Sandbox / MCU: HYDRA

Main Character Index > Villainous Organizations > HYDRA > (Red Skull) | (Grant Ward)

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Spoilers for all works set prior to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.

HYDRA

In General

Appearances: Captain America: The First Avenger | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Avengers: Age of Ultron | Ant-Man | Captain America: Civil War | Avengers: Endgame | WandaVision ^note  Flashback only | Loki ^note  Archive footage from Avengers: Endgame | What If...? | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place! Hail HYDRA!"

HYDRA is a subversive criminal-paramilitary organization bent on world domination. Originally the Nazi Science Division, its main purpose was to create advanced Tesseract-powered weaponry for the German armies, but over the years, members of HYDRA became loyal only to their leader, Johann Schmidt. At the beginning of World War II, HYDRA still fought for the Nazi cause, but Schmidt later separated HYDRA from Nazi Germany to start his own conquest of the world. While in the present day they dislike being called "Nazis" and are more Equal-Opportunity Evil in terms of membership, fascism, and conquest of freedom is still their core philosophy.

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• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Again, they started out as a Nazi science division so the similarities are abundant. The modern version has dropped the racial purity angle, though. It's later revealed that HYDRA has existed in one form or another for centuries, way before the Red Skull was the leader. This is given a big fat Lampshade Hanging in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., where Skye calls Ward a Nazi. Though he denies it.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: They got three of them, the Insight Helicarriers, armed with some really powerful and accurate long-range gun batteries.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Is revealed to be this in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
• Arc Welding: Senator Stern from Iron Man 2, Agent Sitwell, and the Clairvoyant in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are all Hydra agents.
• As Long as There Is One Man:
  • "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." As shown in The Winter Soldier this is a true statement. As the last remnant of HYDRA, Zola managed to reconstruct the organization from within S.H.I.E.L.D. in a far more subversive manner than the overt methods of Red Skull.
  • The end of Season 2 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. sees Grant Ward gathering the remnants that survived the Avengers' assault on Strucker around him as the new leader.
  • Even after Ward is killed, HYDRA always finds a way back somehow. General Hale, a low-ranking HYDRA mole (all things considered), slips through the cracks and causes trouble for our heroes as the villain of Agents of SHIELD's fifth season.
• Back from the Brink: They certainly come by their Badass Creed catchphrase honestly.
  • After the SSR and the Howling Commandos all but destroyed HYDRA in the 1940s, Zola did this to the organization, rebuilding it within the nascent S.H.I.E.L.D. for the next several decades.
  • After the events of Winter Soldier thwart Project Insight, this happens again, with Daniel Whitehall and Sunil Bakshi taking over and fighting back in partnership with Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, Dr. List, and the rest of the HYDRA Council.
  • HYDRA is again smashed once Whitehall, Bakshi, von Strucker, and List are killed and the Council is decimated, but Grant Ward gathers the remnants of the organization under his control, and is later Demoted to Dragon once Gideon Malick and his inner circle reemerges. Hive later adds to their Inhuman strength even as it twists HYDRA to its will.
  • Even after Ward, Malick and Hive are killed, and Malick's information causes most of HYDRA's remaining assets to be seized and destroyed, General Hale manages to evade detection and takes over HYDRA's old academy as a base.
  • There's also the Framework arc of Agents of SHIELD to take into consideration. Even when HYDRA is (almost) completely demolished in the main universe, they always find a way back, even if it's through an entire alternate reality.
  • Finally averted after the deletion of the Framework and Coulson's team takes down the HYDRA academy base, and Talbot/Graviton kills Hale herself ... although the fate or whereabouts of Hale's aide Candice Lee are unrevealed. There's still Mitchell Carson from Ant-Man out there somewhere, as well as STRIKE agent Jack Rollins, and the Red Skull himself on Vormir. However, Candice Lee and Jack Rollins have likely been arrested, and the Red Skull is docile and powerless to act on his own, meaning that only Mitchell Carson could possibly pose a threat.
• Badass Creed: "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place! Hail HYDRA!"
• Big Bad: The organization as a whole is the secondary antagonistic faction of the Infinity Saga, its grasps and taking over the world stirring up almost as much trouble as Thanos and Loki. They're also the main antagonists of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
  • The Red Skull and Arnim Zola try to use the Tesseract to Take Over the World in Captain America: The First Avenger.
  • In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Alexander Pierce leads the organization in the present day after Zola managed to restart the organization within SHIELD, and brainwash Bucky Barnes into being the Winter Soldier.
  • In the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Centipede is revealed to be a HYDRA cell, with John Garret and Grant Ward exposed as its leaders in the aftermath of The Winter Soldier.
  • In the second season, Daniel Whitehall leads HYDRA in the cold war against SHIELD. After his death, his actions cause Jiaying to become the new Big Bad, and the organization is still represented by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker as a Greater-Scope Villain.
  • In the third season, Ward and Gideon Malick scheme to bring back the organization's ancient founder Hive.
  • In Season 4, AIDA takes over the virtual reality known as the Framework and converts it into a HYDRA totalitarian state in the Agents of HYDRA pod, with herself as Madame HYDRA.
  • In Season 5, Hale is revealed to be one of the last members of HYDRA, and sets the stage for the arrival of Graviton.
  • In Season 7, they're part of a Big Bad Duumvirate with the Chronicoms.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: HYDRA forms an alliance with the Chronicoms in Season 7 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with first Wilfred Malick and then Nathaniel taking over as The Heavy.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Zola's algorithm combined with S.H.I.E.L.D. surveillance technology and infrastructure means they have everything on everyone. Sitwell spells it out for Cap and Widow; "Your education, voting records, damn SAT scores ..."
• Characterization Marches On: Similar to their comic book counterpart as noted above. When they were first introduced, they were a Nazi agency that was going rogue. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reinvents them as an Ancient Conspiracy, which has worshiped an Inhuman since the dawn of time and is trying to bring about his return.
• Cool Plane: Two: the Valkyrie bomber, a flying wing aircraft based off the Horten H.XVIII prototype, and the Red Skull's personal helicopter, based off of the Triebflügeljäger.
• Determinator: Like the mythological Hydra, the Red Skull's troopers will only keep coming after every seemingly fatal blow, more dangerous than before.
• Elite Mooks: The massive HYDRA troopers who wield dual cannons and flamethrowers during World War II. In Sokovia they fielded troopers with Chitauri-derived armor and jetpacks.
• Enemy Civil War: There are 2 major ideologies within HYDRA who aren't very fond of each other: the scientific branch and the Cult, worshipping and aiming to bring back Hive to Earth. And even then, despite minor tensions they still remain unified, Evil Is One Big, Happy Family after all!
• Energy Weapon: The standard issue weapon used by HYDRA's troops during World War II is a rifle that uses energy extracted from the Tesseract to shoot energy blasts.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Averted in WWII, where the members appear to be primarily German just like the Nazis, though they never actually claim to be racial supremacists. Played straight otherwise however, as the 21st century version has multiple offshoots worldwide, and includes dedicated members of different races and genders (including Inhumans) determined to bring a New World Order. This makes a lot more sense with the Agents of SHIELD reveal that HYDRA as an organization is much older than the Nazis, and was merely using them for its own ends.
  • This is Justified in the comic book prequel to The First Avenger. The Red Skull, in a Just Between You and Me moment, tells Doctor Erskine he thinks the Aryan supremacy thing is "racist junk science", which he knows because he's an actual genius. It's useful for gaining him political power, though, and he's willing to protect Erskine's Jewish wife if he works for him (or NOT protect her). Erskine actually thinks this makes him worse than Hitler.
  • Further Justified when we find out Hydra is an Ancient Conspiracy that started as a cult devoted to the worship of a primordial Inhuman.
• The Evils of Free Will: Their core philosophy and why they justify a fascist form of government. However, they sorely pay for it during World War II, and thus decide to become subtle about it and trick citizens in voting away their own freedom for security.
  Zola: HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly.
• Evil Counterpart: To the SSR/SHIELD.
• Eviler than Thou: To the Nazis.
• Evil Is Petty: In addition to all the atrocities mentioned on this page, HYDRA has also... leaked the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer.
• For Science!: Armin Zola's motivation even after his "retirement" in America.
  • Raina and other Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. villains have this motivation. Notable because, at least Raina, finds the idea of working for Hydra otherwise discomforting.
  • Doctor Whitehall has this as his motivation.
• Gas Mask Mooks: It's unknown why they dress with gas masks.
• Genius Bruiser: Garrett. He looks like Bill Paxton and acts like a frat boy but manages an ultra-secret scientific conspiracy for Hydra.
• Ghostapo: They were the Nazi science division before going rogue.
• Government Conspiracy: One in the Nazi government's at the start. Then one in America.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy:
  • Too blind to prevent a single soldier with a brightly colored shield from sneaking into their base. One even pokes his head around a door to see who's knocking (and gets knocked out for it), despite the fact the door has a window!
  • Averted in The Winter Soldier. The guards are significantly more competent this time.
• Hated by All: Pretty much everyone in the MCU who isn't secretly a part of their ranks despises HYDRA, and for good reason. They were Captain America's old enemies in the second World War who managed to reform themselves by infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D, and were responsible for several assassinations carried out by their Winter Soldier program (including Tony Stark's parents). Even a few villainous characters such as Helmut Zemo and Agatha Harkness (who bear in mind, is a 350-year old witch) look down on them, with the latter dismissing them as an "anti-freedom terrorist organization", and the former stating that they deserved to be brought down.
• The Heavy: Deathlok (until being freed from Hydra's control in "Beginning of the End"), Agent Ward, Crossbones, the Winter Soldier (a.k.a. Bucky Barnes, through being brainwashed).
• Hiding in Plain Sight: As S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sleeper cell.
• Hydra Problem: Actually a bigger issue than in the mainstream version where Baron Strucker is usually in charge. Hydra has had numerous leaders and when one dies, they just get another one. Coulson takes down HYDRA by basically cutting off as many heads as possible and, when he gathers enough intel, he calls in the Avengers to deal the final blow. Hydra is now scattered and Kelbo says that "heads ain't growin' back". Then Ward decides to revive HYDRA in his own image and recruits Baron Von Strucker's son as his apprentice; two more heads have grown. All known heads are again cut by the end of the third season, including Hive, the original head. In Season 4 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA does not appear at all (except in the digital alternate reality of the Framework, where history has been altered so that they run the world), and may in fact be gone. Only to return again in Season 5, with General Hale and her daughter Ruby, who escaped the take-down in Season 3. Hale specifically states that she and Ruby are the last two heads (they have other people working with them, but apparently they aren't HYDRA), and eventually they team up with Strucker's son, who although comatose had also survived. All three are dead by the end of the season, which was Hydra's last chronological appearance, meaning they are finally gone for good. Maybe. Probably.
• The Infiltration: It's revealed that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD shortly after the latter had been formed.
• Killed Off for Real: By the end of season 5 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the group as a whole is finished. Talbot has used intel gleaned from Gideon Malick to wipe all their bases off the map without much fanfare, and S.H.I.E.L.D. killed Hive. The remnant group led by Brigadier General Hale is ended, with Hale's daughter Ruby being killed by Yo-Yo and Hale herself then suffering a Karmic Death at the hands (or powers) of Talbot/Graviton. However, Mitchell Carson is still somewhere out there with shrinking particles.
• Knight of Cerebus: Not much in their first appearance. Definitely in their second. They become an absolute No-Nonsense Nemesis, that pull out all the stops to kill Captain America and enact a monstrous plan, one that comes closer to succeeding than just about any other villainous plan in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Knight Templar: For all their talk of peace and saving lives, their list of targets includes Tony Stark and President Ellis. It's not so much "people who are threats to the world" as "people who will challenge HYDRA's status quo".
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Outside of the MCU — Bob, Agent of HYDRA has a cameo in Deadpool (2016) as a mook, though any ties to HYDRA are Exiled from Continuity due to 20th Century Fox not having the rights to the organization. Similarly, Viper from The Wolverine is never referred to as Madame Hydra, but is exclusively referred to as Viper. The Gifted (2017) also has Baron Von Strucker's siblings and their descendants as the focus of the show, with their ties to Hydra only hinted at via the Nazis.
• The Man Behind the Man: To the Centipede Group.
• A Million Is a Statistic: They view 20 million people targeted by Zola's algorithm as a small price to pay to unite the world under their banner.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Villains, but still it's different from their green outfit from the comics.
• Nebulous Evil Organisation: HYDRA is a weapon R&D place in a frigid mountain area that wants to take over the world.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Becomes this by the time of the modern day. They don't employ the Sorting Algorithm of Evil and instead send everything they've got at you from the very beginning. They aren't keen on Evil Gloating unless they're stalling for time. They also don't explain what their exact plans are, only general goals and beliefs (which just might convert you to their side). This is Lampshaded by Zola, who says that World War II taught them how to be smart.
• Not Quite Dead: Armin Zola is alive at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger. This was a massive mistake.
• "Not So Different" Remark: From S.H.I.E.L.D., with Pierce pointing out that their enemies are HYDRA's enemies.
• Obviously Evil:
  • While HYDRA might've done a good job fooling everyone into believing they were gone for at least six decades, they really start to drop the ball in the 2010s, with their shady tactics and language, plus the fact that they decided to put Captain America on their watchlist. Ant-Man lampshades this in Avengers: Endgame, incredulously asking how the Avengers didn't catch on to them earlier.
  • Agatha Harkness also lampshades this trope in WandaVision, pointing out how illogical it was for Wanda and Pietro to join HYDRA of all things to avenge the deaths of their parents.
• Old Shame: In-Universe example. The group's Nazi past and a variant on the Sieg Heil salute becomes this in modern days according to Garrett and Ward. Daniel Whitehall, who becomes leader after them, averts this as he's clearly unrepentant about his Nazi past and makes numerous invocations to it left and right.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: At least a couple of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes demonstrate they're having a Nazi (albeit one not loyal to the cause) as their leader is this for them, with operatives being known to complain whenever someone calls them or compares them to Nazis. Even the fact that they've been operating for thousands of years isn't any help to them.
• Playing Both Sides: Winter Soldier, Agent Carter, and Civil War all provide hints that they were doing this during the Cold War, with agents infiltrating both SHIELD on the NATO side and Leviathan on the Warsaw Pact side.
• Properly Paranoid: Each and every leader in HYDRA is fully prepared to kill the others if they betray the group, and is fully aware of that fact. Coulson takes advantage of this to essentially con all but one member of the HYDRA Council to kill each other in a single massive round of paranoid backstabbing. All it takes is a few comments by an imposter to one leader's flunky.
• The Purge: Hydra's plan for world domination through SHIELD requires 20,000,000 deaths.
• Putting on the Reich: Inverted, instead they take off the Reich and become their fascistic faction, though retaining some Nazi traits. Later they lose the "racial supremacist" bit when Armin Zola reforms them. They're plain neo-fascists now.
• Religion of Evil: The Ancient Hydra were one of these.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: They split off from the Nazis, and they themselves have quite a few. Agents of SHIELD reveals that they are way older than the Nazis are, but that they joined the Nazis for their own ends during WWII. HYDRA's end goal (conquer the world) is the same across all branches, but the means of doing so vary depending on the branch, with Malick's desiring to bring Hive back to Earth instead of instigating a worldwide fascist coup via mass assassination like Zola and Pierce's does.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Hydra's infiltration of SHIELD is specifically said to have begun with Operation Paperclip, the real-life program in which former Nazi scientists were recruited to work for the American government. This gave Zola and his cronies the access they needed to subvert American nationals into becoming double agents and recreate Hydra as a conspiracy within SHIELD from the start of the latter organization.
• State Sec: Started off as this, growing from a research division to a high-tech army. Then the Red Skull goes rogue, and becomes a splinter faction. It gets zig-zagged when they infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D..
• Strange Salute: They stick both arms, with clenched fists, in the air and scream "Hail HYDRA!" It looks a lot like the Nazi salute. [The salute is mocked in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., where Garrett says it makes the person doing it look like a "West Texas cheerleader at a Pep Rally"].
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: They were originally formed as the Nazi science division, and were led by the Red Skull, a man with a fascination with mythological artifacts. That man eventually discovered the Tesseract, which had been hidden on Earth by Odin, and with it created the most technologically advanced army on Earth yet.
• Take Over the World: Their mission statement. Past and present incarnations both.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: When they go after Fury, their foot-soldiers don't skimp on the dakka, and they send along their best soldier to finish the job.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Used to be, but they broke away. They highly resent being called Nazis, especially in the modern era, when their enemies refer to them like that. Also, as revealed in the third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., their roots are far older than the Nazis.
• Took a Level in Badass: When HYDRA reformed under Zola, they got smart.
• Villain Decay: After the failure of Project Insight, the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the outing of HYDRA, things go downhill for them. As we see in Age of Ultron, the Avengers have been systematically destroying their organization, ending in the death of their current leader, Baron von Strucker. Afterwards, as we see in Ant-Man, Civil War and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., they are reduced to a paramilitary subversive organization with little chance of regaining their former power or glory, and by the end of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5, the group is all but destroyed, except Mitchell Carson, who escaped with Cross's Pym Particles in Ant-Man.
• Villainous Legacy: The whole organization is one, in a sense: Red Skull may most likely be long gone, but the organization is still very much alive and continuing to cause trouble, until S.H.I.E.L.D. (partnering with Gideon Malick and later Graviton) deals enough damage that it appears to finally be fatal, though Mitchell Carson is still out there.
• Villainous Virtues: If nothing else, HYDRA members are immensely loyal and show bravery and self-sacrifice even in the face of death. The only three who defy this are Zola, Sitwell and Baron von Strucker, and Zola still upheld HYDRA's goals until his death, and even sacrificed his now-immortal computer life to try and kill HYDRA's sole remaining threat, and von Strucker wanted to get captured intentionally to distract the Avengers so his second-in-command Dr. List could escape with their research. Even the higher-ups, like Red Skull and Pierce, have Pet the Dog moments to their subordinates.
• We Are Everywhere: They have deeply infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., to the point that there's no way of knowing who's loyal and who isn't until guns start shooting.
• We Have Reserves: Lampshaded by their very motto; "cut off one head and two more will take its place!"
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Post-Red Skull their new leadership seems to sincerely believe they are bringing law and order to a chaotic world. the factions of HYDRA only differ on how it will be accomplished: the ancient Hive-worshipping cult, who believe their deity is working for the Greater Good and will create a perfect world free of war, poverty and want, and the post-ideological schism militaristic and scientific faction, who want to make the world peaceful, orderly, and unified at any cost though more conventional mass subtle manipulation and socio-political engineering. Even then, Evil Is One Big, Happy Family and they remain unified nonetheless.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Baron Strucker considers the SHIELD infiltration to be this in The Stinger.

HYDRA Leadership

Science Division

Johann Schmidt / Red Skull

See the Red Skull page

Dr. Arnim Zola

Dr. Arnim Zola

"The sanity of the plan is of no consequence. Because he can do it."

"Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving."

Species: Human ^note Machine after transferring his consciousness to a computer before his physical death

Citizenship: Swiss, German, American

Portrayed By: Toby Jones

Voiced By: Eduardo Tejedo (Latin-American Spanish dub), Pep Sais (European Spanish dub), Mutsumi Sasaki (Japanese dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The First Avenger | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Agent Carter

"HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security."

Weapons designer for HYDRA, and right hand man to Schmidt.

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• Adaptational Wimp: In the comics, Zola frequently uploads himself into a new body whenever his old one is destroyed, and he often makes use of combat-capable robot bodies. The film version exists as a 1970s era supercomputer with no combat ability, and once this form is destroyed, he's dead for good. Or so it seems...
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He isn't the Punch-Clock Villain he says he is.
• Book Ends: His face first appears in the franchise as a sickly, distorted monocolor image on some sort of giant lens in his laboratory and last appears as a crude, distorted monocolor-screen image in Winter Soldier.
• Boxed Crook: He was recruited to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. after the war, along with other Nazi scientists, as part of the real-life Operation Paperclip. This proved to be a very bad idea, as he used the opportunity to rebuild HYDRA within S.H.I.E.L.D. itself.
• Brain Uploading: He uploads his consciousness in a vast bank of computers in the 1970's.
• Bystander Syndrome: As mentioned, he only makes HYDRA's weapons. Beyond that is another matter entirely. The Winter Soldier throws this out the window when it turns out that he's instrumental in HYDRA's survival into the 21st century.
• The Cameo: He appears in The Stinger to the first season finale to Agent Carter. He proposes an opportunity to team up with Dr. Fennhoff. It's unknown if this ever amounted to anything before he had his mind computerized.
• Cyanide Pill: The only HYDRA agent they ever catch who doesn't use one, due to being a Dirty Coward more concerned with preserving his own life than the cause. At first.
• Cyber Green: Due to the available technology when he digitized himself in the 70s, his digitized form is displayed on green monochrome monitors.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Upon being brought online by Steve and Natasha, Zola acts much more like an analytical computer than a human being. In particular, he analyzes the two of them based on their birth records with perfect, machine like memory, outright declares he's accessing the archives of HYDRA's history as though he were an A.I., and speaks with more of a robotic inflection in his voice, as though he were an evil Siri. Downplayed however in that Arnim does show at least some form of villainous glee at the fact that Steve's attempts to destroy HYDRA had failed in the long run.
• Deadpan Snarker: Becoming a living computer seems to have brought out Zola's snarky side. After provoking Steve into smashing one of his computer monitors, Zola just appears on another one, quipping "as I was saying..."
  Steve: Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years.
  Zola: First correction: I am Swiss.
• Dirty Coward: After being captured by the U.S. Military in the forties, Zola is quick to give them information on the Red Skull in exchange for his life. Ultimately subverted in that Zola still believed in HYDRA's philosophy and did everything in its power to ensure the organization would live on, using S.H.I.E.L.D. itself as a front.
• Disc-One Final Boss: In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it seems like the mastermind of the conspiracy is Zola, having survived in a computer since the 1970s and created an algorithm that present-day HYDRA plans to use for their own needs. However, his "brain" is destroyed by a strike missile in an attempt to kill Steve and Natasha halfway through the film, leaving Alexander Pierce to take over as the Big Bad.
• The Dragon: A non-combatant version, to the Red Skull.
• Dragon Ascendant: Reforms HYDRA from within S.H.I.E.L.D. after being captured.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Implied, as he was the architect for creating the modern day HYDRA which has long abandoned any Nazi beliefs about racial purity.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He was horrified by Red Skull's sanity slippage after the latter murdered three Nazi officers for calling him out. Though, by the time of The Winter Soldier, this trait is long gone.
• Evil All Along: While he seems like a harmless Punch-Clock Villain in Captain America: The First Avenger, the tie in prequel comic Captain America: First Vengeance reveals that he was responsible for Red Skull becoming as bad as he did. He had examined the super soldier serum ahead of time and found the flaw that resulted in Schmidt's deformity, yet he chose not to tell him so he would become as horrible as possible.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Abraham Erskine and Howard Stark, for they are scientific geniuses who work on opposite sides.
  • To Cap himself. As Zola points out, both of them are "out of time", living through World War II but surviving to the modern-day. However, achieved this through radically different approaches with Cap being a Human Popsicle while Zola utilized Brain Uploading.
• Evil Genius: His designs are above what Howard Stark or Schmidt could design alone. His weaponizing of the Tesseract done with 40's level technology, and then uploading his mind to a computer using 70's level technology show him as one of the greatest geniuses in the setting.
• Evil Gloating: Confronted by Steve and Natasha, Zola shamelessly brags about HYDRA's survival into the modern-day, even personally taunting Steve about his Senseless Sacrifice in 1945. He's partly doing this to stall for time while Pierce orders a missile strike on their location, but Zola clearly revels in revealing the extent of his work.
  Zola: We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life: a zero sum.
• Evil Is Petty: Out of all the possible places Zola could have chosen to have his mind uploaded, he chose Camp Lehigh, where Captain America was trained, even though the man was presumed long dead anyway.
• Evil Vegetarian: When Col. Phillips offers him a steak, Zola refuses it, saying meat doesn't agree with him. However, he may have been lying since he suspected the meat was poisoned. (It wasn't.)
• Face Death with Dignity: After having survived up to 2014 by using a decades old supercomputer to house his brain, Zola seems content with finally dying, so long as he gets to take Steve Rogers with him.
• Faux Affably Evil: While quite polite and dorky, he still willingly backs Red Skull. Crops up again when he's talking to Captain America and Black Widow- he "politely" gloats as he expects them all to die.
• For Science!: He just builds the awesome glowing blue machines. HYDRA and Schmidt are the ones who actually use them.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: His glasses add to the Mad Scientist look.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Initially goes from being a meek HYDRA scientist with the characteristics of a Dirty Coward, to a domineering force in HYDRA's regrowth over the course of several decades.
• Greater-Scope Villain: To Alexander Pierce and the modern day HYDRA in general. See also Predecessor Villain below.
• Herr Doktor: A Swiss scientist who makes mad science weapons.
• Joker Immunity: He cheated death by creating a copy of his mind and uploading it into a supercomputer when his body finally succumbed to natural causes in the early 70s. And although the computer ends up being destroyed by a missile, What If...? indirectly reveals that Zola created several backup copies of his artificial consciousness that are spread across the globe to help HYDRA and ensure his survival. If even a single copy survived, Zola will be back to terrorize the Earth once again.
• Machine Worship: Downplayed. While not exactly "worshipped", Zola continues to be a domineering force to ensure HYDRA's growth after transferring himself into a computer, and even writes an algorithm that the modern day followers of the organization use to enact their plan for world domination.
• Mad Scientist: Though he's much saner than Red Skull, he loses all concerns for safety when he realizes the Tesseract's potential. Even more prominent in The Winter Soldier, where he is shown to be behind the creation of the Winter Soldier, and when he became fatally ill in the '70's, transferred his mind into a computer so he could survive and continue serving HYDRA.
• Manipulative Bastard: An implicit requirement for being able to convert SSR/S.H.I.E.L.D. agents over to the very organization they were fighting, one that arose from the Nazis. Agent Carter implies he may have had some help in this regard, through hypnosis...
• Minion with an F in Evil: Subverted. Zola's uncomfortable in Red Skull's work environment and doesn't commit any evil beyond building the weapons that Schmidt asks him to make, making it seem that he's just a poor sod who just happens to work for a lunatic. However, The Winter Soldier shows that while he's not as evil as Red Skull, he's still a very bad man. He's the one who makes Bucky into the Winter Soldier, and he's complicit in numerous murders as well as a decades-long conspiracy helping HYDRA to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.. Worst of all, Zola writes a computer algorithm that helps to identify any and all potential threats to HYDRA's New World Order, numbering in at least the tens of millions, so that they can be murdered.
• Mistaken Nationality: Because of his accent and who he was working for, both Steve and the audience assumed he was German. Turns out that he's Swiss.
• The Mole: Deliberately joined S.H.I.E.L.D. with the intention of raising HYDRA inside it.
• Mythology Gag: His first appearance on screen is that of a distorted head in a screen, mirroring his most iconic incarnation. Later he's seen taking paper with the designs of said robot body. In The Winter Soldier, the camera attached to the computer his uploaded self is occupying looks like the camera on his comics counterpart's robot body.
• Nervous Wreck: In The First Avenger, Zola is constantly on edge due to working for Red Skull, with the threat of being killed should he become a liability being hung over his head. Subverted by the time of The Winter Soldier where Zola is portrayed as much more confident and a skilled manipulator at that.
• Non-Action Guy: Lampshaded by Zola himself.
  Zola: I merely develop the weapons, I cannot fire them!
• Not Afraid to Die:
  • Averted. Philips points out that Zola didn't have a personal cyanide pill to swallow when he got captured, unlike so many other HYDRA agents, which means he prefers to live. This makes him easy to blackmail.
  • However, after cheating death for more than forty years with a Brain Uploading, when a missile heads his way to kill Captain America, Black Widow, and himself by proxy, he tricks them into listening to his Evil Gloating until he believes it's too late to stop, then just gleefully accepts his fate as the price of success.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: In The First Avenger, he comes off more as a Punch-Clock Villain who was afraid of Red Skull, but smart enough to make weapons from the Tesseract. In the sequel, he's sowed the seeds and created a far more dangerous plan and army to take over the world.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Engineered HYDRA's weapons, turned Bucky Barnes into an ageless cybernetic killing machine, uploaded his own consciousness to a computer as early as the 1970s, and created a predictive analytics algorithm that puts its real world counterparts to shame.
• Only Sane Man: Compared to Schmidt, who's unrelentingly called insane throughout the film - even by Zola himself. Turns out, while he never bought into Red Skull's little personality cult, he was a true believer in HYDRA's cause.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Invoked. After the Red Skull's defeat in World War II, Zola realizes that HYDRA's initial strategy of announcing to the world that you plan to conquer and subjugate it to your rule isn't exactly a smart game plan. As such, Zola takes great strides to rebuild HYDRA under the radar and within a bigger organization to act as a smokescreen for their future crimes, while also feeding crises all over the world to create a chaotic atmosphere that would inspire humanity to take more drastic and fascistic measures to keep the peace.
• Predecessor Villain: Becomes this in The Winter Soldier, as we learn that he originally orchestrated S.H.I.E.L.D.'s corruption and concocted the film's Evil Plan before current Big Bad Alexander Pierce took the reins.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He has no stake in Schmidt's operation, but who else is going to give him a Tesseract? Think of the opportunities! Subverted in The Winter Soldier, as keeping him alive as an Allied scientist allowed him to manipulate S.H.I.E.L.D. from the back end and rebuild HYDRA as a shadow group, poised to bring about Schmidt's new world order using the United States' own technology.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: He'd rather build his designs in an environment that did not require chanting "Hail HYDRA". The sequel reveals that he was only "reluctant" to work for Red Skull; he's quite happy to be a Mad Scientist and is ideologically proud to work for HYDRA, especially since it's implied that the Skull's successors treated him with more respect than the Skull did himself.
• The Starscream: Double Subverted Trope. While he does seem alarmed by Red Skull's Sanity Slippage, he maintains a firm belief in his ideals. Despite that, he isn't willing to throw his life away for the cause, and sells Red Skull out for his own safety — and, as revealed in Winter Soldier, to revive HYDRA right under its enemies' noses.
• Superior Successor: Downplayed. While he doesn't ever take on a dictator-like role like Johann Schmidt did, Arnim Zola manages to bring HYDRA closer to world domination than the Red Skull himself could've ever dreamed of. Notably, Zola takes Schmidt's previous failures into account to devise a much grander conspiracy that nobody was able to see coming until it was almost too late.
• Taking You with Me: Intentionally gloats and explains HYDRA's Evil Plan to Steve and Natasha so that S.H.I.E.L.D. can destroy all three of them with a guided missile. Granted, Zola would have survived; What If? reveals that he had multiple copies of his consciousness scattered all over the world^note the episode's point of divergence was at some point during Avengers: Age of Ultron, so it can be assumed that Zola's multiple copies exist on Earth-199999 as well, so he'd be at worst mildly inconvenienced.
• Took a Level in Badass: Dr. Zola takes multiple levels of this after the war ends and he's recruited to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., being responsible for the decades-long HYDRA plan to covertly take over the world by making them smarter and more competent. He comes closer to the fruition of HYDRA's plans than the Red Skull himself.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: His torture of the American soldiers is shown in The Winter Soldier which casts him in an even nastier light, and proves him to be a bigger threat than he let on.
• The Unfettered: In The Winter Soldier, Zola refused to allow death to stop him from furthering HYDRA's goals; he simply transferred his mind into a computer and went right on working.
• Villain Team-Up: In 1946, Zola's cell was eventually shared with another supervillain, Dr. Fennhoff, a talented hypnotist and leader of Leviathan. Zola offered him a chance for escape by combining their skills, and by proxy uniting Leviathan and HYDRA.
• Virtual Ghost: In The '70s, he was able to upload his brain into a lot of mainframe computers before dying. Despite some additions such as an USB port, it's mostly an old-fashioned Zeerust ghost that appears through tube monitors.
• Walking Spoiler: His very introduction in Winter Soldier is to show HYDRA is not dead, and quite infiltrated into S.H.I.E.L.D. to the point of using their resources to keep Zola alive as a Virtual Ghost.

