance proper sets up his casual disregard for others as he takes over ''everything'' around him.
* EvilBrit: David Tennant uses an Estuary (East London) accent, the same as [[Series/DoctorWho the Tenth Doctor]]. It reflects in his lingo, too: like "present arms!" when commanding cops to open fire on Jessica, or describing Jessica's flatmates as a bunch of "stroppy tosspots".
* EvilCannotComprehendGood:
** Jessica's attempts to teach him heroism are hindered by this. While he admits that GoodFeelsGood, he assumes that she does it for the grateful looks from the people she saves or to "balance the scales." Granted, she doesn't dispute either claim, but prior episodes have shown that her intentions aren't so selfish.
** Also, on the night he enslaved Jessica after seeing her saving someone from thugs, he asks her whether she enjoyed it and why (using his powers to compel a truthful answer). When Jessica says that she liked it because it helped someone and made a difference, he is utterly bemused, having clearly expected her to say that she enjoyed the violence or the feeling of power.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: He enjoys making creative commands to torture people with (like making a guy who called him out for cheating at poker bash his head repeatedly against a wall), and he really seems to enjoy commanding them to stand still/sit/do some task until they wet themselves given how many times he does it.
* EvilIsHammy: Like most of the MCU's villains, he's full of himself and will add scenery-chewing drama to his speech. Like when a damn phone goes off at the wrong time:
-->'''Kilgrave:''' THE NEXT PERSON WHOSE PHONE RINGS HAS TO EAT IT! Crappy fluorescent lights and cockroaches and loud cell phones and the smell of piss! '''I am trying to profess eternal love here, people!'''
* EvilIsPetty: Is he ever! Most of the people who initially come forward about encounters with Kilgrave who aren't deluded or bullshitting reported him doing remarkably petty things like making them hand over an expensive jacket, play the cello for him for a couple of days (and injure their hands when he tires of them), or drive him around town for a week. He is also shown to frequently compel people to injure or even kill themselves just for slightly irritating him. Sometimes he doesn't even need his powers -- he stomps on a kid's toy car just for being there.
* ExactWords: He complains at one point to Jessica that he has to take care with every word he says, otherwise he gets unfortunate results or uses his powers accidentally. The example he gives is when he told a man to go "screw himself".
** This is also a method of thwarting his mind control. For example [[spoiler: Trish was told to put a bullet in her head, but Jessica just placed one in her mouth to end the control]].
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: His handsome appearance sharply contrast his utterly depraved and sadistic personality.
* FatalFlaw: His obsession with possessing Jessica and his inability to grasp the feelings of the people around him is what ultimately leads to his death.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Tennant's natural charm comes to the forefront when [[spoiler:Kilgrave tells Jessica he loves her and tries to entice her with his domestic fantasy]], but we're never allowed to forget how horrible he really is.
* {{Foil}}: To [[Series/AgentsOfShield Grant Ward]]. Both serve as [[ItsPersonal very personal]] [[{{Archenemy}} enemies]] to the female lead of their respective series whom they are [[{{Yandere}} selfishly obsessed with]] and have [[FreudianExcuse traumatic childhood backgrounds]] that results in [[NeverMyFault a mindset that they could never be at fault for any of the misery their actions has brought upon others.]] However Grant is a [[BadassNormal normal human with combat prowess]] that he uses to carry out dirty work assigned to him by a vast villainous organization[[note]]HYDRA[[/note]] and is treated as a pawn before becoming their leader, while Killgrave has [[NonActionBigBad no combat prowess,]] instead having a CompellingVoice power that he uses to control other people to carry out his wants and has no affiliations with any evil organization.
* ForTheEvulz: He can and will use his powers to make people do horrific things to themselves just because he's bored, or because they annoyed him somehow, or they have something he wants. One example is making a room full of card sharks give up a large amount of cash, then getting one that complains to smash his head against a wall. Exemplified when he's browsing magazines at a newsstand, while the owner insists "This isn't a library!" and demands he buy something.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' Pick up that coffee. Throw it in your face.
* FreudianExcuse: His parents [[spoiler:subjected him to frequent, painful experimentation. He interpreted this as them being willfully cruel. In fact, they were trying to save his life. [[GoneHorriblyRight They succeeded]].]]
* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: It's made abundantly and repeatedly clear that, whatever happened in his childhood, it doesn't excuse any of his horrific actions as an adult and that he is just using his past as a way to avoid [[NeverMyFault taking responsibility]] for [[TheSociopath what a vile person he is]].
* FromNobodyToNightmare: He was once just a sick kid whose parents were desperate to save him.
* GoKartingWithBowser: He tries to do this with Jessica for most of "AKA WWJD?", but his overall creepiness and tendency to threaten to kill people when things don't go his way lend every moment an underlying current of menace.
* GoneHorriblyRight: He was born with a degenerative brain disease. The attempts to cure him were painful, even torturous, but they succeeded. They also gave him his godawful powers.
* GoodFeelsGood: [[spoiler:When Jessica pressures him into using his power to stop a hostage crisis]], he himself is surprised it felt nice, largely because of the awe and admiration from the family he rescued. It doesn't last long though, and it's immediately clear to Jessica that he would never do such a thing of his own accord or because it's the right thing to do. Even when he's doing good things, it's for his own benefit.
* HairTriggerTemper: Kilgrave has a short fuse, which combined with his powers means bad news for anyone who does something to upset him, like talking at him.
* HateSink: An example where he's both the primary villain of the piece ''and'' this trope. Kilgrave is so despicable, and he destroys so many lives, that the main draw of the story is waiting for him to lose. This is drawn out by the existence of Hope as a DamselInDistress that needs to be saved at the cost of sparing Kilgrave, [[spoiler:but she specifically kills herself so that his destruction can become the ''sole'' motivation of our MainCharacters.]]
* HatesSmallTalk: He admits he's terrible at it, to the point it looks like he'd rather pass a kidney stone.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' I've always been bad at small talk. I'm used to just saying things and they happen. ''(chuckles)'' Spoils you.\\
'''Lin:''' [[SarcasmMode Well, what a burden.]]\\
'''Kilgrave:''' [[CassandraTruth You have no idea.]]
* TheHedonist: Kilgrave insists on enjoying others' luxurious homes, wears sharp suits and only ever uses skilled chefs to prepare his food. He even appeared in Jessica's life with a woman on each arm.
* HeroicComedicSociopath: For all of about half an episode where he considers a crime-fighting career. He saves a woman and her kids from her husband who has taken them hostage, but he is still about to casually order the man to eat the barrel of his shotgun before Jessica manages to rein him in.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' He will go to prison and feed off the tit of the taxpayer.\\
'''Jessica:''' ''You've'' never paid a goddamn tax in your life!\\
'''Kilgrave:''' ... [[HypocrisyNod Fair enough.]]
* HumanResources: It's only mentioned once, but the [[{{Pun}} doctor who]] [[spoiler: performed his kidney transplant notes that the new kidneys are not a match, and thus he'll keep having to steal new ones every couple of years.]]
* IfICantHaveYou: If Jessica won't go back to him willingly and if he can't control her, he would kill her. [[BondVillainStupidity He was too late for that.]]
* ILoveYouBecauseICantControlYou: Well, he can, but his obsession with Jessica stems from the fact that despite having everything he wants he can't ''really'' have her affection. [[spoiler: Turns out he actually can't control her at all anymore, which combined with her determination to kill him temporarily sours his feelings.]]
* InsaneTrollLogic: Kilgrave is insistent that he's a good guy and that Jessica is a heartless bitch who he's a LoveMartyr to. His arguments for why that is are... ''unconvincing'' to an unbiased listener.
* ItsAllAboutMe: One of the core aspects of his character. When attempting to woo Jessica he even repeatedly refers to his favorite foods as her favorite foods without an ounce of self-realization, which Jessica promptly corrects him on. The one time he actually does something good ([[spoiler:saving a family from a hostage situation at Jessica's insistence]]), his [[GoodFeelsGood positive reaction]] is based on how it made him feel, rather than any actual regard for the people he saved.
* JediMindTrick: Lampshaded by Jessica when he wards off two cops. Naturally, he says that he is cooler than Obi Wan Kenobi.
* {{Jerkass}}: On top of being a [[PsychopathicManchild psychotic]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rapist]], Kilgrave has a very lacking interest in manners. He usually skips any semblance of charm when dealing with people and barks orders at them instead, knowing they have no choice but to obey him. While sitting in a crowded restaurant, he decides that it's too loud for his liking and simply shouts at everyone to shut up. Somewhat justified, due to not having a normal relationship since age ten.
* JustGivingOrders: Being a PsychopathicManchild with [[MindManipulation the power to make other people do things for him]], he repeatedly uses this excuse. Whenever Jessica calls him out on the trail of destruction he leaves behind (or anyone else capable of calling him out for that matter), he claims that he is not responsible for killing anybody because he has other people do the killing for him. Whenever someone points out that he compelled people to kill, he will try to [[{{Gaslighting}} gaslight]] them into thinking that it was somehow their fault. For example, Jessica confronts him that he made her kill Reva Conners, he claims that he only told her to "take care" of her, and that Jessica was the one who interpreted this as killing her.
* JustThinkOfThePotential: Jessica genuinely does ''very'' briefly consider attempting to reform him to use his powers for good, since his ability is so powerful it could be used to really change the world for the better. Sensibly, she ultimately decides this is a stupid idea and attempts to take him out without bothering to wait for his sudden but inevitable betrayal.
* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Although he quickly comments on Jessica's overall attractiveness, he's especially amazed by her powers and watching her beat up a couple of thugs.
* KickTheDog: Kilgrave performs acts of meaningless, petty cruelty as casually as breathing. Some of the more notable include having an annoying newsvendor scald his own face with hot coffee and having [[spoiler:Ruben cut his own throat in Jessica's bed]].
* KickTheSonOfABitch: He forces Jessica's mindlessly cruel and gossipy neighbor to admit that she's just seeking attention. Even Jessica finds it a little satisfying.
* KidsAreCruel: As a child, he made his mother [[spoiler:put an iron to her face in a tantrum. He (possibly justifiably) says it was just an outburst and that he didn't really mean it.]]
* KnightOfCerebus: While Kilgrave isn't the first Marvel Cinematic Universe BigBad who's an absolute creep with no redeeming qualities, he is still one of the darkest, scariest villains to date. He's committed a slew of atrocities in pursuit of their goals, with his crimes being heavily centered on rape and abuse. Compared to the more fantastic and less personal supervillainy of other villains, Kilgrave truly sets this series apart from MCU's other shows and films.
%%%%% "In the promo." is not context.
* KubrickStare: He can pull off some truly menacing ones.
* LackOfEmpathy: He's admitted to "not thinking twice" about those killed in his wake, and generally holds a sociopathic sense of self-absorption and apathy.
* LargeHam: Given EvilIsHammy, he's self-absorbed, theatrical and prone to shout whenever he feels like it. [[spoiler:Jessica's hallucinations of him in Season 2 are even hammier.]]
%%* LaughWithMe: "Smile!"
* LaughablyEvil: He is completely at sea when it comes to normal relations with others. His social ineptitude leads to some unexpected CringeComedy.
* LeanAndMean: He's a complete and utter bastard and played by the tall and naturally very thin David Tennant.
* LecherousLicking: This was one of Tennant's first scenes with Ritter and it made him a bit uncomfortable, but "there it is in the script, black & white, gotta do it."
* LetsYouAndHimFight: His MO against Jessica. With everyone else, he just orders them to do whatever he needs them to do. With her, he has to order ''other people'' to fight her or act as a distraction.
* {{Leitmotif}}: He is associated with a series of discordant and backmasked violin shrieks, which play whenever he uses his powers [[spoiler: and when Jessica is tossing her apartment looking for the "gift" he left her after their meeting at the precinct.]]
* LogicalWeakness: If his victims can't hear his orders, then they can't follow them. [[spoiler: Jessica and Trish use this for the final confrontation to protect the latter]]. Additionally if his victims can be convinced they have technically completed his orders then they are freed.
* ManipulativeBastard: Aside from the use of his powers, he also uses more subtle methods to force people to do what he wants. [[spoiler: Such as getting Malcolm hooked on drugs and dependent on him.]]
* MindRape: Kilgrave's specialty. What he did to Jessica traumatized her deeply, and she's just one of his many victims.
* MoneyToThrowAway: Dumping a sack full of $1.26 million at the feet of a stranger in exchange for their house. This is his grand gesture to Jessica.
* MoralMyopia: When it finally gets through to him that Jess doesn't, and will never, love him, he has the gall to feel betrayed and calls her ungrateful, then later accuses ''her'' of being the loveless sociopath.
* MoreThanMindControl: Played with, but ultimately defied. Kilgrave is convinced that he does this. His victims also state that, at the time they're fulfilling a command, all they can think about is how much they ''need'' to do what he says. But in fact, his victims are always silently screaming inside, and the DoubleThink involved with his powers is what traumatizes ''everyone'' in the end, no matter how small the request was.
* MurderTheHypotenuse:
** When Ruben says he loves Jessica, Kilgrave commands him to lie down in Jessica's bed and cut his own throat.
** When he finds out Luke is Jessica's former lover, he [[spoiler:orders him to blow himself up while Jessica watches. But then it turns out he knew Luke would survive that, possibly meaning he tried to give him a similar fate to Ruben at some point.]]
* MyDeathIsOnlyTheBeginning: He raises the possibility that he could have implanted commands in people that will activate upon his death, meaning Jessica can't risk killing him.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Lampshaded and mocked by both Jessica and Claire. ("Talk about obvious. Was Murdercorpse already taken?")
* NeckSnap: Jessica finally [[spoiler:kills him by clamping one hand over his mouth and the other behind his head, and then twisting.]]
* NeverMyFault:
** He is unwilling to take responsibility for what he forces people to do. He does a ''lot'' of UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming, as well as {{Gaslighting}}. He repeatedly expresses the belief that him ordering someone to want something is the same as them actually wanting it, maintains that he has never killed anyone despite ordering others to do so or kill themselves, and doesn't considering compelling women to have sex with him as rape.
** Notably, when he asks Luke if he is the one who screwed up his chances to get Jessica back, Luke answers that Kilgrave did that himself. Kilgrave, knowing that his powers compel people to always answer him completely honestly, sits dumbfounded for a brief moment before muttering to himself that he must "think of a fitting response to that."
** One time he complains about Jessica's drinking problem, and gets indignant at the (true) rebuttal that it's the way she copes with what he did to her.
** Perhaps his most brazen example is him concluding that [[InsaneTrollLogic the fact that Jessica doesn't love him must mean that she is utterly incapable of loving another person]].
* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: He's thrilled when Jessica finds a way to neutralize his powers, forcing him to actually put effort into something for the first time since he got them. This makes him decide to not use them on her, and try to get her to come with him willingly. [[spoiler:Ultimately subverted in that he really did want to control her and was more than happy to kidnap his father to try and find a way to upgrade his powers. He never decided not to use his powers on her; he just ''couldn't''.]]
* NonActionBigBad: Justified, considering the nature of his powers, but Kilgrave never personally does any fighting, always having his thralls do his dirty work.
* NoSocialSkills: Kilgrave wholly relies on his CompellingVoice powers to interact with people and never bothers with being polite or following any normal social conventions. His insanity and lack of understanding of human interactions even gets him to [[spoiler:accuse Jessica of being insane and incapable of love for not accepting him... the man who raped and enslaved her]].
* ObliviouslyEvil: Kilgrave honestly doesn't seem able to grasp the fact that he is a rapist and a murderer nor does he seem aware of or concerned with the trail of psychologically broken people he's left in his wake.
* OnlyOneName: It's made clear that Kilgrave is an alias he chose for himself -- his real identity is a mystery [[spoiler:until he reveals his past and Jessica does some digging.]] He is only ever referred to as that, and gives nor is called by any other name.
* PetTheDog: Nastily subverted. He ''did'' make sure the poor ambulance driver whose kidneys he stole got a machine to keep him alive and money to keep him comfortable... but only once he'd suffered a massive stroke that would forever leave him mostly-paralyzed and eternally under the thumb of his creepy, domineering mother. When Jessica meets the driver, he writes a note begging her to kill him.
* PlayingTheVictimCard: If his treatment towards other people, ''especially'' women wasn't horrible enough he actually has the gall to see himself as a victim, constantly using his backstory as an experimented child as an excuse to justify any of his atrocities.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Kilgrave has a low opinion of everyone, but women in particular he views as tools. He also likes using his power to compel women to smile.
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler: After Jessica accidentally kills someone and dumps his body in a river, either a fragment of Kilgrave lodged in her mind or merely her perception of him appears to congratulate her on taking the step to murder, on her own this time. He sticks around after that to taunt her and slowly drive her crazy.]]
* PowerIncontinence: He can't turn off his powers. An off-hand remark by Kilgrave is enough to send a bystander into a suicidal loop. If he doesn't exercise rigorous control, he simply can't have a normal conversation. Of course, he almost never bothers with that sort of self-control.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' I once told a man to go screw himself, ''can you even imagine''?!
* PowerPerversionPotential: The series explicitly and repeatedly calls Kilgrave a rapist for how he makes women want to have sex with him.
* PragmaticVillainy: Kilgrave gets what turns out to be Jessica's old house legally, without using his powers or hurting anyone living there... because for the deal to stick and not give him problems later, he ''had'' to avoid both.
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Dozens of people kill or attempt to kill themselves at his command.
* PsychopathicManchild: There's an impression that he never really grew up, [[spoiler: particularly since he gained his powers as a child and his parents abandoned him when he was 10]]. Tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants, petty actions against those who annoy him, and shallow appreciation of others' feelings doesn't suggest a lot of maturity. It's actually probably a good thing he's so immature, since he only thinks about his own gratification and doesn't give much thought to the idea of world domination, which he'd be capable of if he went about it the right way.
* PurpleIsPowerful: Kilgrave is accompanied by the color purple no matter where he is, be it his predominately purple wardrobe or appearing with a flash of purple light when he's inside his victim's minds.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: This trope is one of the reasons why it took so long to adapt the Alias comic. Kilgrave himself seems to feel this, as he rejects the idea that he raped Jessica, or anyone else, and comes up with justifications for how what he does isn't rape. He even says he hates the word. [[spoiler: He also deliberately plays on this, threatening to do it to Trish to try and goad Jess in order to see if she's faking being under his control.]]
* {{Sadist}}: He loves ordering his victims to kill or hurt themselves, often for no reason, using increasingly horrific methods that he comes up with. Such as ordering a policeman to jump off a ledge, a man to splash scalding hot coffee on himself, a man to put his head through a wooden column, and two slaves to rip the skin off each others' faces.
* SchmuckBait: During the final act of the season, Kilgrave desperately tries to increase his power so that rather than using trickery and manipulation, he can just reclaim Jessica by way of his powers. [[spoiler:Knowing this, Jessica fakes being affected by his powered-up abilities when he gets the chance to directly use them on her. The thing is, Kilgrave was ''smart'' enough to realize that she would pull this trap, so he tries to goad her into revealing herself by [[ToThePain stating how much he's going to rape Trish every day for the rest of her life]]. When ''that'' still doesn't make Jessica budge, his enthusiasm gets the better of him. The ''possibility'' that he'd finally gotten his fondest wish made him throw all that savvy out of the window and get close to Jessica. Cue NeckLift, followed by NeckSnap.]]
* SelfMadeOrphan: His parents [[spoiler: abandoned him as a child after he had his mother maim herself in a tantrum.]] In the present, he has his mother [[spoiler: stab herself with the pair of scissors that she tried to stab him with, while having another of his thralls cut his father's arms off and put them in a blender.]]
* SelfServingMemory: When he reveals that [[spoiler:he deliberately allowed Jessica to regain control to see if she really wanted to stay]]. Kilgrave's version of events is that [[spoiler:Jessica chose to stay]], but Jessica points out that [[spoiler:she was about to jump off the balcony they were on, only Kilgrave stopped her]]. When he accuses her of this trope, Jessica [[spoiler:reveals the scar left from Kilgrave telling her to cut her ear off.]]
** This also comes into play with his parents. To hear him tell it, they tossed him away like trash for no reason at all. His father is quick to remind him how he used his powers to control and terrorize them and made them fear for their safety.
* SerialRapist: He raped Jessica and Hope and threatens to do the same to Trish at one point. It's also clear that he raped other women as well, given he was introduced with women on each arm who he was clearly controlling.
* SharpDressedMan: He's typically seen wearing stylish suits, often [[MythologyGag purple]].
* ShutUpHannibal: In "AKA WWJD", when Jessica crams a napkin in his gob to stop him talking, and again in "Smile", when she clamps his mouth shut.
* SirSwearsALot: Kilgrave swears a lot, befitting his short-tempered personality.
* TheSociopath: He claims to be able to love, but it's so twisted that its veracity is questionable. He readily admits that he does not give a damn about a single person other than himself and Jessica [[spoiler:although he wants to reconcile with his parents]]. Even when he tries to profess his undying affection for Jessica, he first refers to her as a thing, and then a person.
* SpecialPersonNormalName: His real name is [[spoiler:Kevin Thompson.]]
* SquishyWizard: Kilgrave is well aware that he has no ability to face anyone, particularly Jessica, in a straight fight. So he has others do it for him. [[spoiler:In the end, once Jessica gets her hands on him it's over in '''[[NeckSnap seconds]].''']]
* StalkerWithACrush: After Jessica escaped, he did everything he could to find her, setting up a network to keep her constantly under surveillance and tracked her constantly. Then, in an effort to woo her, he purchases her childhood home and recreates it, down to the photographs on the walls, from pictures he acquired from the realtor who sold it after her parents died.
* SuperheroMovieVillainsDie: Discussed. Simpson believes he's too dangerous to let live, but Jess originally objects due to needing him to prove Hope's innocence. Towards the end, she swears to kill him when it's clear that there's really no other option, [[spoiler:and kills him in the finale]]. In the comics he survives the events of ''Alias'', though the comics Marvel Universe is a lot better equipped to imprison superpowered criminals.
* TaintedVeins: When he receives [[spoiler: his final power boost his veins turn purple.]]
* TomTheDarkLord: He's a powerful, monstrous supervillain who was born with the utterly unremarkable name [[spoiler: Kevin Thompson]].
* TooPowerfulToLive: Kilgrave's CompellingVoice abilities are a frightening "elephant-in-the-room" in the context of the entire Franchise/MarvelUniverse, especially given the context that [[WeAreEverywhere anyone and everyone could be a Kilgrave slave at any time]] and [[ManchurianAgent not even know it]]. As such, it was unlikely he would [[spoiler:live beyond the first season, because the audience would have been second-guessing ''everything''.]]
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Like any bratty child, he refuses to try unfamiliar food, ordering his favorite pasta dish at every restaurant he enters (even forcing a Chinese chef to shlep around the block to borrow the ingredients from another eatery).
* UnreliableNarrator:
** At one point he tells Jessica about a time she kissed him after he hadn't given any orders for 12 hours, framing it as a romantic moment that was completely within her free will. There's even a flashback to show this event. But Jessica quickly corrects him, saying that she remembers it as her being able to insult him for the first time, and that he ordered her to cut off her own ears in spite before relenting. The scar behind her ear backs up her version of the events, and Kilgrave looks shocked.
** There's also his past. According to him, [[spoiler: his parents performed cruel and inhumane experiments on him, then abandoned him when he developed his powers, leaving him to fend for himself. However, when we find his parents, it turns out he was dying of a degenerative brain disease, and the experiments were part of a clinical trial to cure him, though he didn't know that. His parents really loved him, but had to abandon him because he used his powers to torture and control them, which hit a breaking point when he permanently scarred his mother, and wrote it off as a 'tantrum'.]]
* UsedToBeASweetKid: When we see the recording of him undergoing the treatment, he seemed to be just a normal innocent child. This trope disappeared as soon as he [[EnfanteTerrible got his powers]].
* VillainousBreakdown: At the end of his ''first'' encounter with Jessica, losing his control over her, even briefly, devolved into Kilgrave chasing her into the street, screaming at her to come back to him, and being hit by a bus.
* VillainousCrush: His obsession with Jessica informs much of his villainy.
* WantsAPrizeForBasicDecency: He acts like ''not'' treating people like insects is something noble.
* WeCanRuleTogether: His insistence that Jessica has some moral obligation to redeem him, to harness his abilities for good ("Dynamic Duo!"), turns out to be another form of manipulation.
* WhatIsEvil: He considers himself not to be evil as he doesn't take pleasure from killing others, which is a pretty low standard to set. He even seems to believe that he's never killed anybody. Apparently, ordering them to kill themselves doesn't count in his mind.
* WickedCultured: One could ascertain this about him based on his wardrobe and appreciation of fine foods, although as with everything else in his life, he obtains it all through his mind control.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatPerks: Kilgrave has no EvilPlan to TakeOverTheWorld, simply using his powers for his own hedonistic pleasure.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: {{Deconstructed}}. Kilgrave explains to Jessica that the reason why he became the monster he is today is [[spoiler:because his parents performed painful experiments when he was a child and abandoned him. He doesn't get much sympathy however because, while the experiment might have given him his powers with the abandonment impacting his view of the world, they DO NOT excuse him in committing such cruelty, like turning innocent women into [[SexSlave Sex Slaves]] and [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raping]] them. It's eventually revealed that his parents were performing those experiments to try save him from a neurotic disease he had and would have died if they didn't perform them. They didn't tell him that, however. His powers were a side effect of it and the reason why they abandoned him was because he was using his powers to torture them]]. In the end, despite his ordeal, he was simply a horrible human being who simply [[NeverMyFault refuses to be at fault for any wrongdoings]] and instead, uses [[PlayingTheVictimCard this trope as an excuse]] to try and justify his atrocities.
* WouldHurtAChild: He commands two children to get in a cupboard and to urinate there.
* {{Yandere}}: Oh, so very much, though the transition is slower than most examples; it takes place over ''the course of the entire season''. He starts off with a terrible VillainousCrush on Jessica after seeing her beat up some thugs [[spoiler: and later has her murder Luke Cage's wife]]. Returning to Jessica's life after a kidney transplant due to a bus crash, Kilgrave starts displaying the "I just want to get back together" attitude with her. After his ploy with reconstructing her house fails, his sanity begins to deconstruct and he begins developing a rage towards her and anyone who loves her in any sense, [[spoiler: which is not helped by her immunity to his powers]]. By the end of the series, he comes back full circle and shows the old crush attitude on Jessica... [[spoiler:only to find out it was a ruse before getting his neck snapped]].
* YouCouldHaveUsedYourPowersForGood: In "AKA WWJD?", Jones twists his arm into helping her defuse a domestic violence/hostage situation.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: He tends to throw away his human puppets like used rags, ''[[ForTheEvulz especially]]'' if there's no pragmatic reason for him to do this.
* ZergRush: His go-to tactic against Jessica: simply order anyone he encounters to attack her or endanger themselves, slowing her down while he has time to escape.

