Summary
While theMarvel Cinematic Universehas been wary of including horror in its multimedia repertoire of movies and shows, Marvel Comics has long embraced the monstrous and macabre. In the last few years, Marvel has given extra attention to its supernatural characters and thus has created a new wave of paranormal evil that easily overshadows the silver-screen tropes of the past.
With therelease ofDeadpool & Wolverine, Marvel’s first R-rated installment in the MCU, a new wealth of opportunities arises that Marvel Studios may have never considered. While Marvel has dabbled in the supernatural with the specialWerewolf by Nighton Disney+, it hasn’t yet embraced the full potential of horror that the comics provide. WithDeadpool & Wolverineset to be another commercial success, it shows that there is a lucrative market for R-rated comic book movies. Here are 10 Marvel monsters who could carry the franchise’s next R-rated flick.
1The Immortal Hulk
A Blood-Curdling Magnum Opus of Body Horror
The Immortal Hulkby writer Al Ewing and artist Joe Bennett is the Hulk’s most horrific run yet. The series follows Bruce Banner and his dissociative alters as they navigatethe gruesome mechanics of immortality and the cosmological machinations behind it.Ewing’s characterization of the Hulk is tonally heartfelt and serious, but the true horror of the series lies in Bennett’s stomach-sickening art. Bennett’s interpretation of the gamma-powered mutations creates a grotesque Cronenburgian nightmare that is not for the weak of stomach.
Flesh contorts, bones shatter, and innards are splayedwhen any of the gamma-touched terrors transform, creating a foul and gruesome spectacle that only acts as a prelude for the deeper force of destruction that connects all gamma mutates. Just beneath each Hulk’s power liesthe One Below All. This ultimate cosmic embodiment of entropy and destruction, breathes immortal life into its children in hopes of creating an unstoppable monster that could break the world.
2Exhaust
The Blackened Smog of the Ghost Rider’s Past
After a lifetime of torture and terror, feeding on the sins of the wicked, Johnny Blaze has started to slow down. When the Rider has pushed as hard as it can,all that is left behind is Exhaust.First appearing inGhost Rider#7 by Benjamin Percy and Cory Smith, Exhaust is a parasitic demon implanted into Johnny Blaze’s soul intended to drive a wedge between Johnny and the Rider.
Exhaust takes the form of a flesh-bound fusion between Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, and their fiery Hell Cycle. Encircled by dense clouds of smog and ash, Exhaust expels a thick haze of, well, exhaust into the mouths of his victims,causing noxious demons to burst from their bodies.Exhaust is the demon that will always be there; lurking right behind but just out of sight. Its suffocating presence can never be escaped.
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3Red Goblin
Part Goblin, Part Carnage, Full Psychopath
The title of “Red Goblin” was first donned by Norman Osborn afterhe had injected himself with a sliver of the Carnage symbiote. Besieged by the memories of the genocidal alien lifeform, Norman inoculates himself with the Goblin formula. As the blood-infused alien merges with Norman’s madness-inducing super drug, the hybrid monstrosity left behind is a carnage-obsessed zealot for the eldritch god Knull.
The Green Goblin was already a beastlost in his own cruel psyche, but in combination with the butcherous vestige of Cletus Kasady, the Red Goblin is left a supernatural serial killer obsessed with the summoning of his dark god. Osborn’s mind, struggling to maintain any sense of stability, fractures,leaving Norman to believe he is Cletus Kasday.The Red Goblin serves as a point of infection, a carrier designed to spread the seeds of Knull before the god’s return.
4Savage Spider-Man
An Amoral Arachnid Killer and Dominator of Free Will
In Joe Kelly and Gerardo Sadoval’sSavage Spider-Man,Spider-Man is injected with a super-enhancement serum that produces a volatile reaction with Peter’s mutated cells, causing him to transform intothe monstrous Savage Spider-Man.This grotesque abomination of the wall-crawler is a semi-mindless killerwhose body has mutated to look more akin to that of an actual spider. With the ability to vomit mounds of red webbing that infect and mentally dominate his victims’ will, the Savage Spider-Man soon creates a small army of web-entangled homicidal zombies.
As the drug-induced mutation continues to evolve, and parts of Parker’s humanity return, he crawls out from the corpse of his arachnid form as if molting old flesh and emerges a cold and calculating version of the neighborhood hero. Equipped with a new, militaristic, spider-suit, Parker’s inhibitions are unhindered as heexacts brutal justice against his enemies still with his army of mind-altered dronestrailing behind.
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5Frozen Charlotte
An Ancient Demon with an Obsession for Children
A new addition to Marvel’s menagerie of monsters, Frozen Charlotte first appears inThe Incredible Hulk#10 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Danny Earls. Frozen Charlotte,better known as Nephele to her demonic people, is a member of the Nephilim, a race ofdemons birthed from Lilith, the Mother of Demons.Charlotte is the wife of Satan and after Satan’s failed revolution against the forces of Heaven, the Nephilim was exiled from Paradise and bound to Earth. Having turned against demonkind to support Satan’s rebellion and having earned Heaven’s wrath, Charlotte spent millennia hunted by Angels and Demons alike.
In her exile, she bided her time watching the fleeting lives of humans pass by her. The demon developed an obsession with humans, deciding that she wanted a collection of her own. Charlotte appears in the visage of a rotting wraith adorned with frail angelic wings. However, it is not her physical form that is most frightening, but rather her neurotic dream of becoming the Queen of Angels.Frozen Charlotte desires innocent souls- children’s souls- and intends to amass a collection that she will protect from Heaven and Hell so that she may live out her fantasy of divine royalty.