Secretary Alexander Pierce

Secretary Alexander Pierce

"Are you sure you're ready for the world to see you as you really are?"

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Robert Redford

Voiced By: Arturo Mercado (Latin-American Spanish dub), Manolo García (European Spanish dub), Hideyuki Tanaka (Japanese dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Avengers: Endgame | Loki ^note  Archive footage from Avengers: Endgame

"See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies."

A member of the World Security Council and old comrade of Nick Fury. He is one of the primary heads of Project INSIGHT, and leads an investigation on all suspects of the assassination attempt on Nick Fury… including Captain America.

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• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, Pierce is a standard, good guy agent. In the movie, he's not only the Big Bad of the second film, but also a part of HYDRA.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Comic Pierce has black hair, the movie version has Redford's natural blonde.
• Age Lift: Pierce is a young man in the comics, somewhere in his thirties, and not even half of Redford's age.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Moles under his command take control over the S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Triskelion as well as all three Helicarriers.
• Badass Boast: His retort to Nick Fury's line in Broken Pedestal below.
  Alexander Pierce: You already did. You will again, when it's useful.
• Big Bad: Of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He calls for the hit on Fury, gives orders to the Winter Soldier, and plans to use Helicarriers and Zola's algorithm to place the entire world under his control.
• Big Bad Friend: To Nick Fury, whom he has a long history with and whom he tries to have killed rather quickly.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: At first, Pierce seems like another Nick Fury. He rails against the World Security Council much like Fury, has a friendship with Fury and is a fan of the Avengers. The reality is, he's a Manipulative Bastard who is a member of a fascistic organization that was spawned in Nazi Germany and he himself is responsible for God-knows how many deaths over the years.
• Broken Pedestal: He was the man who appointed Nick Fury as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and was The Mentor to him. The revelation that he was Evil All Along greatly upsets Nick.
  Nick Fury: You know, there was a time when I would have taken a bullet for you.
• The Cameo: His past self appears in the 2012 Time Heist trying to take the Tesseract from Tony.
• Celebrity Paradox: Redford's long career combined with the size of the MCU would make it pretty hard to avoid, and sure enough Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has been mentioned on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
• Composite Character: The film's Pierce is an amalgamation of several different characters from the Marvel Universe; Alexander Goodwin Pierce, as far as the name goes, Robert 'Rebel' Ralston, in being an old friend of Fury's who was in an oversight position over S.H.I.E.L.D., not to mention being drawn to look like Redford for a time, and Aleksander Lukin, the Winter Soldier's master. His motives and high position evoke shades of Number One of the Secret Empire arc, while he physically resembles Arnold Brown, the leader of HYDRA during the Strange Tales story arc where the organization first appeared.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Although both the Red Skull and Pierce were the leaders of HYDRA in their respective time periods, the Red Skull was a superhuman who wanted all-out war while Pierce was a normal person who preferred more pragmatic methods.
• Cool Old Guy: The fact that he's Robert Redford is reason enough, but he also argues defiantly with the World Security Council and has a good sense of humor.
• Corrupt Bureaucrat: When it comes down to it, this is all he is, but the corruption is in a different way than most. Think of a kill list. People who, it's been decided, threaten the world's order enough that they must be killed to uphold it. From that, he's extrapolated the concept of figuring out what makes a person threaten world order, then removing the people who fit that profile in their dozens, or hundreds, or millions before they become threats. Never mind "innocent until proven guilty". Never mind those on kill lists have usually actively resisted less lethal alternatives. It's just another step…
• Deadpan Snarker: His remark about pointing out Algiers on a map qualifies. This is apparently a habit of his; at one point, one of the World Security Council asks Pierce to get any "snappy remarks" out of the way early.
• Death Glare: Despite his usual friendly-seeming demeanor, he can demonstrate a pretty chilling one, such as during Captain America's Rousing Speech and when Pierce kills the World Security Councilors.
• Detective Mole: He puts himself in charge of investigating Fury's "murder."
• Dissonant Serenity: This is his reaction to shooting his maid, who has walked in on him chatting with The Winter Soldier:
  Pierce: [in a completely calm tone] Oh, Renata; I wish you would've knocked.
• Dying Alone: After being shot by Fury, he's left to die in in the ruins of his office as the Helicarriers and his plans crumble to pieces around him, proclaiming loyalty to HYDRA with his final breath.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first appearance, meeting with the Council. He's standing while they're sitting passively, and while they're argumentative, stuffy, and obstructive, Pierce sees through all of it and delivers catty zingers at their expense. Lastly, there's this exchange, which greatly foreshadows The Reveal later on.
  Councilman: This Council takes piracy seriously.
  Pierce: Really? I don't. I don't care about one boat. I care about the fleet.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • His daughter, whose near death at the hands of terrorists was what motivated his Start of Darkness. When he saw how his inaction would've cost her her life and how Fury's unauthorized heroics saved her, Pierce decided he'd rather have the power to stop threats before they occur, whatever the cost, and this may have contributed to his turning to HYDRA.
  • He also expresses regret about the death of his maid, even though he personally was forced to shoot her after she stumbled on his meeting with Winter Soldier.
• Evil Costume Switch: Pierce initially appears wearing a gray business suit. After he's been confirmed as the Big Bad of The Winter Soldier, he switches to a dark suit. He was Evil All Along, but the change in costume comes after the revelation that he's a villain.
• Evil Old Folks: One of the oldest people in The Winter Soldier (Robert Redford was 76 at the time of filming) and the head bad guy.
• Faux Affably Evil: He may seem friendly and charming, but in reality he's cold and ruthless.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A bespectacled remorseless mass murderer and HYDRA leader.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Of the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The first season's Big Bad is a mysterious Diabolical Mastermind who calls himself the Clairvoyant, who is actually a HYDRA mole within S.H.I.E.L.D. That means this guy is his boss, but is uninvolved with his Evil Plan. Endgame reveals he was yet another overshadowing threat besides Thanos for the first Avengers film, and it was he who demanded to confiscate Loki's scepter and have him and the Tesseract handed to S.H.I.E.L.D. for HYDRA's (then-undercover) purposes. They succeeded in taking the Scepter, but not Loki and the Tesseract, both of which ended up back on Asgard.
• Hannibal Lecture: After Natasha takes over his meeting, puts him at gunpoint and Nick Fury walks in, he gives one of these at the end of the movie. He tells Fury that seeing his aggressive stance on terrorism earlier in their lives is what inspired Pierce to actively stamp out any and all threats to peace. Giving that meant joining HYDRA, Fury is noticeably upset at the notion.
• Humble Hero: Turned down the Nobel Peace Prize. Why? Because he sees it as just the right thing to do. Problem is, he's more about "peace through overwhelming power".
• Karmic Death: Shot twice by Nick Fury, the man he tried to kill and whose "death" set the motion of the events in the film. Fittingly, the last exchange Pierce had with Fury had him say that he would have no qualms about having Fury shot again should it be necessary.
• Kick the Dog:
  • When his housekeeper unexpectedly returns and stumbles onto his meeting with the Winter Soldier, he shoots her twice with only the most minor of regrets.
  • While trying to get a mission report from the Winter Soldier, Pierce slaps him in the face when he proves unresponsive, then has him subjected to a painful memory wipe, indifferent to the Soldier's screams of agony as he walks away. This disturbs the HYDRA agents watching, which includes Brock Rumlow, and they're all normally very apathetic.
• Knight Templar: Seems to genuinely believe that HYDRA's work is for the good of mankind.
• The Man Behind the Man: The one who's pulling the strings of the Winter Soldier. He is also HYDRA's modern day leader.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's successfully manipulated S.H.I.E.L.D. for years, and does a good job for manipulating the World Security Council, Captain America and even seasoned chessmaster Nick Fury.
• Mole in Charge: He is HYDRA's mole within S.H.I.E.L.D. and he's Fury's boss. After Fury's death, his control of S.H.I.E.L.D. is essentially rock-solid.
• Moral Sociopathy: While Pierce is honestly doing what he believes is right and what will bring peace to the world, he cares little if at all for the people hurt or killed for his plan, rationalising that it's just the price one has to pay to create a better world.
• The Needs of the Many: He justifies his plot to have HYDRA shoot 20,000,000 people by saying their deaths will save billions. It's a bit of a hard claim to swallow, given that the targets include the President of the United States and heroes like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Unusually for a superhero movie, Pierce does not appear to have any physical combat capabilities. However, he knows how to use guns and hidden kill-gadgets, and given that he is in command of virtually all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources (including legions of SWAT teams, multiple Helicarriers, and The Winter Soldier), he is still extremely dangerous.
• Obviously Evil: Savvy viewers could probably guess by the film's marketing and the premise for the character (the "real" head of S.H.I.E.L.D. who we've never even heard of until now) that Pierce is a bad guy. That part isn't as much of a spoiler compared to the much more spoileriffic notion of how he's a bad guy.
• Oh, Crap!: Multiple ones, during the Finale.
  • First when Natasha reveals that she infiltrated the Council and takes out his guards. Pierce can only watch in surprise.
  • Then, when Nick Fury reveals he survived the assassination attempt. Pierce respond with a grimace but tries to save face with a quip.
    Pierce: Did you get my flowers?
  • Last when, Black Widow shocks herself to disable Pierce's kill-device on her. This time his shock of trying to figure out what just happened buys time for Fury to grab a gun and shoot him.
• Real Award, Fictional Character: Pierce is notable for that time he turned down the Nobel Peace Prize by saying that peace is a goal that must be continuously striven for and such a worthy goal does not need prizes. By this point in the film he's already been revealed as the head of HYDRA, and we know that HYDRA's ideas of peace are not the kind that would warrant the Peace Prize. Nick is suitably disgusted when he says the line.
• Remember the New Guy?: Introduced as friend and superior of Nick Fury's, a member of the World Security Council, despite not appearing among them in The Avengers. Almost all the WSC members seen here are new, though, so it's possible The Avengers either didn't show all the members or there was a change in staff in the time since. Endgame retcons him into being present during the immediate aftermath of the Battle of New York.
• Running Both Sides: For most of The Winter Soldier, he's in charge of both the legitimate S.H.I.E.L.D. and the American division of HYDRA.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Pierce wears a very sharp gray three-piece suit early in the film, and an equally snappy black suit in the finale.
• Smug Smiler: When Fury turns up alive, he can only smirk. Councillor Rockwell even calls him a "smug son of a bitch" which is a very accurate description.
• Two First Names: Alexander and Pierce.
• The Unfettered: The ends justify the means for Pierce, so he doesn't bother limiting his means; early in The Winter Soldier, he tries to have his old friend Nick Fury assassinated by police officers. Then there's Project INSIGHT.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • He turned down a Nobel Peace Prize because he supposedly felt that peace wasn't something you achieve and then get a prize for; it's something you must forever strive to attain and defend.
  • He remained a very high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent until Rogers exposed him as the leader of HYDRA.
• Walking Spoiler: The reveal he's actually controlling HYDRA makes him hard to discuss without revealing the whole movie.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Honestly believes he's doing the right thing, without a trace of selfishness. he may be insane but still…

Baron Wolfgang von Strucker

Baron Wolfgang von Strucker

"HYDRA. S.H.I.E.L.D. Two sides of a coin that's no longer currency."

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Thomas Kretschmann, Joey Defore (young)

Voiced By: Rubén Trujillo (Latin-American Spanish dub), Pedro Molina (European Spanish dub), Akio Hirose (Japanese dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The Winter Soldier ^note  In The Stinger | Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Scepter'd Isle comic | Avengers: Age of Ultron | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 103: "Rise and Shine")

"It's not a world of spies anymore, not even a world of heroes. This is the age of miracles, doctor. And there is nothing more horrifying than a miracle."

A prominent leader of HYDRA after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the death of Alexander Pierce. He was also one of the HYDRA members infiltrated within S.H.I.E.L.D..

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• Abusive Parents: Strucker constantly beat his son, Werner von Strucker, when the latter was a child.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Is completely bald, scarred and often gaunt in the comics. He's played by the attractive Kretschmann in film, and he's buzzcut rather than bald.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the comics, Strucker is a big name villain and a serious physical threat. Being mentioned in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. appeared to set him up as one of the next big villains in the MCU. Come Age of Ultron, Strucker is shown to be a Dirty Coward who quickly surrenders and is taken out by Captain America moments after running into him. Then he's Killed Offscreen by Ultron.
• Age Lift: As with Nick Fury (basically his archenemy in the comics), we get no indication that he's been around since WWII.
• Asshole Victim: Murdered by Ultron, with his head painfully smashed against a wall. Hardly anyone, even out of Strucker's HYDRA contemporaries or even his own son, is particularly sorry about it. Only Ulysses Klaue shows even a hint of regret about Strucker's death, and even then, he shrugs it off pretty quickly.
• Bad Boss:
  • He leaks information about remaining HYDRA bases to buy himself time for his own plans while effectively selling out his underlings.
  • He urges his men to fight a losing battle against the Avengers while Strucker intends to surrender in order to save his own neck, but this is likely a ploy to distract the Avengers so List can escape with all their work.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Despite all of the build up, he's easily captured at the beginning Avengers: Age of Ultron, and doesn't even get an onscreen death, instead being Killed Offscreen.
• Characterization Marches On: In The Winter Soldier he is portrayed as a menacing and cold Diabolical Mastermind and clearly a major threat. Age of Ultron abandons those traits altogether, portraying him as a Big Bad Wannabe Dirty Coward who's nothing more than a glorified Disc-One Final Boss.
• The Chessmaster: A prominent HYDRA leader and previously a mole in S.H.I.E.L.D., he likely had a hand in formulating Project Insight and not only that, he escaped the havoc caused by the plot's unravelling in The Winter Soldier entirely unscathed.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Having his head smashed against a wall by Ultron couldn't have felt good. Of course, he definitely deserved it.
• Decomposite Character: The Red Skull takes over his comic counterpart's position as founder of HYDRA. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reveals he's a member of the second generation of Red Skull's incarnation of HYDRA after its revival by Zola.
• Demoted to Extra: He is the founder and preeminent head of HYDRA in the comics. The movies make Red Skull the founder of the modern incarnation, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. implies he's actually one of a council. In a specific film example, he was originally the Big Bad of The Winter Soldier, as is evident in abandoned storyboards before Robert Redford was cast and the role was re-written to be Pierce instead.
• Dirty Coward: Pretty shamelessly, unless he was aiming for I Surrender, Suckers below. However, it's hinted that it's a trick to distract the Avengers so Dr. List can escape and continue their research.
  Strucker: We will not yield. The Americans send their circus freaks to test us. We will send them back, in bags. NO SURRENDER!
  HYDRA Soldiers: NO SURRENDER!
  Strucker: [quietly, to Dr. List] I'm going to surrender…
  
• Disc-One Final Boss: He's the primary threat of the first act of Avengers: Age of Ultron, and is succeeded by the titular character shortly afterward.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Strucker is quickly dealt with in Age of Ultron's opening act, and the next time we see him, he's already been killed by Ultron, with the robot smashing Strucker's head against the wall of his prison cell, to cover his tracks.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Appears in the stinger of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, before being featured more prominently in the opening of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
• Evil Genius: Strucker is an accomplished scientist working for HYDRA.
• Evil Wears Black: Like most of the rest of HYDRA in the films, Strucker wears a black uniform similar to the green one HYDRA had in the comics.
• Go, Ye Heroes, Go and Die: When the Avengers are quickly making their way to his HQ, he encourages his men to fight to the end and that they will not surrender. He then immediately turns to Dr. List and whispers that they're going to surrender. Though it's heavily implied that his surrender is part of a plan to distract the Avengers so Dr. List can escape with their research.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He's this to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2, as dialogue suggests he's superior in the organization to Whitehall and the HYDRA council. He's on Team Coulson's hit list but they have other, more immediate, targets.
• Hate Sink: While not exactly admirable in Age of Ultron (being a Dirty Coward who engages in lethal human experimentation), references and flashbacks in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. make him out to be even more loathsome, showing Strucker to be an abusive, sexist, arrogant asshole who has been a HYDRA loyalist from a young age.
• He Knows Too Much: After telling Ultron that he can obtain more vibranium from Ulysses Klaue, Ultron murders Strucker to cover his tracks. The Avengers find his body with "PEACE" written on the wall in his cell.
• High-Class Glass: Wears one just like in the comics. This one seems to be actually a high tech lens and not a straight monocle.
• Killed Offscreen: After he's knocked out by Captain America in Age of Ultron's opening, he is next seen dead in his prison cell, having been murdered by Ultron after giving up information on how to get vibranium, and given the position of the blood stain, it's likely that Ultron killed him by smashing his head against the wall, then used his blood to write "PEACE" on the wall of the cell.
• Informed Attribute: In The Winter Soldier and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Strucker is presented as a serious threat and one of HYRDA's greatest leaders. Come Age of Ultron he's revealed to be a Dirty Coward whose forces are Curb Stomped by the Avengers and he's easily taken out by Captain America.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Despite claiming to surrender, he has Scarlet Witch on standby ready to attack Cap. It doesn't work.
• The Mole: He was a high-ranking HYDRA mole within S.H.I.E.L.D..
• New Era Speech: His "age of miracles" monologue is a downplayed version of this since he's only thinking about his two new bioweapons (Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch).
• Obviously Evil: Von Strucker's Nazi-esque appearance wouldn't be out of place in a 1940s film serial.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Besides human experimentation using Loki's staff, Strucker was also working on a variety of scientific endeavours. In particular, it was his robotics projects that inspired Tony Stark to create Ultron. Tony thinks that the mind inside the scepter (revealed to be the Mind Stone) is what was truly doing all the thinking.
• Overlord Jr.: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reveals that he has a son named Werner von Strucker. Ironically, Werner says that his father kept him as far away from HYDRA as possible, and Werner ended up instead being an Upper-Class Twit who spent his father's money. It was someone else who groomed him for HYDRA leadership.
• Put on a Bus: Strucker is the only villain who first debuted in Captain America: The Winter Soldier to not return in Avengers: Endgame when Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, and Banner time traveled to the Battle of New York.
• Red Herring: Was initially led to be believed to be a major threat, however when he returns in Age of Ultron, he was just a Starter Villain taken out at ease.
• The Rival: To Brigadier General Hale, way back at the academy days. Hale was actually the better student but Strucker had already been marked for leadership.
• Starter Villain: For Age of Ultron he is the first threat that the Avengers take down, and from him they steal Loki's Scepter. This leads to Ultron.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: In his second MCU appearance, he's the villain of the prologue, but is then suddenly Killed Offscreen by Ultron.
• Undignified Death: Unceremoniously murdered in his prison cell by a psychotic murder bot, who then uses some of Strucker's blood to write a message on the wall.
• The Von Trope Family: Wolfgang von Strucker.
• We Have Reserves: He plans to leak intel to Captain America about other surviving HYDRA bases so Rogers will be distracted taking them out while he completes his plan.

Dr. Daniel Whitehall / General Werner Reinhardt

Dr. Daniel Whitehall / General Werner Reinhardt

"Discovery requires experimentation."

Species: Human

Citizenship: German, American

Portrayed By: Reed Diamond

Voiced By: Óscar Gómez [Disney Dub], Gabriel Cobayassi [Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub); Antonio García Moral (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Avengers: Endgame ^note  Archive photography from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Freedom. Equality. Individual rights. These principles make mankind a plague on this planet. Think of a forest. It dries up and catches fire with the first spark. Now, mankind would fight that fire, believing every individual plant perfect in its own individual way. But it's the fire that's perfect."

One of the most prominent leaders of HYDRA. Originally a high ranking officer of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS), during World War II he led many expeditions to recover mysterious artifacts for HYDRA.

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• Adaptational Nationality: British in the comics, German here. Later, he adopts American citizenship after he changed his identity into "Daniel Whitehall".
• Adaptation Name Change: In this show, his real name is Werner Reinhardt.
• Arc Villain: Though he starts off as Season Two's Big Bad, he doesn't last beyond "What They Become".
• Ascended Extra: Daniel Whitehall is a relatively new villain in the Marvel comic universe, having only debuted in 2009 (though he's the replacement/successor to long-time HYDRA agent Commander Kraken, who debuted in 1970). Here, he's the Big Bad of Season Two and one of the heads of HYDRA.
• Asshole Victim: He is one of the most evil characters of the series and when Coulson shoots him, everyone is happy, even some of his allies claim they didn’t like him.
• Big Bad: At the onset of Season Two, he appears as one of the heads of HYDRA and is the lead villain searching for the Obelisk. His actions in torturing Jiaying were also a major influence in her Start of Darkness which led to her becoming the Big Bad for the latter half of Season Two.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: At the end of "A Hen in the Wolf House", Whitehall teams up with Calvin Zabo to kill Coulson and his team, and he later brings Ward into the fold in "The Things We Bury".
• Big Bad Wannabe: While he's certainly dangerous, Cal notes that for all his extensive research he has no idea what the Obelisk's purpose actually is, likening him to a monkey scratching at it. Not to mention how he's unceremoniously gunned down by Coulson halfway through the season.
• Break Them by Talking: He delivers one to Agent 33 about HYDRA's philosophy of The Evils of Free Will to wear down her resolve while brainwashing her.
• Catchphrase: "Discovery requires experimentation."
• Cold-Blooded Torture: He boasts about Deathshead-levels of torture, like how he once operated on a conscious woman on-and-off for a full week, and how the hardest part was keeping her awake enough to feel the pain.
• Determinator: He's been after the Obelisk since 1945, and spent a whole week visecting Jiaying's organs so he could transfuse her anti-aging powers into himself.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He spearheads the search for the Obelisk, and later the hidden city, in the first half of Season Two. After he's killed by Coulson, he leaves a hole that could be filled by Calvin Zabo, Ward and Agent 33, or Jiaying, with the position of Big Bad ultimately going to Jiaying.
• The Dreaded: His subordinates are terrified of failing him, and rightly so, given his penchant for Cold-Blooded Torture and utter lack of anything resembling a conscience. Even the usually unflappable Raina is scared of him. Even in prison, he instilled fear to those loyal to Hydra, as shown when Nathaniel Malick was shown to be quite worried about being summoned by the man, and also reminding his brother of what could happen if they refused to attend a meeting with the man.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The first half of "What They Become" is spent building up to a final confrontation between Calvin Zabo and Whitehall. Just before the big showdown, Coulson arrives and shoots Whitehall on sight, killing him instantly and pissing Zabo off.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • On the receiving end of this after his death, as one of the HYDRA leaders speaks ill of him at the subsequent meeting, and even Agent 33 realizes that he was a terrible master.
  • While his objections aren't remotely moral in nature, Whitehall wants nothing to do with the "ancient cult" facet of HYDRA, preferring the scientific aspects established by the Red Skull. He even tried to convince the young Malick brothers, Gideon and Nathaniel, to turn away from the cult and join his faction of Hydra. He also considered Wilfred Malick a coward for cheating his way out of being selected to be sent into the Monolith.
• Evil Old Folks: Decades spent in custody has not mellowed him out one bit, given his gruesome and prolonged torture of Jiaying. In the present he still is this, despite despite his relatively youthful appearance.
• Fauxreigner: Inverted, he dropped the German accent and adopted an American name after being released from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.
• Faux Affably Evil: His introduction has him cheerfully chatting with a subordinate even as Agent Carter and the SSR are closing on their location, even reassuring the subordinate and telling him not to be scared because the Red Skull is now dead. He doesn't even get particularly upset when the SSR arrests him, but his veneer of good manners thinly disguises a psychopath who expects everyone around to obey him completely out of Mind Control or sheer terror, and it's rare for him to open his mouth without speaking about torture, mass-murder or power.
• For Science!: "Discovery requires experimentation" is his personal mantra for a reason.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He's seen calmly cleaning his glasses during the evacuation of his HYDRA camp. He repeats the action after receiving word that Creel has obtained the Obelisk in the present day. He calmly orders the vivisection, organ extraction and then dumping of Skye's mother.
• The Fundamentalist: Whitehall is an ardent believer in Schmidt's cause of eliminating The Evils of Free Will, and is even described as "a disciple of [the] Red Skull" by Bakshi. That said, Whitehall didn't seem too upset to learn of Schmidt's death, implying that he was more loyal to the message than the man.
• Hate Sink: He is introduced in the first episode of season two as an Affably Evil Benevolent Boss who happens to be a Nazi. As the the series goes on, his affability becomes an obvious façade as he is shown committing atrocious acts
• Healing Factor: While never shown demonstrating it, this is why he's Older Than They Look, having extracted it from Jiaying and applied it to himself.
• Hypocrite: He frequently says that his twisted experiments on innocent individuals is necessary for scientific discovery. And yet, he keeps said results from his experiments for himself, thus revealing he is only interested in discoveries to use for himself.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Regarding the Obelisk. Despite searching for it for decades he knows nearly nothing about what it really is, despite Malick's HYDRA being well aware of Inhumans and their origins.
• Mad Doctor: It's not clear what kind of doctor he is, though he references performing surgery (as torture) and is interested in scientific research (into weapons of mass destruction).
• The Man Behind the Man: He appears to be running a portion of HYDRA in the present day after the demise of Alexander Pierce, though Ward implies that Whitehall is subordinate to Baron Strucker.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Zig-Zagged. While imprisoned, he still has considerable influence over not only the Red Skull's HYDRA, but also Malick's Hive-worshipping HYDRA. However, he was still stuck in prison with no way out, and as the decades passed his influence appeared to wane and he was honestly amazed when, as a crippled old man, he learnt that HYDRA was still alive and in need of his services again. ^note Might be a case of Hoist by His Own Petard since he mocked a young Gideon Malick concerning his worship of Hive, and since Malick went on to become one of the major leaders of HYDRA he might have decided to just leave Whitehall there for the insult, and it was only chance that Whitehall proved useful to the cause again.
• Older Than They Look: He appears alive at the end of "Shadows"... set nearly seventy years after his appearance in a flashback at the beginning of the episode. It's revealed that he did in fact age naturally into an old man while in custody until Alexander Pierce freed him under the pretense of "medical release". He and HYDRA tracked down a woman who didn't get killed by the Obelisk and who hadn't aged a day- Skye's mom. Whitehall vivisected her to rejuvenate himself and then tossed her corpse into the woods.
• Orcus on His Throne: He lets his many agents do his dirty work for him. The only two things he has done personally are: go after Raina and brainwash Agent 33.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In addition to being a Nazi, he ignored General Hale's skills in favor of using her for a super breeding program, and expressed surprise at a female operative making it as far as she did.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: For a villain, anyway. He has no problem with his agents changing their plans or failing their mission, such as when Agent 33 failed to catch Raina or when Ward took Skye from the Quinjet. However, he won't tolerate direct disobedience.
• Remember the New Guy?: He was apparently a very high-ranking member of HYDRA in the 40's and part of the inner circle of the Red Skull, despite the fact that he's neither seen nor mentioned in Captain America: The First Avenger and only appears in the MCU starting with the second season of AoS.
• Sadist: Whitehall is a remorseless sadist to the very core: anyone in his custody can expect a long, protracted death. He boasts to Raina that he's perfected the art of performing surgery without anesthesia—For the Evulz—without them falling unconscious from the pain. He also seemed to greatly enjoy mentally breaking Agent 33. His underlings range from those who are utterly terrified of him to those who he controls completely with brainwashing as well.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: A few camera angles with the right lighting give him this.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Rare evil to evil version. When he corners Raina and she tries to negotiate, he just shuts her up with a little remote torture device.
  Whitehall: You should know, I'm not like the people you're used to dealing with. I'm not so easily confused.
• The Sociopath: Very sadistic, Faux Affably Evil, experimenting with the Obelisk using human test subjects and then continuing with the same methods when it becomes apparent that they don't work simply For the Evulz. That, coupled with the fact that he's The Unfettered, makes him this.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He always talks in a calm, almost monotone, manner.
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: A HYDRA leader who ran a base in Austria filled with a good number of future 084s — including the first official 084 according to S.H.I.E.L.D. records.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Whitehall is a monstrous HYDRA leader with incredible resources at his command. How does he die? From Coulson putting a couple of bullets in him while Whitehall's back was turned.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: After spending a good deal of Season 2's first half on the Doctor's quest for brutal revenge against him, he gets a deliberately anti-climactic and unsatisfying death from Coulson with a couple bullets he doesn't even see coming.
• Those Wacky Nazis: A first-generation member of HYDRA, which spun out of the Nazi party, but essentially kept the major themes along with a touch of Stupid Jetpack Hitler.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: Believes that there should be a single world order run by HYDRA dedicated to eradicating The Evils of Free Will and anything resembling liberty or freedom.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • He didn't get to live to see it (or really care), but his vivisection of Jiaying would mean doom for plenty of innocent people down the line.
  • He’s the reason why Brigadier General Hale is running the Destroyer of Worlds program, which is destined to bring about the apocalypse.
• Villainous Friendship: Despite being a sadistic sociopath and former Nazi, Whitehall was held in surprisingly high regard by his HYDRA peers. List even admits to missing him after Whitehall was killed, and the HYDRA council honors him with a toast, saying that he had joined the Red Skull in the afterlife.
• Villainous Legacy: Despite being long dead, he still casts a long shadow in subsequent seasons, and it's not uncommon for him to appear to in flashbacks. General Hale wants to use an old superhuman program — the Destroyer of Worlds to stop the Confederacy from taking over Earth.
• White Hair, Black Heart: He's a sadistic HYDRA scientist with white hair. It doesn't appear to be age-related either, as he still has it even as a middle-aged man during 1945.
• You're Insane!: Gets this from Cal, who declares his methods in trying to figure out the Obelisk (specifically, repeating methods he knew didn't work) "the very definition of insanity".