[[folder:Marcus Daniels / Blackout]]
!!''Marcus Daniels / Blackout''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blackout_aos_4670.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"They were trying to make me stronger. And they did."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Patrick Brennan
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' (appears in ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E18Providence Episode 18: "Providence"]]'', ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E19TheOnlyLightInTheDarkness Episode 19: "The Only Light in the Darkness"]]'')

->''"A few years ago, I saw Daniels at one of my concerts, front row. Then I started seeing him at all of them. At first, I was flattered. Cellists don't get many groupies. But then one night, I saw him outside of my house. I was terrified. I begged him to leave me alone. He just stood there, saying I was his light. I didn't understand what he meant until he started blacking out my entire block."''
-->-- '''Audrey Nathan'''

A former prisoner of the Fridge, Daniels was let out by the Clairvoyant and told to "follow his dreams".

* BadassLongcoat: Sports a black trenchcoat when hunting his crush.
* CastingAShadow: He's able to project beams of Darkforce.
* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: DoubleSubverted. Though he's never referred to as Blackout, his S.H.I.E.L.D. file does list his codename, even though Coulson's arm is positioned to block most of it.
* EarlyBirdCameo: Appears in "Providence" before his focus episode.
* EnergyAbsorption: He's able to drain energy from nearby electrical devices, and can drain the electrical energy of living beings through physical contact.
* EvilWearsBlack: As befitting his codename, Blackout wears an entirely black outfit.
* MenacingStroll: He always moves at a calm, steady pace.
* PhlebotinumOverload: How he was taken out in the past and present. The first time it just disabled him so S.H.I.E.L.D. could imprison him. Since he's been amped up in the present, Fitz devises gamma-powered lights that make him explode.
* StalkerWithACrush: Towards Audrey, who he calls his "only light in the darkness".
* TouchOfDeath: He can drain the energy from whatever he touches, including living beings.

[[folder:Calvin Johnson]]
!!''Dr. Calvin "Cal" L. Johnson''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doctor_6983.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Let's not lose our heads."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/KyleMacLachlan
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' (first appears in ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS1E22BeginningOfTheEnd Episode 22: "The Beginning of the End"]]'')

-->''"You were looking for a monster?"''