6Knull
The Eldritch God of Darkness that Predates the Marvel Multiverse
Knull is an eldritch being that predates existenceand the father of Marvel’s flesh-binding symbiotes. First officially appearing inVenom#3 by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, Knull’s presence kicks off the apocalypticKing in Blackevent. The god’s goals are simple -cast all of existence into eternal darkness. Knull is the embodiment of the void of nothingness between the destruction of the Sixth Multiverse and the creation of the Seventh. His “life” was peaceful until the Celestials introduced their first creations, disrupting his infinite void. Billions of years later, Knull would temporarily fall by the powers of his creations.
When two of Knull’s symbiotic offspring land on Earth, Thor defeats the parasites with his divine power and momentarily severs their connection to the elder god. Having introduced the concept of righteousness to Knull’s hive network, the psychotic god’s army of dark constructs bound themselves into a prison that would entrap Knull for another 1,500 years. When the murderous Carnage posthumously returns to life,a plot is enacted by the Cult of Knull to free the mad god from his prisonand resume his mission to plunge the universe into the abyss.
7Chthon
Earth’s First Evil
One of Earth’s elder gods and the first master of black magic, Chthon’s corruptive nature has been the focal point of power for some of Marvel’s most terrifying supernatural events. Since his original named appearance inAvengers#186 by David Michelinie, Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and John Byrne, Chthon has maintained a strong influence over Earth through the dark magics contained within his profane grimoireknown as the Darkhold. Many of Earth’s oldest monsters, such as vampires, werewolves, and zombies are all the direct product of the elder god’s black magic.
Chthon’s greatest creation was a young girl whom Chthon had imbued with the ability to wield chaos magic. With the hope that the child would grow to become his vessel on Earth, the now-grown woman known as theScarlet Witch has become the ire of Chthon’s blasphemous machinations. Having sustained himself on the flesh of his brethren, Chthon waits in his prison underneath Wundagore Mountain until his true herald of chaos arises to free him and unleash the unyielding appetite of the ancient father of monsters.
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8Marduk Kurios
Fallen Angel and Corruptor of the Covenant
Marduk Kurios is one of Hell’s ancient Hell-Lords who arose into being from the latent energy of Earth’s first Elder Gods. While his canon backstory is somewhat unreliable, his current iteration begins biblically. Revealed inSpirits of Vengeance#4by Victor Gishler and David Baldeon, Marduk explains to his children that he was once known as the archangel Lucifer. As an angel, Marduk was a maddened despot intent on overthrowing Yahweh’s rule. Following his damnation in the aftermath of a failed revolution,the Lord of Damnation played his hand in the creation of the first Covenant.
The Covenant was meant to establish anuneasy pact between the two forces of Heaven and Hellthat should have contained their feud between their respective realms. As expected, the Hell-Lord had planted a seed of weakness within the Covenant that allowed him the chance to seal off Heaven from Earth. Marduk is a schemer and a multi-millennia-old tactician. Empowered by his army of the damned and an unyielding obsession with Heaven’s downfall, Marduk Kurios, the fallen angel, lies in wait for the next chance to expand his domination and reforge the Earth into a new Hell.
9The Three Mothers and the Peregrine Child
The Herald Crones and their Fourth Dimensional Ward of Magical Consumption
Introduced inThe Death of Doctor Strange#2 by Jed MacKay and Lee Garbett,the Three Mothersarrive on Earth in search of the Sorcerer Supreme of the Dark Dimension, Clea Strange. The Mothers act asmage-hunting heralds who scour the universe to find magically rich worlds to feed to an extradimensional creaturecalled the Peregrine Child. While not much is known about the trio, there is no contesting the horrifying aura the three exude in any panel they appear in.
The Wyrd (the alien priestess), the Crown (the warrior queen), and the Crawling (a heaving mound of worms adorned with a porcelain mask) have been shown capable of overwhelming the combined might of the Avengers and X-Men. However, the crones seem powerless when compared to their eldritch ward. The Peregrine Child’s powers are believed to berooted beyond the Marvel Universe’s construct of existence.Not much is currently known about the Peregrine Child, butDoctor Strange theorizes that the force of destructionis simply an avatar for an incomprehensible creature that exists beyond the realm of corporeal life.
10The Bloodcoven
A Quintet of Engineered God-Consuming Vampires
Recently debuted inBlood Huntby Jed MacKay and Pepe Larraz,the Bloodcoven are a group ofsuperpowered vampiresthat feed off the blood of gods. The cadre of the undead blood-fiends, considered to be an evolved form of vampirism, consists of five specially engineered vampires that transcend the traditional tropes of the species. The Bloodcoven’s five members, Cruel, Unusual, Damascene, Smoke Eater, Megrim, and Bloodstorm One were designed by Pepe Larraz to feel alien and unnatural.
Inthe lead-up toBlood Hunt, writer Jed MacKay explained that“Vampires weren’t bad enough. If the children of the night were going up against the Avengers … bigger guns were required.”Not much has been narratively revealed about the Bloodcoven inBlood Hunt. That said, the god-butchering brood of otherworldly vampires is still a visually captivating treat for fiends and fans of horror. With the characters set to appear inthe upcomingBlood Huntersseries, readers will have plenty more opportunities to see the characters in the future, and perhaps one day these horrifying monsters can make their way into theMarvel Cinematic Universe.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multimedia superhero franchise that began in 2008 with Paramount’s Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. The franchise quickly grew in popularity, with Disney eventually buying out Marvel Entertainment in 2009. The MCU consists of dozens of movies and TV shows, most notably Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision, and Loki.