Dr. List

Dr. List

"Let's show them what we have accomplished. Send out the twins."

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Henry Goodman

Voiced By: Armando Réndiz (Latin-American Spanish dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The Winter Soldier ^note  In The Stinger | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 33: "Aftershocks") | Avengers: Age of Ultron

A scientist and one of the leading figures of HYDRA, often representing the voice and interests of Wolfgang Von Strucker.

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• Ascended Extra: His role in the movies is fairly brief. His only real function there is to be a loyal aide von Strucker can confide his evil plans to. By guest starring in three episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as the Greater-Scope Villain, he ends up with more screentime than his boss.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Jiaying in the second half of Season 2.
• Boom, Headshot!: He's killed when Iron Man shoots him in the head with a repulsor beam in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
• The Dragon: He represents Strucker's interests and works on his behalf.
• Dragon Ascendant: With the deaths of Whitehall as well as the HYDRA councillors his standing within the organization increases.
• Early-Bird Cameo: His first appearance was in The Stinger of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
• Evil Old Folks: An evil man whose age is starting to show.
• For Science!: Though not as much as Whitehall, he has no compunctions against experimenting on living people. He even respects Whitehall's dedication.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Set up as one for the latter half of Season 2, despite not appearing much. He's a leading scientist in HYDRA and is Coulson's primary target to destroy HYDRA.
• The Mole: He was one of the many S.H.I.E.L.D. members secretly aligned with HYDRA.
• Mouth of Sauron: Served as Strucker's in the HYDRA council.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: After the deaths of the HYDRA council, his wardrobe improves.

Sunil Bakshi

Sunil Bakshi

"I'm part of a grand history."

Species: Human

Citizenship: British

Portrayed By: Simon Kassianides

Voiced By: David Martínez [Disney Dub], Armando Guerrero [Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub); Juan Antonio Arroyo (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 23: "Shadows")

"We grow stronger every day while S.H.I.E.L.D. clings desperately to a world it no longer understands. We will rip it from your hands."

A HYDRA operative of British origin who gives the orders in the field as well as recruiting gifted individuals.

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• Affably Evil: He comes off as rather polite in his lectures.
• Ambiguously Brown: Played by a slightly darker white British actor of Cypriot descent, though his surname implies South Asian or Jewish ancestry and in combination with the first name, sounds Indian.
• Asshole Victim: It's quite hard to feel sorry for his plight and ultimate demise after he's shown himself to be not just a loyal but also willing follower of Whitehall.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Bakshi tries very hard to be a threatening villain, but just can't cut it. As The Dragon to Whitehall, he's a Bumbling Sidekick who is easily captured. As the Dragon Ascendant, his escape is only part of an elaborate trap, and he's soon recaptured after being tricked into assassinating the rest of his allies.
• Bumbling Sidekick: Even though he should by all accounts be a formidable villain, being Whitehall's Dragon, a senior member of HYDRA, and the one who supervises HYDRA's brainwashed subjects, he has a surprising tendency to fail at every instance. It's a wonder that Whitehall kept him around, even if his failures weren't apparent from the start:
  • He thought Simmons, of all people, could be trusted. He backpedals on this quickly, only for Deep Cover Agent Bobbi to reveal herself and get the jump on him instead.
  • With Agent 33, he catches May in a trap and by all means should've held the upper hand, but after Coulson sees through their disguises, he fails to make any backup plans and tries to make a hasty extraction, but is quickly hit with an ICER and foiled as a result.
  • Both Ward and a disguised Hunter are able to make quick work of him.
• Canon Foreigner: Unlike his master, he has no comic book counterpart and was created specifically for the show.
• Compelling Voice: He uses a Trigger Phrase in order to keep brainwashed subjects in line.
• Dirty Coward: As soon as he winds up in a situation he has no control over, such as Hunter holding him at gunpoint, he is reduced to a simpering coward.
• The Dragon: Bakshi serves as Whitehall's second-in-command.
• Dragon Ascendant: Once Whitehall has been dealt with, he is effectively the head of HYDRA in Whitehall's region of the globe. However, he never actually gets to do anything, since he is a prisoner of S.H.I.E.L.D., then Talbot, then Ward, and then he's killed.
• Driven to Suicide: Has a cyanide pill in his cheekbone, which he utilizes while being grilled by Bobbi. It didn't quite kill him.
• Evil Brit: Speaks in a noticeable British accent. He also joined the British military but was expelled.
• Evil Genius: He's quite intelligent, to say the least.
• Fighting from the Inside: Is apparently resisting his brainwashing by Ward and Kara, leading to the capture of Deathlok and Lincoln by HYDRA. Then it turns out that he's really not. His acting was so convincing, even viewers thought he had legitimately returned to HYDRA.
• Humiliation Conga: He was already a Butt-Monkey from the start, but after being betrayed by Ward and sold out to S.H.I.E.L.D., he can't seem to catch a break.
  • Bobbi breaks him by talking and gets him to indirectly spill Whitehall's secret behind his Older Than He Looks appearance. Following this, he fails to kill himself with cyanide.
  • After Whitehall is killed, he is fooled into thinking there is a power struggle in HYDRA, and following a faked breakout scheme, he is manipulated into ordering the assassinations on the other HYDRA leaders before being recaptured and taken into military custody.
  • His last brainwashed subject breaks him out of prison... except she is working with Ward, and he quickly finds himself subjected to the same brainwashing. Worse, he is outright told he is expendable and it seems the procedure is little more than revenge and For the Evulz.
  • To summarize: He failed to notice S.H.I.E.L.D. had infiltrated HYDRA's ranks until it was too late, couldn't stop S.H.I.E.L.D. from finding the underground city first, lost control of his brainwashed subjects, inadvertently let slip his master's secrets, undermined his entire leadership on his first day as Dragon Ascendant, and finally was Hoist by His Own Petard when he was subjected to his own brainwashing procedure.
• Irony: The HYDRA agent that oversees brainwashed individuals was not only brainwashed himself, but manipulated into destroying HYDRA itself. Not that he needed brainwashing to already do that.
• Karmic Death: He is killed by Jemma, albeit accidentally or in self-defense with a Splinter Bomb, an item created by HYDRA to kill people horribly.
• Non-Action Guy: He hasn't shown any incredible fighting prowess. When dealing with May, he catches her off-guard so Agent 33 can taze her, then tortures her while she's tied up. Once she's free, he wisely makes a break for it before being stunned by Coulson. In the next episode, he chases down Simmons while flanked by backup and given his lack of bruises later, seems he didn't opt to fight Bobbi himself (probably for a good reason).
• Oh, Crap!:
  • His reaction after being found by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents being tied up on a chair. This happened after Ward beat him up off screen along with other HYDRA agents.
  • When Agent 33 breaks him out of prison, he is relieved to see that she is still loyal... then Ward appears right behind her.
• Private Military Contractors: In-between being expelled from the UK military and joining HYDRA he used to be a mercenary.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Has thus far only been seen wearing a nice suit, even on a field mission (while his underlings have more proper attire).
• Taking the Bullet: Meets his end when Simmons tries to kill Ward with a Splinter Bomb.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Bobbi thinks she's cracked his personal code and found out how to make him turn on Whitehall. As a final push, she asks "what kind of a man are you?" He replies, "A loyal one!" Then he bashes his head on a table to break open a Cyanide Pill hidden in his cheekbone.
  • This is still a primary trait even after he is brainwashed by Ward. He meets his end by putting himself in the way when Simmons tries to kill Ward.
• Unwitting Pawn: He's made into the patsy that takes down most of the leadership of HYDRA.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Bobbi's theory behind his loyalty to Whitehall is based on this sort of approval-seeking behavior. Her Sherlock Scan told her that he's estranged from his parents and a ray of acceptance and respect from Whitehall secured his devotion.

The Council

The Council (Octavian Bloom, the Baroness, the Banker, the Sheikh)

Species: Humans

Citizenship: Various

Portrayed By: Fred Dryer, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Joel Polis, Maz Siam

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appear in Episode 33: "Aftershocks")

The various branch leaders of HYDRA alongside Daniel Whitehall under Baron von Strucker.

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• As Long as There Is Evil: Captain America: The Winter Soldier shows us that if you "Cut off one head, another shall take its place". What Team Coulson doesn't know is that the HYDRA leadership is still alive and well, even if they destroyed a very big branch of HYDRA. Coulson knows, though, since he sent Deathlok to scout out the remnants of HYDRA.
• Arab Oil Sheikh: The Sheikh, as his alias implies.
• Beard of Evil: The Banker and the Sheikh, leaders of a fascist terrorist organization with graying beards.
• Bald of Evil: The Banker and Bloom are leaders of a fascist terrorist organization with balding heads.
• The Baroness: The Baroness is literally one, inkling towards the Rosa Klebb type.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: They are implied to be at equal footing with Whitehall. They only have this position for one episode before they die.
• Big Bad Wannabe: The episode they're introduced, they are quickly assassinated.
• Boom, Headshot!: Bloom gets one from Lance Hunter.
• Canon Foreigner: None of them seems to have comics counterparts, which is odd, because even in the comics, HYDRA has several branch leaders like them. Although since they are short-lived in this series, this won't be a waste of characters.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Banker, as his codename implies.
• Cosmopolitan Council: They're a surprisingly diverse group for HYDRA, including several ethnicities and two genders.
• Deadly Gas: The Sheikh is killed with poisonous gas.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Council includes a woman and a Middle-Eastern man. They are all still fascists, though.
• Evil Old Folks: All of them are above their fifties and lead a fascist terrorist organization.
• Mouth of Sauron: Dr. List serves as Strucker's voice in the HYDRA council.
• Nazi Nobleman: Well, noblewoman. The Baroness is a European aristocrat affiliated with a fascist organization.
• No Body Left Behind: The Banker is killed and disintegrated by a Splinter Bomb, the same bomb Marcus Scarlotti had used to kill Agent Noelle Walters.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Save for Octavian Bloom, we never find out their real names.
• Red Baron: They all have titles such as The Banker, The Sheikh, and The Baroness.
• Taken for Granite: How the Baroness dies, after drinking champagne laced with the weaponized Diviner effect.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: All of them save List die thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s manipulations in the episode they are introduced.

Brigadier General Hale

Brigadier General Hale

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Catherine Dent, Alyssa Jirrels (young)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 93: "Rewind")

A high-ranking officer who takes charge in investigating S.H.I.E.L.D. when Talbot ends up in a coma. In reality she's a surviving HYDRA operative, using her power and influence to continue HYDRA's mission in her own image. And destroy whatever remains of Coulson's team.

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• Abusive Parent: She keeps her "disappointing" teenage daughter locked up in some military base, when she's not having her do missions as a covert assassin.
• Affably Evil: In her later appearances, her politeness towards SHIELD appears to be genuine, however she started off as Faux Affably Evil.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite everything that she did, her ultimate fate is presented in a somewhat tragic light, having lost the only person she ever truly cared about and realizing that all of her life, she did HYDRA's bidding. And just when she tries to atone for it all, she receives an absolutely brutal death at the hands of Talbot.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: She refuses to believe that Coulson went into the future, and thus refuses to believe that her attempt to revive the Destroyer of Worlds program could end in catastrophe. This is despite all the supernatural things happening in the MCU, which includes things that she personally would be familiar with, sich as the Tesseract and gravitonium.
• Baby Factory: She was selected by Whitehall to be a glorified broodmare to bear a candidate for his attempt at replicating Project Rebirth.
• Bad Boss: Breaks multiple laws regarding human rights, and kills two subordinates for failing her. Oh, and she has her teenage daughter working as a black ops assassin.
• Big Bad Ensemble: In Season 5, Kasius and the Kree are the threat in the future, she's the threat in the present. She's left as the sole Big Bad of Season 5, following Kasius' death and Team Coulson's return to the present. Ultimately Subverted; it turns out she was Demoted to Dragon to the Confederacy, though she's a Dragon with an Agenda to overthrow them.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Her plans to save the world ultimately put the pieces in play that lead to its destruction, and she's easily overthrown by her own daughter.
• Bond One-Liner: After executing Steger for threatening her daughter: "And now we’re the last two."
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Hale has a serious loyalty issue. She's a member of the US Military, but secretly a sleeper agent for HYDRA. She's actually working for the Confederacy, a group of aliens offering protection to mankind, but plans on double-crossing them, too. Then she briefly makes allies with S.H.I.E.L.D., only to backstab them to the Confederacy for real after Yo-Yo kills her daughter. Finally, when Talbot catches the S.H.I.E.L.D. boarding party on the Confederacy ship, she tries to pin the blame on Coulson after briefly allying with him again, before finally being killed by Talbot when she attempts to use the HYDRA code phrase to save Coulson. Got all that?
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Crushed into a ball by Talbot with the power of gravity. Let's just say that wasn't entirely undeserved.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Is revealed to be working on behalf of the Confederacy, and is killed by Talbot shortly after her Heel–Face Turn.
• The Dragon: She's taking orders from the Confederacy... a group of aliens offering protection to mankind in exchange for Gravitonium and Inhumans. She is revealed to be a Dragon with an Agenda when it turns out she actually plans on double-crossing them.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She's dismissive of Coulson's "benevolent" leadership methods, failing to see the benefits of having people who are genuinely loyal to you, instead of someone being blackmailed, abused, or coerced into service. Even when she wants to protect the Earth from the Confederacy, she still insists on killing anybody who disagrees with her.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite her abusive treatment of her daughter, she's still utterly heartbroken when Yo-yo kills her daughter...to the point of selling S.H.I.E.L.D., and by extension the entire Earth, out to the Confederacy just so she can make them pay.
• Evil Counterpart: To Coulson. While Coulson is a Magnetic Hero who inspires Undying Loyalty, Hale is a Tyrant who bullies and coerces people into working for her, which mean she is Hated by All, so much that even her own daughter wants to kill her.
• Faux Affably Evil: She puts on a façade to be nice and hospitable to Coulson, however the second he shows opposition, her charm goes out the door. However character development slides her into genuine Affably Evil.
• Foil: To fellow HYDRA leader and season villain Gideon Malick. Both of them are leaders of their own HYDRA cells and have been in the organization since childhood, but Malick seems to have lived a fairly cushy life while Hale attended the HYDRA equivalent of public school, an experience which was no doubt quite demanding and painful. Malick is a politician and former World Security Council member wealthy enough to fund his cell out of his own pocket, while Hale is a soldier in the US Military who seems to rely on government resources. While Malick is a proud member of a HYDRA dynasty and makes little pretense of his true allegiance, Hale denies it and insists that she and Baron Von Strucker merely "had overlapping interests" (interestingly, both of them also knew Daniel Whitehall when they were children.) Both of them have daughters who they care about deeply, and both of them lose it when said daughters are killed. Both of them are working for an alien, but while Malick brings Hive to Earth only to realize how badly he underestimated it, Hale is only working for the Confederacy with the intent of betraying them. Finally, both of them suffer a severe and painful Heel–Face Door-Slam.
• Freudian Excuse: She developed her Straw Feminist attitude from her HYDRA superiors, especially Whitehall, ignoring her skill in favour of using her to breed a superhuman. Inside, however, there is still a schoolgirl desperate for her teachers' approval, who will stop at nothing to save the Earth on her terms by creating the Destroyer of Worlds.
• General Ripper: She was originally content with imprisoning Team Coulson. But after Fitz escaped, she's modified her orders to "shoot to kill"; that's because she's HYDRA.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: After a previous Heel Realization, she tries to aid Coulson and Talbot in dealing with the Confederacy. Unfortunately, the latter only grows more and more unstable as time goes on, and after a failed attempt of cooling him down via the previous brainwashing, Hale gets brutally crushed by him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Hale gets hit with a double-dose of this. Brutally killed by Talbot, a man she was responsible for kidnapping and brainwashing, with the powers he got from her Graviton program.
• Insistent Terminology: She insists she wasn't a HYDRA operative, rather she and Baron Von Strucker just had "overlapping interests" ... but is disgusted that HYDRA fell under his watch. She is definitely a HYDRA operative; raised to be so in fact, and works with the Confederacy, an alliance of aliens.
• Inspector Javert: She leads the investigation to track down Team Coulson, and has zero redeeming qualities. In fact, she's more villainous than the Trope Namer, as her goal is not actually to capture S.H.I.E.L.D. but eliminate them; this is because she's a surviving HYDRA operative, and she's not remotely interested in following the law.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: She's originally a surviving HYDRA operative who managed to evade capture... despite her blatant violation of military law putting a very obvious target on her back. However, she is later killed by Talbot.
• Mutant Draft Board: Wants Robin Hinton "controlled" because her powers might uncover secrets.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The only time she tries to activate Talbot's compliance protocol for altruistic reasons (to save Coulson's life), he uses his powers to crush her up into a cube.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: She claims what she's doing is necessary,and as a more sympathetic surviving HYDRA operative this seems to be the case if somewhat questionablely Given HYDRA"s methods, but with the revelation that her faction is being run by the Kree, her claims go from questionable to outright bullshit. Even with the reveal that her plan is to betray the Kree overseers, her being The Unfettered in her methods and her ego as the underlying motivation make her a cut and dry villain. This is compounded when YoYo kills Ruby; Hale then gives up any pretense of altruism and gladly betrays the Earth to avenge Ruby.
• Only One Name: We never learn what her first name is.
• Punny Name: To quote Daisy:
  Daisy: Hale is HYDRA. [Beat] "Hale HYDRA". Seriously?
• The Quisling: Her HYDRA faction is controlled by the Confederacy, a group of aliens with some Kree among them, the same species that in the future subjugates humanity. However, she actually wants to stop them.... Until her daughter is killed, and then she becomes this for real.
• Redemption Equals Death: When she actually seems to have finally come around to Coulson's side, and when attempting to calm down Talbot through his HYDRA brainwashing, he hits her with an especially brutal Heel–Face Door-Slam.
• Revenge Before Reason: She's so anguished about Yo-Yo killing her daughter that she abandons her plan of fighting the Confederacy in favor of handing them the Gravitonium on a silver platter, a fact that she knows full well may doom the entire Earth.
• The Remnant: She leads the remnants of HYDRA after Talbot used Gideon Malick's information to destroy most of HYDRA's infrastructure.
• The Rival: She was this to Wolfgang von Strucker back in their HYDRA Academy days, but while Hale was the better student, Strucker had already been selected for leadership because of his heritage.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: In her first two appearances alone she does things that would get any officer court-martialed. That's because she's actually HYDRA.
• The Sociopath: She has no regard for indiviual human lives at all, except her own daughter's, and even said daughter is treated like an asset.
• Stupid Evil: She's cruel and abusive, and her "recruitment" methods mean that none of her operatives are working for her of their own free will. Her own daughter is plotting to kill her at some point.
• Straw Feminist: She dismissed HYDRA as a "boys' club" and takes great pleasure in forcing powerful men like Creel and Anton Ivanov into working for her against their will. Ironically her immediate superior in the Confederacy is a man. She even refuses to listen to Coulson about the Stable Time Loop because she thinks he's patronizing her. It turns out this is because HYDRA saw her as little more than a baby machine, despite her obvious skill and cunning.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Takes Talbot's role while he's in a coma. While Talbot is a Jerkass, he was not entirely unreasonable, had his Pet the Dog moments, and did everything by the book; Hale actively disregards human rights and kills her own people, among other violations of military law. She has Talbot locked up in her secret base.
• The Unfettered: Hale sees herself as simply doing what has to be done to stop the Confederacy. Coulson disagrees, in part because he's seen the damage her plan will do.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her plan is to use Whitehall's "Destroyer of Worlds" program to stop the invasion, which will lead to the Bad Future seen in the first half of the season. Her plan to use Hive's beacon to lead SHIELD into a trap would lead the heroes to bring said beacon back to their base, where it exploded, creating the Fear Dimension that would create a Big Bad for the next season.
• Visionary Villain: She has vague plans for a new world order that will establish Earth as a force to be reckoned with in the galaxy, something more ambitious than HYDRA ever planned.
• You Have Failed Me: Shoots Evans and Lucas dead after failing to get answers, completely unconcerned with facing any repercussions for such a blatant breach of military law.

Other Prominent Members

John Garrett / The Clairvoyant

John Garrett / The Clairvoyant

"Oh, the power's all on this side of the room, fellas."

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Bill Paxton

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 14: "T.A.H.I.T.I.")

"You hear the dying breath of an old world, general. And a new world is coming."

A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent sent to retrieve Ian Quinn from Coulson's team. When he finds out that they need to save a member of their team (Skye), he and his co-agent Agent Triplett aid the group in breaking into the Guest House.

He is also a high-ranking HYDRA agent, having become disillusioned with S.H.I.E.L.D. after being left to die on a mission. Under the guise of the Clairvoyant, he sought to discover the secret behind Coulson's resurrection so he could heal his own dying body.

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• A Father to His Men: He inspires loyalty in his men, with Triplett would follow him to the end, and Ward has fond memories of serving under him. Ultimately subverted when he's outed as the Clairvoyant, as Coulson realizes that this means he's killed three of his own men because they asked the wrong questions. He's suitably furious at the hypocrisy, and Triplett turns on him completely due to one of the dead men being his partner.
• Abusive Parents: He was considered a father figure to Ward, and kidnapped him from a government facility when he was a teenager. Garrett proceeded to emotionally and physically abuse him for fifteen years.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, John Garrett is a legitimate and loyal agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., one of Nick Fury's closest confidants, and was even on the Howling Commandos. Here, he's a HYDRA agent and the Big Bad of Centipede and Season One.
• Anti-Hero: Posed as one, as he acted like wanted to put bad people like Ian Quinn behind bars and is implied to be A Father to His Men, but he's otherwise a brutal and unfettered guy. To convince Quinn to talk, he threatens to rip out the guy's tongue and later smacked Quinn for getting too lippy. As it turns out, he's not heroic at all.
• Appropriated Appellation: "Clairvoyant" is the name given to him by his minions; he finds it overdramatic, and he also expresses annoyance at the name of the Deathlok program. "Centipede" appears to come from a similar source. In general, he seems to find code names largely unnecessary.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: He and Coulson studied under Fury himself, and then he goes and becomes a HYDRA agent.
• Arc Villain: For Season One. By Season Two, he's largely irrelevant outside of what effects the G.H. serum had on him.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Garrett is constantly joking around, but he's also a cruel and manipulative mastermind who is willing to go through countless lives for his own benefit.
• Big Bad: As the leader of Project Centipede in Season 1, he is the man behind all of their wrong doings, as well as having Ward infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Blood Knight: Shown to eagerly be this in contrast to the more reserved Coulson. See the "tongue" example above.
• Body Horror: He wears turtleneck sweaters to conceal some rather large neck scars. His left side is also cybernetically augmented in some fashion, similar to the comics where he became one to save his life. He's revealed to be Deathlok Mk. 1 in "Ragtag," after having to stuff his guts back in and duct tape the wound shut when S.H.I.E.L.D. was unable to extract him after his injury.
• Boring Yet Practical: A high-level S.H.I.E.L.D clearance isn't exactly psychic powers, but it's extremely effective.
• Broken Pedestal: To several of his colleagues, including Coulson and Triplett. Raina is also disappointed his persona as the Clairvoyant was just a cover for his true identity. Even Ward eventually loses faith in him.
• The Chessmaster: The Clairvoyant seems to be fifteen steps ahead of virtually everyone else on the show. Even after his ties with S.H.I.E.L.D. are severed, Garrett is still able to play every other faction like a fiddle. He becomes more dangerous in a lot of ways, since he doesn't have to hide and is able to just openly raid S.H.I.E.L.D. bases.
• Chewing the Scenery: Already somewhat hammy to begin with, once he gets the GH serum, he starts devouring the scenery, or rather, "tasting it on [his] tongue".
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Averted, as "The Clairvoyant" most certainly sounds like the name of a comic book supervillain. When S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are able to talk with him (so to speak), he says his subordinates named him that and he himself finds it a little overdramatic.
• Cool Old Guy: He tends to make quips during missions in order to keep up his allies' morale, as seen during the infiltration of the Guest House. He keeps this up even after being revealed as a HYDRA operative.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: He is initially thought to be Thomas Nash, a man who can't even move unassisted and communicates through computer. This is later discovered to be a ruse, meant to throw them off the trail. The real Clairvoyant, however, really is on life support: Garrett is the prototype of Deathlok, as an Emergency Transformation, and until the end of "Ragtag" was dying from organ failure.
• Diabolical Mastermind: The mysterious and malevolent intelligence behind the group.
• Emergency Transformation: After getting maimed by an IED, he was made into the first Deathlok. It happens again after taking a rocket to the chest and getting stomped to death by the newest Deathlok, but he's unceremoniously vaporized by Coulson moments after that transformation is finished.
• Evil All Along: Garrett is one of Coulson's old friends but when his true identity is revealed as a HYDRA agent, it's clear that he's been evil for the entire series.
• Evil Feels Good: He clearly enjoys the heck out of being bad, being incredibly jovial and happy about it and reveling in saying and doing stereotypical Big Bad type things. See Evil Is Funny and Faux Affably Evil.
• Evil Mentor: To Grant Ward and Antoine Triplett, more so with the former than the latter because the latter didn't know about his true allegiance and turn into an evil hitman.
• Fallen Hero: He used to be a loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent until his superiors left him to die out in the field. It was then that Garrett decided to treat S.H.I.E.L.D. the same as S.H.I.E.L.D. treated him.
• Faux Affably Evil: He maintains the chummy attitude he's previously been using in a civilian disguise, as seen during his interactions with Coulson and Fitz after his true identity is revealed. It's best exemplified when Ward is experiencing a Villainous BSoD after killing Victoria Hand; Garrett keeps laughing and joking as he tells Ward about an old mission he was on, not caring about what's happening to Ward. His humor and "friendliness" seem to be real, but it's outweighed by the selfishness and Lack of Empathy.
• Fiction 500: Coulson and the team, unwilling to believe that the name "The Clairvoyant" could really mean a psychic, conclude that since Centipede would need a lot of money to function, the Clairvoyant must be code for their financial backer. However, Coulson seems slightly more willing to believe he's legit after Raina demonstrates very personal knowledge of him that would not be easy to come by.
• Freudian Excuse: The reason he initially (covertly) joined HYDRA in the first place was as a way to get revenge on S.H.I.E.L.D. after he was injured by an IED in Sarajevo and S.H.I.E.L.D. refused to provide him a medical evacuation.
• The Ghost: As the Clairvoyant, he made no appearances until he was revealed in "Turn, Turn, Turn".
• Go Mad from the Revelation: After he's revived with GH-325, Garrett comes back... kinda kooky. It's clear that he's not totally nuts, since he's still just as effective a mastermind as before, but whatever came with that has clearly driven him over the edge.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Acknowledged. Garrett intends to play the "bad cop" for Quinn, but he sees the injuries Quinn got from Melinda May and says, "I guess there was already a bad cop before I got here, huh?"
• He Knows Too Much: He has a habit of killing off people who ask the wrong questions, such as his three subordinates.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: For much of Season 1 his end goals (and thus Centipede's) were entirely unknown. They're creating super-soldiers, but their purpose for doing so was not revealed. "Ragtag" reveals that the super soldier project is in fact a nice bonus to Garrett's true purpose of prolonging his own life. When it comes to either replicating the GH serum for use with his soldiers or saving himself, he chooses the latter.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: In his words, he didn't join HYDRA because he shares their beliefs, unlike the fascistic Alexander Pierce. Garrett joined them because he thought the winds were blowing in their direction rather than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: In "Turn, Turn, Turn", Garrett mentions Raina having been inside the same memory machine she used on Coulson, a fact that Coulson hadn't shared with anyone.
• It's All About Me: The true purpose of Project Centipede is to save his own life. Super-soldiers are just a handy bonus application of the research.
• Karmic Death: First, he's blasted and stomped by Deathlok, but he's Not Quite Dead. He climbs into Ian Quinn's cybernetic enhancement table and gets cyborg'd up, while delivering (to himself) a villain speech... only to get atomized by Coulson using the 0-8-4 device, which is HYDRA technology. His younger self also suffers a strangely karmic death by being shot in the head by Agent Victoria Hand, someone that his older self would have later ordered Ward to murder.
• Kick the Dog: Forces Ward to shoot his faithful dog and later orders him to kill two of his former friends just to prove that he isn't held back by weakness.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: "There's a reason they say cut off the head. Now, I'll be unst-*zap*"
• Killed Off for Real: Blown up by Coulson just when you think the Tahiti serum and cybernetic enhancements will protect him for a Sequel Hook.
• Lack of Empathy: The feelings and lives of others don't mean a thing to Garrett. Even Ward, who Garrett had known and mentored since he was a teenager and was absolutely loyal to him, was treated as completely disposable. Garrett was perfectly willing to let Ward die if it meant getting something he wanted.
• Laughably Evil: For the evil head of a ruthless terrorist organization, he's pretty funny.
  S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent: How did HYDRA know you were here?
  Garrett: We told them!
  [Ward shoots both guards]
  Ward: You could have given me some warning.
  Garrett: I know, but it was such a perfect line.
• Love Is a Weakness: A firm believer in this, and he spent a big chunk of Ward's adolescence drilling that into his head.
• Ludicrous Gibs: He is disintegrated in a truly hilarious manner by Coulson in "Beginning of End".
• The Man Behind the Man: Usually, Project Centipede does just fine on their own without the Clairvoyant's assistance. However, its members hold him in very high regard and he gives them instruction when they begin to fail.
• Manipulative Bastard: Knows the right way to push peoples' buttons to get them to do what he wants. The reason for this is because he has access to S.H.I.E.L.D. agent files and uses them to predict their behavior.
• The Mole: Skye realizes that all his statements about the team members were taken verbatim from their S.H.I.E.L.D. files, and Coulson concludes that rather than having psychic powers, he's a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. itself.
• The Münchausen: He sure loves to talk about his old battles, exaggerating about half of the stuff he has done over the years. It works on the younger agents, but when someone like Coulson was actually there, he lampshades that he likes to make the stories better.
• Narcissist: Garrett is completely self-absorbed, constantly plays up his achievements, destroys hundreds of lives to save himself, and only values other people if they can do something for him.
• The Nicknamer: Calls Raina "Flowers" and Mike "Mikey", among others.
• No One Sees the Boss: The Clairvoyant is the intelligence behind Project Centipede, pulling certain strings within the organization, but only Edison Po (later Raina) is allowed to speak to him, and any knowledge of his appearance is basically a death sentence. This is because he can't allow anyone to find out that he's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Once HYDRA comes out of hiding, he abandons this pretense.
• Not So Omniscient After All: Despite claims that he's able to know what the President's dreaming, he doesn't know how Coulson came back to life. He's very eager to learn this secret. It turns out he's a high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was using his access to the team's files to fake being clairvoyant. He didn't know about Coulson's resurrection because Fury refused to let a file be made about it.
• Old Master: He's Ward's former SO, i.e. the one that taught him how to disarm nuclear bombs. He's clearly been in the business for a while.
• The Omniscient: Exhibits some form of Mundane Omniscience, which is where the name comes from. According to Po and Raina, the Clairvoyant can somehow learn about anything or anyone they need to further their plans, as well as other important information, but he may or may not choose to reveal this information until the time is right. It's later revealed that the source of this so-called omniscience is not a psychic ability but simply S.H.I.E.L.D. security clearance, and—as shown to eerie effect in The Winter Soldier—S.H.I.E.L.D. has been gathering a lot of data on a lot of people.
• Pet the Dog: A fairly minor one and more or less still villainous example. After he freed Blackout, he let the enhanced human go and told him to "follow his dreams", rather than forcibly recruited him.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Despite his tendency to pull out a You Have Failed Me at the drop of a hat, he's extremely friendly to minions who don't fail him. He gives Raina everything she needs for her work (and also a beautiful new flower dress after breaking her out of prison) and buys Ward an expensive steak dinner for finding one last secret in the Fridge. He even acts like this with his minions who are on an Explosive Leash—after Deathlok finishes a mission with admirable speed, the Clairvoyant cheerily has a streaming video of his son set up, without Deathlok even having to ask.
• Sanity Slippage: The effects of the redone Guest House serum managed to unhinge Garrett, to the point of him seeing "everything" and blurting out supposedly visionary statements that don't make any sort of sense.
• Self-Serving Memory: Known to repeatedly remember speeches and sayings incorrectly.
  • In one instance, he thinks the HYDRA motto involves cutting off a leg instead of a head.
  • He also misinterpreted Nick Fury's "One Man" speech, taking it to mean that one should inspire to be something bigger, instead of being a part of something bigger.
  • Finally, he states "there's a reason they say 'cut off the head'..." Except the context of the quote normally implies that doing so results in more "heads" taking its place, which is not the case here. Garrett seemed to take it literally, suggesting the only way to kill him would be to cut off his head. Coulson complies.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: His first lesson to Ward was to drop him off in the woods with nothing but a bag of clothes and a hunting dog. He came back six months later.
• The Sociopath: Garrett has no empathy, values no one but himself, manipulates everyone around him, and the affability he displays is either completely shallow or undermined by how selfish he is. He also admits to having been "a pyro" as a kid, a telltale sign of sociopathy.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: After he's finally revealed, all that light-hearted joking takes on a sinister hue.
• The Starscream: He was never really loyal to HYDRA. He only cared about keeping himself alive and getting revenge on S.H.I.E.L.D. Creating super soldiers for HYDRA during the process is just a nice bonus.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Was literally vaporized from off-screen mid-sentence as he was attempting to pull a Not Quite Dead.
• Villains Want Mercy: He has the gall to appeal to Coulson to stop Mike from killing him.
  "You don't wanna do this, Mike! Tell him, Phil!"
• Walking Spoiler: He's actually the Clairvoyant, leader of the "Centipede Group", and is also part of HYDRA.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In addition to the whole "kill switch implanted in his super soldiers" thing, he has a habit of using and discarding people as necessary.
  • He kills off Mr. Po without a second thought when he doesn't produce results in a timely manner, with the role of his contact passing to Raina.
  • Raina is left to rot once captured by Coulson's team, and the next contact is Ian Quinn. However, he winds up recruiting her again in "Providence".
  • Ian Quinn suffers the same treatment after he aids in the creation of Deathlok and instigates a failed gambit to discover the means behind Coulson's revival. From this point he speaks to Deathlok directly. Quinn gets broken out of the Fridge by him in "Providence".
  • Even Ward gets this treatment. Deathlok, and therefore Garrett, was fine with letting him die of a heart attack if Skye didn't cooperate.
• Your Days Are Numbered: By the time of "Ragtag", he has only a month or two left to live due to organ failure. Fitz's EMP on his cybernetic components shortens it to minutes. However, he gets cured at the end of the episode.
• You See, I'm Dying: Revealed in "Ragtag" that his organs are failing, and that the entire purpose behind the Centipede project was to extend his own life. If he happened to get an army of super-soldiers out of it to serve HYDRA, that's just a nice bonus.