Skye's father, who worked with Raina at one point in the past.
----
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: He has quite a few more redeeming qualities than the comics' Mr. Hyde, most of all his being horribly ashamed of what his darker half does.
* AdaptationNameChange: His comic book counterpart's name is Calvin ''Zabo'', but the show changes it to Calvin ''Johnson''. However, in "The Frenemy of My Enemy", he tells Skye that he changed it to "something more sinister" during his search for her, implying that he may have gone by Zabo at one point. This is presumably due to Skye's mother being completely different from Daisy Johnson's mother in the comics, meaning her last name had to come from her father instead. Some episodes of the second season do have his name given as "Zabo" at certain points in the subtitles.
* {{Adorkable}}:
** When he finally reunites with his daughter, he fumbles his words and mentions that he wanted to have flowers and "those little almond-chocolate cookies" to greet her.
** When he meets her again after her powers are activated, he acts like an excited fanboy.
--->'''Cal:''' So what's your thing? 'Cause I was kinda hoping for wings.
** And in the back half of the second season, his every interaction with Skye is just bumbling awkward joy.
* AffablyEvil: He's kinda... quirky when he's not being murderously psychotic. He refers to HYDRA's attempts to understand the Diviner as "monkeys scratching at it," mocks Whitehall's translation of an ancient legend concerning it, and scoffs at referring to it as a weapon as "small-minded... [[VerbalBackspace for such a large-minded person]]." However, he gets less affable as his obsession to get Skye to love him grows.
* AmbiguouslyHuman: It's unclear at first, given several characters referring to him as a "monster" and his deep knowledge of the Diviner despite never touching it himself. It's clarified in "One of Us" that while he knows a great deal about the Inhumans through his wife being one, he himself was an ordinary human who gained his strength and emotional instability through his own scientific manipulation.
* AntiVillain: Most of his villainy seems to be fueled by extreme aggression that's he's unable to control, as well as the fact that he lost his daughter to S.H.I.E.L.D. and his wife to HYDRA. However, the thought of a race of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens coming down to Earth to end humanity except for a few "worthy" to be saved isn't something that terribly alarms him; in fact he's looking forward to it. And he has no trouble causing chaos for S.H.I.E.L.D. by getting the "gifted" to make a fuss if it'll help him reunite with Skye.
* AxCrazy: The guy can go into casual murder mode rather quickly.
-->'''Triplett:''' That guy was out of his damn mind.
* BackAlleyDoctor: Patches up bullet and knife wounds for gang members... for a while, anyway.
* BadassBookworm: A doctor who easily defeats two HYDRA {{mooks}} with just a scalpel and a metal box he's carrying.
* BadBoss: Treats Raina like dirt, even though she helped him reunite him with Skye. He then throws her to the curb after he's done with her.
* BerserkButton: Oh, boy, does he have a few...
** Loses it when Raina compares him to Whitehall, seeing Whitehall killed his wife to take her agelessness.
** Bringing up his evil side seems to have a similar effect.
** Referring to his daughter as "Skye" too much isn't a good idea either. It produces more violent results when Lincoln does it.
--->'''Cal:''' '''THAT'S NOT HER NAME!'''
** Anyone but himself taking a fatherly role for Skye also sets him off.
** Getting between him and his vendetta against Whitehall is a very bad idea. Out of everything, that happens to be what finally causes him to try to kill Coulson.
** Don't insult his daughter. A transformed Raina found that out the hard way.
* BigBadDuumvirate: Though he starts off in a BigBadEnsemble with Whitehall, the two team up at the end of "A Hen in the Wolf House" to kill Coulson and his team. He then offers to do the same with Coulson to kill Whitehall.
* BigBadWannabe: His petty feud with Coulson means he's only an inconvenience to him in the grand scheme of things.
* BittersweetEnding: The close of his story arc; he gets his memories erased and is allowed to make a new life for himself as a veterinarian completely under his original personality, that of a laughing, friendly, good-humored goofball. Of course, this means completely forgetting about not only the bad things he experienced, like his wife's torture and eventual death -- at his own hands -- but also all about his beloved daughter.
* BuffySpeak: At times, especially since he's offered his services to Whitehall. This is an instance where Skye's apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As soon as he tries to step up, he's rather unceremoniously plucked off the field by Gordon.
* {{Catchphrase}}:
** He regularly uses the phrase "Let's not lose our heads" as a self-calming method.
** Tends to describe good things as the "best day ever."
** Whenever someone refers to his daughter as Skye, he snaps at them with '''"THAT'S NOT HER NAME!"'''
* CloudCuckoolander: He's completely, utterly insane and knows it. He just can't stop himself.
* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: He's never once referred to as "Mister Hyde", although his appearance in the season 2 finale is highly reminiscent of the titular character from the original ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde''.
* CurbStompBattle: He completely dominates the fist fight with Coulson in 2x10, being stopped by Skye very short of beating him to death.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Revealed over the course of the second season. A S.H.I.E.L.D. team full of HYDRA agents went after a village that included his wife and daughter. He managed to track down his wife and put her back together (though not the same as she was), but all he managed to do was slaughter a lot of people when he tried and failed to find his daughter. He has spent a quarter-century wanting revenge.
* DeadlyDoctor: He has a room with surgical equipment and his hands are always seem to be covered in blood when he meets with Raina.
* DeathOfPersonality: At the end of season 2, his entire memory is erased and replaced with that of a cheerful veterinarian by way of the TAHITI project. It's implied that the 'new' him is the person he used to be, before he became a monster. Thus, this is a DownplayedTrope.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: While he certainly put a lot of thought into the tortures he would inflict on Whitehall, his actual plan to get there is rather lacking. He clearly never counted on Whitehall figuring out his identity, and seems to have no concrete plan on how he'll get to Whitehall in the first place. Ultimately, Cal ends up trying to take on Whitehall while the latter has a gun, and Coulson shoots Whitehall in the back while Whitehall's distracted, saving the vengeance-driven doctor.
* DisappearedDad: Has not been a part of Skye's life for twenty-five years. To be fair, their separation wasn't his fault, he spent a great deal of those twenty-five years trying to find her, and once he did he starts trying to be part of her life again. Unfortunately for him, those twenty-five years have also turned him into someone his daughter doesn't want to know.
* TheDreaded: Raina is terrified of him, probably due in no small part that he's one of a few people she can't manipulate.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** Is shown to dislike Whitehall, referring to him as "a butcher." Understandable, considering what the man did to his wife.
** He has nothing but contempt for Raina, mainly because she's concerned about herself and nobody else.
* EvilCounterpart: To Bruce Banner, a very skilled doctor with a HairTriggerTemper he himself is horrified by. Though he's also quite violent in his normal state when he needs to be. This makes sense, given that Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde was one of the original inspirations for Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. In the comics, Cal's supervillain moniker is "Mister Hyde".
* FakeShemp: Kyle [=MacLachlan=]'s casting wasn't announced until a couple of months after Season 1 ended, so that's probably not him in TheStinger for the finale. That person's hair is also gray.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Despite being Jiaying's husband, the Inhumans look down on him because of the artificial nature of his powers and his violent behavior, and they're not happy that his petty feud with SHIELD endangers them.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Conspicuously does ''not'' touch the obelisk. It's made clear in "One of Us" that his powers come through experimentation and he isn't an Inhuman.
* {{Foil}}: Shaping up to be one for Ward. Both love Skye, but while Ward acknowledges how horrible he has been in the past and tries to win her over by being helpful, Cal tries to hide his dark side and intends to force Skye to come to him by killing Coulson. Also to Coulson, the father figure versus the father she never knew.
* GoodParents: Really wants to be this for Skye, and when given the chance, he's doting and loving towards her. Unfortunately, Jiaying's manipulations made him into a monster.
* HairTriggerTemper: He can flip out at the drop of a hat. Just look at the list of things classified as BerserkButton.
* HeelFaceTurn: Sides with Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D when he convinces him that what Jiaying is doing is wrong and will only hurt their daughter.
* HumanShield: Uses this tactic against HYDRA in "The Frenemy of My Enemy" by putting one of their own between him and their bullets.
* ILied: He was very vague to Raina on what Terrigenesis actually ''was''.
* ItsAllAboutMe: His love for Skye is very unhealthy and obsessive; he wants her to love him and ''only'' him.
* ItsPersonal: Whitehall killed his wife, literally cutting her into pieces. He repeatedly states that he wants revenge on the people who took his family from him. Whitehall, who doesn't know him or his connection to the woman he killed, doesn't realize the implied threat.
* {{Jerkass}}: He emotionally manipulated Raina by preying on her desire to be something special, then point-blank refuses to help her cope with the transformation.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: In the second half of the scene...he moves from being against Whitehall, to against SHIELD...which does not go well for people caught in the middle.
* LackOfEmpathy:
** Is completely unsympathetic to Raina when Whitehall threatens to have her killed and says that she was nothing before he found her.
** When Raina undergoes Terrigenesis, he's dissmive of her and refuses to help her cope with the trauma of it, in stark contrast to his beloved wife, who dedicated her life to helping the Inhumans cope with the change.
* LargeHam: He's mostly composed if not triggered but when he hams it up, he does so with gusto.
* LegionOfDoom: He wants to gather up a couple of "indexed" individuals in order to combat S.H.I.E.L.D. and recover his daughter. Given he's snatched up by Gordon in the same episode and his entire team is captured, it's unlikely this effort will go anywhere.
* LoveRedeems: What ultimately spared him from being executed because of his crimes is his love for his daughter.
* KnifeNut: When your Weapon of Choice is a surgeon's scalpel and you always have at least on or two hidden on your person you qualify as this.
* MayflyDecemberRomance: With Jiayang. She's led the Inhumans for generations, he's just an ordinary human.
* MoralityPet: Starting in "The Frenemy of My Enemy", he has one in his daughter Daisy, who helps him rediscover the NiceGuy that he used to be.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: He's a certified M.D. who will casually slaughter a room full of people with a scalpel in order to further his ends.
* MoralityChain: Spending time with his wife and daughter does wonders for his mental stability. He doesn't want them to think he's a monster.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: He eventually plans to do this to Coulson, since he resents him being a [[ParentalSubstitute father figure to Skye]].
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: When Skye comes across the scene of one of his outbursts, he realizes she will never accept him as her father after [[MoralEventHorizon that]].
-->'''Skye:''' He's a...!\\
'''Cal:''' ''[[TheseHandsHaveKilled (Staring at his hands)]]'' ...'''monster'''! ''[smashes his tablet]''
* NeverMyFault: It's clear he blames Coulson for driving Skye away, even though it's his violent behavior that actually does it. After reuniting with his wife in Lai Xi, he admits that, yes, it is his fault.
* NiceGuy: He used to be one of these and you can still see glimpses of it in his calmer periods. For example, what was he doing in China with a family? He was volunteering for Doctors Without Borders, fell in love, and relocated.
* NoNameGiven: His first significant role in the plot (with significant screentime) is in the episode "[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS2E5AHenInTheWolfHouse A Hen In The Wolf House]]", but he is still just referred to as "Skye's father" or "The Doctor". In "What They Become", his name is given as Cal. His full name is revealed to be Calvin L. Johnson in "The Frenemy Of My Enemy", though he mentions changing it to something more appropriate (presumably Zabo) after Skye went missing.
* NotHelpingYourCase: He doesn't want Skye to see him as a monster, but his violent behavior and all the killing he does despite her protests don't do him any favors.
* OmnicidalManiac: He casually expresses an interest in killing "everyone". He actually takes a thrill in the violence that can unfold.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Until "What They Become", he's simply referred to as "Skye's father" or "The Doctor".
* OneManArmy: Several sources have stated that he wiped out a village single-handedly, and if you believe Ward's version of the events, all those villagers were HYDRA agents.
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: Took Coulson's slaying of Whitehall very badly, as it meant that he couldn't avenge his wife's death personally. It's a JustifiedTrope as his plans for killing Whitehall were much, much crueler than Coulson's InstantDeathBullet, and he's been planning it for ''decades''.
* PapaWolf:
** In a rather negative way, considering he's both possessive and insane.
** If Ward's to be believed, the village in Hunan that was slaughtered contained HYDRA agents that kidnapped Skye and her mother. The mother was killed by Whitehall before or during Cal's massacre, possibly explaining his unstable behavior in the present.
* PetTheDog:
** All of his direct interactions with Skye when he gets to show off his BumblingDad side.
** When he's asked if Coulson is trustworthy (after they tried to kill each other), he says he hates him... but grudgingly admits that he's a good man who cares for Skye.
* PersonOfMassDestruction: According to Raina, he and Skye's mother destroyed an entire village to find their daughter.
* PsychoSerum: He attributes his strength and personality issues to a formula he developed. He's been trying to perfect it, but that doesn't happen until the end of the second season.
* PunnyName: His name is '''Cal'''vin '''L.''' Johnson. Not unlike [[{{Franchise/Superman}} Kal-El]].
* SadisticChoice: When your wife is trying to kill your daughter, either choice is going to be painful. [[spoiler:Cal sides with his daughter, breaking his wife's neck and then crushing her ribcage to splinters with a super-strong bearhug.]]
* SanitySlippage: Finding the corpse of his wife after Whitehall vivisected her and losing his daughter clearly sent him off the deep end.
* SanityStrengthening: Reuniting with his wife and daughter, and taking a break from his serum, makes him more stable. He even catches himself when he starts losing his temper.
* SplitPersonality: Implied and hinted at. There seems to be at least two sides to Cal. A affable side and an AxCrazy side that kills without warning. Raina believes so, even going as far to tell him that other side is controlling him. When some of Team Coulson, and more specifically Skye, find his handiwork, Cal is mortified, calling himself a monster. Apparently, he doesn't want to be perceived as one. This is fitting, as he's [[Comicbook/TheMightyThor Mister Hyde]].
* SuperStrength: He carves up anyone who pisses him off with a ''scalpel'', with complete ease, and kills with his bare hands. He also easily defeats Raina, who herself demonstrates superhuman strength post-transformation.
* StylisticSuck: The name he gives his LegionOfDoom, comprised of various Indexed criminals, is "Slicing Talons." It's pretty much cringeworthy to anyone who hears it, but to be fair to him, he ''did'' have to think of the name on the spot while trying to kill Coulson, and the person closest to him at the time was Karla, with her, well, ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin slicing talons]]''.
* ThrowTheDogABone:
** He will never see his family again afterwards, but Skye agrees to have one family dinner with him at her mother's request.
** His ending. He gets a new peaceful life, and to be happy...and Skye visits him, even though he no longer recognizes her.
* TragicMonster: He might be a jerk, but Cal's life is one big sad story. He was nothing but a loving family man until Whitehall kidnapped Jiaying, vivisected her, and tossed her corpse in the woods. He stitched her back up and her HealingFactor did the rest, but she left him because she [[HeelRealization became horrified by their desperate actions while looking for Skye]]. He then spent decades looking for Skye, as he'd promised Jiaying that he'd find her. But the serum he developed to give him SuperStrength made him psychotic with uncontrollable aggression, turning him into "a monster" and causing him to be shunned by the Inhumans, who used to be his friends. And when he does find Skye, she wants nothing to do with him, and his own wife has him locked up. And then he's ultimately forced to admit his wife has become a monster even worse than he is, who will destroy the world, and he has to kill her to save their daughter's life.
* UndyingLoyalty: In his own words, he would "blindly follow Jiayang into a war". It turns out, however, that his ultimate loyalty lies with his daughter as he turns on his wife when Coulson manages to convince him that her war will ultimately destroy Daisy.
* UngratefulBastard: He's furious at Coulson for killing Whitehall before he could get his revenge, even though Whitehall would have killed him if Coulson hadn't intervened.
* UnnamedParent: Until the mid-season 2 finale, he simply went by "The Doctor". He reveals his name to be Cal in "What They Become". Though his last name isn't revealed, it can be inferred from his personality issues, strength, and Skye's real name that his full name is Calvin Zabo, a.k.a. Mister Hyde.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: He brought back Jiaying to life and in doing so unleashed a bloodbath upon the world.
* UsedToBeMoreSocial: He was a doctor, successful/wealthy enough to own an office building in a financially successful part of town, and volunteered in China with Doctors Without Borders, where he fell in love with and married a native, started a family... Now he's a walking BerserkButton.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Cal was a compassionate doctor who adored his family, but the tragedy of losing his daughter and his wife's vivisection drove him to concoct a serum to increase his strength, as he felt he'd failed to protect his family. The serum drove him insane, and he's been a victim of manipulations from his wife and his own mental illness ever since.
* {{Yandere}}: Father-Daughter love in this case, but it's still a creepy obsession that involves killing the competition (in this case, Coulson, the ParentalSubstitute).
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: He coldly washes his hands of Raina after her and Skye's transformation, telling her to kill herself if she really can't live with what she's become.

[[folder:Eli Morrow]]
!!''Elias "Eli" Morrow''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/morrow_eli.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"The Darkhold has shown me the way. I can create life, even after death. Can a petty thief do that, huh?"'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' José Zúñiga
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' (first appears in ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS4E4LetMeStandNextToYourFire Episode 70: "Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire"]]'')

-->''"From high school to grad school, no one believed in me! They thought I was cheating. They thought I wasn't capable! Shut me out. Well, guess what ... guess what I'm capable of now. I can create a city out of nothing, or I can cover it in volcanic rock. Robbie, I am becoming a god."''

Uncle of Robbie and Gabe Reyes, Eli was an engineer brought in to work with Lucy Bauer on their project when he became aware of the Darkhold.
----
* ArcVillain: [[spoiler:Of the Ghost Rider arc in Season 4, because he was the one who ghostified the other scientists in an effort to obtain god-like power. It was this conflict that led to Robbie becoming the latest Ghost Rider. However, he has nothing to do with the Watchdogs' Inhuman hunt.]]
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Uncle Elias Morrow is still a criminal, but his crime was aggravated manslaughter, and he seems to have truly cared about his coworkers who died. In ''All-New Ghost Rider'', he's a Satanist EvilUncle with who acts as Robbie's SuperpoweredEvilSide instead of a genuine Spirit of Vengeance. [[spoiler:Subverted later on when it turns out that he was the one who killed them in an attempt to claim the power for himself. Still, he isn't nearly as bad as his comic counterpart, and he seems to be at least partly [[BrainwashedAndCrazy corrupted]] by [[TomeOfEldritchLore the Darkhold]].]]
* AffablyEvil: [[spoiler:After he's revealed to be a power-hungry maniac, he warns Coulson to get away as quickly as possible as he prepares to begin the process of acquiring his god-like power, and later, after he suffocates a complaining underling by creating diamonds inside of his lungs, he tells the others that they might want to cut him open to get the rest of them.]]
* BadBoss: If you complain about working conditions or paycheck he will [[spoiler:create diamonds from the air in your lungs until you suffocate.]]
* CompositeCharacter: His powers are similar to those of the Molecule Man.
* DraggedOffToHell: [[spoiler:Ghost Rider engulfs him in flames and drags him to a dimension that may or may not be literal Hell but it still a really nasty place.]]
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: He raised Robbie and Gabe, and genuinely loves them. [[spoiler:When he learns that the drive-by which crippled Gabe was a hit attempt meant for him, he's legitimately horrified, though he insists that it's the Bauers fault. He also offers Robbie the chance to join him, but when he doesn't, Eli doesn't hesitate to start making carbon pop out of Robbie, [[SubvertedTrope showing that as much as he loves Robbie, he wants power more]].]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:He may want godlike power, but he does care who he hurts to get it. Killing his coworkers is one thing, but he objects to endangering thousands of innocent lives and warns Coulson to run as he starts up the experiment that will give him powers.]]
* FromNobodyToNightmare: [[spoiler:Eli's motivation to become a god is because he's sick of being treated like a nobody.]]
* FunctionalMagic: [[spoiler:The "god-like power" he gains from the Darkhold is similar to the sorcery used by Kamar-Taj sorcerers in that it works by taking energy from other dimensions through a force of will. However, his is based on creating matter instead of simply using the energy which has the side of effect of creating quakes.]]
* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:Eli wants to play God by using the Darkhold. He is [[VillainousBreakdown not pleased]] when Coulson explains that all the power did was turn him into an inter-dimensional thief.]]
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: He is a gifted scientist who worked hard for years in the name of recognition, only to be snubbed and accused of lying. [[spoiler:Enter Plan B, the Darkhold.]]
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Although no one actually refers to him as 'doctor' in-universe, he has a PhD (in Engineering) and [[spoiler:turns out to be evil.]]
* MotiveRant: Delivers a fairly sympathetic one about the constant institutionalized racism he faced as a Latino scientist.
* NeverMyFault: When Robbie calls him out on his actions, he attempts to blame everything on the Bauers, claiming they started it all.
* ParentalSubstitute: He raised Robbie and Gabe, with Robbie even saying that they saw him as a father.
* RealityWarper: [[spoiler:After using the machine on himself with five of the six quantum power cells hooked up to it, Eli gains the ability to create matter out of nothing. He demonstrates this by generating spikes of carbon from within the bodies of four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and creating an entire wall of it in seconds. It's later revealed he's actually pulling matter/energy from a different dimension, rather than out of nothing per se.]]
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Played with in that he's introduced as alive when his comics counterpart was already dead and had become an evil spirit. [[spoiler:Then he is torched and dragged off to Hell by Ghost Rider in "The Laws of Inferno Dynamics."]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Darkhold Ghosts]]
!!''Darkhold Ghosts (Dr. Lucy Bauer, Hugo, Vincent and Frederick)''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bauer_lucy.jpg]]
!!!'''Species:''' Ghosts (Formerly Human)
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Lilli Birdsell (Dr. Lucy Bauer, pictured), Ward Roberts (Hugo), Usman Ally (Vincent), Dan Donohue (Frederick)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' (Dr. Lucy Bauer first appears in ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS4E1TheGhost Episode 67: "The Ghost"]]'', Hugo, Vincent and Frederick first appear in ''[[Recap/AgentsOfSHIELDS4E2MeetTheNewBoss Episode 68: "Meet the New Boss"]]'')

Four scientists who were involved in an experiment involving a tome called the Darkhold. They were imprisoned for years between two dimensions, transforming them into ghostly apparitions, until one of them, Lucy Bauer, got free and released her comrades. They seek to reverse what was done to them and kill the one responsible.
----
* AlasPoorVillain: Not necessarily [[spoiler:Lucy's death]], but the flashback that immediately precedes it (in which [[spoiler:Eli]] forces her into the machine and transforms her into a ghost), is framed very sympathetically.
* BodyHorror: These aren't the normal transparent ghosts, but more degraded and worse looking over time.
* CanonForeigner: They have no comics counterparts, being new characters created for the show.
* DeaderThanDead: Frederick, already a ghost, is immolated by Ghost Rider's hellfire. Two more die in "Lockup", followed by [[spoiler:Lucy]] in "The Good Samaritan".
* DiscOneFinalBoss: [[spoiler:For Season 4's Ghost Rider arc; they're the main antagonists for the first six episodes and set up as the biggest threat facing S.H.I.E.L.D., but that position is usurped by Eli Morrow to take up the mantle in "The Good Samaritan"]].
* ForScience: Lucy and her husband Joseph in particular were delighted by what the Darkhold could do and how it could be used to help others, but the book corrupted their intentions.
* GhostlyGoals: They are trying to find the Darkhold, reverse what happened to them, and kill the one responsible for their current state.
* JacobMarleyApparel: They all appear in the clothing they wore when they 'died' and bear fresh-looking wounds [[spoiler:presumably inflicted by Eli when he forced them into the machine.]]
* JustThinkOfThePotential: Lucy says this almost word-for-word to Eli when she's trying to explain all of the good the Darkhold could be used to do, such as curing world hunger.
* KickTheDog: Lucy has driven numerous people insane for no clear reason, including May and a man who had moved into her house after her death, even though she's demonstrated herself to be the most rational of the ghosts. While this might have been excused as her being disoriented upon first being released, as she seems calmer once she realizes how long it's been since she was sealed, even after that, this doesn't stop her from driving her husband and an entire prison insane, and doesn't care if innocent people get killed while trying to reverse what happened to her.
* KickTheSonOfABitch: Lucy's first victims after being released are a bunch of gangsters.
* MadScientist: Lucy in particular, obsessed with using a TomeOfEldritchLore to create matter out of nothing, which drives her deeper and deeper into insanity especially after she and her colleagues are transformed into ghosts. Coulson even refers to her as a "pissed-off mad scientist ghost" at one point.
* MadeOfAir: They exist as some form of energy which is selectively visible and tangible. Disrupting their physical form only deters them for a moment before they come back. Only Ghost Rider can grab them as if they were solid.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: They're villainous scientists and Lucy is referred to several times as 'doctor' by other characters.
* NeverLiveItDown: In-universe: Frederick won't stop reminding Lucy that it's her fault for wanting to experiment with the Darkhold.
* NeverMyFault: When confronted by Robbie for her actions, Lucy tries to throw all of the blame onto [[spoiler:Eli]], saying that "he's the one who started this whole nightmare."
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: All ghosts can interact with the world around them, and anyone they touch that isn't also supernatural is driven violently insane.
* ProperlyParanoid: While Lucy and Joseph become obsessed with their experiment, they were right thinking [[spoiler:Eli wanted the power for himself.]]
* SealedEvilInACan: All four were sealed in special boxes [[spoiler:by Eli Morrow.]]
* TilMurderDoUsPart: She touches [[spoiler:her husband, Joseph]] in her ghostly state in order to waken him from his coma so she can get information out of him, but this has the side-effect of driving him mad and [[spoiler:killing him]].
* TouchOfDeath: Anyone the ghosts manage to touch is driven violently insane. The hallucinations get more intense with time, eventually causing the victim to die when their bodies can no longer handle the stress of being constantly on-edge.
* TheUnintelligible: Vincent can only make moaning sounds despite clearly trying to speak.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Andre Deschaine]]
!!''Andre Deschaine''
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced Human
!!!'''Portrayed by''' Brooklyn [=McLinn=]
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/{{Cloak and Dagger|2018}}''