Mitchell Carson

Mitchell Carson

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Martin Donovan

Voiced By: Sergio Gutiérrez Coto (Latin-American Spanish dub), Fernando de Luis (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Ant-Man

A member of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s 1989 board who tried to steal the secret of Pym Particles. He becomes Cross's investor in the modern day to get his hands on them again.

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• Age Lift: In the comics, he's in his prime, to the point that he was the candidate to take over the role of Ant-Man. Here he's an old man in the present, and a contemporary colleague of Howard Stark and Peggy Carter.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: His comic book counterpart has half of his face hideously scarred, too the point he looks Two-Faced. In the MCU he's placed by the clasically handsome Martin Donovan.
• Casting Gag: Donovan had previously played a scientist who is being forced to work for an evil organization who want to use his work for their evil agenda, and his field was in creating nanites, a tech also about miniature/microscopic size.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Neither Stark or Carter stood up for him when Hank slammed his face onto the desk.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Provides Cross with the contract for Yellowjacket suits and Pym Particles for HYDRA's use.
• In Name Only: The only characteristics he shares with the comic character is working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and wanting to possess Ant-Man's powers.
• It's Personal: It is very much clear that he resents Hank for punching him in the face, even 26 years later.
• Jerkass: Uses Janet's Heroic Sacrifice to mock Hank for failing to save her. And that's before he's revealed to be working for HYDRA.
• Karma Houdini: He escapes with a vial of Cross's Pym Particles with only a few ant bites for his troubles. Peyton Reed has revealed that he did get his comeuppance in the original script, but then the Marvel higher-ups asked for him to be left alive to be used in the future.
• Kick the Dog: Mocks Janet's death right in front of Hank's face in the 80's. Hank gives him a bloody nose for it and Howard thinks he deserved it.
• The Mole: One of the many HYDRA infiltrators within S.H.I.E.L.D.'s structure.
• Obviously Evil: Not to Cross's extent, but no one is surprised that the member of the board that took time to mock Hank's deceased wife turned out to be part of HYDRA.
• Private Military Contractors: After leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., he's become the head of one, and also works as an arms dealer. Then again he's still a part of HYDRA.
• Sole Survivor: By the end of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5, Carson is the only member of HYDRA's upper echelon (of the ones we've been introduced to thus far) who isn't dead at this point.
• Token Evil Teammate: Even Peggy and Howard clearly don't like him that much - the latter makes it perfectly clear that he's got No Sympathy for his broken nose after Hank punched him for mocking his wife. Turns very literal with The Reveal he's with HYDRA.

Vasily Karpov

Vasily Karpov

"Hail HYDRA."

Species: Human

Citizenship: Russian, American

Portrayed By: Gene Farber

Voiced By: Eduardo Bosch (European Spanish dub), Haruo Yamagishi (Japanese dub)

Appearances: Captain America: Civil War | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ^note  Flashback with archive footage from Civil War

A Russian HYDRA Commander infiltrated in the Russian Armed Forces who was the Winter Soldier's handler during the early 90s.

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• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics he was active during World War II and joined Captain America and the Invaders to foil a plot of the Red Skull and Master Man. In the MCU he's The Mole for the very organization led by Red Skull and serving its fascist goals.
• Adaptation Deviation: More or less the only thing he has in common with his comic counterpart is a role in the Winter Soldier program (and even then, it's a different role than the one in the comics).
• Age Lift: He becomes middle-aged in present day, but Vasily Karpov is much younger than his WW2-fighting, dead-by-1991 comic book counterpart.
• Asshole Victim: Casually left to drown by Zemo after refusing to give out HYDRA secrets. Though considering the way he ruthlessly tortured Bucky and the other Winter Soldiers, it's completely deserved.
• Bad Boss: Doesn't give a damn about the other Winter Soldiers going berserk on his staff except for his own safety, casually tortures people as part of brainwashing, isn't bothered by the Painful Transformation endured by the Winter Soldiers, isn't bothered by Bucky's clear humiliation at being bested by Josef.... this guy is no ideal boss.
• Decomposite Character: His role as the "creator" of the Winter Soldier was assumed by Arnim Zola, but Karpov still appears as the Soldier's handler (the other part of his role in the comics).
• Defiant to the End: He refuses to give information to Zemo even when he is going to kill him by drowning him in a sink.
• Dissonant Serenity: Casually fills out paperwork while listening to the screams of the other five Winter Soldiers.
• The Mole: He was a HYDRA infiltrator within the Soviet Armed Forces.
• Mythology Gag: In the comics he was responsible for turning Bucky into the Winter Soldier. While Zola took that role from him, he does appear to be the Winter Soldier's handler and was responsible for the creation of the other five Winter Soldiers.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears in three short scenes before being killed by Zemo in the second of them, but it was on his orders that the Winter Soldier killed Howard and Maria Stark, leaving a massive impact on Tony and setting up the climax of Civil War. Moreover, his refusal to give Zemo information tanks Zemo's plan A, leading to the Vienna bombing and all that followed.
• Undying Loyalty: Even after not being an active agent, and after HYDRA had been all but completely destroyed, he refuses to give Zemo the information he was looking for on a mission from HYDRA, even giving the "Hail HYDRA" as Zemo left him to drown.
• Villainous Valour: Absolutely refused to give in to Zemo's torture, uttering a defiant "Hail HYDRA" before he drowns.

General Fischer

General Fischer

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Rocky McMurray

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

An Air Force General, one of HYDRA's infiltrators, and Hale's apparent HYDRA superior.

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• Bald of Evil: He's bald and serves a fascist organization bent on world domination and curtailing the freedom and rights of humanity over a misguided notion of 'order', and willing to commit genocide to achieve its goals.
• Driven to Suicide: As he's about to be arrested by Talbot for treason, he bites into a cyanide pill to die and avoid capture.
• The Mole: He's a mole for HYDRA in the United States Air Force along with Hale.
• Posthumous Character: He appears only in flashbacks to the time Gideon Malick spilled the beans on HYDRA's remaining assets and members and commits suicide during it.
• Undying Loyalty: He chooses suicide over being arrested in order to keep HYDRA's secrets with himself.

Professor Steger

Professor Steger

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Graham Sibley

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"It is a rite of passage to a life built on control and survival. That's why when you cut off the head, two more spring up!."

A professor at the HYDRA Preparatory Academy.

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• Asshole Victim: General Hale executes him for threatening her daughter because she wouldn't kill her dog as her graduation. That bullet was well deserved.
• Beard of Evil: Has a beard and indoctrinates children and teenagers into the ideology of a fascist organization devoted to taking control over humanity and willing to commit genocide to achieve its goals.
• The Fundamentalist: Even as news of HYDRA's fall reach the Academy, he's adamant on Ruby complying with the tradition of sacrificing her dog as the rest of the pupils have done. He comes close to threatening Ruby when she defies the tradition.
• Posthumous Character: He appears only in flashbacks to the time HYDRA was taken out by Talbot and the ATCU and is killed by Hale during it.

The Cult

In General

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 46: "Purpose in the Machine")

"Thousands of years ago, an Inhuman was born on this planet that was destined to rule it, so powerful, so fearsome that others were consumed with dread, and so they banished it from the Earth, sent it through the portal to a distant planet. HYDRA was founded with the sole purpose of engineering its return."

— Gideon Malick

This secret society was founded in ancient times centered around the fanatical worship of a powerful Inhuman that was exiled to the planet Maveth by ancient Inhumans. Ever since his banishment, the cult has been determined to bring him back to Earth to commence a planetary takeover. Over the centuries, the cult evolved, taking many forms, with its most recent incarnation coming into existence shortly after the rise of Nazism in 1940s where the cult took on the name HYDRA, which has become the organization's most colloquial label.

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• All for Nothing: Ultimately their plan to rescue Hive ended with nobody getting what they wanted since, as Malick notes, Hive was only ever interested in preserving Inhuman kind rather than humans. Once it's free from its prison Hive begins its own plans separate from HYDRA and the few remaining cult leaders that weren't killed/captured by the ATCU near the end of season 3 were used as guinea pigs for the Inhuman conversion experiments and died as a result.
• Ancient Conspiracy: "Many Heads, One Tale" revealed that HYDRA is actually descended from a cult worshiping an ancient Inhuman, who was banished through the Monolith thousands of years ago, and have been working towards retrieving him ever since.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Most, if not all, members of the group in the mid-19th century are European noblemen.
• As Long as There Is One Man: "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." Considering the group has been around through millennia, it's safe to say that the phrase is more than just a Badass Creed.
• Cult: They worship a specific ancient Inhuman who has been banished into a planet on the other side of Monolith.
• Drawing Straws: They draw lots (in this case, colored stones from a sack rather than literal straws) to see who will go into the Monolith to feed Hive. At some point (possibly but not necessarily starting with Malick's father), the white stone was scored so that the leader of the group could always know which stone not to draw.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Seemingly averted with the ancient incarnation, whose members are white men. Played straight with the modern incarnation, whose members include people from multiple races and both genders.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: It seems that over the thousands of years the cult has existed, none of the leaders never considered that perhaps Hive was banished to Maveth for a reason, or that Hive would have any gratitude (or use) for them once brought back. This comes back to bite them hard when he does return.
• Human Sacrifice: When the society came in possession of the Monolith, they started sending men through the portal, hoping to save or at least serve their leader on the other side. But none of them ever came back.
• Mythology Gag: The retcon turning HYDRA from a Nazi splinter group into an Ancient Conspiracy was used in the comics years ago.
• Sigil Spam: The Hebrew word for "Death", seen in "Purpose in the Machine", is used in the group's castle to mark secret passages and other dangerous places. They also can't stop themselves from putting disguised variations of their symbols everywhere for millennia.
  • The Sigil Spam actually makes a lot more sense with the reveal that the HYDRA sigil is actually an ancient depiction of what Hive actually looks like.
• Villainous Legacy: The group was founded millennia ago, and still exists in the modern days.
• We Are Everywhere: In the mid-19th, their castle was in England and most of the members appear to be European (the nobleman named Manzini is most likely an Italian, for example). During World War II, they are centered in Germany. In the modern days, they are pretty much everywhere around the world.

Hive

Alveus / Hive

^{Click here to see Hive possessing Will's body} 

^{Click here to see Hive possessing Ward's body} 

^{Click here to see Hive pre-Terrigenesis} 

Species: Human (formerly), Inhuman

Citizenship: Various

Portrayed By: Jason Glover (original human form), Brett Dalton (prominent human host)

Voiced By: Alejandro Gómez [Disney dub], Manuel Campuzano [Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 49: "4,722 Hours")

"Sometimes the world's greatest miracles happen by accident."

An ancient and powerful Inhuman who was banished through the Monolith centuries ago. HYDRA was originally founded to engineer its return to Earth.

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• Achilles' Heel: Hive can't use a living person for a host, only a dead body, and it can't use Inhumans. It also either can't or refuses to feed on other Inhumans. It can keep its hosts functioning long after decay, but requires to feed on other humans to heal the host (and the host can be killed properly with fire).
• Adaptational Badass: In the comics, Hive was just one of several HYDRA leaders introduced in Secret Warriors who was a genetically engineered parasite monster whose only power, beyond turning a random host into a tentacle monster, was controlling and assimilating people with Puppeteer Parasite creatures it spawned (which needed special labs to grow) and bringing back a recently dead Viper as a Humanoid Abomination (which he only demonstrated once). Here, the people who genetically engineered Hive into what he is are the Kree, and he's the founder of HYDRA's original form, an immortal Inhuman, who can effortlessly devour humans, control Inhumans, and is very hard to kill. Not to mention, while in the comics Hive took years to completely control a host and couldn't speak in an understandable fashion, here, Hive gains control of his hosts pretty quickly and can speak perfectly fine using them.
• Adaptation Deviation: In the comics, Hive was a bio-engineered monstrosity created to demonstrate HYDRA's ideals. Here, not only is it an Inhuman, but HYDRA was originally a cult worshiping it. Even their famous skull and tentacles symbol appears to be a reference to it.
• Adaptation Name Change: Downplayed. "Hive" is used in both the show and comics, but the "Alveus" name was invented for the show.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: In the comics, Hive is the result of a HYDRA lab experiment, not an Inhuman.
• Adaptation Species Change: In the comics, Hive was a human HYDRA agent subjected to an experiment involving bio-engineered parasites created by HYDRA that bonded with him. Here, he is an Inhuman worshiped by HYDRA.
• Admiring the Abomination:
  • Hive was the subject of HYDRA's admiration, to the point of worship, for centuries.
  • In an inversion, Hive (the abomination) expressed some admiration for its final host, Grant Ward, even wishing that they could have known each other while Ward lived.
• Affably Evil: Hive's tone of voice is always polite, if unsettling, especially when addressing its fellow Inhumans. Whether this affability is genuine or not is ambiguous, due in no small part to Hive's complex mental state, emotionless demeanor, and fondness for psychological torture.
• A God Am I: Mostly from the perspective of others (HYDRA was founded as a cult based around it, and Malick directly refers to Hive as a god), but Hive is suggested to have a similar view of itself, referring to making "a believer" out of Giyera. The demeanor of its swayed Inhumans is also disturbingly reminiscent of a cult. He tells the Kree Reapers that they created "something divine" when referring to himself, and describes himself to Coulson as "the great Alveus".
• Alas, Poor Villain: Shares one last moment with Lincoln prior to their deaths, where Hive laments that it failed to make the world "better" as it had always wanted to. Hive and Lincoln even manage to sympathise with one another, showing an impressive amount of humanity from the otherwise monstrous Hive.
• Alien Blood: It bleeds some brownish ooze.
• All There in the Manual: It being the MCU version of Hive was revealed shortly before the midseason premiere of Season 3, but in the first few episodes of Season 3 after the midseason finale its name was not spoken In-Universe.
• Ambiguous Gender: Hive was originally male, but centuries and countless bodies later, such things as gender don't apply to it any more.
• Ancient Conspiracy: "Many Heads, One Tale" reveals that the being on the other side of the portal is actually an ancient Inhuman that was banished from Earth millennia ago. A cult soon rose up bent on finding the creature and bringing it back, a cult that over time evolved into something we're already familiar with: HYDRA.
• Ancient Evil: He has lived for thousands of years while committing acts of evil. One of them being killing humans and taking over their bodies.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: He refuses to let other Inhumans be killed, sparing Lincoln after Giyera managed to knock him out. Of course, since it can Mind Control Inhumans and was intentionally designed to be their leader, this may be less of a moral qualm than simple pride and power. "Emancipation" shows that Hive is fully willing to kill Inhumans he cannot control and sacrifice those he does if it means furthering his goals.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: By far the most powerful and threatening Inhuman seen, and the most dangerous HYDRA leader in the entirety of the MCU, which is befitting given he was made to control and lead the Inhumans and was HYDRA's founder and first leader.
• Badass Longcoat: After regenerating, Hive shows a liking for long, black trenchcoats.
• Bad Boss: Will do anything to ensure his mission to turn half the world into potential slaves. Even bleeding dry Daisy who cannot object as she has been Brainwashed into submission.
• Big Bad: Serves as this for Season Three, taking the position from Malick once he regains his full power.
• Bilingual Bonus / Meaningful Name: Alveus is pretty close to "alveare" — Latin for "hive".
• Black Cloak: In one form, it wears a long and tattered black cloak with a correspondingly dark and concealing hood.
• Blofeld Ploy: Pulls one off on Gideon Malick, directly threatening him while speaking as his brother Nathaniel, who Gideon deliberately sacrificed to the Monolith - then kills Malick's daughter instead of him.
• Body Horror:
  • While possessing Will, it walked around with a gaping leg wound, and while possessing Ward, it was emaciated and corpse-like, still showing signs of the injuries that killed Ward. Once it consumes five humans, Hive manages to restore Ward's body to health.
  • Hive's method of killing people is to use its own cells to break down their bodies and assimilate their organic material. This is all done very graphically.
• Body Surf: When one host body is damaged beyond usefulness, Hive transfers to a new one, though it apparently can only do this with hosts who are already dead and aren't Inhumans. The "blood sacrifices" of early HYDRA were meant to provide it with a steady flow of new bodies to inhabit.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: To Hive, all he's trying to do is end war and bring peace and unity, and this can be achieved by uniting everyone as one singular organism. To the rest of the world (i.e., sane, rational people), he's trying to brainwash and control everyone by assimilating them into his hive mind. When he is ultimately defeated, he makes it clear that he truly believed that turning the world into Alpha Primitives under his thrall was a good thing, and has an epiphany where he comes to understand Humans Are Flawed.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Hive's spores can infect the brains of other Inhumans, causing them to devote themselves to him. It's described as being similar to a drug addiction, releasing dopamine to make the victim feel as if his presence fulfills a need. The process is theoretically reversible, as the spores don't cause any damage. Lash manages to remove and destroy the spores that were infecting Daisy, although he's killed before he can do so for anyone else.
• Canon Character All Along: It is eventually revealed to be Hive.
• Captured Super-Entity: Was imprisoned on a distant planet for a very good reason.
• Character Death: Hive is obliterated by its own warhead while he drifts in outerspace in the Season 3 finale. He is not coming back from that.
• Composite Character:
  • Given that the X-Men and associated characters can't be used in the MCU due to rights issues, this Hive is more or less a stand-in for Apocalypse; his backstory, immortality, goals, and overall personality have far more in common with that character than the comics Hive.
  • Additionally, his backstory of being the ruler of the Inhumans who was forced into exile by his people while his existence was hidden from the present-day Inhumans, and his large number of other powers, seem to have been taken from The Unspoken, a very unrelated character.
• Create Your Own Villain: The Kree turned him into what he is, and he kills two of their reapers for it.
• Creepy Monotone: After it inhabits Grant Ward's body, it speaks in his host's voice but without inflection.
• Cthulhumanoid: His true form has gray skin and Gorgon-like tentacles for hair. In fact, this may have inspired the tentacle motif used in HYDRA's emblem.
• Death Seeker: Normally it's the ultimate survivor and a living inspiration for HYDRA's ideal "cut off one head and two more shall take its place." But when everything else fails, it admits that death is the one thing it was never able to achieve. It shares a final quiet moment with Lincoln right before they both die, saying that their impending deaths give them a greater connection than its mind control could ever achieve.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: Hive was create to lead and control the Inhumans via Mind Control; by the modern era it wishes to control anyone and everyone it can get its hands on, whether that is an alien race, or by turning humanity into a race of mutant zombies. It is unclear if this stems from bitterness over the original Inhumans turning on it or if, more likely, Hive is simply power mad.
• Dishing Out Dirt: On Maveth, it can summon sandstorms at will, and that's usually a sign that it's close by.
• The Dog Bites Back: After thousands of years, it finally gets a chance to get its revenge on the very Kree who subjected it to horrific experiments after summoning them with the artifacts James had been hoarding.
  Hive: I'm not that frightened hunter any more.
• The Dreaded: Everyone who isn't a HYDRA secret society true believer is scared shitless of this thing. Simmons honestly preferred death rather than letting Hive on Earth. It is stated that Jiaying was fully aware of his existence and did everything she could to keep him sealed up, and both she and Gordon freaked out upon hearing that S.H.I.E.L.D. had the Monolith. Bobbi even speculates that the reason Nick Fury ordered the Illiad destroyed was because he didn't want to take the risk of HYDRA getting the Monolith and bringing Hive back.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Most likely a coincidence, but a creature that resembles Hive appears◊ in Captain America: The First Avenger when Erskine explains the origins of the Red Skull.
• Eldritch Abomination: As an Inhuman, Hive must have been human at some point. Now, it's an immortal worm-like parasite with a strange sense of morality.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Regarding HYDRA bringing it back to Earth. They clearly had no idea what it would do once it got back or that it was banished for a good reason.
• Expy:
  • Of two Angel characters; a Big Bad that appears human but is not actually one, feeds on humans, and brainwashes others into becoming his loyal and happy worshipers and seeks to do so in a global scale is similar to Jasmine, while his status as a God-like being long exiled from the Earth who has now returned by possessing the body of one of the main characters brings to mind Illyria.
  • Of Albert Wesker. Begins life (at least its host Grant Ward does) as The Mole. Is eventually defeated and killed, but comes back from the dead with a Death-Activated Superpower, A God Am I beliefs and Hell-Bent for Leather fashion sense (complete with a Badass Longcoat). Enslaves the primary female lead (from whom he had served as an Evil Mentor) with More than Mind Control. Seduces the Rich Bitch before pulling You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on her. Develops a plan to use The Virus to "save the world" as a Dark Messiah by turning a large percentage of its population into hideous monsters. This plan involves deploying it from an aircraft, which the heroes board and fight him on.
  • Hive being a worm-like parasite that uses bodies as hosts is similar to the evil alien from The Hidden and the Yeerks of Animorphs fame.
  • It is also a Marvel supervillain who is a millennia-old former human given godlike powers by aliens, including the ability to enslave others of his own kind. In short, it is similar to Apocalypse.
  • It is a former human transformed into a parasitic superorganism^note which is to say, an organism consisting of many organisms that kills others and takes over their bodies, making it similar to the minor Spider-Man villain "The Thousand".
  • Some of Hive's traits, including its Blue-and-Orange Morality and belief that peace and unity come from uniting everyone into a single organism, call to mind the perspective of the Thing in the short story The Things.
• Face Death with Dignity: In its final moments aboard the Quinjet with Lincoln, it doesn't try to fight its way out, kill Lincoln out of spite, or even use its sway on him. It just quietly accepts its fate, and they share a rather touching dialogue in their final moments.
• Fan Disservice: Often appears shirtless in its third host Grant Ward. He retains some of his muscles, but is also visibly decaying and his chest is still caved in. After he's healed, he appears naked, but also covered in blood and ooze from five stripped skeletons.
• Fantastic Racism: Hive considers Inhumans to be the superior species and has no qualms about painfully murdering anyone else.
• Feel No Pain: Due to its possession of a dead host, Hive doesn't seem to feel pain. It takes bullets, grenades, and several stab wounds without so much as blinking.
• Final Boss: Season 3 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. initially had The Big Bad Shuffle, with Ward, Malick, and Lash all vying for the position of Big Bad. Once Hive returns to Earth, however, it wastes little time establishing itself as the sole Big Bad of Season 3.
• Foil: To Lash. Lash is a visually terrifying modern Inhuman who inspires dread in his fellow Inhumans, but is ultimately a moral (or at least Necessarily Evil) individual, while Hive is a human-looking ancient Inhuman who creates a feeling of contentment in other Inhumans with its sway, who proves to be a well-intentioned but amoral Satanic Archetype.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: It was once a random prehistoric hunter who happened to be near the Kree Reapers when they landed on Earth, and couldn't run away fast enough. They turned him into an Inhuman designed to lead their armies, and it then rebelled and drove them off the planet.
• Game Face: That Sigil Spam HYDRA constantly use? that is it's true face, although unlike most examples of this trope, it doesn't seem to need to change into it's monsterous visage to use its full power.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Of Season 3 until it escapes to Earth in the mid-season finale, at which point it drops this trope for Big Bad, as well as for HYDRA as a whole. It was an ancient Inhuman banished long ago, and HYDRA has been worshiping this thing since it was founded.
• Healing Factor: Once he's fully recovered, Hive can heal any damage caused to his host without needing to feed, though there's presumably an upper limit to it given his state before he got back to Earth.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Even Malick admits he doesn't know what Hive has actually planned. Given what Hive did to the planet he was trapped on, it can hardly be good for humanity. Eventually it reveals its goal: turn the rest of humanity into Inhumans.
• Hive Mind: When it infects Inhumans, it "brings them into the hive." They don't appear to be able to share detailed knowledge in either direction, but the Inhumans understand Hive's will and are devoted to it to in a explicitly religious extent. Daisy Johnson describes it as like having a piece that's always been missing finally filled, and slips into using the Royal "We" when excited. According to Fitz and Simmons, it's like a drug addiction, and its victims are controlled by being kept on a perpetual "high" and are open to suggestion. This turned out to be very accurate as after Daisy is cured, she wants to be punished for what she's done and wants Hive to stay very far away; that is, until Hive is within reach, upon which she promptly makes her way to him begging to be taken back into the hive.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Hive is ultimately killed by the warhead it intended to use to spread its will across the Earth.
• Human Resources: Hive can heal its hosts by taking living tissue from other humans. Ward's body is healed by stripping five humans to skeletons. However, it adamantly refuses to feed on its fellow Inhumans, though whether this is lack of ability or simply personal preference isn't made clear.
• Humanoid Abomination: Once Hive latches on to a human host and regains its strength, it demonstrates considerable, and quite horrifying power, with even its individual cells acting as an extension of its will.
• Hypocrite: It preaches a peaceful world but is happy to murder millions just to fit its own vision of a perfect world. It claims to want Inhumans to have a peaceful paradise but uses warheads to make others worship It. On a lesser level, It acts holier-than-thou but has deep anger issues and sadistic impulses; It may not show much emotion, but It most definitely gets angry and seems to enjoy bullying Malick.
• Insistent Terminology: Downplayed. While Hive is normally fine with being referred to as an Inhuman, when pressed it notes that it's technically a different type of creature, since it was a human directly modified by the Kree rather than a descendant like the others.
• Interrogating the Dead: Hive assimilates the memories of its hosts. It knew Fitz from possessing Will, and tracked down Malick in no time after taking over Ward.
• Invincible Villain: Nothing slows him down, from normal hand guns to a freaking rocket launcher. Even Lash's usual one-hit-kill only temporarily incapacitated him, and he shrugged off the brain-frying from Team Coulson with time. It ultimately took a nuclear warhead detonating above the atmosphere to finally kill Hive.
• It's All About Me: At the end of the day, Hive's greatest concern is for itself. While it does show some concern for its fellow Inhumans, Hive has little problem with abusing them to suit its own goals. Its willingness to turn everyone on Earth into barely sapient, zombie-like Inhumans that exist only as extensions of Hive further illustrates this trait. Hive's use of the Royal "We" also implies that its concern for the Inhumans under its sway only goes as far as it seeing them as extensions of itself.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: For Malick's cowardice, he gives his daughter Stephanie the kiss of death, which horribly disfigures her face. Considering everyone else Hive killed in a similar manner was turned into bloody skeletons, she got off easy.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Hive's idea of punishing Malick for his cowardice is to murder his daughter, Stephanie, right in front of Malick.
  • Hive was perfectly fine with letting Daisy be drained of her blood until she died as long as it got what it wanted.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: For their racists cruelty towards Inhumans, Hive has the Watchdogs kidnapped to be used as as guinea pigs in its Terrigenesis experiments.
• Kill and Replace: It takes over the bodies of those it kills to impersonate them. How well this works seems to depend on how fresh the host is and its access to food, as it can't repair the bodies without a steady source of protein. An astronaut it used against Simmons and Will was ragged, likely from a decade of neglect, and when it took over Will it couldn't do anything about a broken leg. When it takes over Grant Ward's body, Hive manages to completely heal by taking the living tissue from five normal humans.
• Knight of Cerebus: Being the only Eldritch Abomination in the series, this is a natch. Even when it's mentioned, the mood gets noticeably darker, and most scenes that it appears in are accompanied by at least one form of Body Horror.
• Knight Templar: It describes its mission as "creat[ing] the world Inhumans have always deserved". Confirmed to be a lie when it discovers a way to turn ordinary humans into primitive, zombie-like Inhumans under its thrall and plans to turn the rest of humanity into them rather than actual Inhumans — its ultimate goal is merely to control as many people as possible.
• Lack of Empathy: While it shows some concern for Inhumans (and even then, its compassion doesn't go very far), Hive is completely dead to human suffering, devouring or killing them at will and murdering Malick's daughter before his eyes as a form of punishment.
• Long Lost Sibling: A weird example. Since it's a Mind Hive of all its hosts, it is in some way all the sacrifices HYDRA sent through over the centuries — including Gideon Malick's brother, Nathaniel, who was sent through when Gideon rigged the lottery to save himself. Hive spends a good portion of "Paradise Lost" speaking as Nathaniel, even killing Gideon's daughter to teach Gideon the meaning of sacrifice.
• Master of Your Domain: Once it has regained some strength, Hive demonstrates the ability to control its host's tissue for various purposes, releasing it as a cloud of individual cells. On other Inhumans, these cells infect the brain and make the Inhuman loyal to Hive above all else. With normal humans, it's to aid in feeding. Hive describes its own body as "every cell working together for a common purpose".
• Me's a Crowd: It's a parasitic superorganism, essentially an infection with a personality. While trapped on the alien planet, it travels as a sandstorm (possibly only part of the sandstorm), but when it infects a host, it appears as a worm, and when it shows its true face, it looks like a squid-headed person. Ultimately, it acts a lot like a slime mold, capable of being multiple organisms or one.
• Mind Hive: It contains all the memories and personalities of all its hosts, including the countless "Travelers" sent by HYDRA to feed it over the centuries. Normally, it maintains a distinct and calm personality, but it's unclear if that is Hive's original, "true" personality, or an aggregate of everyone it has absorbed.
• Monster Lord: It is one of the original Inhumans, if not the original, hand-crafted by the Kree to lead their armies.
• Monster Progenitor: It's implied to be the first Inhuman that the Kree created.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Hive is seemingly unaffected by bullets, since its hosts are already dead, and fire only forced it to find a new host. In the end, it takes being completely destroyed by a nuclear warhead to finally, permanently kill Hive.
• No Name Given: As far as the Season 3 midseason finale, "It" had not been named but was otherwise known as the dark Inhuman or just It. Promotional material released shortly before the beginning of season 3B identified it as being the character "Hive", from the comics. In "Paradise Lost," an Inhuman researcher says it used to be called Alveus, Latin for Hive.
• No-Sell: Lucio's power has no effect on him, though precisely why isn't made clear. It's probably related to making use of a dead host or Hive's own Master of Your Domain abilities.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Hive's composure wavers ever so slightly when confronted with Lash, and even more so when Lash proves that he can resist Hive's spores and do some rather painful damage to it.
  • Hive's Villainous Breakdown in the Season 3 finale has him show some genuine rage. Exposure to the memory device totally destroys Hive's composure until it manages to shake off the effects, and just before its death, Hive expresses sincere sorrow and regret for its failure to better the world as it wanted to, and it even shows some sympathy for Lincoln and resignation to their impending deaths.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: It insists that it is working for the Greater Good, that it wants to create a perfect world free of war, poverty and want, and that all humans and Inhumans would be better off once it had taken over the world. Few people bought it, since it wasn't giving anyone a choice. It has been willing to kill even other Inhumans if it served its purpose to do so, and an entire alien civilization had destroyed itself trying to kill it. Eventually it found a way to turn humans into primitive mutant-zombie Inhumans that it could control just as easily, and seemed perfectly content with this outcome, confirming that the only thing Hive wants is to enslave the human race.
• It's Personal: Hive's feud with the Kree that created him is very personal. When he finally confronts one of them, despite the fact that be could use his spores to kill his opponent easily, he chooses to fight the physically superior Kree Reaper in hand to hand combat and ferociously punches him, and looks absolutely content despite easily losing the fistfight.
• Oh, Crap!: When it sees Lash coming down the ramp, it stops smiling and quickly starts backing up, not taking its eyes off its opponent for a second.
• One-Man Army: The planet it was banished to was once populated with nine major cities. "It" reduced them to dust and desolated the planet by itself, though Hive implies that they destroyed themselves in a futile effort to kill it. The fact that they felt the need to resort to such measures still says a great deal about Hive's power.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: Created to be the leader of the Kree's Inhuman army, and instead lead the rebellion against them.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Insists that HYDRA doesn't kill any of his fellow Inhumans working with S.H.I.E.L.D.. Then again, don't want to kill off any new recruits to the hive mind, do we?
  • When he encounters Simmons while kidnapping Dr. Radcliffe, he takes a moment to try and give her closure from Will's death and help her move on, by channeling Will and telling her to "let me go". It's disturbing, but proves successful.
  • It is friendly, even fatherly, to its enthralled Inhumans, and is usually willing to go the extra mile to give them what they want as long as it doesn't conflict with its own agenda.
  • Hive promised the ancient leaders of HYDRA that if they returned it from Maveth, it would grant them power. The first recipients of the new Inhuman treatment were the last heads of the religious HYDRA. Hive is quite upset when the procedure kills them.
  • The only reason S.H.I.E.L.D. escapes at the end of "Failed Experiments" is because Hive checked to make sure Daisy was all right instead of pursuing them.
  • Hive kidnaps a number of the Watchdogs for a dangerous experiment as a "gift to Daisy," assuming that she would appreciate the cruel irony. She doesn't, but Hive was genuine in its intent.
  • Once the Watchdogs are transformed into sub-human "Alpha Primitives," Hive is proud to call them part of itself, and is quite curt when Radcliffe calls them abominations. Of course, this leads to Hive declaring the experiment a success and seeing no need to improve it, which even Hive's enslaved Inhumans find disturbing.
  • Declines to sway Lincoln in their final moments, seeing the fact that they're about to die together as connection enough.
• Physical God: HYDRA worships it as a god, an opinion Hive itself does nothing to dissuade. Malick eventually decides that while it is a god, it was never one for humans, and it only cares about Inhumans.
• Pragmatic Villainy: While its orders to avoid killing Inhumans can be seen as a Pet the Dog moment, an equally likely and less altruistic motive is that Hive cannot sway dead Inhumans.
• Pronoun Trouble: In addition to gender difficulties, it will sometimes alter the pronouns it uses for itself. Sometimes it says "I," sometimes "we," and sometimes it refers to its hosts as separate people while other times it speaks as them directly. There's also some ambiguity, even on This Very Wiki, about the proper pronoun to use when referring to Hive; some people use "it" (a reference to Hive's inhuman nature and complex biology) while others use "him" (every body we've seen Hive use has been male, which was also Hive's original gender).
• Puppeteer Parasite: Hive is actually a worm-like parasite that uses dead bodies as hosts.
• Really 700 Years Old: Has existed and possessed its powers for millennia. It is the result of one of the first, if not the first, Kree experiment to create Inhuman weapons.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In his true form, Hive's eyes are a deep blood-red.
• Royal "We": Hive refers to itself as "we". Makes sense, considering it has its own memories plus the memories of its host (and possibly all of its previous hosts as well).
• Sadist: Hive is rather fond of psychological torture, and since it possesses the memories of every single person it has ever used as a host, it's capable of getting under the skin of a great many people. Its treatment of Malick is particularly cruel. Hive manipulates him into committing his first hands-on murder, pretends to be his long-dead brother to mess with his head, and then finally brutally murders his daughter right in front of him. Hive's particular method killing via its spores is also extremely painful, as they eat normal humans from the inside out.
• Sanity Slippage: Induced this in Will Daniels' colleagues, causing their suicides one-by-one.
• Satanic Archetype: After losing his daughter, Malick starts comparing him to Satan, and Coulson is all too ready to agree with him on that point. In fact, Coulson goes so far as to speculate the inverse—specifically, that Satan is an archetype of Hive. Fittingly, its true form resembles Cthulhu. Daisy later states that the ability to steal someone's memories is pretty close to stealing their soul.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Trapped on an alien world, which HYDRA is seeking to reopen the portal to. It escapes in the mid-season finale.
• Serkis Folk: Its true form, shown in the picture above, is achieved through motion capture.
• Smug Super: Its general demeanor is best summarized as "I'm a god, I don't have to worry about things." Its every scene emphasizes that it is constantly aware of how much stronger it is than everyone else.
• The Stoic: Hive is always calm and collected.
• Super-Persistent Predator: The second your blood hits the air, Hive will start coming for you.
• Superpower Lottery: Most Inhumans have one power; Hive has several, very different and unusual abilities. Justified as the Inhumans, unlike mutants, are explicitly designed, and Hive was specifically designed to be the leader of the Inhumans and so his multiple powers are likely to ensure Asskicking Leads to Leadership.
• Super Prototype: Hive was one of the first Inhumans created by the Kree, and is, with little doubt, the most powerful.
• Super-Strength: When healed, he's strong enough to fight a Kree Hunter (which are tougher than normal Kree) on equal terms.
• Start of Darkness: Hive was once a Mayan warrior out on a hunt before he was found by the Kree Reapers. The Kree captured him and put him through a horrifying experiment which turned him into one of the first Inhumans.
• Take Over the World: Gideon Malick says Hive was destined to rule the world and that HYDRA was formed to be its army.
• This Is Your Brain on Evil: Hive can infect inhumans with its parasites and put them under its "sway" by increasing their dopamine levels, putting them in a state of perpetual happiness. Once freed from Hive's control, the inhumans in question experience what is essentially withdrawal symptoms, comparable to a drug addiction. Hive infected five inhumans during his time on Earth, though only two of them survived: Daisy Johnson and Hellfire. Daisy turned to vigilantism to deal with the trauma of what she'd gone through, along with the loss of her boyfriend, becoming the outlaw know as Quake. Meanwhile, Hellfire grew to detest his condition and inhumans in general, choosing to become a Hunter of His Own Kind and forming an alliance with the Watchdogs.
• Villainous Breakdown: After its plan is initially thwarted by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Season 3 finale, Hive shows genuine rage for the first time. The breakdown only gets worse when it's exposed to the memory device, which causes Hive to randomly relive the memories of its past hosts, leaving Hive very unbalanced until it manages to shake off the effects.
• Was Once a Man: More than most Inhumans. They remain generally human shaped after Terrigenesis with just the occasional physical side effect, but Hive became a worm-like creature that inhabits the dead.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: During his final moments, he laments that he really did want to make the world a better place, and Lincoln believes him.
• Worf Had the Flu: Centuries of being imprisoned have all but eliminated the supposedly vast power it once possessed. Fitz is able to disable its host with a flare gun, and it doesn't demonstrate itself to be any stronger than its host would be. Hive insists that, once it has regained its strength, it will prove that the stories about it are true. He restores his strength by gorging on five humans.

Grant Ward

See the Grant Ward page

Kirk Vogel

Kirk Vogel

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Mark Atteberry

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 60: "Paradise Lost", Episode 63: "Failed Experiments")

A member of the HYDRA's inner circle alongside Gideon Malick.

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• Body Horror: His flesh and bones melt away afer volunteering for Hive's experiment to turn him into an Inhuman.
• Canon Foreigner: There's no Kirk Vogel in the mainstream comics.

The Malick Family

Wilfred Malick

Wilfred "Freddy" Malick

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Darren Barnet (1931), Neal Bledsoe (1955-1976, pictured)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

A bartender at a New York speakeasy, working under Ernest Hazard "Gemini" Koenig.

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• Been There, Shaped History: He helped smuggle one of the key ingredients of the Super Soldier serum, which in turn would allow for the rise of Red Skull and Captain America.
• Broken Pedestal: His son Nathaniel admires him until he finds out Wilfred cheats during the ritual to choose Hive's sacrifice.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He was mentioned in Season 3's episode "Paradise Lost" via flashback, and like his youngest son, was a plot device meant to help further explore Gideon's past and the history of the cult that worshipped Hive. In Season 7, his past self becomes involved with the Chronicoms, and serves as one of the main antagonists.
• Dirty Coward: He resorts to using a scored stone to keep from becoming a sacrifice to Hive.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From an innocent bartender to one of the heads of HYDRA.
• Hypocrite: As a young man, Wilfred scorns his father for committing suicide after the stock market crash, viewing him as a coward. As an older man, Wilfred would rig the sacrifices to Hive in his favor out of cowardice.
• Mole in Charge: He's taken part of the S.H.I.E.L.D. infiltration, occupying a position higher than Daniel Sousa's. Later, he achieves a position higher than that of General Rick Stoner.
• Rags to Riches: His family lost everything due to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 but he managed to rebuild the family fortune after joining HYDRA.

Gideon Malick

Gideon Malick

"Sometimes you sacrifice a player to save the game."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Powers Boothe, Cameron Palatas (young)

Voiced By: Jorge Lapuente [The Avengers and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Disney Dub], Gabriel Pingarrón [Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub); Jaume Comas [The Avengers], Juan Fernández [Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.] (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: The Avengers | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 50: "Among Us Hide...")

"We are at a tipping point, where humanity is going to make some difficult choices about the preservation of our very existence, and these Inhumans... these Inhumans are the key to our survival."

One of the leaders of HYDRA. Originally one of HYDRA's infiltrators in the World Security Council where he advised Nick Fury during the Battle of New York, he broke ties with that organization after it became defunct, becoming an advisor of President Matthew Ellis. From there he orchestrated the formation of the Advanced Threat Containment Unit and manipulated the agency into collecting the newly transformed Inhumans to build an army for HYDRA's ancient leader to command. In the aftermath of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker's defeat, Malick joined forces with Grant Ward so they could destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. and finish Project Distant Star Return to accomplish HYDRA's oldest goal.

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• Affably Evil: He starts off as Faux, but after his Heel Realisation, his politeness towards Coulson appears to be genuine.
• Ascended Extra: He previously appeared in The Avengers as an unnamed member of the World Security Council.
• Bad Boss: He subjects his own HYDRA men to the Terrigen fish oil pills without them knowing so either those who were Inhuman would have powers or those who didn't would die.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: With Ward since they are the only heads of HYDRA left in Season 3. They join forces as the leaders of HYDRA's remnants. After the mid-season finale, he tries to form an alliance with Hive. However, Hive doesn't do alliances: it does submission. Malick finds himself Demoted to Dragon as soon as Hive's power is restored and is subsequently killed when he betrays Hive to S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Big Bad Wannabe: By himself, Malick would be a pretty big threat on his own; however, he overestimates his ability to control Hive and believes that said Eldritch Abomination would work with him. Over the course of the second half of Season 3 Hive strips him of his control on HYDRA, gathers his own Inhuman minions, kills Gideon's daughter in front of him and then finally kills Malick himself once he's outlived his usefulness.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Despite having her completely at his mercy, Malick doesn't finish off Daisy immediately, but decides to torture her some more. He's too busy enjoying "true power" to think pragmatically and so instead he's acting villainous.
• Break the Believer: He's a HYDRA devotee from a long line of HYDRA devotees, and he's from a branch of HYDRA that worships Hive, not Red Skull's science division, nor from a merely political branch. So it devastates him when Hive devours his daughter in front of him in the third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
• Break the Haughty: He is a horrible person, make no mistake, but seeing him first getting visions of his death, having to witness his own daughter getting killed right in front of him by the very entity he thought would reward him for everything he and his organisation did for it and then being horribly murdered by a Hive-controlled Daisy makes you at least feel a bit sorry for the guy.
• Broken Pedestal: He feels this way about Hive after he murders his daughter in front of him, even deciding that instead of resurrecting a god, he had freed the Devil incarnate. He becomes this to his daughter after she discovered that he had been cheating his way out from being selected as a sacrifice to Hive.
• Canon Foreigner: There's no Gideon Malick in the mainstream comics.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The part of Hive that was once Malick's brother believes that Gideon should die for betraying him, but Hive decides that he still needs his services, so he kills Gideon's daughter to punish him instead.
• Commander Contrarian: To Nick Fury in The Avengers. He was the Councilman that pushed Fury hardest to develop and use the "Phase Two" Tesseract-powered weaponry instead of the Avenger Initiative, and called Fury out on sending the Tesseract back to Asgard. Given his true allegiances, Malick's motives may have gone a little further than simple extremism.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Under Hive's control, Daisy hits him with her earthquake power until his skull is crushed by the vibrations. It is so nasty that when he saw a vision of it, he thought it was Hive's flesh-dissolving power.
• Demoted to Dragon: Once Hive recovers and starts taking the initiative, Malick is reduced to being another lackey, albeit one with a lot of resources.
• Dirty Coward: His father used a scored stone in the ritual to ensure he was never sent into the Monolith. When Gideon learned of this, he continued the tradition, and his brother — who also knew and thought that Gideon had tossed that stone into a lake — was the next person to be chosen. This sheds a whole new light on him convincing Ward to go too.
• The Dog Bites Back: After being disrespected, bullied and outright betrayed by Hive, Malick seizes the opportunity to share information that could bring it down.
• The Dreaded: Loeb said about him: "Gideon is incredibly menacing and in him we have a character that even the stone-cold Grant Ward would fear." Ward refers to him as "the guy all the others were afraid of." Even the President is too afraid to act directly against him, which is why he wants Coulson and SHIELD to continue acting in the shadows, as it would be the only way they could take the man.
• Drunk with Power: Downplayed, but it's there — interestingly enough, Hive has to sort of talk him into it, and even then he limits himself to flipping one big table and crushing a guy's head to show off his Super-Strength. After that he's all business again.
• Enemy Mine: Malick gives up information about Hive and his ability to control Inhumans to Coulson, in order to get revenge for the death of his daughter.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He loved his father, and was distraught to learn of his true cowardly nature. Malick did love his brother, just not enough to sacrifice himself. It's played straightest with his daughter, Stephanie, who he is shown spending quality time with in one of The Stinger. Her death destroys him, and makes him defect to SHIELD before his death.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He isn't pleased that Ward put Werner von Strucker in the field before he was ready, and only sells Werner out because it's the pragmatic thing to do.
  • He does not want to involve himself with Ward's quest for revenge against SHIELD, viewing such things as insiginifcant. He prefers to stay focused on moving forward with Hydra's true mission, and to never look back.
  • Before Ward, Malick had considered bringing in other Hydra leaders in on his plan to bring Hive back to the planet, but passed them on for pragmatic reasons (Alexander Pierce being too bloodthirsty, Garrett being too narcisstic). That said, he gives the latter praise for bringing Ward into Hydra, saying it was the best thing he has ever done for the organization's cause.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Malick finds out the hard way that he really should not have broken Hive out of its prison.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He speaks in a low, gravelly voice, courtesy of Powers Boothe.
• Face Death with Dignity: Atoning for his lifelong cowardice and hypocrisy, Malick shows no fear in the face of his own death, having lost everything that gave his life meaning in the first place. He stoically accepts his fate.
• False Friend: Werner turns to him to try and gain protection from Ward's wrath. While Gideon assures Werner of his safety, he later arranges with Ward to hand over Werner as part of some greater deal.
• Faux Affably Evil: He speaks in a calm and friendly manner to everyone, but behind their back, he is plotting against them.
• Fiction 500: He's insanely wealthy thanks to business connections all over the world. In "Spacetime" Hive states that Malick is personally worth 9.2 billion dollars. After his death, Hive was able to use just a fraction of Malick's wealth to buy out an entire town.
• The Fundamentalist: Before he meets Hive, he is a true believer, a religious devotee of HYDRA's ancient god.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He betrays Hive and does everything he can to help S.H.I.E.L.D., but is killed before he can fully transition into The Atoner.
• Honorary Uncle: Werner von Strucker says Gideon was nicer to him than his father ever was.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Hive has Malick don a suit of Powered Armor and kill a man, just to show him what true power is. Malick is hesitant at first, but he really gets into it.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: After Hive murders Stephanie, he lets himself be captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. and divulges everything Coulson needs to know to decimate, if not thoroughly eliminate, the HYDRA he had believed in up to that point before accepting his fate at the hands of Daisy.
• Manipulative Bastard: Malick is a master manipulator, having pulled the strings of HYDRA for some time. He even convinces Grant Ward, a Manipulative Bastard himself, to willingly go on a (potential) suicide mission for him.
• Mole in Charge: A HYDRA leader within the World Security Council, putting him on the same level as Alexander Pierce. Also, he helped found the ATCU and commands its Science Division by obfuscating Rosalind's oversight, using it to create Inhumans to further HYDRA's goals.
• My God, What Have I Done?: It's only when Hive murders Stephanie that Gideon begins to think that HYDRA might have been wrong about his motives.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Malick" sounds an awful lot like "malice". Also, Gideon means "he that bruises or breaks; a destroyer."
• Non-Action Big Bad: Hive lampshades this, noting that Malick orders the deaths of others, but has always been tempted to do it personally.
• Not So Stoic: Thanks to an Inhuman which can show visions of death through physical contact, Malick loses his cool for the first time in a while.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Hive punishes Malick for his cowardice by murdering his daughter right in front of him.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Malick's goals (bringing back Hive and his own survival) ultimately cost him everything: his brother, daughter, his leadership of HYDRA, and his own life.
• The Remnant: He's the last of the old guard at HYDRA thanks to the actions of Team Coulson, the Avengers, and Grant Ward's New HYDRA.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! / Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: He's ridiculously wealthy and has fingers in every political pie he can get his hands on.
• Super Weapon, Average Joe: Once he puts on Transia Corp's strength-enhancing exoskeleton, he can go one-on-one with Daisy.
• Together in Death: After Hive kills Stephanie, he views death as reuniting with her.
  Daisy: We can't let you keep talking.
  Malick: ...And I won't be kept from my daughter.
• Ultimate Job Security: Given Malick's political and economic contacts with dozens of governments, bringing him to justice through the legal system would be virtually impossible. President Ellis tells Coulson that he can't touch Malick legally, but does note that someone outside the law wouldn't have that problem...
• Villain Has a Point: Coulson admits to Malick during the interrogation that he's right to believe that Hive is the devil, considering Coulson himself committed the sin that allowed him to return to Earth.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He was a member of the World Security Council as he was able to keep his alliance with HYDRA hidden a long time, to the point that not even Coulson or the Avengers knew his true colors until he made the mistake of telling Rosalind about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Tahiti program.
• Villainous Breakdown: Malick has one when he sees all of his Inhuman subjects killed by Lash and hears that S.H.I.E.L.D. has taken over the portal chamber.
• Villainous BSoD: He becomes a total defeatist after Hive turns on him.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In Season 7, his younger self only has one scene before completely disappearing from the story, while his younger brother Nathaniel gets involved with the Chronicoms. It is implied that he would have taken over his father's positon following the latter's death at the hands of Deke.
• Would Hit a Girl: Gives a nasty No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Daisy once he gets his augmented strength harness.

Nathaniel Malick

Nathaniel "Nate" Malick

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Joel Courtney

Voiced By: Alan Fernando Velázquez [Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub); Javier Balas (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 60: "Paradise Lost")

Nathaniel Malick: Dad... he would swap in this stone during the ceremonies and feel for the notch to make sure he never drew it from the bag.
Gideon Malick: He would never do that.
Nathaniel Malick: But he did. It's all right here, Gideon. Dad was afraid to be the Traveler. He was a coward... and a cheater. Everything he said to us was a lie.

A member of the HYDRA faction that worshiped the Inhuman Hive and the brother of Gideon Malick.

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• Broken Pedestal: In the flashback of Season 3, Nathaniel is devastated to learn that his beloved father wasn't the brave man he thought he was, having been informed of how the man cheated his way out of being chosen to go through the Monolith.
• Canon Foreigner: Like Gideon Malick, he's an original character of the MCU.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He first appeared in Season 3's episode "Paradise Lost" via flashbacks, and was pretty much a plot device meant to further explore Gideon's backstory and the Hydra cult that worshipped Hive. In Season 7, his past self becomes one of the main antagonists, and the Final Boss of the series.
• Human Sacrifice: He was originally sacrificed to Hive in 1970.

Stephanie Malick

Stephanie Malick

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Bethany Joy Lenz

Voiced By: Liliana Barba [Sony Dub] (Latin-American Spanish dub); Ana Esther Alborg (European Spanish dub)

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 57: "Parting Shot", Episode 60: "Paradise Lost")

Gideon Malick's daughter and heir and a member of HYDRA.

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• Bait the Dog: Stephanie apparently believed that Hive would kill her father for his cowardice. It killed her instead.
• Daddy's Little Villain: She has been raised to be a HYDRA leader and shares her father's vision.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being a member of the aforementioned fascist cult, she genuinely cares about her father. That is until the Broken Pedestal moment in which she chooses Hive over her father after the latter is exposed as a coward who cheated his way out of being sacrificed to Hive all his adult life.
• The Fundamentalist: Unlike her father, who cares more about power than the HYDRA faith, she is a true believer in HYDRA's role as servants of Hive and chooses the latter over her father.
• Morality Pet: For Gideon. When Hive kills her, it drives him to help S.H.I.E.L.D. defeat the "devil".
• Sacrificial Lamb: She is killed by Hive to punish Gideon for having betrayed his brother instead of being willing to be sacrificed to Hive.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: She's killed in her second appearance.

World War II Members

Heinz Kruger

Heinz Kruger

Known Aliases: "Fred Clemson"

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Richard Armitage

Voiced By: Enrique Cervantes (Latin-American Spanish dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The First Avenger

"The first of many."

A HYDRA assassin. Following the experiment that empowers Steve Rogers, he kills Dr. Erskine and steals a vial of the Super-Soldier serum. He is caught by Rogers, and commits suicide.