The leader of a community center, who seeks to help people with addictions.
----
* AdaptationSpeciesChange: [[spoiler: D'Spayre, the character Andre is based on in the comics, is a demon. Andre himself is an enhanced human.]]
* BigBad: [[spoiler: Of ''Cloak and Dagger'' Season 2. He is behind the human trafficking ring, abducting women to feed off their despair.]]
* EmotionEater: [[spoiler: He feeds off despair.]]
* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler: Just like Lia, he is revealed to be this.]]
* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: [[spoiler: He has to live with constant pain since the night of the explosion. While that is terrible, it's still no excuse to make tons of people suffer for him.]]
* HopeCrusher: [[spoiler: He removes his pain by draining the despair from others, meaning he has to invoke that despair himself. This includes trafficking young women as sex slaves]].
* ItsAllAboutMe: [[spoiler: Andre doesn't care about the pain he causes other people, he just cares about making his own pain stop.]]
* KnightOfCerebus: [[spoiler: Once he's revealed as the true BigBad, the series takes on a much darker tone, given that he is one man responsible [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil for a sex trafficking ring to feed off human despair]]]].
* NiceGuy: He is nice and supporting towards everybody. [[spoiler: It's all an act.]]
* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler: Andre accuses Tandy of this, since she also went around stealing people's hopes not too long ago. She is disgusted by it.]]
* WalkingSpoiler: If all the white spaces aren't any indication.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Others]]
* [[Characters/MCUCriminalsTerroristsOrganizations Anton Ivanov]]
* [[Characters/MCUHYDRAOperatives Brock Rumlow / Crossbones]]
* [[Characters/MCUErikKillmonger Erik Killmonger]]
* [[Characters/MCUUnitedStatesMilitary Graviton]]
* [[Characters/MCUInhumans Lash]]
* [[Characters/MCUUltron Ultron]]
* [[Characters/MCUCriminalsTerroristsVulturesGang Adrian Toomes / Vulture]]
[[/folder]]

[[center: [- [[Characters/MarvelCinematicUniverse Main Character Index]] > Villainous Individuals and Organizations > '''Other Supervillains''' > [[Characters/MCUUltron Ultron]] | [[Characters/MCUEgoTheLivingPlanet Ego the Living Planet]] | [[Characters/MCUHela Hela]] | [[Characters/MCUErikKillmonger Killmonger]] -]]]

[[folder:Kilgrave]]
!!''Kevin Thompson / Kilgrave''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thompson_kevin.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'm a man of my word... if I feel like it."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DavidTennant, James Freedson-Jackson (young Kilgrave)
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Cristián Lizama and Rodrigo Saavedra (young) (Latin-America Chilean dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/JessicaJones2015''

->''"Jessica, I'm the only one who matches you. We're inevitable."''

A menacing, shadowy figure from Jessica Jones's past who's responsible for her current state. He's a sociopathic man with the power to control the minds of others, which he uses to obtain money, food, shelter, pleasure and even get his victims to commit violence against others and themselves.

* [[Characters/MCUCriminalsTerroristsOrganizations Ulysses Klaue]]

[[folder:Darren Cross / Yellowjacket]]
!!''Dr. Darren Cross / Yellowjacket''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cross_darren_4.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"The laws of nature transcend the laws of man. And I've transcended the laws of nature."'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see Yellowjacket Suit]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yellowjacket_1.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]

!!!'''Species:''' Human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/CoreyStoll
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Juan Frese (Latin-American Spanish dub), Luis Bajo (European Spanish dub), Creator/ToruOkawa (Japanese dub), Pierre Tessier (French dub), Adrien Bletton (Canadian French dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/AntMan''

The current head of Pym Technologies and creator of the Yellowjacket suit. Originally a close protege of Hank Pym, he grew distant due to Hank's unwillingness to share his Pym Particle research with him and has been driven to get the same results as the Pym Particle without Hank.

[[folder:Darren Cross / Yellowjacket]]
!!''Dr. Darren Cross / Yellowjacket''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cross_darren_4.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"The laws of nature transcend the laws of man. And I've transcended the laws of nature."'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see Yellowjacket Suit]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yellowjacket_1.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]

!!!'''Species:''' Human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/CoreyStoll
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Juan Frese (Latin-American Spanish dub), Luis Bajo (European Spanish dub), Creator/ToruOkawa (Japanese dub), Pierre Tessier (French dub), Adrien Bletton (Canadian French dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/AntMan''

The current head of Pym Technologies and creator of the Yellowjacket suit. Originally a close protege of Hank Pym, he grew distant due to Hank's unwillingness to share his Pym Particle research with him and has been driven to get the same results as the Pym Particle without Hank.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: To Hope, who he seems to have feelings for. They may be romantic or platonic, but he does like and respect her.
-->'''Cross:''' You know, I came to the house the other night to kill him, but you were there.
-->'''Hope:''' You're sick and I can help you. Just put the gun down.
-->'''Cross:''' I wasn't ready to kill you then, but I think I am now!
* AdaptationalSuperpowerChange: In the comics, he had SuperStrength and later mood-based size-shifting abilities. As the Yellowjacket in the film, he can use lasers and can change his size at will.
* AgeLift: In his original comics appearance he was a middle-aged man with an adult son; in the MCU, he's played by Corey Stoll (late 30s) and is heavily suggested to be close in age to Hope (who is, specifically, 35 years old).
* AscendedExtra: He was a very minor villain in the comic who became the BigBad of the movie. Conveniently, the 2015 ''Ant-Man'' comic book have him and his company as the main villain.
* AnimalThemedSuperbeing: His suit is black and yellow with protrusions on the back that evoke the image of a wasp.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: Just like Scott's suit, his utilises Pym Particles to shrink.
* ArchEnemy: To Scott. With Darren's jealousy and hatred over Pym favoring Scott over him and Scott destroying his company as well as Darren threatening Cassie, the enmity becomes mutual for both of them.
* AxCrazy: A subdued version that gets scarily worse over the course of the movie. Hank suggests it to be from exposure to the Pym Particle, and Darren was already unstable to begin with before he began to work at replicating his mentor's technology.
* BadassBoast: "The laws of nature transcend the laws of man, and I have transcended the laws of nature".
* BadassBookworm: He's a MadScientist who fights Ant-Man with his own, upgraded suit.
* BadBoss: He kills several of his own men in his attempt to murder Scott.
* BaldOfEvil: Darren has his head shaved in a film where all the heroes have hair, even the old man.
* BigBad: As the one who created and plans to sell the Yellowjacket suit, he is the main villain of the film.
* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler:During their first fight, Scott (hilariously) swats him into a bug electrocutor that temporarily kills him, before electrocuting him back to life. If Cross wasn't royally pissed off then, he was BEYOND pissed after that.]]
* CardCarryingVillain: You have to be a self-professed villain to straight up tell someone that you're selling the Yellowjacket suit to [[spoiler:''HYDRA'']] with a smile on your face.
* CharacterTic: Putting a reassuring hand on someone's shoulder, in a way that's not the least bit reassuring.
* ChewingTheScenery: Once he dons the Yellowjacket suit, he unhinges even further as he fights Scott, until he's shouting while blasting things to bits with his lasers.
-->'''Darren:''' ''[After stepping on, and accidentally activating, an [=iPod=]]'' '''I'M GONNA DISINTEGRATE YOU!!!'''
-->'''Siri:''' [[SoundtrackDissonance Now playing "Disintegration" by The Cure.]]
* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: The Yellowjacket suit gives him very similar powers to Ant-Man, although it comes equipped with shoulder-mounted lasers while the Ant-Man suit does not have any weapons at all.
* CombatTentacles: Two tentacles that fire energy blasts like stingers.
* CompositeCharacter: Of ''four'' characters from the comics:
** This version of Yellowjacket is not an alter-ego of Hank Pym, but instead a villain and alter-ego to Darren Cross.
** In the comics Cross is a StarterVillain for Scott Lang that has nothing to do with the Yellowjacket title. Though this later [[RetCanon gets introduced back into the comics]] due to the film's influence.
** He also shares some personality traits with ComicBook/{{Ultron}}, such as his "daddy issues" with Pym and Hank seeing a darker version of himself in him.
** The choice to make Cross completely bald in the film is probably a reference to Pym's original MadScientist ArchEnemy in the comics, Egghead.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Cross is the CEO of his own company and thinks nothing of shrink-killing people who disagree with him [[spoiler: and supplying weapons to HYDRA.]]
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:It's hard not to cringe as different parts of his suit start shrinking at different times, agonizingly crushing him.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: He's usually ready with a quip or put-down.
* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: In ''Ant-Man'', he is killed when his Yellowjacket suit (tampered with by Scott Lang) crushes him to death, but in the comics, he dies of natural causes (essentially a heart attack) during a fight with Scott.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: He murders a coworker who offhandedly speaks out against his work after stating that he has 'transcended the laws of nature.' He's a cold-blooded murderer with an ego beyond reproach. [[MadScientist He even does it with his shrink ray.]] [[KickTheDog Then flushes what's left of him down the toilet.]]
* EvilCounterpart:
** To Scott Lang, who he could also count as a {{foil}} to. While Scott is an ex-con who uses the Ant-Man suit for noble purposes, Cross is the powerful CEO of Pym Technologies and uses the Yellowjacket suit for power and destruction.
** He could count as one to Hope as well. Both hold a grudge against Hank Pym by the start of the movie. But while Hope manages to reconcile with Hank, Cross does not and wants to prove himself better than Hank at any cost.
* EvilGenius: His inventions are fueled by complete disregard for the safety of others and they're being sold to [[spoiler: Hydra!]]
* EvilIsHammy: '''I'M GONNA DISINTEGRATE YOU!!!'''
-->'''[[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Siri]]:''' [[SoundtrackDissonance Now playing]] "Music/{{Disintegration}}" by Music/TheCure.
* EvilPlan: Re-invent the Pym Particle and make a commercial success of it in order to [[SurpassedTheTeacher prove himself better than his mentor]].
* FauxAffablyEvil: He usually acts friendly and cheerful, even as he commits horrible acts like murder.
* {{Foil}}:
** An emotionally unstable business executive desperate for Pym's approval and holds stark similarities to him, in contrast to Scott, who's the criminal disciple of Pym, but is less similar and holds much greater emotional maturity.
** There is also a sharp contrast between the Antman suit and the Yellowjacket suit. Hank emphasizes the Antman suit carries no weaponry, with Scott utilizing size changing discs and his ant buddies in combat, while the Yellowjacket is chock full of deadly weapons. There's also the fact the Antman suit is designed for infiltration and camouflage, while the Yellowjacket is bright and let's enemies know its presence.
* ForScience: One of his earlier motivations, along with WellDoneSonGuy, is to recreate the Pym Particle formula.
* ForTheEvulz: He uses lambs as test subjects for his fatal shrink ray rather than cheaper and less [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute empathic]] mice for no discernible reason. Then he flicks the container like a kid with insects.
* GoneHorriblyRight: Hank choose him as his apprentice because he saw himself in Cross. Then he distanced himself because he started seeing ''too much''.
* GranolaGuy: A minor case from his morning meditations, a reference to the NewAgeRetroHippie elements of Silicon Valley. He doesn't have any other traits.
* GreenEyedMonster: There's more than a little jealousy in Darren's hatred of Scott, who is Hank's new pupil.
* HeelRealization: Averted: there are a few times where he seems a little unsure of himself. After killing Frank, he stares at himself in the mirror. He later shows some vulnerability by asking Hank why he was pushed away. [[spoiler:Cross was also conflicted about killing Hope, and had to engineer a situation where he seemingly had no choice to be 'ready'. Finally, he seems a little affected when Cassie asks him if he's a monster.]] Of course, whenever he comes close to showing an inkling of morality, he swerves hard in the other direction.
* InstantCostumeChange: He unshrinks and dons the Yellowjacket suit in about five seconds while Scott is distracted.
* ItAmusedMe: One of the reasons he sold the Yellowjacket suit to [[spoiler:HYDRA]], other than to spite Hank, is because he "enjoyed himself".
* JawDrop: [[spoiler:His reaction upon seeing Pym's work facility explode, ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill then implode]]'' on the night it was going to be given to him]].
* {{Jerkass}}: Outright bullying to Pym in his actions, and taunts Scott throughout their battle.
* JerkassHasAPoint: What IS the difference between testing on a mouse or a goat? Both are feeling creatures.
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Darren's weapon of choice before donning his suit is a Pym Particle device that causes people to turn inside-out as they shrink. Scott sabotages his suit during their final battle, causing Darren to slowly and painfully implode in a similar process.]]
* LackOfEmpathy: He does not seem to care ''at all'' that he killed a number of his own employees trying to kill Scott, and even less that completely innocent people would likely die as a result of him selling the Yellowjacket to HYDRA.
* LargeAndInCharge: Darren towers over many people including his former mentor Hank, and the more lanky Scott. Corey Stoll is 1.87 metres (6' 2") in height and fairly muscular, making his portrayal physically imposing -- especially when he puts on the Yellowjacket suit.
* LudicrousGibs: [[spoiler:He uses an imperfect version of the Pym Particle device to cause people to shrink and implode into tiny red blobs]].
* MadScientist: He was able to to reverse engineer the Pym Particles, after all -- and suffered SanitySlippage as a result, due to unprotected exposure.
* MadeOfIron: Gets stung by multiple bullet ants at once, [[spoiler:then later swatted into a bug zapper and repeatedly electrocuted]], but still doesn't go down. Hank even rightfully [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat believes him dead at one point]].
%%* ManipulativeBastard
* MoodSwinger: This guy can go from professional, to manic, to enraged, to depressed, and then back to manic again over the course of a half-hour.
* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Darren has a way of getting very close to people he's having chats with that tends to get very menacing, especially when his off-kilter behavior is added into the mix...
* NotSoDifferent: Hank took Darren on as his apprentice because he saw some of himself in him. [[spoiler:Seeing too much of himself in Darren is also why he pushed him away.]]
* PetTheDog: He's largely a good boss to Hope and is very respectful of her, possibly due to certain unspoken feelings. She's virtually his OnlyFriend.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: His suit allows him to fight on equal footing against Scott.
* PrimaryColorChampion: Inverted. His predominately yellow suit has small red markings and allows him to fire bolts of blue energy, but he's the BigBad of his film.
* PsychopathicManchild: His MoodSwinger tendencies plus his clear desire for attention from Hank makes him come off as very childish most of the time -- as well as petty, selfish and unstable.
* APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil: Hank Pym was his mentor and Cross went down a dark path. Now they're enemies.
* RetCanon: Both Darren Cross and Yellowjacket existed in the comics as established characters, but in 2016 Cross took up the mantle of the Yellowjacket identity, due to the events of the film.
* RevengeBeforeReason: [[spoiler:His initial goal of escaping with the Yellowjacket suit is tossed aside in favor of taking revenge on Scott for imploding his building and all the research in it, and then smacking him into a bug zapper. It's likely that Scott's actions (and being zapped) finally drove him [[SanitySlippage completely over the edge]].]]
* SanitySlippage: He wasn't all that stable to begin with, and a combination of the Pym particles and his own insecurities cause him to grow more ruthless and psychotically paranoid over the course of the film.
* ShadowArchetype: He's inherited not only Hank's Yellowjacket identity but also the MadScientist and SanitySlippage traits typically associated with it, and serves to demonstrate why Hank stopped using the Ant-Man suit in the first place. Invoked late in the movie.
-->'''Darren Cross:''' All those years ago, you picked me. What did you see in me?\\
'''Hank Pym:''' I saw myself.\\
'''Darren Cross:''' ''[hurt]'' Then why did you push me away?\\
'''Hank Pym:''' Because I saw ''too much'' of myself.
* SharpDressedMan: He's wearing a three-piece suit for much of the movie until he dons the Yellowjacket suit near the climax.
* ShrinkRay: He carries one, which he uses on those who disagree with his ideas. Since it's imperfect, it also turns them into a lifeless, tiny pile of mush.
* SizeShifter: He can shrink like Ant-Man using the Yellowjacket suit.
* TheUnfettered: He's willing to use Hank Pym's technology as a weapon and do everything from murder to working with [[spoiler:HYDRA]] to make it happen.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:He is already suffering a SanitySlippage as the movie progresses, but when he sees his company being obliterated by Pym's plan coming to fruition, he completely snaps, puts the Yellowjacket suit on and spends the rest of the movie trying to get revenge on Scott. Then Scott throws him into a bug zapper, which shreds whatever sanity was left.]]
* VillainRespect: Downplayed example -- Darren can't help but admire that despite [[OldSuperhero his age]], Hank can still throw a mean right cross.
-->'''Darren:''' Wow! ... ''Wow!'' I mean, I saw that punch coming a mile away, but I thought it'd be all weak and pathetic!
* WellDoneSonGuy: Darren considers himself a surrogate son to Hank, and the feeling was returned. Much of his motivation stems from a desire to both prove himself and outdo his mentor, since he feels abandoned and betrayed by him.
-->'''Cross:''' What do you call the only man who can arm the most powerful weapon in the world?
-->'''Hank:''' The most powerful man in the world.
-->'''Cross:''' You proud of me yet?
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Cross became mentally unstable due to unprotected exposure to [[ToxicPhlebotinum Pym particles]] over thousands of experiments trying to reproduce Hank's technology.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: A heavy YMMV on this one, but one has to wonder to what effect the Pym Particles have affected his mind. He's certainly not on speaking terms with sanity, and he has little moments of vague humanity. [[spoiler:It's also oddly affecting to see him watch his beloved company crumble to the ground right before his eyes.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:He has zero qualms about threatening Cassie and was fully prepared to kill her.]]