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• Badass in a Nice Suit: He infiltrates and wipes out the super soldier program single-handed, but it doesn't help against the newly augmented Steve Rogers.
• Clark Kenting: His physical disguise is just a business suit and glasses, aided by using an American accent, false name, and his general anonymity.
• Cyanide Pill: Swallows one hidden in his teeth after he gets caught by Rogers.
• Determinator: Despite the resistance against him, he was determined to escape. Almost succeeded, too.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the comics, Steve threw him into lab machinery, which electrocuted him to death. Here he's Driven to Suicide after he's captured by Steve.
• Evil Sounds Deep: With Richard Armitage, he can only sport a deep, imposing voice.
• Fake American: invoked He poses as an American named Fred Clemson working for the State Department and then reveals that he's The Mole from HYDRA.
• The Mole: Infiltrated the US government to shut down the Super Soldier program and acquire a sample of the serum.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Since he is "the first" of HYDRA to be coming after Rogers.
• Professional Killer: Implied to be his profession because of all the killing he does.
• Starter Villain: The first antagonist Steve faces post-serum.
• Who Are You?: Steve Rogers asks him this after capturing him. His answer is:
  Heinz Kruger: The first of many. Cut off one head, [pops the fake tooth containing his cyanide capsule] two more shall take its place. [foam begins to form at his mouth] Hail HYDRA! [dies]
• Would Hit a Girl: Guns down a female SSR agent who tries to stop him escaping the shopfront and attempts to blow up Peggy with a car bomb.
• Would Hurt a Child: By pointing a gun at his head and then throwing him into a river. He can swim, mercifully.

Velt

Velt

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Patrick Monckeberg

Appearances: Captain America: The First Avenger

The manager of a HYDRA weapons facility.

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• Middle-Management Mook: His position within the hierarchy of HYDRA.
• Sole Survivor: He appears to be the sole HYDRA survivor of the weapons facilty.
• You Have Failed Me: The Red Skull executes him for not dying defending the weapons facility from the Howling Commandos.

Vincent Beckers

Vincent Beckers

Species: Human

Citizenship: Belgian

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

A Belgian scientist and member of HYDRA. The grandfather of Julien Beckers.

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• The Evil Genius: A scientist that designed weapons for a fascist organization.
• Generation Xerox: His grandson Julien also works for HYDRA in the modern days.
• Les Collaborateurs: Possibly, since he's a Belgian working for HYDRA whose members are mostly Nazi German, and Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany at the time.

Post-World War II Members

Winter Soldier Program

James Buchanan Barnes / The Winter Soldier

See the Bucky Barnes page

The Winter Soldiers

The Winter Soldiers

Species: Enhanced humans

Citizenship: Various

Portrayed By: Jackson Spidell (Josef)

Appearances: Captain America: Civil War

Steve Rogers: Who were they?
Bucky Barnes: The most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history. And that was before the serum.
Sam Wilson: They all turn out like you?
Bucky Barnes: Worse.

A group of five HYDRA assassins that were empowered with the Super Soldier Serum used by Bucky Barnes. They were cryogenically frozen like Bucky Barnes was, and Captain America learns that Zemo is looking for their resting place.

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• The Ace: All of them are this, according to Bucky. They are, among other things, expert infiltrators, multi-linguists, and superb assassins.
• Asshole Victim: All five were already enlisted HYDRA agents before they got the serum, and were chosen for enhancement because they already had massive kill counts. Zemo killing them all is a favor to the heroes, if anything.
• Ax-Crazy: After becoming enhanced, they became uncontrollable, even attacking doctors and guards at random in one scene. Bucky even said that the doctor could only control them "enough", and eventually they had to be cryogenically frozen until a means to control them properly could be determined.
• Bald of Evil: One of the Winter Soldiers is a bald-headed man.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Zemo killed each of them.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: A single Winter Soldier is able to beat Bucky, but when everyone goes berserk, Bucky is able to fight his way through several with no problem.
• Empowered Badass Normal: As Bucky put it, they had more kills than anyone in HYDRA history before being given the Super Soldier serum.
• Human Popsicle: They were put on ice after they suffered from collective mental instability.
• No Name Given: Except for "Josef."
• One-Man Army: Each of them is said to be this before receiving the serum. If they were to awakened from their cryogenic tubes, entire countries would fall.
• Psycho Serum: The Super Soldier Serum injected into them has this effect, as it amplified their aggressiveness to near insanity. "Good becomes great, bad becomes worse" indeed.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: One of the Winter Soldiers kills a guard trying to subdue him by punching him very hard, very quickly.
• Red Herring: The Soldiers are given a fair bit of weight in Civil War, being suggested by Bucky to be the crux of Zemo's plan to "topple an empire", but it turns out Zemo had no intention of unleashing them. By the time our heroes arrive in the bunker where they were kept, Zemo has unceremoniously killed all of the Soldiers without thawing them, having only been interested in the mission records kept on the bunker's computers.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Elite and psychotic HYDRA super-soldiers kept in cryogenic stasis within a Siberian missile bunker.
• Slain in Their Sleep: Zemo killed them during their cryostasis sleep.
• The Smurfette Principle: One of the Soldiers is a woman.
• The Unfought: Their entire role in Civil War is to appear to be part of the Big Bad Ensemble with Zemo once he finds out where they were. However, he kills them all before the heroes catch up to him, revealing that they were never a part of his goal to begin with. Instead, he uses the intel that he's gathered over the course of the movie in order to reveal the truth about the Winter Soldier to Iron Man and Captain America in order to break the Avengers up from within.
• The Worf Effect: Just to show off how powerful these guys are, we see one of them completely outclass the original Winter Soldier in hand-to-hand combat before throwing Bucky across the room with ease.
• Worf Had the Flu: Bucky manages to push his way through a group and even knock one out, so Bucky was probably holding back in training. Or possibly, Josef, the most muscular of the team was the strongest as well.

S.H.I.E.L.D. and U.S. Government Infiltrators

Agent Jasper Sitwell

Agent Jasper Sitwell

Species: Human

Citizenship: Honduran-American

Portrayed By: Maximiliano Hernández, Adam Faison (young)

Voiced By: Daniel del Roble (Latin-American Spanish dub)

Appearances: Thor | The Consultant | The Avengers | Item 47 | Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Avengers: Endgame | Loki ^note  Archive footage from Avengers: Endgame

"I could do it. I do a great patsy."

A Level Six, then later Level Eight agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Like Coulson, he is frequently sent across the globe to handle what Fury can't.

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• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, he's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent through and through. In The Winter Soldier, however, he's revealed as an agent of HYDRA.
• Affably Evil: Sitwell is polite to everyone, and does forgive Jemma Simmons for shooting him.
• All There in the Manual: Until his story significance in The Winter Soldier, his importance is mainly relegated to the shorts (Item 47 and The Consultant), as well as having a minor role in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Badass Normal: We finally get to see it come Item 47. Sitwell captures Benny and Claire by moving into the hotel room next to theirs and playing extremely loud music so that they'll come over to complain. He then has to fight off Claire while struggling to handcuff her husband and while she tries to shoot him with an alien BFG.
• Bald of Evil: As revealed in The Winter Soldier, he's a HYDRA mole.
• Bit Character: His appearances in Thor and The Avengers are very brief, and he tends to play a larger role in the shorts. Winter Soldier is the first film where Sitwell plays a major role.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In The Winter Soldier, he is torn from a moving vehicle by the Winter Soldier to his presumed death, but in the Captain America: Winter Soldier comic book storyline, he's shot to death by a brainwashed Black Widow.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The Winter Soldier abruptly throws him in front of a truck.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Clearly Jasper considered the Abomination a liability to his own cause, which is why he teamed up with Agent Coulson and Tony Stark to thwart his induction into the Avengers.
  • He also understands just how big of a threat Loki is during the events of The Avengers, and so remains fully loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D while trying to locate and stop him.
• Evil Counterpart: Ends up being one to Coulson. Coulson is a loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and a fanboy of Captain America. Sitwell was an undercover HYDRA agent and called for Steve to be shot with no remorse.
• Exact Words: Sitwell is ordered to neutralize Benny and Claire. He does so by hiring them to S.H.I.E.L.D., putting them to work on reverse-engineering Chitauri weapons.
• Foil: To Phil Coulson. Both of them are high-ranking agents of S.H.I.E.L.D who tend to work together on assignments discovering and observing potential candidates for the Avengers Initiative. However, while Coulson is a legitimately nice guy who is wholeheartedly loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D and its cause, Jasper is secretly a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who had been serving HYDRA for most of his life. And while Loki's murder of Phil was the lynchpin for getting the Avengers to finally assemble and defeat the God of Mischief, Sitwell's death by the Winter Soldier's hands is barely even an afterthought for the heroes involved.
• Hero Antagonist: In Item 47, where he's ordered to hunt down Benny and Claire.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Being a Level Six agent, he thought he was at the highest of information clearance levels. He was wrong.
    Coulson: What's your clearance level?
    Sitwell: It's Level 6. Like you... Come on, there's a Level 7?
  • This is why he and Blake thought Coulson was still dead, because his survival was classified as Level 7.
  • As of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., he has been promoted up to Level 8 alongside Coulson, where it's still part of the job description to be Locked Out of the Loop, solely because no one in Level 8 can know everything going on about the organization because it would be unsafe.
• The Men in Black: As a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he seems to fit the bill pretty well, looking into stolen alien technology and working to keep it under wraps.
• The Mole: He's one for HYDRA.
• Nice Guy: Calm, approachable and friendly, he is almost exactly like Phil Coulson. However, when his Hydra Cover is revealed, he is revealed to have been Affably Evil.
• Not So Stoic: He keeps staying calm even after being taken prisoner by Captain America and Black Widow, not taking their threat to throw him off a skyscraper seriously... until after they do throw him off, then catch him and imply they'll just keep doing that until he talks or they get bored. The near-death experience is too much for Sitwell, and he spills the beans.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He says he does "a great patsy", and offers to do it so S.H.I.E.L.D. can sabotage General Ross's meeting with Fury. Turns out he really does, having tricked the majority of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Obsessed with Food: He has a tendency to bring up what the food is like at the places he visits during otherwise serious meetings.
• Oh, Crap!: After he starts spilling his guts to Steve, Natasha, and Sam, Sitwell stops talking for a moment and remarks "Pierce is gonna kill me". Sure enough, the Winter Soldier kills him a few minutes later.
• Pragmatic Villainy: After discovering that he was HYDRA, his past more charitable actions (including sparing Benny and Claire and preventing Abomination from becoming an Avenger) look more darkly practical rather than morally motivated.
• Race Lift: In the comics Sitwell is Caucasian and blond, while in the films he's bald and Honduran-American.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He comes off as a little more laid-back Red Oni compared to the stuffier Coulson's Blue Oni.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: After being informed of the World Security Council's decision to put the Abomination on the Avengers, he and Coulson start plotting a way to stop this. Though given that Sitwell is HYDRA, he was probably more concerned that Blonsky was too unstable.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Like all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, he dresses very well.
• The Smart Guy: One of the smartest agents S.H.I.E.L.D. deploys.
• The Stoic: Sitwell has some Nerves of Steel, and rarely shows fear. For instance, when caught aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. ship that had been hijacked by Ruthless Modern Pirates, all the other hostages were frightened but Sitwell looked mostly bored. His calmness wasn't unfounded, as just before a pirate was about to kill him, said pirate dropped dead by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Coulson after his "death". While he's appeared beforehand in the films, Item 47 hinted he would take Phil's place as the everyman of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Blake even accidentally calls him "Coulson" due to force of habit. However, this was negated when Coulson was revealed to be alive. Ironically, in the comics Sitwell has been around since the 60's, whereas Coulson is a very recent Canon Immigrant, so you'd think it would be the other way around.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: In regards to High-Altitude Interrogation. He thinks it's the version where the hero holds him over the edge, threatening to drop and he knows that Steve is too much of a Nice Guy to threaten an unarmed man like that. He's right, but the Black Widow isn't.
• You Have Failed Me: Killed by the Winter Soldier for selling out HYDRA to Captain America and his allies.

Brock Rumlow / Crossbones

Agent Brock Rumlow / Crossbones

"This is going to hurt."

"I don't work like that no more."

"You know, I think I look pretty good, all things considered."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Frank Grillo

Voiced By: Rafael Pacheco (Latin-American Spanish dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Captain America: Civil War | Avengers: Endgame | Loki ^note  Archive footage from Avengers: Endgame

"There are no prisoners with HYDRA. Just order. And order only comes with pain. You ready for yours?"

A HYDRA agent within S.H.I.E.L.D., and a STRIKE team commander.

---

• Adaptational Heroism: Zig-zagged. In the comics, Rumlow has always been an unrepentant thug with zero redeeming characteristics. In The Winter Soldier, he's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent... who turns out to be a HYDRA agent, and by Civil War he has left HYDRA and any of its Knight Templar, fascist beliefs with them, now focused on revenge on Cap.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In the comics, Rumlow was a firm loyalist of the Red Skull, embodying Schmidt's fascistic ideals. Here, his loyalty to HYDRA is based in its modern-day, Knight Templar rhetoric, long after Schmidt's Card-Carrying Villain methods have been discarded. Even after dropping any pretension of good intentions, Rumlow shows no sign of following any kind of Nazi ideology; his gang in Civil War consists of multinational and multiracial mercenaries.
• Advertised Extra: In Captain America: Civil War; Brock Rumlow/Crossbones played a crucial role in the comic book arc (by killing Captain America at the very end, even if he did get brought back eventually). Here, despite a heavy presence in the marketing and merchandising (he even got his own Hot Toys figure), he helps to kick-start the main plot of the movie by committing suicide in the second scene. And his comic arc has more to do with an ongoing Red Skull plot in Captain America's book, with the Civil War element only tangentially related.
• And This Is for...: Almost said word for word in Captain America: Civil War.
  Rumlow: This is for dropping a building on my face!
• Avenging the Villain: Averted. In the interquel comic Rumlow makes it clear he's motivated by personal revenge rather than any remaining loyalty to HYDRA, who he explicitly disavows.
• Badass Boast: He's one of the toughest agents around and he knows it, as shown when he brags before fighting Sam Wilson aka "Falcon".
  Rumlow: This is gonna hurt. There are no prisoners with HYDRA. Just order, and order only comes through pain. You ready for yours? [after beating Falcon down again] You're out of your depth, kid.
• Badass Normal:
  • In Winter Soldier he's just a well-trained ordinary human, but he dominates in his fight with Sam and can even briefly hold out against Captain America in a fight, albeit not to the same extent as Batroc.
  • After becoming Crossbones, Rumlow seems to have acquired advanced combat equipment (including a pair of powered gauntlets that look and operate suspiciously like Stark tech), that allow him to match Captain America in a fight. He can also fight evenly against Black Widow even without relying on his powered gauntlets. Though that fight implies he's had a few more upgrades than just his weapons and armor.
• Bad Boss: In Civil War, he drops a live grenade into a jeep with two of his men in an attempt to kill Natasha.
• Beard of Evil: A Perma-Stubble goatee.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The gauntlets he uses in Civil War have deployable ones.
• Body Horror: Rumlow survived having a Helicarrier crash into a building while he was inside of said building. The end result isn't pretty. In Civil War, he shows that the various burns and debris left his face incredibly disfigured, prompting him to primarily sport a mask.
• The Brute: He acts as Pierce's main muscle in The Winter Soldier.
• Co-Dragons: With the Winter Soldier, to Alexander Pierce. Of those two, Rumlow is more active, and seems to be the blunt hammer and everyday right-hand man. When things really need to get done, the higher-ups call in Bucky/the Winter Soldier.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Zig-zagged. He's never referred to as 'Crossbones' in Winter Soldier, having not yet taken up the alias, and the only hint is the cross-shape of his weapon straps across his chest; Civil War, however, sees him finally identified as such, and donning a helmet and armored pads painted to resemble his comics counterpart.
• Deadpan Snarker: At least as part of his façade as Cap and Black Widow's friendly colleague.
  Rumlow: [after saving Steve from one mook when Cap's already taken every other one out] Yeah, you seemed pretty helpless without me.
• Disability Superpower: Most likely due to nerve damage from his injuries and the resulting surgeries, he's able to No-Sell Black Widow's stun darts, which are strong enough to stagger even the superhuman Black Panther.
• Dragon Their Feet: He's still fighting Sam after Pierce and HYDRA's Helicarriers have been dispatched.
• Ear Ache: Under his helmet in Civil War, part of his outer ear is melted.
• Empowered Badass Normal: His fight with Black Widow in the opening of Civil War implies he's gotten some sort of upgrades, more than just his weapons and armor. Or maybe it's a Disability Superpower following his severe injuries at the end of Winter Soldier. When Natasha shocks him with her shocking thingy, which five seconds earlier had dropped a guy, Rumlow just takes it and says "I don't work like that no more."
• Even Evil Has Standards: In The Winter Soldier, he looks noticeably uneasy at Bucky's treatment by Pierce. He's dropped these objections by Civil War, using Bucky's suffering as a cruel taunt at Cap.
• Evil All Along: Rumlow's been a member of HYDRA for God knows how long.
• Face–Heel Turn: Introduced as a S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague of Cap and Black Widow and on friendly terms with them, but eventually turns on them, because he's a member of HYDRA.
• Facial Horror: His burn scars, as seen in Civil War, are extensive and quite horrific. Cap pauses in shock for a moment at the sight of Rumlow's disfigurement.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's personable enough, and even claims that his assault on Cap is nothing personal, but he's still a loyal agent of HYDRA and a ruthless killer.
• Friendly Enemy: To Cap. They're on opposite sides of the S.H.I.E.L.D.-HYDRA conflict, but according to the DVD commentary, he actually has a degree of admiration for Cap. This suggests that his attack on Cap may have indeed been Nothing Personal, despite what Cap believes. In the opening sequence, when Cap jumps out of a plane with no parachute, Rumlow doesn't show any envy or anything other negative emotions when he confirms that fact to a surprised associate. He seems to really like and admire the guy. Averted in Civil War, however, as noted below.
• Feel No Pain: Catches a Taser to the neck and doesn't even flinch, implying that his severe injuries have also screwed up his pain receptors.
  Crossbones: I don't work like that no more!
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: In Civil War, under his mask Rumlow's face is pretty heavily scarred up from having S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters dropped on his head.
• It's Personal: He stops being a Friendly Enemy to Cap in Civil War for obvious reasons.
  Rumlow: This is for dropping a building on my face.
• Karmic Death: He attempts to use a bomb to take out himself, Cap, and any nearby civilians. However, Wanda uses her powers to suppress the blast and contain in a ball of energy with Crossbones, so instead of the quick Taking You with Me he likely hoped, he ends up being simultaneously burned alive and crushed, screaming the whole way until he explodes. It's also entirely possible that after realizing that the explosion wasn't instant, he also realized he hadn't succeeded in killing Cap.
• Knight Templar: If his remarks towards the end of The Winter Soldier are any indication, Rumlow fully believes in HYDRA's goals. It's no longer the case in Civil War, as he is now working as a mercenary out for revenge and in the Infinite Prelude comic he even states he is no longer working for HYDRA's goals.
• The Lancer: Prior to HYDRA's uncloaking he acted as Captain America's Number Two in missions.
• Made of Iron: He survived a Helicarrier crashing into the building he was in. He's not in good shape afterwards, though, and in Civil War lampshades that, considering the fact he was caught in a floor collapse with only the injuries he did sustain, means he got off fairly easily.
• The Mole: One of the many HYDRA moles.
• Mook Lieutenant: As the leader of S.T.R.I.K.E.
• Nerves of Steel: Easily the most cool headed member of both S.T.R.I.K.E. and the rest of the Hydra agents sent to try and capture Cap in the elevator. Everyone else is either sweating in anticipation or giving away their plans via posture or acting unnatural. Rumlow has his arms crossed and makes small talk to try and lower Cap's guard.
• Nothing Personal: Claims this when attacking Cap. Steve begs to differ. Averted in Civil War, where he holds an immense grudge against Cap for the brutal damage he suffered at the end of The Winter Soldier. It leads to him trying to take Steve out in a last-ditch suicide bomb.
• Not Quite Dead: At the climax of The Winter Soldier, he's seemingly crushed to death under debris when a helicarrier crashes into the floor of the building he's in. A sequence before the credits reveals he's badly scarred and in critical condition, but still alive.
• Obviously Evil: According to Ant-Man, who can't believe that the Avengers gave him and Sitwell Loki's Scepter back in 2012.
  Ant-Man: Who are those guys?
  Tony Stark: S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, actually, HYDRA, but we didn't know that yet.
  Ant-Man: Seriously? They look like bad guys!
• Perma-Stubble: It gives him a rugged, tough-guy look.
• Power Fist: As Crossbones, he has a pair of gauntlets which can punch with enough force to send Captain America flying.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Though ruthless, he knows better than to shoot Rogers in broad daylight, after spotting a news helicopter filming overhead. Instead he opts to capture him and transport him some place abandoned where they can shoot him and dump the body.
• Rogue Agent: By the time of Civil War, he's detached himself from both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA completely, and has taken to robbing banks in Lagos with his own gang of Mooks in order to draw out Captain America. Notably, he doesn't go out with a final "Hail HYDRA" like so many other operatives.
• Shock Stick: He and his S.T.R.I.K.E. team carry electrified shock batons that are powerful enough to knock-out a mercenary with a single touch and hurt Rogers.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Serves as the Starter Villain of Civil War and dies during the first 10 minutes, though he inadvertently kicks off the main plot. Indeed, his final appearance in the MCU wound up being in an alternate timeline visited during Avengers: Endgame.
• Taking You with Me: In the opening of Civil War, he gets outfought by Cap and tries to set off a bomb that will take them both out, as well as the surrounding block of people. He fails in his goal, as Wanda telekinetically contains the blast and lifts Crossbones into the air away from Steve. However, the explosion ends up packing too much power for her to hold back for long, and a number of people in the nearby building are killed as a result.
• Tranquil Fury: All of his lines in his Crossbones identity are filled with this, and even dips into Deadpan Snarker territory, even though his mission by this stage is ending Cap for his injuries.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In The Winter Soldier, Rumlow at least acted jovial enough, and seemed to believe that HYDRA's goals would serve the greater good. By Civil War, he's a vicious brute who couldn't care less about the state of the world and just wants to kill Cap for causing his injuries, not caring if innocent people get caught in the crossfire.
• We Have Reserves: Rather than waste time fighting Black Widow one-on-one, he drops her into an armored truck with his own fanatically loyal men and throws down a grenade, entrusting they'll hold her just long enough for everyone to be killed in the explosion.
• Villainous Legacy:
  • His suicide bombing was the straw that broke the camel's back in regards of the Avengers being Destructive Saviours and caused the Sokovia Accords to be implemented.
  • The gauntlets he used to fight Captain America in Lagos were salvaged by Adrian Toomes's clean-up company/criminal group in Spider-Man: Homecoming and subsequently retrofitted with air-blast tech, becoming the primary weapons of Jackson Brice and Herman Schultz, aka The Shocker.

Jack Rollins

Agent Jack Rollins

"Was he wearing a parachute?"

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Callan Mulvey

Voiced By: Dan Osorio (Latin-American Spanish dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Avengers: Endgame

A HYDRA operative that was part of the infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., acting as a member of STRIKE.

---

• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, Jack Rollins is a loyal agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. infiltrated within the Roxxon Corporation
• Adaptation Dye-Job: He's blond in the comics but dark-haired in the MCU.
• The Brute: He's a brute to a brute, working as Rumlow's second on the field.
• Evil All Along: Along with the rest of the STRIKE Team, he's a devotee of HYDRA.
• Face–Heel Turn: He's introduced as a member of the S.H.I.E.L.D. STRIKE Team, but he's secretly a member of HYDRA.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: He wears his hair slicked back.
• Jerkass: Rollins lacks any of Rumlow's more affable qualities.
• The Mole: One of the many HYDRA moles witin S.H.I.E.L.D..
• Perpetual Frowner: Rollins' expression never changes from a dour glare.
• Stupid Evil: He prepares to execute Cap in public after capturing him. Rumlow has to rein him in to maintain the illusion that they're legitimate law enforcement officials.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He's incapacitated by Natasha and isn't seen again, meaning he was probably arrested in the aftermath of the Triskelion attack.

Russo

Russo

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Jon Sklaroff

Appearances: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

A HYDRA operative inside S.H.I.E.L.D., acting as a captain in Project Insight.

---

• The Mole: One of the many HYDRA moles within S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Mook Lieutenant: He commands other Project Insight agents who are also HYDRA moles.

Hauer

Hauer

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Lou Ferrigno Jr.

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 30: "The Things We Bury")

A HYDRA operative inside S.H.I.E.L.D. stationed at the Rat.

---

• The Mole: One of the many HYDRA moles within S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Number Two: After the liberation of Werner Reinhardt (aka Daniel Whitehall), Hauer becomes the personal aide to the aged HYDRA leader.

Mark Smith

Mark Smith

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Scepter'd Isle comic

A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent recruited into HYDRA by Wolfgang von Strucker.

---

• Dude Where Is My Respect: Mark is resentful of being put into R&D instead of the field after a psychological evaluation by Maria Hill. This resentment is what makes HYDRA approach him.
• Ink-Suit Actor: His appearance and name are based on the real Mark Smith, VP Routing and Tours of Victory Hill Exhibitions, responsible for the Marvel's Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. Exhibition at Discovery Times Square in New York City.
• Face–Heel Turn: Part of the plot of the comic is his recruitment into HYDRA.
• The Mole: One of the many HYDRA moles within S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Shoot Your Mate: His final test to prove his loyalty to HYDRA is to kill his colleague, Nicholas Cooper, which he does.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The comic makes no mention of what happens to him after HYDRA's infiltration is exposed.

Mark Basso

Mark Basso

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Scepter'd Isle comic

A HYDRA mole within S.H.I.E.L.D..

---

• Beard of Evil: He's a member of a fascist organization and has a full beard.
• Ink-Suit Actor: His appearance and name are based on the real Mark Basso, Assistant Editor and Project Manager at Marvel Entertainment.
• The Mole: One of the many HYDRA moles within S.H.I.E.L.D.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. He shares the same first name with Mark Smith, another HYDRA mole in S.H.I.E.L.D., and both appear in the same comic.

Others

• Grant Ward
• John Garrett
• Senator Stern

Baron Strucker’s Cell

HYDRA Doctor

HYDRA Doctor

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Hans Obma

Appearances: WandaVision ^note  Flashback only

A HYDRA doctor who conducted the experiments with Loki's Scepter.

---

• Dissonant Serenity: Unlike his assistant who seems rather uncomfortable with it, the Doctor is eerily calm when he leads subjects to undergo potentially fatal experiments.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": His assistant calls him "Doctor", but his real name is never revealed.
• Faux Affably Evil: He speaks politely to Wanda, but in reality he's more than willing to put her life in danger.
  HYDRA Doctor: For our notes, Miss Maximoff, can you please state your name and confirm your status?
• Karma Houdini: He is apparently responsible for the death of a significant number of test subjects, and yet as far as we know he has never paid for his crimes (unless he was arrested or killed during the attack on Strucker's base in Age of Ultron).
• Mad Doctor: A doctor who doesn't hesitate to cause the death of his subjects.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He's a member of HYDRA who has the title of doctor.
• Rewind, Replay, Repeat: He has his assistant replay the surveillance video of Wanda's test several times to understand what happened after it seems like Wanda just collapsed after coming into contact with the Mind Stone.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Even though he's a very minor character who only makes a brief appearance during a flashback, he is the one who made Wanda come into contact with the Mind Stone. Without him, Wanda wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful as she is now, so most of the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War and WandaVision probably wouldn't have happened.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He is not seen during the Avengers' raid on Strucker's base at the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron, so it's unknown what has become of him.
• Would Hit a Girl: Not directly "hit", but he has no qualms about putting a young Wanda through a dangerous experiment knowing that she has a high chance of dying.

HYDRA Tech

HYDRA Tech

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Stephen Goldbach

Appearances: WandaVision ^note  Flashback only

A HYDRA scientist who participated in the experiments with Loki's Scepter.

---

• Bald of Evil: A bald member of HYDRA.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He appears uncomfortable with the idea of putting a young Wanda through an experiment that has already killed every subject who they've previously sent in, and even questions his boss about it.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears a pair of glasses and he's working for HYDRA. Downplayed though, in that he's much less cruel than his boss.
• Is This Thing Still On?: During Wanda's test, he mentions that no one else survived the experiments so far on an open mic which Wanda can hear, much to the irritation of the Doctor who then turns the intercom off.
• No Name Given: His name is never said in the episode. In the credits, he's only referred to as "HYDRA Tech".
• Number Two: He seems to serve as the assistant to the HYDRA Doctor.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He is not seen during the Avengers' raid on Strucker's base at the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron, so it's unknown what has become of him.
• With Due Respect: Says this to the HYDRA Doctor when he expresses his doubts about Wanda going through the experiment.
  HYDRA Tech: Doctor, with respect, not one subject has survived direct cont...

Carmine

Carmine

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 46: "Purpose in the Machine")

A member of HYDRA who formerly worked under Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. He gets captured by Grant Ward to make him reveal the whereabouts of Strucker's son, Werner.

---

• Conspicuous Consumption: He bought a very expensive car not for driving it but just to show off his wealth.
• Cool Car: His brand new sports car. Grant Ward even refers to it as "one hell of a machine" and praises its qualities after stealing it from him.
• Only One Name: Grant Ward calls him "Carmine" at one point, but his last name is never used.
• Outside Ride: After capturing him, Grant Ward puts Carmine on the hood of his own car and drives at full speed through his warehouse base to force him to talk.
• Secret-Keeper: He is one of the few HYDRA members to whom Baron Strucker has entrusted the location of his son.
• The Stool Pigeon: He ends up revealing the whereabouts of Werner Strucker to save his own life.
• Torture Always Works: Grant Ward manages to get him to reveal everything he knows about Werner von Strucker by stealing his car and driving into him before threatening to kill him.
• The Voiceless: Aside from a few screams, we never hear him speak. Even when he tells Grant Ward the location of Werner von Strucker, it only happens off-screen.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It's unknown what happened to him after he revealed Werner von Strucker's whereabouts. Grant Ward presumably either killed him, recruited him or let him go.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Invoked. Grant Ward threatens him by demanding him to prove that he still has a purpose, with the implication that he will be killed if that is not the case.

Others

• Wanda Maximoff
• Pietro Maximoff

Daniel Whitehall's Cell

Kara Palamas / Agent 33

Kara Lynn Palamas / Agent 33

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Maya Stojan, Ming-Na Wen

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 25: "Making Friends and Influencing People")

A former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent now brainwashed into serving HYDRA.

---

• Adaptation Dye-Job: Her comics counterpart is a blonde.
• Alas, Poor Villain: An honest S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, brainwashed by HYDRA, manipulated by Ward into his loyal aide and lover, then killed by Ward when he mistakes her for May, leaving Ward grieving over her dead body.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Becomes this after being brainwashed into a HYDRA agent.
• Birds of a Feather: She and Ward are both very damaged people who (unlike Ward and Skye) more genuinely understand one another and can support each other emotionally. This leads to them developing a relationship.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Her entire introductory episode is spent getting conditioned by Whitehall, finally succumbing at the end.
• Dark Action Girl: After successfully being brainwashed, she uses her secret agents skills for HYDRA.
• Designated Girl Fight: Her most prominent on-screen fights have been with May, Skye and Bobbi. This is especially obvious since every other Action Girl in the series, including the three she's fought, have all proven to be more than a match for the men, including Dark Action Girls like her who fight male heroes.
• Discard and Draw: The mask fused over her face has enough memory for three different faces. To mimic a new one, she must delete an old one.
• The Dragon: Becomes a replacement lieutenant for Whitehall after Bakshi is captured by S.H.I.E.L.D.. In the latter half of Season 2, becomes this to Grant Ward.
• Electronic Speech Impediment: One symptom of having her mask fused to her face.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To May, after using a hologram mask to impersonate her and getting stuck that way.
  • She's also a Foil to May in that her loyalty to Whitehall is unquestioning and compelled by brainwashing, whereas May's loyalty to Coulson is based on a long friendship and history of shared service, and she's never afraid to argue with him. In fact, Coulson sees through Agent 33's impersonation of May in "Face My Enemy" because she is agreeing too readily with his orders to take his place if he goes off the deep end.
• Evil Duo: Became this with Whitehall near the end of the first half of Season 2 after Bakshi's capture. In the latter half of Season 2 becomes this with Grant Ward.
• Facial Horror: Getting a live wire to the face tends to leave scars. The nanomask is fused to her face with a horrific burn in the area the wire destroyed. She eventually gets the mask fixed, but the burn is still there, as shown when she deactivates it.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: After Whitehall's death, she's left completely lost about what to do next with her life, and teams up with Ambiguously Evil Ward simply for a lack of other options.
• Lady and Knight: She becomes Ward's Bright Lady after he is rejected (read: shot in the back) by Skye. After Whitehall's death she's like a wounded dove that inspires him towards a new purpose; helping her.
• Loss of Identity: After Whitehall's death, she all but loses herself, but with Ward's help, Kara manages to reclaim her old identity.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Her brainwashing made her an agent of Whitehall, not HYDRA. She is dismayed by his death and doesn't know what to do with herself.
• Race Lift: White in the comics, Hispanic here. Thanks to the mask permanently fused to her face, now appears Asian. Until the mask is repaired, enabling her to resemble her true appearance again even if it can't ever be removed for real.
• Redemption Rejection: She pretends to stay with SHIELD for psychological recovery at Ward's urging, but it's all a ploy to exact vengeance on Bobbi. This bloodlust leads to her own accidental death at Ward's hands.
• Satellite Character: Deconstructed. While her entire life revolves around helping Ward... this is because she is completely, utterly insane, and has lost her own psyche. She also does have her own wants and needs, making it more co-dependence.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Being electrically shocked while disguised as May fuses the mask to her face, along with giving her a horrible burn on her left eye that makes the disguise useless. She eventually gets it fixed, but the mask is still stuck to her. She can now shift at will, but can only keep three faces in memory. In order to gain any other identities, she has to give one up. However, she can also deactivate the mask and have her original (though still scarred) face. By the time of "The Frenemy of my Enemy", she's able to contact her mother and get a photo of herself pre-scarred, allowing her to have her own face without the damage.
• Tragic Monster: As she points out, Whitehall wiped away whoever she was. Essentially, Kara Palamas is dead. She is very relieved when she is able to reclaim her old name, and as of "The Frenemy of My Enemy" she prefers to be called Kara again. It didn't remove her hatred against Bobbi for her betrayal.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Averted. She had Bobbi at gunpoint, but realizes she's not afraid to die and has no remorse for betraying Kara. Shooting her then and there won't give her closure. So Ward decided to try something else.
• You Are Number 6: Initially referred to by her S.H.I.E.L.D. callsign and with no name given. She's eventually revealed to be Kara Palamas, an obscure character from the Hercules comics.

Julien Beckers

Julien Beckers

Species: Human

Citizenship: Belgian

Portrayed By: Michael Enright

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 28: "A Fractured House")

The Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs and a member of HYDRA.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pretending to be a defender of civil liberties to get fugitive agents of the then outlawed S.H.I.E.L.D. to fall in HYDRA's trap.
• Corrupt Politician: He's a minister who works for HYDRA.
• Generation Xerox: His grandfather was a HYDRA scientist during World War II.
• The Mole: Within the Belgian government, until he gets discovered and arrested.

Marcus Scarlotti

Marcus Scarlotti

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Falk Hentschel

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 28: "A Fractured House")

A mercenary and HYDRA operative hired to frame S.H.I.E.L.D. for attacking the United Nations and to eliminate S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

---

• Adaptation Name Change: His first name is "Marco" in the comics.
• Adaptational Nationality: He's American in the comics. Here, he's likely a German, since his actor is German. This is likely why his name is changed.
• Bond One-Liner: When Agent Walters is Killed Mid-Sentence by one of his splinter bombs, Scarlotti responds with "You were saying?"
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: He's never called Whiplash or Blacklash.
• False Flag Operation: He leads a HYDRA attack on the UN while claiming to be S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to turn the world's militaries on them. He and his team take out six S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with ease.
• Mythology Gag: He pulls out a knife-and-chain to fight May in the safehouse. Scarlotti is the first Whiplash in the comics, though his weapons were closer to Vanko's Whiplash suits in Iron Man 2.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Bobbi Morse mentions that Scarlotti almost killed Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, a few years ago.
• Psycho Knife Nut: He has a wicked looking combat knife, as well as a knife-and-chain weapon.
• Whip Sword: A downplayed example in that his weapon is a chain with a knife on one end.

Toshiro Mori

Toshiro Mori

Species: Human

Citizenship: Japanese

Portrayed By: Brian Tee

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 28: "A Fractured House")

A Japanese engineer and weapons designer for HYDRA.

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• Affably Evil: Quite pleasant for a weapons designer.
• Beard of Evil: A short croppled goatee and mustache; classic villain facial hair.
• Canon Foreigner: He has no direct comic counterpart.
• Evil Genius: As the builder of the Splinter Bombs.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: He loves his fine tea.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Wearing a black shirt and suit.
• Too Dumb to Live: He just had to try and kill the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had just taken out most of his guards. In response, they kill him as an afterthought.

Dr. Lingenfelter

Dr. Lingenfelter

Species: Human

Citizenship: German

Portrayed By: Dale Waddington

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 27: "A Hen In The Wolf House")

A HYDRA scientist serving Daniel Whitehall.

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• The Evil Genius: She's a brilliant scientist using her expertise in the service of fascist, genocidal maniac Daniel Whitehall.
• Middle-Management Mook: She's in charge of a team of HYDRA scientist and reports directly to Whitehall.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: She's a doctor in service of a fascist and genocidal organization.

Kenneth Turgeon

Kenneth Turgeon

"The higher you go, the scarier it is."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Adam Kulbersh

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 25: "Making Friends and Influencing People")

"The time tables have moved up, and I have been called upstairs to fill them in. No prep time, no powerpoint, just me, pants around my ankles, talking out of my butt."

A HYDRA scientist and supervisor.

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• Affably Evil: Sure, he works in an evil organization bent on world domination and killing a ton of people, but he's extremely friendly about it.
• Benevolent Boss: He tries to keep Simmons from moving up in HYDRA because it's more dangerous the higher you go.
• Canon Foreigner: He has no direct comic counterpart.
• Frame-Up: He gets framed as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mole in HYDRA by Simmons, who plants her Flex Screen in his desk.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Despite being pretty affable, he's very excited about the prospect of HYDRA gaining the ability to kill millions using the Obelisk.
  Simmons: Do you have any idea what this means? We could kill millions of people, perhaps even billions.
  Turgeon: Pretty awesome, huh?

Donnie Gill

Donnie Gill

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Dylan Minnette

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 12: "Seeds", Episode 25: "Making Friends and Influencing People")

"I want to be left alone but you people won't stop coming after me. So I'm done hiding. It's time HYDRA learn once and for all I'm not interested. I'm not afraid. I'm pissed off. And every HYDRA agent they send is going to feel it."

An introverted genius at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Sci-Tech academy who gets involved in a series of attacks involving devices that are able to freeze people solid.

---

• Abusive Parents: His parents didn't even realize how smart he was because they ignored him so much. When S.H.I.E.L.D. told his father that Donnie was gifted, his father replied "In what?"
• Adaptation Species Change: He's Inhuman in the comics. Ironically, the Inhumans have yet to be introduced in the series when he appeared.
• Adaptational Heroism: It's Adaptational Anti-Villainy in his case. He still ends up as a bad guy, but is given a sympathetic backstory. It's also made abundantly clear that he never intended for his actions to hurt anyone, at least at first, and he also never served HYDRA willingly; when he, as Blizzard, is acting of his own free will, it's actually against HYDRA. The only reason why S.H.I.E.L.D. put him down at the end of "Making Friends and Influencing People" is so HYDRA won't be able to use him again.
• Age Lift: His comics counterpart is an adult criminal-for-hire.
• Anti-Villain:
  • He wasn't interested in Ian Quinn's money. He was just having fun building something with Seth.
  • In his second appearance, he isn't even antagonistic toward S.H.I.E.L.D. at all until Bakshi triggers the mental conditioning HYDRA put him through.
• Berserk Button: Don't even pretend to be HYDRA.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: He was brainwashed by HYDRA sometime during season 1. His programing is re-activated during "Making Friends and Influencing People".
• The Bus Came Back: He resurfaces in the Season 2 episode "Making Friends and Influencing People".
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Played with. He is never called as Blizzard, his comics counterpart's alias. But the project to analyze his gifted power is indeed called as "Project: Blizzard" at HYDRA.
• Empowered Badass Normal: While never badass in the "combat-capable" sense, his debut episode makes it clear he has borderline superhuman engineering abilities, rivaling those of Fitz (who is nearly a decade his senior and with more experience). After the accident at the end of his debut episode he gains a Touch of Death power via cryokinesis.
• Friendless Background: Bonds with Fitz over this and their love of engineering. He had no friends in his hometown, and even at S.H.I.E.L.D Academy, he's a loner.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Built devices capable of freezing pools and people solid and causing massive superstorms.
• An Ice Person: As a result of his ice machine backfiring on him, he gets cryokinetic powers. He also has the technical skill to make weapons which can copy those abilities as well.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Has trouble interacting with people below a 170 IQ.
• Never Found the Body: According to Skye, his body hasn't been found since she shot him and he fell into the ocean.
• Start of Darkness: In the comics, he's the supervillain Blizzard and indeed, over the course of the episode, he gets his only friend killed and obtains cryokinetic powers. During his first appearance in season 2, he only uses them in self-defense or to spite HYDRA. His only villainous actions are due to brainwashing.
• Teen Genius: Has an IQ of 190 and still in school.

Octavian Bloom's Cell

Accountant

The Accountant

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Kyle David Pierce

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 33: "Aftershocks")

A HYDRA agent loyal to Octavian Bloom sent to kill the Banker.

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• Affably Evil: He treats others with respect and even a smile, even to his own targets.
• Beard of Evil: An assassin with a beard.
• Career Killers: He's an assassin sent to kill the Banker during the purge of the HYDRA leaders.
• No Name Given: He's only described as "the accountant".
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: He looks like an ordinary bank worker... until he draws an splinter bomb and uses it to kill the banker.

John Garrett's Cell / The Centipede Group

John Garrett / The Clairvoyant

See MCU: HYDRA – Leadership

Grant Ward

See the Grant Ward page

Edison Po

Edison Po

"We all have to do things that make us uncomfortable if we are ever to get our toy soldiers off the shelf."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Cullen Douglas

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 5: "Girl in the Flower Dress")

A sinister character the Centipede group breaks out of a federal prison. One of Raina's associates and part of the Centipede group, he is one of the few people permitted to contact "the Clairvoyant" and obtain information about the project's necessary later stages. Becomes Centipede's primary tactician after his escape from prison.

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• Asshole Victim: He tortured Coulson and went along willingly with centipedes goals, and his methods seemed too brutal for even the likes of Raina.
• Bald of Evil: Doesn't have any hair, save for his Beard of Evil.
• Big Bad Wannabe: On his own he is a dangerous villain, and he is one hell of a dangerous and smart enemy, but he’s in way over his head in comparison to the Clairvoyant.
• Canon Foreigner: So far, he doesn't have a comic counterpart.
• Cryptic Conversation: Raina comes to him to tell him how their latest plan was derailed, and that's the only thing the audience has context for at the time. They then go on to talk about "Phase 2" and "the Clairvoyant."
• Dissonant Serenity: Calmly eats his meal while a fight breaks out in front of him.
• The Dragon: The Clairvoyant only allows him to contact him and thus the orders for the organization flow through him. Then the Clairvoyant kills him and gives Raina the position.
• Even Evil Has Standards: On the receiving end from Raina.
• Eye Scream: He was arrested after gouging a man's eyes out with a steak knife. When Raina asks about the Clairvoyant, he warns he'd have to do the same to her if he told her.
• Faux Affably Evil: Speaks politely and acts like a gentleman when speaking with Raina, he speaks to Coulson about his interests, but when coulson doesn’t cooperate, his tone of voice switches from Gentleman to angry thug and he starts torturing coulson and even Raina is repulsed by his methods.
• Hate Sink: While Ward, Deathlok and Raina are sympathetic in ways and John Garrett while being pure evil is amusing, Po, along with Ian Quinn have no redeeming qualities and are made for the viewers to hate them.
• Jerkass: Tortures for fun and doesn’t even say thank you when he is freed.
• Lack of Empathy: He doesn't seem to particularly care that Debbie was killed. He expected her incompetence to off her sooner or later.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Gives off this vibe with his suits and taste for refined food.
• Mouth of Sauron: "The Clairvoyant" allows no one else to speak with, see, or contact him. This is enforced on pain of Eye Scream.
• Obviously Evil: Skye even describes him as a "walking mugshot".
• Pet the Dog: Claims to care about Raina (at least, more than he did for Debbie) enough that he tries to dissuade her from learning too much about the Clairvoyant, since he would have to kill her, and he'd rather not do that.
• Significant Anagram: Swap the first two letters of his first name with his whole last name. You get the word "Poisoned".
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Maintains a quiet and calm tone of voice while he tortures Coulson.
• The Strategist: He has background on tactics, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team speculates this is his role in the organization.
• Troll: When he is freed from prison, he refuses to go until he is referred to as ‘Sir’
• We Have Ways of Making You Talk: Tries torturing Coulson to force him to succumb to his mind probing. It doesn't work. And he's killed for his failure.
• You Have Failed Me: A combination of this and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness after he fails at forcing Coulson to reveal his secrets and the Clairvoyant makes Raina his new Mouth of Sauron.

Ian Quinn

Ian Quinn

"I'm now a naturalized citizen of this fair country. Stunning beaches, beautiful tax laws, and a deep-seated hatred of outside forces telling them what to do."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: David Conrad

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 3: "The Asset")

An old schoolmate of Franklin Hall, who stole his research and used it to create a multi-billion dollar company, Quinn Worldwide. Upon discovering that Hall's theory of graviton particles is correct, he becomes fixated on controlling this technology before someone else does and kidnaps Hall in order to make that dream a reality. He's also a libertarian opposed to any kind of government control or oversight over private businesses.

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• And I Must Scream: His ultimate fate, as revealed in "Inside Voices": he's trapped in the gravitonium.
• Berserk Button: Treating him like an average Corrupt Corporate Executive is a good way to make him lose his cool. Skye, who made that mistake during their first encounter, gets shot for it, though he reveals later that it was under orders as part of a gambit to learn how Coulson was brought back to life.
• Canon Foreigner: He doesn't have a comic counterpart.
• Corporate Conspiracy: Owner of Quinn Worldwide, Quinn is a visionary philanthropist who spearheads a movement that champions deregulation of government interference with scientific research so that he can get his hands on advanced tech and is allied with the Centipede Group.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Kidnaps people, steals ideas, and, by his own admission, has certain "exploits" he doesn't want Skye leaking through the Rising Tide. As explained below, he prefers to see himself as a visionary. When he thinks Skye is treating him like any other corrupt figure to be exposed, he briefly loses his temper.
• The Corrupter: Whether deliberately or not, he's so far been responsible for the creation of several supervillains.
  • Turning Dr. Hall villainous by kidnapping him for his gravity technology. This sets a chain of events into motion that causes Glenn Talbot to become Graviton much later. It becomes almost literal, as he and Hall end up becoming voices inside Talbot's head telling him that Coulson is the enemy and sending him into madness.
  • Turning Donnie Gill into Blizzard by hiring him and then cutting him loose when S.H.I.E.L.D. found out.
  • Turning Mike Peterson into Deathlok, through his collaboration with Centipede and Cybertek.
• Cradling Your Kill: Does this to Skye after shooting her, only to shoot her a second time mid-cradle.
• Deal with the Devil: In "Seeds" he acts as the devil to both Donnie Gill and his friend Seth by hiring them to create a weather control device. As is customary, he screws them both over.
• Diplomatic Impunity: Seeks a form of this - a place where no government has the jurisdiction to touch him.
• Faux Affably Evil: He honestly believes he's advancing humanity, and that anyone slowing down progress (with laws or regulations) is just doing it for greed and lust for power. However, he himself is very greedy, callous towards the lives of his enemies, and is implied to perform ecologically dangerous strip-mining without thought of the consequences. For instance, he fools Donnie and Seth into creating a dangerous weather machine, and now personally knows the Clairvoyant, to which he gloats to Coulson about it. And in the next episode, he casually shoots Skye. Yeah... there's a reason Coulson threatened to kill him.
• Hate Sink: Similar to Po, he has zero redeeming features and he is made to be hated.
• The Heavy: Becomes this after Po is killed and Raina is captured because he became the most prominent Centipede member still free. He is captured himself, but is later freed again by Garrett.
• Honest Corporate Executive: He thinks he's one of these, because he advocates freedom of information and freedom of enterprise. He also saw his kidnapping of Hall as a rescue from his real captors (i.e. S.H.I.E.L.D.) so he could complete his life's work. When he assumed Skye thought of him as one more corrupt to expose, he was offended even though there was no one to look good for.
• Hypocrite: For all his blustering about freedom and accountability, "The Asset" spends quite of time building him up as one;
  • He's perfectly happy to use his money to set up shop in Malta surrounded by a small army to make himself unaccountable to anyone (and accuses S.H.I.E.L.D. of avoiding accountability for their actions while banking on it to prevent them from overtly storming the compound).
  • He "frees" Hall from S.H.I.E.L.D. by tracking down and kidnapping him, then putting him to work deep inside said base (and gives an emotionally manipulative speech to Skye while talking about how S.H.I.E.L.D. use such methods to recruit people like her).
  • Hall himself points out that despite his insistence that information should be free for everyone's benefit, he made his fortune by keeping the flow one way. When he catches Skye poking around, he assumes she's investigating him for the Rising Tide and is outraged that she thinks he has something to hide and prepares to call security to have her taken away for poking around.
• Ironic Hell: Quinn wants his own form of Diplomatic Impunity. He ends up in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, where, as he wanted, no government can touch him... meaning he has no rights to protect him either. Later, he ends up trapped inside the Gravitonium courtesy of Franklin Hall, meaning that he's now trapped inside the substance he coveted for so long thanks to the person he screwed over to get it.
• Jerkass: Doesn’t care about anyone or anything and is rude to everyone.
• Just Think of the Potential!: His New Era Speech to his investors is full of the wonders his company could achieve with gravitonium (and the stupid amounts of profit they could make).
• Karma Houdini: Two episode plots were caused by him and his dirty money. Third time unlucky. As of "T.R.A.C.K.S.", he's imprisoned on The Bus and Team Coulson are furious that he gut shot Skye. Unfortunately, he got broken out of prison by the Clairvoyant himself, John Garrett, and escapes his downfall at the end of the season. When Team Coulson attacks Cybertek, Quinn hightails it out of there with the gravitonium and escapes justice. Although he's Put on a Bus for four seasons after this, we finally find out what really happened to him in Season 5, and this trope ends up Subverted.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Ian Quinn met his demise a long time ago; in "Inside Voices" it's revealed that shortly after he escaped Cybertek he was absorbed into the Gravitonium courtesy of a vengeful Franklin Hall, who gave it sentience.
• Kick the Dog: In episode 13 when he shoots Skye.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • As soon as he realizes what Hall's doing, he gives the order to evacuate immediately.
  • Bails early on his investment in the ice machine in "Seeds" as soon as S.H.I.E.L.D. finds out about its existence.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: He's an evil and charismatic mining magnate, so this isn't too surprising. In some respects, he's like an evil Tony Stark (see Shadow Archetype below).
• New Era Speech: Gives one to his guests when he introduces gravity control technology.
  Quinn: Imagine a world where you don't drill for oil; it rises to meet you.
• Odd Couple: His libertarian views would seem to put him at odds with HYDRA, but given the many Hypocrite examples above, and the fact that he's meant to be a Strawman Political it's not as odd as it appears.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • In "Seeds", he decides to back out of his deal with Donnie and Seth once they realize that S.H.I.E.L.D. has uncovered their plan.
  • In "Beginning of the End", he flees with his gravitonium when Team Coulson attacks the Cybertek facility (and also because Garrett has gone crazy). Although as "Inside Voices" shows, he didn't get far.
• Sequel Non-Entity: When the plot thread of the gravitonium finally resurfaces in the fifth season, Quinn is nowhere to be found, and is given a one-off line handwaving that Coulson's team was simply never able to find him after he fled with the gravitonium during Garrett's downfall and was Put on a Bus. Real Life Writes the Plot, however, in that David Conrad retired from acting since the conclusion of the first season. "Inside Voices" reveals that he was killed shortly after the first season finale.
• Shadow Archetype: He's basically Tony Stark with more Jerkassery, less genius, and zero morals. He's also one for Skye, or at least Skye as she was at the very beginning of the series, when she was a hacker who was anti-S.H.I.E.L.D.because they are the big brother who is watching; he neither one of them likes S.H.I.E.L.D. but Quinn is the kind of guy that S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to stop.
• The Sociopath: Flat out stated as such in "The Only Light in the Darkness", where he is described as the least dangerous one of these locked in The Fridge.
• Strawman Political: Of anarcho-capitalists and libertarians. He is notably angry when he finds out he has been working for the explicitly fascist HYDRA all along, but quickly comes around when they offer him his money, reputation and gravitonium back. Ultimately he is likely just an opportunistic reprobate out mainly for himself.
• The Team Benefactor: In "The Bridge", Coulson's team tries to pinpoint where Centipede's financing comes from. When the tremendously wealthy Quinn is revealed to be part of the group, it's implied that he is the source.
• Too Clever by Half: He's smarter than your average TV villain and Hall manipulates him with his desire to "look smart".
• Unwitting Pawn: Quinn doesn't realize that Dr. Hall deliberately allowed himself to be kidnapped, so he could sabotage the graviton machine that Quinn hired him to improve.
• Villain with Good Publicity: His image is so squeaky clean that even Skye didn't know that he wasn't the wonderful philanthropist he claimed to be. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew better. He was arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D., but with their collapse he's able to regain his reputation.
• Visionary Villain: Sees himself as a crusader, spearheading a movement against oppressive government control. In practice, he comes off more as a Corrupt Corporate Executive, though some of his rhetoric was sincere.
• We Can Rule Together: Tries this with Skye when they first meet to recruit her from S.H.E.I.L.D.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He hasn't been seen since he high-tailed it out of Cybertek. Even Team Coulson have no idea where he went. "Inside Voices" reveals that he was absorbed into the Gravitonium shortly after fleeing Cybertek by a vengeful Franklin Hall.
• Would Hit a Girl: More accurately, Would Shoot a Girl. In his defense, he shot Skye because the Clairvoyant told him to when he caught her snooping around with a gun.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Subverted. The Clairvoyant cuts him loose after he's served his purpose in revealing how Coulson was brought back to life, leaving him at the mercy of some very angry agents. Even better, it turns out the person telling him this was the Clairvoyant himself. But he's broken out when HYDRA raids the Fridge, and Garrett even gives him the gravitonium Coulson's team took from his facility in their first meeting.

Raina

See the Inhumans page

Debbie

Debbie

"This is a disaster."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Shannon Lucio

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 1: "Pilot", Episode 5: "Girl in the Flower Dress")

"You exposed me! You exposed the program. The people who gave me this technology are very serious and they do not want to be revealed."

A doctor rescued by Mike from an exploding building.

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• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: All she gets from being caught in an explosion is some teardrop-shaped scars on the side of the head, which actually enhances her looks and could pass off for mascara or body paint. Completely averted in her death, where she is slowly and clearly roasted to ash from inside out.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She acts nice, but drops the facade when alone with Mike.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Via Kill It with Fire, by Chan Ho Yin/Scorch.
• He Knows Too Much: Tries to have Mike killed to keep Centipede a secret.
• Mauve Shirt: First appears as a major villain in her first appearance, then gets bluntly killed and essentially replaced by Raina in her second.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: One of the researchers working on the Centipede project.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Pulls this on Scorch. Ends upon the receiving end from Raina.

Akela Amador

Akela Amador

"Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me? Where's the 'I told you so'?"

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Pascale Armand

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 4: "Eye Spy")

A former S.H.I.E.L.D agent who disappeared for years and was presumed dead. Shows up and starts stealing diamonds, which leads Coulson to her.

---

• Alliterative Name: Akela Amador.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Ultimately subverted; Ward's belief that she sold out her fellow agents turns out to be false (the op just went bad) and she isn't willingly working for her episode's villain. Given that Ward is an actual agent working for the episode's ultimate villain (the Clairvoyant), it's highly likely he wanted to get rid of a loose thread while breaking down S.H.I.E.L.D.'s loyal members.
• Combat Pragmatist: When it becomes clear that Melinda is the superior hand-to-hand combatant, Akela knocks out the lights, switches to her x-ray vision, then tries to shoot her.
• Dark Action Girl: An assassin, thief, misc. dirty worker for an unknown organization. Though the "Dark" part was against her will.
• Explosive Leash: Her x-ray eye can be detonated if she disobeys orders.
• Ineffectual Loner: Coulson states that she never trusted her fellow agents and always preferred working alone. This is why the op went bad, her fellows died, and she was captured.
• It's All My Fault: She blames herself for the op going bad seven years ago and thus the death of the people she worked with.
• The Stoic: Undergoes surgery on her cybernetic eye while awake without a single sign of worry.
• Trapped in Villainy: Akela initially tried to ignore her handler's orders; he responded with remote electric torture. And then there's the kill switch.
• Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: She is not seen in Season One after her first episode, not even when Garrett and Ward release every prisoner from The Fridge.
• X-Ray Vision: Thanks to a cybernetic eye. When closed, it switches over from normal vision.

The Englishman

The Englishman

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: British

Portrayed By: Dominic Burgess

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 4: "Eye Spy")

Akela Amador: Only contacts are the messages I receive from the Englishman.
Phil Coulson: "The Englishman"? Your handler? How do you know he's English?
Akela Amador: The way he refers to certain things. He uses "lift" instead of "elevator", "boot" instead of "trunk".

Akela Amador's handler. She knows nothing about him other than what little she has been able to glean from his typing patterns.

---

• Character Death: As soon as he looks at Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. badge, his Explosive Leash eye implant activates, killing him.
• The Man Behind the Man: Just like Akela, he was being monitored and controlled through an eye implant by another unidentified party. A later episode shows that he's being controlled by the Clairvoyant. In other words, he was the man behind Akela but there was another man behind him.
• No Name Given: He's only ever called "The Englishman" and we never learn his name during the episode.
• Please Select New City Name: He once writes "Burma" instead of "Myanmar", which allows Akela to accurately guess his age.
• Race-Name Basis: He's simply known as The Englishman.
• Separated by a Common Language: Akela calls him "The Englishman" because his messages use British English instead of American English. For instance, he'll write "lift" instead of "elevator".
• Trapped in Villainy: Like Akela, he was captured and forced by the Centipede Group to work for them via their Explosive Leash ocular implant.

Agent Kaminsky

Agent Kaminsky

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Jeffrey Muller

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 18: "Providence", Episode 21: "Ragtag", Episode 22: "Beginning of the End")

Kaminsky: [doing salute] Hail HYDRA!
John Garrett: Alright, alright. Put your arms down, Kaminsky. You look like a West Texas cheerleader at a pep rally.

An agent working for the Clairvoyant of his own free will.

---

• Black Shirt: He's pretty enthusiastically on board with this whole taking-over-the-world thing. Maybe a little too much, to the embarrassment of Garrett.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He's taken out by May almost immediately even though he's armed with the Berserker Staff.
• Mook Lieutenant: He's the guy the Clairvoyant leaves in charge of ambushing Coulson's team at the HYDRA base under the Havana barber shop.

Chan Ho Yin / Scorch

Chan Ho Yin / Scorch

"Poor little Chan Ho Yin may have believed your lies... but not Scorch!"

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: Chinese-American

Portrayed By: Louis Ozawa Changchien

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 5: "Girl in the Flower Dress")

A pyrokinetic street magician on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watchlist. He is recruited by the organization behind Centipede in the hopes that they can use him to stabilize their serum.