[[folder:Helmut Zemo]]
!!''Colonel Helmut Zemo''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/00000_000001_03_copie1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I have experience, and patience. A man can do anything if he has those."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DanielBruhl
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Javier Olguín (Latin-American Spanish dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' | ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' [[note]](archive photography)[[/note]]

->''"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."''

A former special ops colonel with a grudge against the Avengers.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: He's quite handsome here, while his comic counterpart has to wear a mask to hide his hideously charred, disfigured face. This is actually true to his first appearance in the comics as a one-shot villain, before he was scarred upon becoming a recurring character.
* AdaptationalHeroism: His comic counterpart and that of his father were ''literal Nazis'' who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did (''eventually'') grow out of the former, he still tends to try the later. Here, despite [[spoiler:being on a black ops killing team]], his motivation is much simpler and more sympathetic. Neither have any ties to HYDRA, either.
* AdaptationalIntelligence: Although he is not nearly the fighter his comic-counterpart is, his cunning and strategic mind allow him to achieve something he never did in the comics: [[spoiler:drive the Avengers apart.]]
* AdaptationalNationality: In the comics Helmut Zemo is German, but here he is [[spoiler:a Sokovian.]]
* AdaptationalWimp: In the comics Zemo is a major adversary of Captain America and the Avengers. Here he's reduced to just an [[TheEveryman everyman]] who serves as a [[CharactersAsDevice plot device]] to spark the Avengers Civil War. Most of the Avengers barely notice him being there and even though he did have a major hand in causing trouble, he poses nowhere near as much of a threat as his comics counterpart did.
* AdaptationDistillation: His backstory is much more watered down, without any ties to HYDRA or Germany. Here's he's just a victim of the Avengers' collateral damage [[spoiler:seeking revenge for his family's deaths.]]
* AffablyEvil: He's the BigBad of ''Civil War'' and is more than willing to commit mass murder to achieve his ends, but the times he acts polite or remorseful seem genuine. He states he'd rather avoid unnecessary deaths if he can, [[EvenEvilHasStandards has a few standards]], apologizes to [[spoiler:T'Challa for killing his father]], and has [[NiceToTheWaiter regular courteous interactions with a staff member of the hotel he's staying at]]. Considering he's [[spoiler:just a normal, grieving man who's dedicated to avenging the deaths of his family]], it makes sense he wouldn't act like a cackling madman.
* AntiVillain: Despite the grim and often hypocritical in hindsight actions he resorts to, he does have some good traits and was hoping for a cleaner way to get what he wanted first. Also, his motive -- [[spoiler:revenge for the collateral damage-induced loss of his family]] -- is at least a little sympathetic.
* AppleOfDiscord: [[spoiler:His EvilPlan is to find evidence that Bucky Barnes murdered Tony Stark's parents while under HYDRA control and show it to Stark, so Bucky's friend Steve Rogers and Tony will turn on each other over whether to spare or kill Bucky, and the Avengers will be ripped apart as they side with one leader or the other.]]
* BadassNormal: Compared to the Avengers, he's relatively normal. But, his greatest strength comes from his patience and manipulation.
* TheBadGuyWins: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. [[spoiler:He accomplishes his main goal in dividing the Avengers and is content with this. However, none of them end up dead and the potential for reunion, however far off, is given. He also remains alive in the end, despite trying to commit suicide.]]
* BatmanGambit: He's good at finding ways to make other people do things for him by exploiting their predictable behavior.
** [[spoiler:He framed Bucky Barnes for bombing the United Nations, then relied on everyone else including Captain America hunting him down for it, and further that no one but the Avengers would even be capable of killing Bucky, to get access to Barnes and his knowledge of HYDRA bases.]]
** [[spoiler:He arranges for his ruse to be discovered by the media, relying on Tony to find out and make amends with Captain America, so they'll both find the Siberean compound where Zemo reveals to them that Bucky killed Tony's parents.]]
** [[spoiler:His entire plan is based on assumptions from the S.H.I.E.L.D. intel on the Avengers he's studied that Captain America's over-protectiveness of his friends and Iron Man's complex over the death of his parents would mean not only that the two would turn on each other if Bucky's involvement in the Starks' death was revealed, but that Steve wouldn't have talked to Tony about Bucky's potential involvement beforehand.]]
*** [[spoiler:His setup gambled on the fact that it is a conflict that only works if there are no voices of reason to hold either of them back. The fact that the airport fight left only 2 active members of the avengers, Bucky and a third party present in the Hydra compound in a place where no one would interfere was a happy accident for him since most of the Avengers present could have prevented things from reaching the breaking point.]]
* BigBad: The lead villain in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar''.
* TheChessmaster: He plays all the Avengers like pawns. [[spoiler:He frames Bucky for a crime, to have the world hunt him and lure him out of hiding. This partially causes the Avengers to turn on each other, divided over Bucky's innocence. He takes the UN interrogator's place, extorting information out of Bucky and using the trigger words to activate Bucky's soldier conditioning. Before finally showing Tony the tape of what really happened to his parents, sending him into a murderous rage to kill Bucky.]]
* ColonelBadass: He used to be a Colonel [[spoiler:in the Sokovian Special Forces]] and he is one of the most effective foes the Avengers have faced.
* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: He's never called "Baron Zemo," the title he goes by in the comics. [[spoiler:Justified, since he is not German nobility in this version. His title is ''Colonel'']].
* CompositeCharacter: [[spoiler:He takes Klaw's role as the man who murders King T'Chaka.]]
* CrusadingWidower: [[spoiler:His wife was among the civilian casualties in Sokovia. He keeps a recording of her last voice message on his phone]].
* DeathSeeker: [[spoiler: Once he has put Iron Man against Bucky and Cap, he first attempts to persuade Black Panther into killing him, then decides to shoot himself. Black Panther catches the bullet before snagging him a headlock so he can face justice.]]
* DivideAndConquer: [[spoiler:His plan against the Avengers, seeing that there's absolutely no chance he can fight them on his own. He even compares the Avengers to some sort of a mighty empire, which can only be felled by using this tactic.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Subverted. He attempts to kill himself by shooting himself in the head after getting Iron Man to fight Bucky and Cap, and after Black Panther decides not to kill him for revenge. Black Panther stops him from killing himself so that he can turn him over the authorities to face justice for the crimes he committed in the film.]]
* EarlyBirdCameo: According to a set visit, he will have a bigger role in the MCU down the line. Bruhl further confirmed in March 2018 that Marvel already has future plans for the character, though the specifics are a mystery for now.
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: He was a colonel in [[spoiler:EKO Scorpion, Sokovia's black ops kill squad. Even if Sokovia was a developing Balkans country, that still makes him pretty dangerous.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** In a stark contrast to his comics depiction, he lacks ties to HYDRA and outright states that they can all go to Hell.
** Despite his profound hatred of the Avengers, [[spoiler:he refuses to unleash the other five Winter Soldiers, as they're worse than Bucky and would do untold damage to the world]].
* EvilGenius: Aside from his abilities as TheChessmaster, [[spoiler:Zemo was able to [[TheCracker crack]] the HYDRA files on the Winter Soldier that Black Widow released to the Internet and build an [=EMP=] bomb.]]
* FourEyesZeroSoul: When he infiltrates the UN compound to activate the Winter Soldier, he wears a pair of glasses as part of his disguise.
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler:His wife, father and son were crushed by Sokovia's debris when it fell from the skies.]]
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Zemo was "just" a special forces operative, [[spoiler:but when his family was killed, he used his intel on HYDRA to take on the Avengers and came closer to destroying the team than any previous villain.]]
* GambitRoulette: The final part his master plan relies on little other than his assumptions on the personalities and capabilities of various characters after studying thousands of pieces of H.Y.D.R.A. / S.H.I.E.L.D. intel that Black Widow dumped online back in ''Winter Soldier''. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...
** [[spoiler:A) Captain America and Bucky had captured Zemo before Iron Man arrived.]]
** [[spoiler:B) Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.]]
** [[spoiler:C) Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.]]
** [[spoiler:D) Black Panther had actually succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their three fights during the course of the film (of course it’s highly unlikely that he even knew the Black Panther ''existed'').]]
** [[spoiler:E) Captain America actually told Iron Man that his parent's death were orchestrated by HYDRA.]]
* HeadsIWinTailsYouLose: Even if any of the above had happened, Zemo still would’ve won because his entire goal was for the Avengers to disband - whether through an amicable parting-of-ways or a bloodbath - it was always a matter of how big his win would be. The only real flaw in his plan was the [[spoiler:interference of Black Panther, and the creation of the Sokovia Accords, both of which he’d have no way to account for]].
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler: He wants to take revenge for the death of his family which he blames on the Avengers. In doing so, he is responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people himself. He even earns someone coming after ''him'' for revenge in T'Challa.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: His motives remain unclear for much of the film.
* HighCollarOfDoom: He does the MarqueeAlterEgo and NotWearingTights the whole film, but his winter gear in the third act features a large collar turned up, giving off this vibe.
* {{Hypocrite}}: [[spoiler:Zemo hates the Avengers after the collateral damage they caused killed his family. So he decides to split the team up and in the process causes collateral damage that kills other people's family members. At least by the end, he appears to recognize this and it's a motivator behind his AttemptedSuicide.]]
* InNameOnly: Aside from retaining his name, relationship with his father, [[TheChessmaster keen strategic mind]], and hatred of Captain America, Zemo has nothing in common with his comic book counterpart (who is a costumed villain known as Baron Zemo, a wealthy German noble, the son of one of Captain America's greatest foes, and wears a mask to hide his hideously disfigured face).
* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler:After explaning his motivations to T'Challa and apologising for the death of his father Zemo tries to shoot himself in the head. T'Challa however has none of that and stops him to make sure he pays for his crimes and turns him over to the authorities.]]
* ItsPersonal: Zemo has a personal vendetta against the Avengers. [[spoiler:His family was killed during the Battle of Sokovia and he simply wants revenge on those he holds responsible.]]
* KillAndReplace: [[spoiler:Murders the psychologist who was supposed to be evaluating Bucky and takes his place, taking the opportunity to activate the brainwash in Bucky during the evaluation.]]
* KnightOfCerebus: He's a VillainousUnderdog, but [[spoiler:manages to tear the Avengers apart through tactics. Unlike previous villains, his methods includes manipulating Tony into trying to execute Bucky to avenge the deaths of his parents and turning on Steve in the process.]]
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** [[spoiler: He uses Bucky's TriggerPhrase while the latter's locked in an apparatus, making him go on a rampage. By the end of ''Civil War'', he himself is locked in the same apparatus.]]
* MarqueeAlterEgo: Unlike the comics, Zemo does not wear a mask -- or any kind of costume at all.
* MisplacedRetribution: [[spoiler:Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still ''his'' idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.]]
* MoralMyopia: [[spoiler:He seeks to avenge his family, but he ends up killing multiple innocents who surely had family of their own. He does seem to acknowledge this, seeing as how he apologizes to Black Panther for killing his father.]]
* MovieSuperheroesWearBlack: Instead of the purple and gold costume he had in the comics, he sticks to dark civilian clothes. Near the end of ''Civil War'', he has a pitch-black coat with [[HighCollarOfDoom a large collar.]]
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: While his plan does succeed in its goal, it does allow [[spoiler:Steve to find Bucky, after fruitlessly spending two years scouring the Earth for him, and gives them an ally who can get the brainwashing out of Bucky's head.]]
* NoNonsenseNemesis: Zemo is an ''extremely'' pragmatic man who knows full well that he's just an ordinary person in an [[WorldOfBadass extraordinary world]], and realizes that it will give him no quarter if he were to dally about with regards to his vengeance. He has no choice but to be utterly cutthroat if he wants to complete his goal.
* NonActionBigBad: He never directly fights any of the Avengers, acknowledging that he could never physically stand up to the likes of them. Instead, he relies more on subterfuge and deception.
* NothingLeftToDoButDie: [[spoiler:After getting Tony to fight Steve and Bucky, Zemo decides to listen to his wife's voicemail one last time, before deleting it and attempting to commit suicide]].
* NothingPersonal: [[spoiler:He tells T'Challa that he is sorry for killing his father and that he seemed like a good man.]]
* NotWearingTights: He doesn't wear anything remotely resembling a costume here.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: [[spoiler:His son was a casualty from the Avengers' fight with Ultron.]]
* PapaWolf: The reason he's out to destroy the Avengers? [[spoiler:His family was killed in their fight with Ultron.]]
* PyrrhicVictory: Zemo succeeds in [[spoiler:fracturing [[TheTeam the Avengers]] and getting the majority of them branded as fugitives, but he is also captured by Black Panther and still has to face prosecution for the murders he committed. It also works vice versa on his capture being a PyrrhicVictory for the heroes.]] Best summarized by the following exchange:
-->'''Everett K. Ross:''' So how does it feel? To spend all that time, all that effort, and to see it fail so spectacularly?\\
'''Helmut Zemo:''' [[WasItReallyWorthIt ... Did it?]]
* RevengeMyopia: [[spoiler:Getting his revenge was worth anything -- including inflicting upon others the same pain he complained about suffering.]] Lampshaded at the end of the movie, when T'Challa observes that the revenge he seeks has consumed him.
* ASinisterClue: Zemo is left-handed and is the BigBad of ''Civil War''.
* SuicideByCop: [[spoiler:After apologizing to T'Challa for killing his father, he says that he seemed like a good man "with a dutiful son", saying this last part with a meaningful glance, obviously hinting that he's fine with T'Challa taking vengeance upon him now. When T'Challa refuses to do so, Zemo attempts to just shoot himself, but T'Challa thwarts this effort as well.]]
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: There's nothing from his looks that would suggest that he's more than just an everyday guy.
* TragicVillain: [[spoiler:He wants to take revenge on the Avengers for the death of his family in Sokovia.]]
* TranquilFury: Despite spending the whole movie on a murderous crusade, Zemo avoids all the theatrics of Loki or Ultron and seldom even raises his voice. [[spoiler:This includes when he finally spells out his motives to the heroes.]]
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler:By breaking up the Avengers, Zemo left the world unprepared for when Thanos and his alien hordes show up.]]
* VillainousUnderdog: He's not a PhysicalGod, not an alien, not a SuperSoldier or even an extraordinarily capable BadassNormal. He's just a former military colonel with patience, a simple yet effective plan, and ThePowerOfHate.
* XanatosSpeedChess: He's not in control of everything that happens in ''Civil War'' (for one thing, he has nothing to do with [[spoiler:the Sokovia Accords]]), but he's good at taking advantage of unexpected situations to further his plans.

[[folder:Ava Starr / Ghost]]
!!''Ava Starr / Ghost''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghost_antmanandthewasp.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You have no idea what I'm capable of."'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see her as Ghost]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghost_58.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/HannahJohnKamen, [=RaeLynn=] Bratten (young Ava)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp''

->''"They call it molecular disequilibrium. A rather dull name I think. Doesn't quite do justice to what it means. Every cell in my body is torn apart and stitched back together, over and over every day."''