---

• Canon Foreigner: Chan Ho Yin isn't a character from the comics, though his codename is borrowed from a couple other D-list pyrokinetics. His ethnicity, as well as being "kind of a tool," also recalls Sunfire from the X-Men comics.
• Code Name: Scorch, given to him by the people of Project Centipede to play to his ego.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: A major plot point is the aversion of this. The assignment of a codename to Chan helps him embrace the idea that he must have gotten his powers for a reason and that he's someone special and powerful for them. When he refers to himself as Scorch, Coulson treats the information that "they gave him a name" as an Oh, Crap! and realizes how seriously he's taking things.
• Jerkass: He first demonstrates his powers by scaring a couple who weren't impressed with his magic tricks. His S.H.I.E.L.D. file describes him as "kind of a tool."
• Not Using the "Z" Word: His debut was before Disney/MCU had the rights to X-Men, but it is likely he'd be referred to as a mutant. The Agents even theorize that exposure to nuclear radiation may have caused his powers, which was one of the reasons often given for Mutants developing mutations.
• Playing with Fire: His power is generating fire from his hands.
• Pyromaniac: After his Sanity Slippage he's a mad man with fire powers.
• Radiation-Induced Superpowers: It's theorized his powers come from living near a nuclear plant that caught fire. However, it's noted that no one else in the vicinity received powers of any sort, so in the end the source is unknown.
• Required Secondary Powers: His blood platelets make him immune to being burned by his own powers. Once they're extracted, he ends up scorching himself each time he lights up.
• Riddle for the Ages: It is never ultimately explained how he first acquired his fire powers.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After being given a taste of the Centipede serum then being betrayed by Raina. As soon as he gets free, he starts attacking everyone.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: Happens to him during Debbie's experiments: "This isn't testing, this is torture!"
• Street Performer: What he did for a living is magic tricks on street corners.
• Super-Power Meltdown: He's given an overdose of Extremis when it's clear they can't talk him down.
• That Man Is Dead: Once he embraces his codename, he says that only "Scorch" lives.

Deathlok

See the S.H.I.E.L.D. Other Agents page

Brian Hayward

Brian Hayward

"It's time to go."

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Paul Lacovara

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 10: "The Bridge")

One of the Centipede supersoldiers, whom the team finds through his sister.

---

• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Begs Raina not to kill him with the implant.
• The Brute: To Raina, he's a low level and expendable strongman.
• Super-Strength: Due to the Centipede group's serum.
• Super-Toughness: Able to withstand serious blows without any injury, though it's implied that he can die from a headshot.
• Trapped in Villainy: Implanted with Centipede's Explosive Leash ocular implant.

Grant Ward's Cell

Kebo

Kebo

Species: Human

Citizenship: British

Portrayed By: Daz Crawford

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 44: "S.O.S., Part 2")

The second-in-command of Ward's new HYDRA cell.

---

• Asshole Victim: After the sadistic crimes he’s committed, his fate is well deserved.
• Bald of Evil: Not a hair on this HYDRA operative's head.
• Butt-Monkey: The deaths of Alexander Pierce and Daniel Whitehall have not been kind to Kebo. Since HYDRA's fall, he's made into Ward's errand boy, then beaten and humiliated by Ward into complete submission, then beaten up by a kid that he was torturing, finally capped off with a nasty death by electrocution.
• The Dragon: He serves as Ward's second-in-command.
• Electrified Bathtub: He managed to match and nearly kill Bobbi in a straight fight, but Bobbi killed him by using her electrified escrima sticks while he's trying to get out of a swimming pool the two had previously been fighting in.
• Evil Brit: Speaks in a noticeable British accent.
• Faux Affably Evil: When he meets new recruits, he puts a charade on but not long after, his jerkass tendencies show.
• Jerkass: Shows a delight in torturing Werner Von Strucker and is an outright jerk to his new recruits.
• Last Episode, New Character: Shows up in a single scene right at the end of Season 2, when Ward decides to take over HYDRA.
• Mouth of Sauron: He acts as Ward's voice when dealing with new recruits before they get to meet Ward.
• Mugging the Monster: Is assigned to torture Werner von Strucker, who beats him easily once he starts fighting back.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Considering Ward and his HYDRA cell's status as Big Bad Wannabe, Kebo surprisingly manages to pose a serious threat to Bobbi.
• Number Two: He's constantly at Ward's side throughout his introductory episode in Season 3 and Ward entrusts him with tasks such as torturing/evaluating Werner for leadership, screening recruits and Ward's own protection.
• Torture Technician: When Ward doesn't feel like doing it himself, it falls on Kebo. Though....he's not exactly great at it.

Spud

Spud

Species: Human

Citizenship: British

Portrayed By: Daniel Feuerriegel

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (appears in Episode 47: "A Wanted (Inhu)man")

"[Spud is] a psychopath. He's a murderous thief who I once saw bite a man's nose clean off."

— Lance Hunter

An old acquaintance of Lance Hunter working for HYDRA. He later becomes a contact for Grant Ward's HYDRA faction.

---

• Ax-Crazy: Lance describes him as a murderous psychopath.
• Beard of Evil: A psycho murderer with a full goatee.
• The Brute: He's huge, and he's all muscle. If he didn't sneak in a knuckle duster in his pocket, Hunter would've been killed by him.
• Disproportionate Retribution: When Hunter passed as an arms dealer who wished to sell to HYDRA; Spud explained that their new leader (Ward) had trust issues and would only meet with Hunter if he proved himself in a fight to the death. When they arrived to the fight club and Hunter asked whom he was fighting, Spud revealed he was the one to challenge him, as he wanted revenge from Hunter for... Hunter having mocked him for years.
• Evil Brit: He's a British member of a neofascist terrorist organization.
• Faux Affably Evil: When Hunter reunites with him at a pub, he's all drinks and laughs talking about the good old days. Then not long after reveals that he's a hateful nutjob with one hell of a disproportionate grudge.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He is described as a psychopath, but he seems to hold respect for Lance Hunter and shows a sensitive side when certain songs are played. Wrong, he tries to kill Hunter for making fun of his sensitive side.
• Man Bites Man: Hunter relates a story about Spud biting a man's nose off.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He wanted to kill Hunter because he apparently made fun of him once for crying over a love song. He's held onto that resentment for years.
• Villain Ball: Believing himself to have won the fight with Hunter, Spud turned to the crowd and let out a loud roar as he prepared to kill Hunter. This gave Hunter enough time to get up and, now wearing knuckle dusters, punch him straight in the jaw three times with such force that Spud fell to the ground dead.

Brigadier General Hale's Cell

Candice Lee

Candice Lee

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Shontae Saldana

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 99: "All the Comforts of Home")

General Hale's aide.

---

• Canon Foreigner: There's no Candice Lee in the comic books.
• Enigmatic Minion: Her earlier appearances are in the episodes before Hale's origin with HYDRA was revealed, so the audience could only think that she's Hale's aide in the Air Force, even though she doesn't wear a military uniform. She's later revealed Hale's aide within HYDRA, instead.
• Number Two: She acts as Hale's aide, bringing her intel and delivering her orders.
• Sole Survivor: As of the Season 5 finale, she's the last character in Hale's HYDRA cell whom we haven't seen killed.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Last seen in "All Roads Lead..." and never mentioned since, though it's likely she was arrested after Hale surrendered to S.H.I.E.L.D. for real.

Ruby Hale

Ruby Hale

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Dove Cameron

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 99: "All the Comforts of Home")

The daughter of General Hale, who's particularly obsessed with Quake.

---

• Abusive Parents: Her mother, of both the physical and the emotional kind, forcing her daughter to go through extensive training to become a killer and calling her a disappointment when she doesn't meet her demands.
• Asshole Victim: Despite her mother's grief, it's hard to feel too bad for Ruby considering she was a sadistic psychopath who disobeyed orders just so she could mutilate more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
• Ax-Crazy: Seems to be looking forward to the thought of cutting more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents' arms off.
• Badass Normal: Has no powers, but is skilled enough to cut off Elena's arms while she is moving at Super-Speed and is even able to briefly go to-to-toe with Daisy.
• Barbell Beating: During her fight against Carl Creel in the training room of the HYDRA facility, she grabs a dumbbell and repeatedly hits him in the head with it.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: When Ruby achieves her life's purpose and absorbs Gravitonium, she can neither control the power merely 8% of the element gives her, nor cope with having Hall and Quinn's duelling consciousnesses in her head.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: How we're introduced to her. We later learn she's much, much worse.
• Cute and Psycho: Definitely qualifies as both.
• Dark Action Girl: She's a deadly trained fighter, and cuts Yo-Yo's arms off.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Ruby is built up as the Destroyer of Worlds who will crack the world apart. Unfortunately, she proves unable to control her gravitonium powers once she receives them, and quickly gets killed.
• The Dragon: To her own mother, General Hale.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Due to her mother's maltreatment, Ruby has plans of her own that do not match her mother's.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: She was designed and trained since birth to be the perfect candidate for Whitehall's "Destroyer of Worlds" project. Despite all of that, her mother thinks she isn't worthy and believes Daisy is the better option. For obvious reasons, Ruby is incensed and is secretly plotting to doublecross her mother for her betrayal.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She develops genuine affection for Werner, who becomes her boyfriend. After being infused with Gravitonium, she's horrified when her new powers accidentally kill him.
• Expy: She shares some similarities with Sinthea Schmidt, a.k.a. Sin, the daughter of the Red Skull. Both are members of a younger generation of HYDRA. Both raised by a woman with ties to HYDRA (Hale for Ruby and Susan Scarbo a.k.a. Mother Night for Sin) and indoctrinated in its fascist ideology since childhood. Both psychotic and expert fighters. Both are the daughters of prominent members of HYDRA (though Ruby's says she was "engineered" and her actual parentage is never revealed). Ruby's combat outfit also looks similar to that of Sin's. While Sin was artifically aged with a machine, Ruby intends to use the Particle Infusion Chamber to empower herself.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Ruby looks like an ordinary, innocent teenage girl, but she's actually a HYDRA assassin, aspiring Destroyer of Worlds, and a borderline stalker who wants to murder Daisy.
• Fangirl: She's obsessed with Quake, but we soon learn she's more of the Loony Fan variety, hoping to be the one that kills and surpasses her.
• Feet-First Introduction: In her first scene, the first thing we see of Ruby are her bare feet.
• Foil/Evil Counterpart: Ruby is set up as one for Quake. Both are the designated heirs to their respective organizations (Coulson intends for Quake to become the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. after his death while Ruby was specifically engineered with the hopes of becoming a leader for HYDRA). Neither was raised by her biological father. Both chafe under the expectations placed upon them by their respective parent figures (Quake believes she's not fit to be Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. whereas Ruby is resentful of her mother considering her a disappointment). Whereas Quake is loyal to Coulson, her ersatz adoptive father, Ruby intends to doublecross Hale, her birth mother. While Quake dreads becoming the Destroyer of Worlds, Ruby desperately hopes to become it. On a more superficial level, Quake is brown-haired while Ruby is platinum blonde. And Quake's existence is known to the public, whereas Ruby's is known to just a few.
• Gravity Master: After becoming infused with the Gravitonium. However, it comes with a price.
• Hero Killer: Not quite, but in her first appearance, she cuts off Yo-Yo's arms despite her Super-Speed.
• Karmic Death: Yo-Yo kills her with her own chakram.
• Mommy's Little Villain: Still in training as an assassin, and she's marginally less far gone than her unrepentant Bad Boss of a mother.
• Never My Fault: Much like her mother, she tends to blame others whenever things don't go her way, blaming the complications inherent in gravitonium on Fitz and Simmons for sabatoging her "destiny" and nearly killing both of them when she suffer from Power Incontinence trying to use it.
• Pet the Dog: Literally. She refused to kill her dog.
• Power Incontinence: After being infused with gravitonium, Ruby is unable to control it thanks to Hall and Quinn's voices inside her head.
• The Resenter: Ruby hates Daisy because she knows her mother wants to turn Daisy into the "Destroyer of Worlds," a Super-Soldier Whitehall planned to be his magnum opus, when becoming that force is the very reason Ruby was conceived. She figures that if Daisy is killed, General Hale will have to stay on track and use Ruby.
• Rings of Death: As an assassin, she uses chakrams as her preferred weapons.
• Running Gag: Everyone keeps meeting (and getting utterly ignored by) her at the HYDRA continental breakfast.
• Skipping School: She has a tendency to do this, but it turns out her classes are assassin training.
• Slashed Throat: How Yo-Yo kills her.
• The Starscream: Ruby is tired of her mother's abuse, and ultimately double-crosses her to pursue her own agenda.
• Tragic Villain: Raised by her abusive mother as a Tyke-Bomb, used as an assassin, told of her magnificent destiny as the Destroyer of Worlds only to be pushed aside in favor of Daisy... Ruby never really had a chance for a normal life, and Daisy expresses the hope that, given help, Ruby could be a powerful force for good. After finally getting a taste of the power she sought, Ruby is left out of control and half-insane, accidentally killing her boyfriend before dying herself. As vicious and sadistic as she may have been, Ruby was still a damaged girl that Daisy laments never getting the chance to help.
• Tyke-Bomb: Trained from childhood as her mother's right-hand assassin.
• The Vamp: General Hale tells her to seduce Werner if she has to, so the general can get all of Wolfgang von Strucker's secrets.
• Villainous Breakdown: Ruby freaks out after accidentally killing Werner.
• We Can Rule Together: How she sways Werner to her side.

Werner von Strucker

Werner von Strucker

"My father so rarely let me see any of his world."

Species: Human

Citizenship: German-American

Portrayed By: Spencer Treat Clark

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 46: "Purpose in the Machine")

The son of Wolfgang von Strucker.

---

• Adaptational Nationality: He is German in the comics. In the MCU, he is German-American since his actor is American. His American heritage is most likely from his (unseen) mother. He also tells Ruby that he doesn't understand the German language.
• Bastard Bastard: Implied, since he's a son of a German Baron but is mostly American and can't even speak German to boot, suggesting that Baron Strucker got Werner from an affair or fling with an American woman during his stay in US, possibly around the time of or shortly after his HYDRA Academy days.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Ruby crushes his head by mistake due to her inability to control her powers.
• He Knows Too Much: After he fails to kill Andrew, Ward puts a hit on him.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Zigzagged. While Werner did know about his father's allegiance with HYRDA, Wolfgang appears to have adopted a "keep home and work separate" mentality, telling Werner very little about his work.
• Made of Iron: An extended torture session only made him a little bloody in mouth.
• Missing Mom: His mother is never seen or mentioned. Considering he's not even remotely close to his abusive father, this is quite jarring.
• Nerves of Steel: He endured an extended period of torture from Kebo without cracking. Afterward, Ward tells him that he was hoping the torture would bring out or develop this trope in him.
• New Meat: After he blows his first assignment of killing Andrew, Malick chides Ward for giving him such an important assignment off the bat.
• Not Quite Dead: He's stabbed in the gut and left in a comatose state. Coulson brings him out of said state and used the Theta Brain-Wave Frequency Machine to access Werner's memories and make him remember certain things about Gideon Malick.
• Overlord Jr.: Played with a little. Werner's father Wolfgang was one of HYDRA's major heads, but he mostly kept his business separate from his son's life. It was only until after Wolfgang is killed by Ultron that Ward properly brought him into the HYDRA fold.
• Photographic Memory: A side effect of Lincoln zapping him while he was in the Centipede memory machine. He now has perfect memory of his entire life. However, this ends up being a case of Blessed with Suck since he also remembers every bit of physical pain he has ever felt in his entire life as if it was fresh, which has made him quite suicidal. It also makes him highly valuable, simply due to his exposure to his father's leadership of HYDRA and its secrets as a child.
• Took a Level in Badass: When Ward had Kebo torture him. Rather than break Werner, this has the opposite effect of pissing him off to the point where he beats Kebo bloody - the exact outcome Ward hoped for, to mold him into an effective operative. Though as Gideon pointed out, he was still too green to be an outright threat to S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Upper-Class Twit: Until Ward came along, he just loafed around spending his father's money, but finds his inner strength while getting tortured.
• You Have Failed Me: Ward orders a hit on Werner for failing to kill Andrew.
• Your Head A-Splode: Or implode, rather, courtesy of Ruby's Power Incontinence.

Carl "Crusher" Creel / Absorbing Man

Carl "Crusher" Creel / Absorbing Man

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Brian Patrick Wade

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Daredevil ^note  Mentioned only

A man who worked for HYDRA after having his death faked by Garrett, Carl Creel is a former boxer nicknamed "The Crusher" with the ability to absorb the properties of anything he touches.

---

• Adaptational Heroism: Though introduced as a villain, it's revealed that he was a brainwashed pawn. By Season 3, he's free of his HYDRA brainwashing and is working for the US government as Talbot's bodyguard. In the comics, though he's sometimes depicted as an Anti-Villain, he's usually a thug who's murdered, raped, and brutalized people in the past with no remorse.
• Alliterative Name: Carl Creel.
• Ambiguous Situation: After his own out-of-control powers cause him to turn to stone, Coulson isn't quite sure he's actually dead or just in a coma of sorts. Season 3 removes the ambiguity by outright showing that he's alive.
• And I Must Scream: Between his encounter with Team Coulson in "Heavy is the Head" and his recruitment as Talbot's bodyguard, this happened to him. He couldn't move or talk because he was trapped in his own stone body. He eventually recovered and spent time in jail once he'd regained consciousness.
• Bald of Evil: Just like in the comics, Creel doesn't have a single hair on his head. He no longer fits this trope in season 3.
• Book Dumb: While he is hardly an Evil Genius, he nonetheless shows a decent amount of strategy in his appearances and uses his powers creatively, such as for stealth, and not just for brute force. Prior to being a supervillain, he also secretly used his powers to cheat his way to a successful boxing career.
• Blood Knight: He enjoys killing just slightly more than he enjoys the sensation of using his powers, and he seems to enjoy the latter quite a bit.
• The Brute: He serves as Whitehall's muscle while under HYDRA's control. He later acts as one to Talbot as a bodyguard. And later for General Hale.
• The Bus Came Back: Freed by Talbot after he is deprogrammed of his HYDRA brainwashing.
• Chameleon Camouflage: Can pull this off against uniform surfaces, such as a concrete wall.
• Chrome Champion: When he turns to steel. May and Lincoln exploit this with May grazing him with a steel pipe, turning him into steel, then Lincoln blasting him with his electric powers.
• Death by Irony: The Absorbing Man... Gets absorbed. Specifically, by Graviton.
• Death Faked for You: He was supposed to have been killed, but it turns out HYDRA faked his death while they were still a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. so they could use his talents for themselves.
• Dragon Their Feet: Was brought into HYDRA's employ by Garrett, but doesn't show up until after Garrett has been dispatched.
• Elemental Shapeshifter: He can take on the properties of any material he touches — wood, steel, glass, concrete; you name it. Assuming his powers are as flexible as they are in the comics, this can extend even further.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • While he has no problem killing targets who are trained professionals, he does seem concerned about the waitress he infects by accident (though that may have been more about losing control of the Artifact than any actual concern) and was reluctant to hurt Raina.
  • It eventually turns out despite being a lifelong criminal, he had to be brainwashed into serving HYDRA, and he promptly turns once he's freed from it.
• Forgot About His Powers: Despite being able to turn into any substance he touches, he has a habit of fighting in his normal human form.
• Good All Along: In "The Inside Man", he's presented as being Talbot's morally-ambiguous bodyguard, and he's seemingly confirmed to still be evil when he knocks Lance out. However, it's later revealed that he only knocked Lance out to protect his cover, and he helps save him, Talbot, Coulson, and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives.
• G-Rated Drug: He enjoys the feeling of absorbing materials, keeping a cabinet full of various things to use at his leisure. HYDRA even pays him with exotic materials.
• Heel–Face Turn: The US military has apparently broken him free of his HYDRA brainwashing and he's now working as Talbot's bodyguard. Inverted when he's recruited by General Hale.
• Hero Killer: As Hartley and Idaho found out the hard way.
• The Immune: Possibly due to what happened with him and the Obelisk, Creel's blood can 'vaccinate' an unawakened Inhuman from undergoing Terrigenesis.
• Immune to Bullets: As long as he's absorbed something tough enough. Played with a bit; though the bullets don't stop him, they do knock off several chunks that end up reverting to flesh.
• Made of Iron: Even when not literally being so, he doesn't even get bruised after getting punched in the face with a barbell.
• Material Mimicry: Like his comic counterpart, he can take on the properties of what he touches. HYDRA rewards him by giving him samples of new materials to copy.
• Mind Control: Implied to have been brainwashed by Whitehall into obeying HYDRA (as Bakshi uses the codephrase "Are you ready to comply?" to calm him down at one point). Later confirmed in his return in Season 3.
• Mundane Utility: Before being discovered, he used his powers to cheat at boxing by turning his fists to steel beneath his gloves for easy knockouts.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In his debut appearance, he rips off a ball and chain to fight May with, an iconic weapon of his in the comics.
  • Subsequent appearances has Raina offer him a material to absorb with the special property of being capable of absorbing energy itself. This is something he could do on his own in the comics.
  • His name is also mentioned in flashbacks in Daredevil (2015) as a boxing rival of 'Battlin' Jack' Murdock, Daredevil's father.
• Not Quite Dead: Coulson is smmart enough to know that even if Creel's turned to stone, he could always do that. It's better to keep him secure in case it doesn't stick. It doesn't.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Whatever he did to make Talbot literally trust him with his life must have been spectacular, but we never see it.
• Power Incontinence: Touching the Obelisk, even while made of rubber didn't completely insulate him from its effects and patches of it start spreading across his body. It's mentioned this isn't the first time he's had such problems.
• Sculpted Physique: When he turns into stone or concrete.
• Shapeshifter Swan Song: After being hit with a molecular disruptor by Coulson, he cycles through several of his past materials before turning into inanimate stone.
• Shirtless Scene: He gives one in his trailer, and another while fighting Team Coulson in the warehouse. The latter is justified, since he was using his absorbing powers to camouflage himself (which wouldn't have worked with a powder blue shirt on). It doesn't explain why he's still shirtless walking down the street at the end of the episode.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: If he's not shirtless, then he's not wearing sleeves either.
• Super-Strength: Naturally strong due to his past as a boxer, but his strength increases depending on the material he absorbs. He was able to stop the speeding vehicle carrying Hartley and the Obelisk by absorbing the properties of the asphalt road he was standing on.
• Super-Toughness: By absorbing tougher materials, his durability is enhanced, allowing him to shrug off bullets and survive being hit by a car, totaling the car in the process. He's not completely invulnerable, however, as the bullets managed to knock off several chunks which eventually reverted into normal flesh, allowing the team to ID him.
• Taken for Granite: After being defeated he gets stuck in his stone form, but unable to move. With help from Talbot and the government, he recovers.
• This Was His True Form: Not the man himself, but part of him. He's bulletproof during his first encounter with Team Coulson, but they do recover a piece of shrapnel from his then-metallic body after the fight. It reverts back to flesh and blood while Fitz is analyzing it, which makes the team realize that they're dealing with a gifted.
• Unexplained Recovery: He's back for season 3, though it's not explained how he returned to normal.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It was refusing to throw a fight with him that got Jack Murdock killed. His blood looks like it's going to cause this as well. In the right hands, the vaccine that could be created from it can prevent another Bahrain. In the wrong hands, it can prevent any Inhumans from appearing ever again.
• Visible Invisibility: When he becomes glass, he still has to stand perfectly still to avoid his movements reflecting the light around him.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Expressed to would-be Gilligan Hunter by knocking him out before he can inadvertently blow his cover.

Sleeper Mechs

Sleeper Mechs

Species: Robots

Citizenship: None

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 99: "All the Comforts of Home")

Robots built by Anton Ivanov and used as shock troops by Hale.

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• Adaptational Wimp: In the comics, the Sleepers are enormous and powerful robots created by Red Skull to conquer the world. While they are still quite dangerous, the Sleepers from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are human-sized and are standard Mecha-Mooks, who can be defeated with relative ease by the heroes.
• Cannon Fodder: Hale employs them as such.
• Faceless Goons: Their faces (if they even have actual faces) are completely covered in gear and goggles.
  • The trope is Lampshaded by Coulson and Ivanonv:
  Coulson: Speaking of faces, how come your robot-warriors don't have any?
  Ivanov: They are merely soldiers. Tools for battle.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: At one point, at least half a dozen Sleeper Mechs armed with assault rifles surround Fitz and Simmons and try to shoot them, but none of them comes even close to hitting them.
• Keystone Army: Ivanov's Sleepers are controlled by him remotely through a system in his body. When Yo-Yo kills him and disables his body, all of them deactivate.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Just like Ruby, the Sleepers all wear imposing black face masks, though in their case the masks are their faces.
• Mecha-Mooks: A typical example. They are shoddy knockoff LMDs created by Ivanov that are used as soldiers by General Hale to fight the heroes.
• Poor Man's Substitute: In-universe, they are the result of Anton Ivanov's failed attempt at creating new Life-Model Decoys after Aida's death and the loss of the Darkhold.
• Robotic Reveal: In their first appearance, they initially seem to be normal human soldiers wearing masks. However, when Mack shoots one of them in the eye, they are revealed to be robots.

Others

• Anton Ivanov
• Brigadier General Glenn Talbot

Eastern Europe Cell

Project Ultimo

Project Ultimo

Species: Robot

Citizenship: None

Appearances: Captain America: Road to War one-shot

A giant robot built by HYDRA.

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• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the mainstream comics, Ultimo is a sentient robot of alien origin. In the MCU he's a gigantic remote controlled mecha built from the remains of the Ultron sentries.
• Humongous Mecha: A robot of humongous proportions.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Destroyed by the New Avengers in its first appereance.

Hive's Inhuman Followers

Giyera

R. Giyera

"You wanna see a trick?"

Species: Inhuman

Citizenship: American

Portrayed By: Mark Dacascos

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 52: "Many Heads, One Tale")

"I don't usually like getting my hands dirty, but for you, I'll make an exception."

A HYDRA operative whose Inhuman abilities of telekinesis were unlocked through HYDRA's experiments with the Terrigen Mist. He became the head of security for Endotex Labs, working directly under Gideon Malick to ensure no one learned of their true intentions for the Inhumans they were rounding up.

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• Asshole Victim: As Fitz notes during the Season 3 finale unlike most of the other Inhumans who were forced to work for Hive against their will Giyera was already an evil bastard responsible for Simmons' torture. Therefore Fitz kills him without a second thought.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Wears a suit and is capable of holding his own in a fight against badass Bobbi Morse.
• The Brute: He's the most physically imposing of Malick's operatives. He leads the ATCU mooks in Endotex Labs as head of security.
• The Dragon: Serves this position to Hive upon being infected as the first inhuman Hive turned and one of the longest lasting.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He was formerly in special ops before becoming Inhuman, and is good enough to fight May equally after being tricked into a situation where his powers are useless.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Is visibly horrified at hearing the dying screams of five innocent people that Hive kills to restore its host body.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: His ATCU profile shows he used to be in the Marine Corps.
• Karmic Death: Ward ordered Giyera to torture Simmons in order to make Fitz crack, therefore he dies by Fitz's hand in the Season 3 finale.
• Mind over Matter: His power is telekinesis, but he can only affect non-organic matter.
• Mundane Utility: He mostly uses his power to levitate his gun and fire it. While this could be extremely overpowered if abused properly, 95% of the time he just keeps it floating next to himself, about a foot away from where it would normally be if he was holding it.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: You probably don't want to mess with someone whose surname is the Filipino term for "war."
• Not So Stoic: He always maintains a cool and collected presence, but when he starts interacting with the Inhuman Hive, who was at that point possessing the deceased body of Grant Ward, he was notably perplexed to how to interact an Inhuman like Hive.
• One-Man Army: In "Paradise Lost", he's able to seize the Zephyr all by himself. Note that most of the main cast is aboard at the time.
• Torture Technician: Ward has him torture Simmons. Giyera starts with a wrench and a hammer.
• Transhuman Treachery: Even before being swayed by Hive, he's the only known Inhuman who willingly works for a neofascist terrorist organization.

Lucio

Lucio

Species: Inhuman

Citizenship: Colombian

Portrayed By: Gabriel Salvador

Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (first appears in Episode 55: "Bouncing Back")

An Inhuman working for the corrupt National Police of Colombia, who can induce a temporary paralysis in others with his gaze. Is kidnapped by HYDRA and becomes one of the two Inhumans tasked with guarding Hive.

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• All There in the Manual: He is not named in his debut episode, but the character's name can be found in the episode's credits.
• Bald of Evil: A corrupt cop with not a shred of hair on his head.
• Beard of Evil: He has a thick, bushy beard.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Falls under Hive's sway.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He's just a standard Dragon once Hive takes control of him. After he is killed by Joey, Simmons is able to learn quite a bit about Hive and how he infects people after studying his infected brain. This becomes quite crucial after Daisy is infected in learning how to free her.
• Deadly Gaze: He can induce paralysis in others with his gaze.
• Dirty Cop: He works for the highly corrupt National Police of Colombia.
• The Dragon: To Victor Ramon. Later on he becomes Co-Dragons with Giyera towards Hive.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He objects to Hive slaughtering five innocent people to repair Ward's body.
• Expy: His power to paralyse people with his eyes, and needing to cover them up to not do so constantly, may remind fans of the Secret Warriors of Gorgon, the HYDRA leader resurrected near the beginning of the series with the same power (albeit, Lucio's power is temporary, while Gorgon's turned them into permanent statues).
• Facial Horror: Has some pretty horrific scarring around his eyes after Joey melted his sunglasses to his face.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Joey killed him by stabbing him in the chest with a partially-melted pipe to save Lincoln.
• No Name Given: He's not named in his debut episode, but Bobbi refers to him as "Medusa-Eyes".
• Sinister Shades: Since Lucio was unable to control his powers, he constantly wore thick flip-up sunglasses to conceal his Deadly Gaze.

Others

• Daisy Johnson / Quake
• J. T. James / Hellfire
• Alisha Whitley
• Primitives

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Hail Hydra.