A mysterious individual can phase through solid objects.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: The comics version of Ghost is an older, plain-looking man. In ''Ant Man and the Wasp'' she's played by Hannah-John Karmen, a beautiful woman.
* AdaptationalBadass: This version of Ghost doesn't need the suit to use her powers, and is a significantly better hand-to-hand combatant who appears to have some kind of enhanced strength. That said, she [[AdaptationalWimp loses some of the other talents in the transition]].
* AdaptationDeviation: MCU Ghost nails the look and power-type in regards to comic accuracy, but the similarities end there.
** MCU Ghost is a younger, mixed-race woman. Comics Ghost is an older, white man.
** MCU Ghost got her powers from a freak accident. Comics Ghost is [[ClothesMakeTheSuperman tech-based]] and draws all of his power from the suit.
** MCU Ghost relies entirely on hand-to-hand combat and has some kind of SuperStrength. Comics Ghost mainly relies on evading his enemies and using weapons and gadgets.
** MCU Ghost has her origin related to Hank Pym and menaces Ant-Man and the Wasp. Comics Ghost has had nothing to do with Pym and is chiefly an ComicBook/IronMan villain.
** MCU Ghost has a sympathetic backstory and is looking out for her survival. Comic Ghost in comparison has a [[TheSpook murky]] backstory and is a anti-corporate terrorist willing to die for his beliefs.
** MCU Ghost has ties to Elihas Starr (Egghead) and Bill Foster (Goliath) as her biological and adopted parent, respectively, and was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Comics Ghost had nothing to do with any of them.
* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler:Unlike her comic book counterpart, who is a paranoid terrorist, Ava's just looking for a way to stabilize her condition and only explicitly wants to kill Janet out of necessity... Until it turns out that she doesn't have to. Although it has to be said that Comic Ghost did act quite heroic during his time as Thunderbolt, saving his teammates' lives and the world]].
* AdaptationalWimp: The comics version of Ghost was an expert at firearms and explosives, and furthermore was a skilled hacker (being a corporate saboteur and all) who could disrupt enemy electronics and would've definitely proved useful against our heroes. This version doesn't use guns at all, nor can she hack anything. That said, she [[AdaptationalBadass gains more in the way of direct combat skills]].
* AffablyEvil: in the loosest sense as she is not evil (though she is Scott and Hope's main enemy throughout the film), she does show respect for Scott and refuses to kill anyone who she doesn't have to.
* AgeLift: Ghost is [[https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/62014/1228415-prv5120_pg7.jpg an old man]] beneath the mask in the comics, but here Ghost's actress was only 27 at the time of filming.
* AllThereInTheManual: Her last name, Starr, is only explicitly identified in the credits, though her father is mentioned as having the same last name during the film proper.
* AntiVillain: [[spoiler: Her only goal is to stop her powers from killing her, with the only villainous aspect of her character being that she is willing to do anything to do that. Even that aspect is a result of her desperation to avoid dying and the effect her condition is having on her mind rather than any kind of malice.]]
* AxCrazy: A subtle but justified example in that it's clear that feeling as much pain as she does all the time and knowing that her life is ticking away is causing her to become unhinged, to the point where [[spoiler:Bill Foster]] looks alarmed when she suggests [[spoiler:kidnapping Cassie.]]
* BadassBiker \ BikerBabe: She commandeers a motorcycle from one of Burch's {{Mooks}} during the climactic chase scene, and proves plenty skilled with it.
* BigBadEnsemble: Alongside Sonny Burch, she's one of the main villains of ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp''.
* BlessedWithSuck: [[spoiler:Her intangibility powers are slowly killing her.]]
* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: Subverted. Ava does not in fact need the suit to use her powers, though it does help her control them and keep her solid. Scott was surprised to learn this. It's also another contrast to her comics version, which played this entirely straight.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Although she has body-altering abilities like Darren Cross did, they're based on intangibility rather than size-shifting. Also, while Darren came to hate Pym, his mentor, and was driven by unhinged megalomania, Ava is merely motivated out of a desperation to survive, and cares about her [[ParentalSubstitute parental-figure]] [[spoiler:Bill Foster]]. Even their approaches to [[spoiler:Cassie Lang are different. While Cross has zero qualms about kidnapping her and is more than willing to [[WouldHurtAChild hurt her]], Ava proposes it out of desperation and is easily talked out of it after Foster [[WhatTheHellHero rebukes her]] for suggesting this.]]
* DarkActionGirl: A deadly, highly intelligent, and extremely athletic thief. She fights on even footing with both Scott and Hope at multiple points throughout the film, and even overpowers them on a few occasions.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: [[spoiler:Her father was disgraced by Hank Pym. In a desperate bid to restore his name he attempted an experiment that backfired and caused the deaths of her parents, and cursed her with intangibility that seems to cause her constant, progressively worse pain. She was then used by S.H.I.E.L.D. to do their dirty work, for which she claims she feels as though she lost her soul.]]
* {{Determinator}}: Ava's sole motivation is [[spoiler: finding a cure for her powers, which are gradually killing her]]. She's willing to do ''anything'' if it means achieving that goal.
* EasilyForgiven: [[spoiler:Instead of being mad at Ava for trying to kill her, Janet stabilizes her condition. Scott, Hank, and Hope don't seem that worried either.]]
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[spoiler:She genuinely cares for her father-figure Bill Foster and panics slightly when he's in danger.]]
* EvilBrit: Creator/HannahJohnKamen retained her normal accent while portraying the role, though Ava's ethnicity is never commented on. Oh, and she's a DarkActionGirl who serves as one of the film's villains.
* FateWorseThanDeath: She sees her quantum instability as this, being forced to live in a state of constant pain all while her very existence is slowly being drained away. She still doesn't want to die though, and her whole objective is to find a cure for her condition.
-->'''Ghost:''' [[spoiler:My parents were dead. I wasn't so lucky.]]
* {{Foil}}: To [[BigBadEnsemble co-antagonist]] Sonny Burch. Ghost is a young mixed-race black woman who's an AntiVillain at worst, does all the fighting herself without any minions, and is merely looking out for her own survival. In contrast, Sonny Burch is an older white man that has little-to-no sympathetic qualities while acting FauxAffablyEvil, doesn't do any of the fighting and instead [[ZergRush sends his minions to do all the dirty work]], and is chasing after what he knows will be the next gold rush.
* GenderFlip: Ghost is a man in the comics, but is portrayed by a woman in the MCU.
* HeelFaceTurn: She wasn't all that evil in the first place, [[spoiler:but once Janet stabilizes her, she's distraught at everything she's done and tries to surrender herself to the authorities. The heroes are all quick to forgive her, however, and Bill stops her from doing that. In the mid-credits scene, Scott mentions that the reason they're gathering the Quantum Realm energy is to continue healing "their new ghost friend."]]
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: She wears her face-concealing helmet less and less as more of her TragicVillain nature becomes clear, and is unmasked for a majority of the climax after Scott breaks the faceplate.
* IntangibleMan: She has the ability to phase through solid matter.
* {{Invisibility}}: Her molecular instability also means she can phase out of the visible spectrum, and thus make sneak attacks more easily.
* InNameOnly: Apart from the name, appearance and powers, this version of Ghost has little in common with the comics version of the character.
* InTheHood: Her costume sports a hood much like her comic counterpart's classic outfit. It helps add to her enigmatic presence.
* ItsAllAboutMe: A rare [[TragicVillain sympathetic version]]. While anyone in her shoes would also be desperate to stay alive, she constantly puts her own needs above everything else -- berating the very man who devoted his whole life to saving her, callously attempting to drain the life out of Janet for personal use and even seriously considering [[WouldHurtAChild kidnapping an innocent child]] (before [[EveryoneHasStandards Foster puts his foot down and warns her that's a bridge too far]], anyway). The implication is that the constant pain and agony she endures every second of every day has taken its toll on her psyche, to the point of overwhelming her compassion and empathy. [[spoiler:Once she is cured, at least temporarily, she has a HeelRealization about this and feels she should face consequences for it.]]
* KnightOfCerebus: She's pretty much the only character in ''Ant-Man And The Wasp'' that has zero comedic qualities, and the film's normally lighthearted mood gets ''significantly'' darker and more serious whenever she's on screen.
* LethalHarmlessPowers: The film raises the implication a few times that her {{intangibility}} could theoretically cause horrible injuries were she to turn solid inside another person, notably when she threatens Hank by phasing an arm through his throat. She also kills [[spoiler:Agent Stoltz]] by phasing her hand into his chest and doing ''something'' that leaves him critically injured.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: While considered a villain and having done some less-than-savory things, she's ultimately just scared for her life and doesn't ''truly'' wish to be evil. This is in comparison to co-antagonist Sonny Burch, a very clear-cut villain motivated by greed.
* LightIsNotGood: Her costume is all white, but that does not reflect her alignment. [[spoiler:[[DownplayedTrope Though it does indicate she's not a horrible person.]]]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:She's horrified when Janet, the person she'd planned to sacrifice to save herself, willingly helps stabilize her condition. She's so consumed with guilt that she considers turning herself in.]]
* MythologyGag: Though her costume is mostly modeled after Ghost's modern design from the ''Comicbook/{{Thunderbolts}}'' comics, she still wears a hood, much like Ghost originally did in TheEighties.
* NamedByTheAdaptation: The name of her comic book counterpart is unknown, unlike the MCU version, whose name is Ava Starr.
* NecessaryEvil: Her goal is [[spoiler:saving her own life]] and while she wants to avoid any amount of unnecessary pain to get there, she's not too picky on who she hurts if it means getting what she wants.
* NeverMyFault: Ava blames Hank Pym for the death of her parents and ruining her life. In her flashback however, had Ava listened to her father and left with her mother, not only would she lose only her father, she would not have gained her powers.
* NoNonsenseNemesis: She does ''not'' waste time in pursuing her objective; no comedic gags here.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Hannah John-Kamen maintains her English accent, despite no indication Ghost is actually from there.
* OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain: The Younger Villain (albeit an AntiVillain) to Ant-Man and Wasp's Older Heroes. She's in her twenties, compared to the other two being older by at least a decade.
* ParentalSubstitute: [[spoiler:Bill Foster serves as adoptive father after her parents die.]]
* PartsUnknown: It's not quite clear where she's from. It's implied that she might be Argentinian, but has a British accent, her birth and adopted father are Americans, and her child actress is American herself while in the flashback she makes no attempt at an English accent. It's never explained.
* PintSizedPowerhouse: Hannah John-Karmen stands just 5''6 tall but her abilities, including what appears to be some degree of SuperStrength, allow her to toss much larger opponents around like rag dolls.
* PowerIncontinence: The longer she goes without resting in a special chamber [[spoiler: built for her by Bill Foster]], the more out-of-control her {{intangibility}} grows. Her suit goes a ways towards stabilizing the problem, but doesn't fully diminish it.
* RaceLift: Ghost is Caucasian in the comics, but is portrayed by a British-Nigerian actress here. It's suggested that she's Argentinian.
* RelatedInTheAdaptation: [[spoiler: In the comics, the Ghost had no relation to Egghead. Here, the Ghost is Elihas Starr's daughter. She's also the adopted daughter of Bill Foster, whereas the comics versions of them had no connection.]]
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: Ghost is a rival to Iron Man in the comics, but confronts Ant-Man in her debut film.
* SanitySlippage: The side-effects of her powers, combined with her DarkAndTroubledPast, make Ava not entirely stable even when first introduced, and she only gets worse as her condition (and with it, her desperation to find a cure) worsens.
* SlasherSmile: Gives Scott a rather unhealthy grin when she first captures him and shares her backstory.
* TheSlowWalk: She rarely moves quicker than a casual strut, even during fights and chase scenes. Given that her powers allow her to ignore any and all obstacles, on top of making her functionally NighInvulnerable, she doesn't really ''need'' to go any faster. It's basically her SignatureMove.
* StringyHairedGhostGirl: Her new look counts as an AstonishinglyAppropriateAppearance, not to mention the element of vengeance in her backstory.
* SuperheroMovieVillainsDie: [[spoiler:An aversion. She simply gets her condition stabilized and manages to run off with Bill Foster. The first Stinger indicates the Pyms had figured out a way to gather energy from the Quantum Realm to heal her.]]
* SuperStrength: Though the film never explicitly calls attention to it, Ava performs a number of feats throughout the film that suggests she's gained some level of enhanced strength in addition to to her other powers, including knocking people out with a single well-aimed hit, blowing Scott through a wall with a kick, and throwing full-grown men around like toys.
* TheseHandsHaveKilled: [[spoiler: S.H.I.E.L.D., or possibly a HYDRA cell within the organization, trained her as an assassin from childhood, and we get to see her dispatch at least one victim with a brutal NeckSnap. Towards the end of the film, when she tries to get Bill to GoOnWithoutMe, she states that she isn't worth saving since she's killed people.]]
* TragicVillain: She is probably the straightest example of this trope in the entire MCU of an evil-doing woobie. [[spoiler: In a childhood accident with her father's tech, Ava lost both her parents and gained powerful but unstable abilities that leave her in constant pain and are slowly phasing her out of reality, with the only end possibilities being death or [[FateWorseThanDeath something much worse]]. The skills she uses in the film were honed by black ops missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. (or maybe HYDRA). Every single action she undertakes in the film, even as they grow increasingly heinous and brutal as time goes on, is exclusively devoted to fixing her condition which is destabilizing her mental state. All of the good guys recognize her as a victim of circumstance, and she ultimately [[EasilyForgiven gets away with zero consequences]] once all's said and done]].
* TwoFirstNames
* TykeBomb: [[spoiler:She was trained by S.H.I.E.L.D. (or possibly HYDRA) to be an assassin from a young age.]]
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: It's left unknown at the end if she survived Thanos' fingersnap or became one of the unlucky few who disintegrated. And even if she did live, we don't know if she'd survive for long, since the only person on Earth with access to quantum healing energy was stuck in the Quantum Realm with no way to get out for five years. Even after the events of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', the odds of her survival are still unknown, because while all those vanished by Thanos' snap have returned, there's still a chance she was spared by the snap but didn't survive five years without quantum healing energy. She isn't present in the final battle in ''Endgame'', and there isn't even any mention of her existence.]]
* VillainousBreakdown: A relatively subtle one in the climax. [[spoiler:Her increasing anger and desperation, as well as possibly her condition worsening, results in her fighting somewhat more sloppily than she usually does. While Ava had the upper hand on Hope during their first fight, Hope gets a few good hits on Ava in the final battle]].
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:Hurt is a stretch, but she proposes kidnapping Cassie Lang to use as a bargaining chip against Scott and the others. It's more out of her desperation than any malicious intent, and she is easily talked out of going that route.]]
* YouKilledMyFather: Downplayed. [[spoiler: She considers Hank Pym responsible for her father's death, but it ultimately has little to do with her motivations. While she's more than willing to get his wife killed if it means curing her condition, that's more out of her own desperation rather than a desire for revenge against Hank.]]
* YourDaysAreNumbered: [[spoiler: Bill Foster tells her she has about two weeks left before her unstable nature reaches a point of no return.]]

[[folder:Kilgrave]]
!!''Kevin Thompson / Kilgrave''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thompson_kevin.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'm a man of my word... if I feel like it."'']]
!!!'''Species:''' Enhanced human
!!!'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DavidTennant, James Freedson-Jackson (young Kilgrave)
!!!'''Voiced By:''' Cristián Lizama and Rodrigo Saavedra (young) (Latin-America Chilean dub)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Series/JessicaJones2015''

->''"Jessica, I'm the only one who matches you. We're inevitable."''

A menacing, shadowy figure from Jessica Jones's past who's responsible for her current state. He's a sociopathic man with the power to control the minds of others, which he uses to obtain money, food, shelter, pleasure and even get his victims to commit violence against others and themselves.

* AbusiveParents: He claims that his parents were scientists who [[spoiler:used him as a guinea pig in their laborious and frequently painful neurology experiments, then they abandoned him at ten years old when his mind control powers developed.]] Or that's how he experienced it anyway, because they never told him what they were doing. His parents were [[spoiler:experimenting on him to find a cure for a degenerative brain disease he was born with, and they succeeded, giving him his powers in the process. They only ran away after he made his mother burn her face with a clothes-iron in a fit of childish pique.]]
* AchillesHeel: Surprisingly, several:
** Surgical anesthesia shuts down the exact part of his brain that creates his powers, instantly ending any control he's currently putting out, and he'll still be without it for a while after waking up.
** His power has limits. After about ten hours, if they're not in his immediate presence, his victims start to shake off the effects of his control. He also has to be in his victim's physical presence when giving orders, which means he can't control someone over the phone or via the internet.
** If someone he's controlling can be fooled into thinking they've completed their commands (or if they ''[[ExactWords technically]]'' completed them), [[LogicalWeakness they'll stop]]. Presumably, this dependence on exact wording also means that his power only works if the person targeted understands the language he's speaking.
** His power is useless if the intended victim can't actually hear him -- such as someone wearing noise-cancelling headphones, or remaining outside the airtight room he gets sealed in -- and he obviously can't use his powers if he's unable to talk. Jessica uses a MundaneSolution to capture him by shoving a napkin into his mouth.
* AdaptationDyeJob: Unlike the comics, his skin isn't purple here since it would just look silly in contrast with the show's serious tone. He's still [[ColorMotif associated with the color purple though]]; it's his favorite color to wear and people affected by his mind control see the world covered in purple light. [[spoiler: Although in the finale, he ''does'' start turning purple after getting a power boost, but even that is more subtle than the deep shade of his comic book version.]] In a more minor example, his hair and eyes are Tennant's natural brown, rather than the [[DependingOnTheArtist black or purple]] from the comics.
* AdaptationNameChange: [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast His last name]] in the comics is made more subtle here through a slight change in its spelling (Kilgrave instead of Killgrave). [[spoiler: It's later revealed that his real name is Kevin Thompson rather than Zebediah Killgrave]].
* AdaptationalNationality: He's Croatian in the comics but British in the TV show.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Perhaps not the best word for this particular change, but, remember that oh so funny scene when Kilgrave tells everyone in a restaurant to be quiet? In the comics, he told them to ''stop breathing''.
* AllegoricalCharacter: Of Rape Culture, Toxic Masculinity and Male Entitlement.
* AntagonistAbilities: Almost every one of the MainCharacters is a much tougher physical threat than Kilgrave is; Jessica and Luke have SuperStrength, Simpson was military special operations [[spoiler:who had participated in ''SuperSoldier'' experiments and is still on the short list to continue them]] before he became a cop, and even Trish has enough combat training to hold off Simpson for several minutes despite her slighter build. However, none of that means a damn thing because no matter how great their strength/skills are, Kilgrave's powers overrides the mind that controls them. One word, and ''your'' strengths and abilities are now ''his''.
* AndIMustScream: His victims experience this. They don't want to do what he commands but They're utterly powerless to resist him.
* AtrociousAlias: After they find out his real name, Jessica and her allies find it ridiculous that he would [[spoiler:name himself Kilgrave ''on purpose''.]]
* AwesomeMcCoolName: Admit it, Kilgrave sounds awesome. [[spoiler: It's also an alias; his birth name is [[SpecialPersonNormalName Kevin Thompson]].]]
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler: When Jessica finally snaps his neck, it only made everyone's lives easier.]]
* AxCrazy: He's an unstable, sadistic man who commits acts of violence as easily as breathing. When he gets angry, which [[HairTriggerTemper is often and with minimal provocation]], no one is safe from his wrath.
* BadBoss: To everyone he uses in his schemes, even people he isn't actively controlling. At one point, he orders two people to tear the skin off each other's faces if he doesn't return in a certain time and he is quite fond of forcing people to commit suicide when he no longer has any use for them.
* BadPowersBadPeople: His ability is shown to be more or less inherently dangerous (even a simple thing like compelling someone to give him their jacket is shown as a traumatic violation), and it's also indicated that being able to get anyone you want to do anything you want anytime you want is so inherently corrupting that it'd be tough for anyone with such an ability to turn out normal, let alone good-- especially since he developed his powers in childhood, and thus never learned about reciprocal relationships; as far back as he can remember, everyone in the world only exists to fulfil his desires.
* BaitTheDog: When he tries to get a new start with Jessica, he seems to make genuine efforts to improve, refusing to use his power to control her, buying her old house legally and hiring people to work for them rather than controlling them into doing it. It soon turns out that while he won't control Jessica directly, he has no problem about [[LoopholeAbuse threatening to make the people he has hired kill or mutilate themselves if Jessica makes him unhappy]]. And to make it worse, [[spoiler:it later turns out he wasn't really making an effort by refusing to control her directly: he just no longer ''can'' control her anyway.]]
* BeardOfEvil: Kilgrave sports a five o'clock shadow.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies:
** He's a textbook [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who routinely engages in UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming and {{Gaslighting}} (manipulating a person into questioning their own sanity/validity of how they perceive the world around them). A major example is when Kilgrave adamantly claims to Jessica that he ''genuinely believed'' he had seduced her willingly, because he can't tell when he's using his mind control powers and when he isn't. ''All other'' evidence in the TV series indicates that he knows full well that his powers are on ''all the time'', to the point that he has to carefully word mundane requests to people he doesn't explicitly want to control. The excuse that he doesn't even know if he's forcing people to do things appears to just be a half-hearted explanation he tells himself so he doesn't have to feel guilty about anything.
** Apart from genuinely believing he's the real victim, and not guilty of anything, he also doesn't want to believe he uses mind control ''all'' the time out of pride. He refuses to acknowledge that he has "raped" dozens of people (in many cases literally) because he has truly convinced ''himself'' that he's such a likable demigod-like figure that people must or should adore him like that. In reality, even the few people he doesn't use mind powers on are still manipulated in some fashion (money, drugs, threats, etc.) It becomes painfully obvious that due to a lifetime of constantly having mind control powers (since he was 10 years old), he is ''laughably unskilled'' at having normal conversations with regular people whom he isn't manipulating through either mind control or other threats.
** This is also one of his weaknesses, as he is very vulnerable to false praise. Well, zig-zagged: he is smart enough to be worried about people pretending to be under his mind control or praising him, but ''fundamentally'', he has an unwavering belief that deep down, everyone ''wants'' to obey him, and Jessica obsessively loves him.
* BerserkButton: He really doesn't like being called a rapist.
* BigBad: He's the main source of Jessica's problems. His status as this is also {{lampshade}}d by Jessica when she says to Trish that she can only deal with "one BigBad at a time", referring to [[spoiler:the PsychoSerum enhanced Simpson]].
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: He doesn't like the word 'rape', despite it being exactly what he did to Jessica, Hope, and almost every woman he's encountered. He seems to acknowledge that's what he did when Jessica confronts him on this, but denies it at first and later mutters that he doesn't like what he does being described that way.
* BlessedWithSuck: Kilgrave gets to make a reasonably convincing argument that mind control could be a spectacularly-crappy super power that could cause untold damage to a person's relationship with reality. He has to parse his words ''very carefully'' to close the sale on the house, because he's trying to make an honest deal. (Ironically, he has to command the owner to keep the sale "above-board.")
-->"I once told a man [[IWasJustJoking to go screw himself]], can you even imagine?"
** The show makes it very clear that Kilgrave has lived his life as an isolated, nomad vagabond, because his powers ironically ensure that he cannot function as part of normal society.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: In the opinion of [[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/david-tennant-interview-jessica-jones-actor-on-feeling-sympathy-for-kilgrave-and-the-golden-age-of-a6740856.html David Tennant]], this is how Kilgrave should be seen -- how can a man who has the power to make people do whatever he wants, perhaps even without meaning to, possibly be able to retain any normal sense of ethics? As far as he knows, everyone in the world is his absolute servant. That's his "normal"; the way the world is ''supposed'' to work. When Jessica fled him, it was if gravity stopped working, or the sun went out. It's all but stated that ''anyone'' would be warped and changed by this power, and would be unable to see the world the rest of humanity does. [[spoiler: That he was ten years old and had been subjected to frequent and painful experimentation when he developed this power lends itself to this interpretation.]]
* BorrowedCatchphrase: Like [[Series/DoctorWho the Tenth Doctor]], Kilgrave has the occasional tendency to modify his statements with a stressed "Well."
* BreakoutVillain: Easily the most popular character on ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', with David Tennant receiving critical acclaim for his portrayal. He was even featured in [[http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/lists/40-greatest-tv-villains-of-all-time-20160209 Rolling Stone's list of 40 greatest TV villains]]. Likely due to his popularity, [[spoiler:Kilgrave will be returning for Season 2 despite [[CharacterDeath being killed]] in the Season 1 finale.]]
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: Throughout the season, Jessica insists on not killing him because she needs him alive to prove that mind control is real to get Hope exonerated on her parent's murder by proving that he made her to do it and in that sense is not responsible for their deaths. [[spoiler:Hope kills herself specifically to free Jessica from this burden.]]
* CardCarryingVillain: Averted. Unlike his comic counterpart, he doesn't consider himself to be a particularly bad person, mostly because [[NeverMyFault he's pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility]].
* CatchPhrase: "Smile."
* CelebrityParadox:
** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' has numerous {{Shout Out}}s to ''Series/DoctorWho'', as well as ''Franchise/HarryPotter''. David Tennant's best known role is as the Tenth Doctor, and before that he played Barty Crouch Jr. in ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''. It is also worth noting that David Tennant's first episode as the Doctor has him derailing the villain's plans by revealing that they were bluffing and that it is not possible to hypnotize someone into suicide.
** After Kilgrave performs a JediMindTrick, Jessica gives a ShoutOut to Obi-Wan Kenobi of ''Franchise/StarWars''. David Tennant also had a guest role in the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', specifically as Professor Huyang.
* TheChessmaster: This is a given considering he can make anyone do anything he wants, whether it's directly through his CompellingVoice or indirectly through manipulation. Most prominently shown with the immense grasp he has over Jessica's life. Jessica even noted Kilgrave could make her do what he wanted without him saying a single command.
* ChildHater: When he invites himself in to a couple's home, the first thing he does is crush their young son's remote control car, declares that children should be neither seen ''nor'' heard, and then commands the kids to lock themselves in the closet while he helps himself to dinner. The girl of the pair has to go to the bathroom, but he just makes her pee in the closet.
* ColorMotif: Heavily associated with the color purple.
* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: Played with. He's being referred to as Kilgrave in press materials, rather than The Purple Man, his alias in the comics. Probably because unlike his comic incarnation, Kilgrave's skin isn't purple. Then it's later revealed [[spoiler:"Kilgrave" is technically this version's codename, as his real name is Kevin Thompson.]]
* CompellingVoice: He has the power to make anyone do as he says, just by speaking. There are a few caveats (a maximum range, physical proximity, number of victims at once, etc.), but no real ''limits''. His control violates even basic instincts like self-preservation.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: An almost-to-the-letter example. [[Series/{{Daredevil2015}} Wilson Fisk]] is a gigantic juggernaut of a man, and the head of a vast criminal organization. Kilgrave is small, slight, reliant on his [[CompellingVoice non-physical superpower]], and operates entirely alone. Fisk has grand ambitions and semi-defensible motivations, if not methods, Kilgrave is all about his momentary wants and petty desires. Fisk regrets the harm caused by his methods, Kilgrave refuses to admit he's done anything wrong. Fisk desires only an honest and completely consenting relationship with the woman to whom he's attracted, Kilgrave is willing to use any unhanded means to force her into one. And so on, and so on...
* TheCorrupter: "I've never killed anyone. Can you say the same?" Over the course of his spree, he turns Jessica, Jeri, Hope and Pam into accessories to murder. Of course, he was also responsible for the derailing of Jessica's crime-fighting career.
* CrazyJealousGuy: [[spoiler:He straight up makes Ruben commit a very messy PsychicAssistedSuicide, when the latter blurts out that he loves Jessica. He is also not pleased when he meets Luke.]]
* CrazyPrepared: [[spoiler:He usually has several different people compelled to cover all his bases, and when he learns Jessica has found out his weakness, he also starts hiring security for real who will still protect him even with his powers turned off.]]
* CulturedBadass: Is WickedCultured and a lethally dangerous ManipulativeBastard.
* DeathByIrony: In "AKA WWJD?", he whines that he's incapable of having a personal relationship with anyone--unable to determine if that's what ''they'' want, or if they're just following his commands. [[spoiler:Jessica remembers: in the finale, Jessica mimes being under his control again, and Kilgrave is so blinded by happiness that he walks right into arm's reach of her, whereupon she pinches his mouth shut and snaps his neck.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution: Most of his cruel actions are directed at people who simply made the mistake of annoying him or being in his vicinity when he's in a bad mood.
* DoNotCallMePaul: It doesn't come up much but he seems to really not like being called by his birth name [[spoiler: Kevin.]]
* TheDreaded: Anyone who interacts with Kilgrave, especially Jessica, is utterly terrified of him.
* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: He's drunk on his power, and uses it for petty reasons.
* EleventhHourSuperpower: Towards the end of the season he [[spoiler: enslaves his father and other biochemists to work on ways to ''upgrade'' his power; from being able to control a dozen people at once to controlling hundreds, from having a range of a dozen feet to a dozen yards, from his orders lasting ten hours to lasting a full day (this last one permits him to use Luke as his spy despite Jessica's precautions), to working over a public address system (throwing everyone in a hospital at Jessica), and ultimately overcoming Jessica's immunity to his powers--although this last one is just Jessica faking him out for the few seconds it took to snap his neck.]]
* EnfanteTerrible: When he got his powers, he changed from being a normal kid to one of these, torturing his parents, even making his mother burn herself with an iron, and eventually forcing them to abandon him. He, [[SelfServingMemory of course]], will never mention any of this.
* EntitledToHaveYou: How he feels towards Jessica (and basically everything, but her in particular), is that they are his for the asking, and taking.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Twice. Jessica's early PTSD-fueled visions of him sets up his obsession with Jessica. In his first appearance proper sets up his casual disregard for others as he takes over ''everything'' around him.
* EvilBrit: David Tennant uses an Estuary (East London) accent, the same as [[Series/DoctorWho the Tenth Doctor]]. It reflects in his lingo, too: like "present arms!" when commanding cops to open fire on Jessica, or describing Jessica's flatmates as a bunch of "stroppy tosspots".
* EvilCannotComprehendGood:
** Jessica's attempts to teach him heroism are hindered by this. While he admits that GoodFeelsGood, he assumes that she does it for the grateful looks from the people she saves or to "balance the scales." Granted, she doesn't dispute either claim, but prior episodes have shown that her intentions aren't so selfish.
** Also, on the night he enslaved Jessica after seeing her saving someone from thugs, he asks her whether she enjoyed it and why (using his powers to compel a truthful answer). When Jessica says that she liked it because it helped someone and made a difference, he is utterly bemused, having clearly expected her to say that she enjoyed the violence or the feeling of power.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: He enjoys making creative commands to torture people with (like making a guy who called him out for cheating at poker bash his head repeatedly against a wall), and he really seems to enjoy commanding them to stand still/sit/do some task until they wet themselves given how many times he does it.
* EvilIsHammy: Like most of the MCU's villains, he's full of himself and will add scenery-chewing drama to his speech. Like when a damn phone goes off at the wrong time:
-->'''Kilgrave:''' THE NEXT PERSON WHOSE PHONE RINGS HAS TO EAT IT! Crappy fluorescent lights and cockroaches and loud cell phones and the smell of piss! '''I am trying to profess eternal love here, people!'''
* EvilIsPetty: Is he ever! Most of the people who initially come forward about encounters with Kilgrave who aren't deluded or bullshitting reported him doing remarkably petty things like making them hand over an expensive jacket, play the cello for him for a couple of days (and injure their hands when he tires of them), or drive him around town for a week. He is also shown to frequently compel people to injure or even kill themselves just for slightly irritating him. Sometimes he doesn't even need his powers -- he stomps on a kid's toy car just for being there.
* ExactWords: He complains at one point to Jessica that he has to take care with every word he says, otherwise he gets unfortunate results or uses his powers accidentally. The example he gives is when he told a man to go "screw himself".
** This is also a method of thwarting his mind control. For example [[spoiler: Trish was told to put a bullet in her head, but Jessica just placed one in her mouth to end the control]].
* FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon: His handsome appearance sharply contrast his utterly depraved and sadistic personality.
* FatalFlaw: His obsession with possessing Jessica and his inability to grasp the feelings of the people around him is what ultimately leads to his death.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Tennant's natural charm comes to the forefront when [[spoiler:Kilgrave tells Jessica he loves her and tries to entice her with his domestic fantasy]], but we're never allowed to forget how horrible he really is.
* {{Foil}}: To [[Series/AgentsOfShield Grant Ward]]. Both serve as [[ItsPersonal very personal]] [[{{Archenemy}} enemies]] to the female lead of their respective series whom they are [[{{Yandere}} selfishly obsessed with]] and have [[FreudianExcuse traumatic childhood backgrounds]] that results in [[NeverMyFault a mindset that they could never be at fault for any of the misery their actions has brought upon others.]] However Grant is a [[BadassNormal normal human with combat prowess]] that he uses to carry out dirty work assigned to him by a vast villainous organization[[note]]HYDRA[[/note]] and is treated as a pawn before becoming their leader, while Killgrave has [[NonActionBigBad no combat prowess,]] instead having a CompellingVoice power that he uses to control other people to carry out his wants and has no affiliations with any evil organization.
* ForTheEvulz: He can and will use his powers to make people do horrific things to themselves just because he's bored, or because they annoyed him somehow, or they have something he wants. One example is making a room full of card sharks give up a large amount of cash, then getting one that complains to smash his head against a wall. Exemplified when he's browsing magazines at a newsstand, while the owner insists "This isn't a library!" and demands he buy something.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' Pick up that coffee. Throw it in your face.
* FreudianExcuse: His parents [[spoiler:subjected him to frequent, painful experimentation. He interpreted this as them being willfully cruel. In fact, they were trying to save his life. [[GoneHorriblyRight They succeeded]].]]
* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: It's made abundantly and repeatedly clear that, whatever happened in his childhood, it doesn't excuse any of his horrific actions as an adult and that he is just using his past as a way to avoid [[NeverMyFault taking responsibility]] for [[TheSociopath what a vile person he is]].
* FromNobodyToNightmare: He was once just a sick kid whose parents were desperate to save him.
* GoKartingWithBowser: He tries to do this with Jessica for most of "AKA WWJD?", but his overall creepiness and tendency to threaten to kill people when things don't go his way lend every moment an underlying current of menace.
* GoneHorriblyRight: He was born with a degenerative brain disease. The attempts to cure him were painful, even torturous, but they succeeded. They also gave him his godawful powers.
* GoodFeelsGood: [[spoiler:When Jessica pressures him into using his power to stop a hostage crisis]], he himself is surprised it felt nice, largely because of the awe and admiration from the family he rescued. It doesn't last long though, and it's immediately clear to Jessica that he would never do such a thing of his own accord or because it's the right thing to do. Even when he's doing good things, it's for his own benefit.
* HairTriggerTemper: Kilgrave has a short fuse, which combined with his powers means bad news for anyone who does something to upset him, like talking at him.
* HateSink: An example where he's both the primary villain of the piece ''and'' this trope. Kilgrave is so despicable, and he destroys so many lives, that the main draw of the story is waiting for him to lose. This is drawn out by the existence of Hope as a DamselInDistress that needs to be saved at the cost of sparing Kilgrave, [[spoiler:but she specifically kills herself so that his destruction can become the ''sole'' motivation of our MainCharacters.]]
* HatesSmallTalk: He admits he's terrible at it, to the point it looks like he'd rather pass a kidney stone.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' I've always been bad at small talk. I'm used to just saying things and they happen. ''(chuckles)'' Spoils you.\\
'''Lin:''' [[SarcasmMode Well, what a burden.]]\\
'''Kilgrave:''' [[CassandraTruth You have no idea.]]
* TheHedonist: Kilgrave insists on enjoying others' luxurious homes, wears sharp suits and only ever uses skilled chefs to prepare his food. He even appeared in Jessica's life with a woman on each arm.
* HeroicComedicSociopath: For all of about half an episode where he considers a crime-fighting career. He saves a woman and her kids from her husband who has taken them hostage, but he is still about to casually order the man to eat the barrel of his shotgun before Jessica manages to rein him in.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' He will go to prison and feed off the tit of the taxpayer.\\
'''Jessica:''' ''You've'' never paid a goddamn tax in your life!\\
'''Kilgrave:''' ... [[HypocrisyNod Fair enough.]]
* HumanResources: It's only mentioned once, but the [[{{Pun}} doctor who]] [[spoiler: performed his kidney transplant notes that the new kidneys are not a match, and thus he'll keep having to steal new ones every couple of years.]]
* IfICantHaveYou: If Jessica won't go back to him willingly and if he can't control her, he would kill her. [[BondVillainStupidity He was too late for that.]]
* ILoveYouBecauseICantControlYou: Well, he can, but his obsession with Jessica stems from the fact that despite having everything he wants he can't ''really'' have her affection. [[spoiler: Turns out he actually can't control her at all anymore, which combined with her determination to kill him temporarily sours his feelings.]]
* InsaneTrollLogic: Kilgrave is insistent that he's a good guy and that Jessica is a heartless bitch who he's a LoveMartyr to. His arguments for why that is are... ''unconvincing'' to an unbiased listener.
* ItsAllAboutMe: One of the core aspects of his character. When attempting to woo Jessica he even repeatedly refers to his favorite foods as her favorite foods without an ounce of self-realization, which Jessica promptly corrects him on. The one time he actually does something good ([[spoiler:saving a family from a hostage situation at Jessica's insistence]]), his [[GoodFeelsGood positive reaction]] is based on how it made him feel, rather than any actual regard for the people he saved.
* JediMindTrick: Lampshaded by Jessica when he wards off two cops. Naturally, he says that he is cooler than Obi Wan Kenobi.
* {{Jerkass}}: On top of being a [[PsychopathicManchild psychotic]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rapist]], Kilgrave has a very lacking interest in manners. He usually skips any semblance of charm when dealing with people and barks orders at them instead, knowing they have no choice but to obey him. While sitting in a crowded restaurant, he decides that it's too loud for his liking and simply shouts at everyone to shut up. Somewhat justified, due to not having a normal relationship since age ten.
* JustGivingOrders: Being a PsychopathicManchild with [[MindManipulation the power to make other people do things for him]], he repeatedly uses this excuse. Whenever Jessica calls him out on the trail of destruction he leaves behind (or anyone else capable of calling him out for that matter), he claims that he is not responsible for killing anybody because he has other people do the killing for him. Whenever someone points out that he compelled people to kill, he will try to [[{{Gaslighting}} gaslight]] them into thinking that it was somehow their fault. For example, Jessica confronts him that he made her kill Reva Conners, he claims that he only told her to "take care" of her, and that Jessica was the one who interpreted this as killing her.
* JustThinkOfThePotential: Jessica genuinely does ''very'' briefly consider attempting to reform him to use his powers for good, since his ability is so powerful it could be used to really change the world for the better. Sensibly, she ultimately decides this is a stupid idea and attempts to take him out without bothering to wait for his sudden but inevitable betrayal.
* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Although he quickly comments on Jessica's overall attractiveness, he's especially amazed by her powers and watching her beat up a couple of thugs.
* KickTheDog: Kilgrave performs acts of meaningless, petty cruelty as casually as breathing. Some of the more notable include having an annoying newsvendor scald his own face with hot coffee and having [[spoiler:Ruben cut his own throat in Jessica's bed]].
* KickTheSonOfABitch: He forces Jessica's mindlessly cruel and gossipy neighbor to admit that she's just seeking attention. Even Jessica finds it a little satisfying.
* KidsAreCruel: As a child, he made his mother [[spoiler:put an iron to her face in a tantrum. He (possibly justifiably) says it was just an outburst and that he didn't really mean it.]]
* KnightOfCerebus: While Kilgrave isn't the first Marvel Cinematic Universe BigBad who's an absolute creep with no redeeming qualities, he is still one of the darkest, scariest villains to date. He's committed a slew of atrocities in pursuit of their goals, with his crimes being heavily centered on rape and abuse. Compared to the more fantastic and less personal supervillainy of other villains, Kilgrave truly sets this series apart from MCU's other shows and films.
%%%%% "In the promo." is not context.
* KubrickStare: He can pull off some truly menacing ones.
* LackOfEmpathy: He's admitted to "not thinking twice" about those killed in his wake, and generally holds a sociopathic sense of self-absorption and apathy.
* LargeHam: Given EvilIsHammy, he's self-absorbed, theatrical and prone to shout whenever he feels like it. [[spoiler:Jessica's hallucinations of him in Season 2 are even hammier.]]
%%* LaughWithMe: "Smile!"
* LaughablyEvil: He is completely at sea when it comes to normal relations with others. His social ineptitude leads to some unexpected CringeComedy.
* LeanAndMean: He's a complete and utter bastard and played by the tall and naturally very thin David Tennant.
* LecherousLicking: This was one of Tennant's first scenes with Ritter and it made him a bit uncomfortable, but "there it is in the script, black & white, gotta do it."
* LetsYouAndHimFight: His MO against Jessica. With everyone else, he just orders them to do whatever he needs them to do. With her, he has to order ''other people'' to fight her or act as a distraction.
* {{Leitmotif}}: He is associated with a series of discordant and backmasked violin shrieks, which play whenever he uses his powers [[spoiler: and when Jessica is tossing her apartment looking for the "gift" he left her after their meeting at the precinct.]]
* LogicalWeakness: If his victims can't hear his orders, then they can't follow them. [[spoiler: Jessica and Trish use this for the final confrontation to protect the latter]]. Additionally if his victims can be convinced they have technically completed his orders then they are freed.
* ManipulativeBastard: Aside from the use of his powers, he also uses more subtle methods to force people to do what he wants. [[spoiler: Such as getting Malcolm hooked on drugs and dependent on him.]]
* MindRape: Kilgrave's specialty. What he did to Jessica traumatized her deeply, and she's just one of his many victims.
* MoneyToThrowAway: Dumping a sack full of $1.26 million at the feet of a stranger in exchange for their house. This is his grand gesture to Jessica.
* MoralMyopia: When it finally gets through to him that Jess doesn't, and will never, love him, he has the gall to feel betrayed and calls her ungrateful, then later accuses ''her'' of being the loveless sociopath.
* MoreThanMindControl: Played with, but ultimately defied. Kilgrave is convinced that he does this. His victims also state that, at the time they're fulfilling a command, all they can think about is how much they ''need'' to do what he says. But in fact, his victims are always silently screaming inside, and the DoubleThink involved with his powers is what traumatizes ''everyone'' in the end, no matter how small the request was.
* MurderTheHypotenuse:
** When Ruben says he loves Jessica, Kilgrave commands him to lie down in Jessica's bed and cut his own throat.
** When he finds out Luke is Jessica's former lover, he [[spoiler:orders him to blow himself up while Jessica watches. But then it turns out he knew Luke would survive that, possibly meaning he tried to give him a similar fate to Ruben at some point.]]
* MyDeathIsOnlyTheBeginning: He raises the possibility that he could have implanted commands in people that will activate upon his death, meaning Jessica can't risk killing him.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Lampshaded and mocked by both Jessica and Claire. ("Talk about obvious. Was Murdercorpse already taken?")
* NeckSnap: Jessica finally [[spoiler:kills him by clamping one hand over his mouth and the other behind his head, and then twisting.]]
* NeverMyFault:
** He is unwilling to take responsibility for what he forces people to do. He does a ''lot'' of UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming, as well as {{Gaslighting}}. He repeatedly expresses the belief that him ordering someone to want something is the same as them actually wanting it, maintains that he has never killed anyone despite ordering others to do so or kill themselves, and doesn't considering compelling women to have sex with him as rape.
** Notably, when he asks Luke if he is the one who screwed up his chances to get Jessica back, Luke answers that Kilgrave did that himself. Kilgrave, knowing that his powers compel people to always answer him completely honestly, sits dumbfounded for a brief moment before muttering to himself that he must "think of a fitting response to that."
** One time he complains about Jessica's drinking problem, and gets indignant at the (true) rebuttal that it's the way she copes with what he did to her.
** Perhaps his most brazen example is him concluding that [[InsaneTrollLogic the fact that Jessica doesn't love him must mean that she is utterly incapable of loving another person]].
* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: He's thrilled when Jessica finds a way to neutralize his powers, forcing him to actually put effort into something for the first time since he got them. This makes him decide to not use them on her, and try to get her to come with him willingly. [[spoiler:Ultimately subverted in that he really did want to control her and was more than happy to kidnap his father to try and find a way to upgrade his powers. He never decided not to use his powers on her; he just ''couldn't''.]]
* NonActionBigBad: Justified, considering the nature of his powers, but Kilgrave never personally does any fighting, always having his thralls do his dirty work.
* NoSocialSkills: Kilgrave wholly relies on his CompellingVoice powers to interact with people and never bothers with being polite or following any normal social conventions. His insanity and lack of understanding of human interactions even gets him to [[spoiler:accuse Jessica of being insane and incapable of love for not accepting him... the man who raped and enslaved her]].
* ObliviouslyEvil: Kilgrave honestly doesn't seem able to grasp the fact that he is a rapist and a murderer nor does he seem aware of or concerned with the trail of psychologically broken people he's left in his wake.
* OnlyOneName: It's made clear that Kilgrave is an alias he chose for himself -- his real identity is a mystery [[spoiler:until he reveals his past and Jessica does some digging.]] He is only ever referred to as that, and gives nor is called by any other name.
* PetTheDog: Nastily subverted. He ''did'' make sure the poor ambulance driver whose kidneys he stole got a machine to keep him alive and money to keep him comfortable... but only once he'd suffered a massive stroke that would forever leave him mostly-paralyzed and eternally under the thumb of his creepy, domineering mother. When Jessica meets the driver, he writes a note begging her to kill him.
* PlayingTheVictimCard: If his treatment towards other people, ''especially'' women wasn't horrible enough he actually has the gall to see himself as a victim, constantly using his backstory as an experimented child as an excuse to justify any of his atrocities.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Kilgrave has a low opinion of everyone, but women in particular he views as tools. He also likes using his power to compel women to smile.
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler: After Jessica accidentally kills someone and dumps his body in a river, either a fragment of Kilgrave lodged in her mind or merely her perception of him appears to congratulate her on taking the step to murder, on her own this time. He sticks around after that to taunt her and slowly drive her crazy.]]
* PowerIncontinence: He can't turn off his powers. An off-hand remark by Kilgrave is enough to send a bystander into a suicidal loop. If he doesn't exercise rigorous control, he simply can't have a normal conversation. Of course, he almost never bothers with that sort of self-control.
-->'''Kilgrave:''' I once told a man to go screw himself, ''can you even imagine''?!
* PowerPerversionPotential: The series explicitly and repeatedly calls Kilgrave a rapist for how he makes women want to have sex with him.
* PragmaticVillainy: Kilgrave gets what turns out to be Jessica's old house legally, without using his powers or hurting anyone living there... because for the deal to stick and not give him problems later, he ''had'' to avoid both.
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Dozens of people kill or attempt to kill themselves at his command.
* PsychopathicManchild: There's an impression that he never really grew up, [[spoiler: particularly since he gained his powers as a child and his parents abandoned him when he was 10]]. Tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants, petty actions against those who annoy him, and shallow appreciation of others' feelings doesn't suggest a lot of maturity. It's actually probably a good thing he's so immature, since he only thinks about his own gratification and doesn't give much thought to the idea of world domination, which he'd be capable of if he went about it the right way.
* PurpleIsPowerful: Kilgrave is accompanied by the color purple no matter where he is, be it his predominately purple wardrobe or appearing with a flash of purple light when he's inside his victim's minds.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: This trope is one of the reasons why it took so long to adapt the Alias comic. Kilgrave himself seems to feel this, as he rejects the idea that he raped Jessica, or anyone else, and comes up with justifications for how what he does isn't rape. He even says he hates the word. [[spoiler: He also deliberately plays on this, threatening to do it to Trish to try and goad Jess in order to see if she's faking being under his control.]]
* {{Sadist}}: He loves ordering his victims to kill or hurt themselves, often for no reason, using increasingly horrific methods that he comes up with. Such as ordering a policeman to jump off a ledge, a man to splash scalding hot coffee on himself, a man to put his head through a wooden column, and two slaves to rip the skin off each others' faces.
* SchmuckBait: During the final act of the season, Kilgrave desperately tries to increase his power so that rather than using trickery and manipulation, he can just reclaim Jessica by way of his powers. [[spoiler:Knowing this, Jessica fakes being affected by his powered-up abilities when he gets the chance to directly use them on her. The thing is, Kilgrave was ''smart'' enough to realize that she would pull this trap, so he tries to goad her into revealing herself by [[ToThePain stating how much he's going to rape Trish every day for the rest of her life]]. When ''that'' still doesn't make Jessica budge, his enthusiasm gets the better of him. The ''possibility'' that he'd finally gotten his fondest wish made him throw all that savvy out of the window and get close to Jessica. Cue NeckLift, followed by NeckSnap.]]
* SelfMadeOrphan: His parents [[spoiler: abandoned him as a child after he had his mother maim herself in a tantrum.]] In the present, he has his mother [[spoiler: stab herself with the pair of scissors that she tried to stab him with, while having another of his thralls cut his father's arms off and put them in a blender.]]
* SelfServingMemory: When he reveals that [[spoiler:he deliberately allowed Jessica to regain control to see if she really wanted to stay]]. Kilgrave's version of events is that [[spoiler:Jessica chose to stay]], but Jessica points out that [[spoiler:she was about to jump off the balcony they were on, only Kilgrave stopped her]]. When he accuses her of this trope, Jessica [[spoiler:reveals the scar left from Kilgrave telling her to cut her ear off.]]
** This also comes into play with his parents. To hear him tell it, they tossed him away like trash for no reason at all. His father is quick to remind him how he used his powers to control and terrorize them and made them fear for their safety.
* SerialRapist: He raped Jessica and Hope and threatens to do the same to Trish at one point. It's also clear that he raped other women as well, given he was introduced with women on each arm who he was clearly controlling.
* SharpDressedMan: He's typically seen wearing stylish suits, often [[MythologyGag purple]].
* ShutUpHannibal: In "AKA WWJD", when Jessica crams a napkin in his gob to stop him talking, and again in "Smile", when she clamps his mouth shut.
* SirSwearsALot: Kilgrave swears a lot, befitting his short-tempered personality.
* TheSociopath: He claims to be able to love, but it's so twisted that its veracity is questionable. He readily admits that he does not give a damn about a single person other than himself and Jessica [[spoiler:although he wants to reconcile with his parents]]. Even when he tries to profess his undying affection for Jessica, he first refers to her as a thing, and then a person.
* SpecialPersonNormalName: His real name is [[spoiler:Kevin Thompson.]]
* SquishyWizard: Kilgrave is well aware that he has no ability to face anyone, particularly Jessica, in a straight fight. So he has others do it for him. [[spoiler:In the end, once Jessica gets her hands on him it's over in '''[[NeckSnap seconds]].''']]
* StalkerWithACrush: After Jessica escaped, he did everything he could to find her, setting up a network to keep her constantly under surveillance and tracked her constantly. Then, in an effort to woo her, he purchases her childhood home and recreates it, down to the photographs on the walls, from pictures he acquired from the realtor who sold it after her parents died.
* SuperheroMovieVillainsDie: Discussed. Simpson believes he's too dangerous to let live, but Jess originally objects due to needing him to prove Hope's innocence. Towards the end, she swears to kill him when it's clear that there's really no other option, [[spoiler:and kills him in the finale]]. In the comics he survives the events of ''Alias'', though the comics Marvel Universe is a lot better equipped to imprison superpowered criminals.
* TaintedVeins: When he receives [[spoiler: his final power boost his veins turn purple.]]
* TomTheDarkLord: He's a powerful, monstrous supervillain who was born with the utterly unremarkable name [[spoiler: Kevin Thompson]].
* TooPowerfulToLive: Kilgrave's CompellingVoice abilities are a frightening "elephant-in-the-room" in the context of the entire Franchise/MarvelUniverse, especially given the context that [[WeAreEverywhere anyone and everyone could be a Kilgrave slave at any time]] and [[ManchurianAgent not even know it]]. As such, it was unlikely he would [[spoiler:live beyond the first season, because the audience would have been second-guessing ''everything''.]]
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Like any bratty child, he refuses to try unfamiliar food, ordering his favorite pasta dish at every restaurant he enters (even forcing a Chinese chef to shlep around the block to borrow the ingredients from another eatery).
* UnreliableNarrator:
** At one point he tells Jessica about a time she kissed him after he hadn't given any orders for 12 hours, framing it as a romantic moment that was completely within her free will. There's even a flashback to show this event. But Jessica quickly corrects him, saying that she remembers it as her being able to insult him for the first time, and that he ordered her to cut off her own ears in spite before relenting. The scar behind her ear backs up her version of the events, and Kilgrave looks shocked.
** There's also his past. According to him, [[spoiler: his parents performed cruel and inhumane experiments on him, then abandoned him when he developed his powers, leaving him to fend for himself. However, when we find his parents, it turns out he was dying of a degenerative brain disease, and the experiments were part of a clinical trial to cure him, though he didn't know that. His parents really loved him, but had to abandon him because he used his powers to torture and control them, which hit a breaking point when he permanently scarred his mother, and wrote it off as a 'tantrum'.]]
* UsedToBeASweetKid: When we see the recording of him undergoing the treatment, he seemed to be just a normal innocent child. This trope disappeared as soon as he [[EnfanteTerrible got his powers]].
* VillainousBreakdown: At the end of his ''first'' encounter with Jessica, losing his control over her, even briefly, devolved into Kilgrave chasing her into the street, screaming at her to come back to him, and being hit by a bus.
* VillainousCrush: His obsession with Jessica informs much of his villainy.
* WantsAPrizeForBasicDecency: He acts like ''not'' treating people like insects is something noble.
* WeCanRuleTogether: His insistence that Jessica has some moral obligation to redeem him, to harness his abilities for good ("Dynamic Duo!"), turns out to be another form of manipulation.
* WhatIsEvil: He considers himself not to be evil as he doesn't take pleasure from killing others, which is a pretty low standard to set. He even seems to believe that he's never killed anybody. Apparently, ordering them to kill themselves doesn't count in his mind.
* WickedCultured: One could ascertain this about him based on his wardrobe and appreciation of fine foods, although as with everything else in his life, he obtains it all through his mind control.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatPerks: Kilgrave has no EvilPlan to TakeOverTheWorld, simply using his powers for his own hedonistic pleasure.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: {{Deconstructed}}. Kilgrave explains to Jessica that the reason why he became the monster he is today is [[spoiler:because his parents performed painful experiments when he was a child and abandoned him. He doesn't get much sympathy however because, while the experiment might have given him his powers with the abandonment impacting his view of the world, they DO NOT excuse him in committing such cruelty, like turning innocent women into [[SexSlave Sex Slaves]] and [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raping]] them. It's eventually revealed that his parents were performing those experiments to try save him from a neurotic disease he had and would have died if they didn't perform them. They didn't tell him that, however. His powers were a side effect of it and the reason why they abandoned him was because he was using his powers to torture them]]. In the end, despite his ordeal, he was simply a horrible human being who simply [[NeverMyFault refuses to be at fault for any wrongdoings]] and instead, uses [[PlayingTheVictimCard this trope as an excuse]] to try and justify his atrocities.
* WouldHurtAChild: He commands two children to get in a cupboard and to urinate there.
* {{Yandere}}: Oh, so very much, though the transition is slower than most examples; it takes place over ''the course of the entire season''. He starts off with a terrible VillainousCrush on Jessica after seeing her beat up some thugs [[spoiler: and later has her murder Luke Cage's wife]]. Returning to Jessica's life after a kidney transplant due to a bus crash, Kilgrave starts displaying the "I just want to get back together" attitude with her. After his ploy with reconstructing her house fails, his sanity begins to deconstruct and he begins developing a rage towards her and anyone who loves her in any sense, [[spoiler: which is not helped by her immunity to his powers]]. By the end of the series, he comes back full circle and shows the old crush attitude on Jessica... [[spoiler:only to find out it was a ruse before getting his neck snapped]].
* YouCouldHaveUsedYourPowersForGood: In "AKA WWJD?", Jones twists his arm into helping her defuse a domestic violence/hostage situation.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: He tends to throw away his human puppets like used rags, ''[[ForTheEvulz especially]]'' if there's no pragmatic reason for him to do this.
* ZergRush: His go-to tactic against Jessica: simply order anyone he encounters to attack her or endanger themselves, slowing her down while he has time to escape.