As we all know, all Marvel villains who aren't Loki lack that special something to make them memorable.

Except Kilgrave from the Netflix series Jessica Jones proves that common assumption wrong. Actually, I feel really guilty about saying this. He's an R-rated villain, and he's completely depraved. He successfully gets us talking about real-world problems, but at the same time his charm and charisma glorify those real-world problems. It kept me up late one night, disturbed by how someone so depraved could charm me. I feel icky when I say that I want Marvel to have more villains like Kilgrave, except when I say it, I don't mean that I want more villains who represent what he does. I don't want Marvel movies to get bogged down in real-world tragedies, especially not the ones that are as dark as the ones that Kilgrave gets involved in. It's one thing to make people sympathize with Loki, whose ambition it is to rule the world. It's altogether different to make people sympathize with Kilgrave. I've looked through the comments section of Youtube and it makes me feel morose to see people who sympathize with him.

However, Kilgrave has taught us that a good, intelligently written villain can bring out hidden depths in their respective heroes. They can be good foils. Marvel has been avoiding making villains that distract our attention from the heroes, because they try to make the heroes the main focus of their films. I understand that they don't want the title characters to have the spotlight stolen from them. However, many of these heroes are running out of ways to develop, and good villains can add a layer of complexity to the stories that you can tell with these heroes. Seriously, Loki isn't the only arrow in their quiver (I'm feel like there's a Hawkeye joke to be made here, but I just...can't think of it.). Marvel is capable of creating multi-layered, intelligent, colorful, charismatic, and interesting villains. I want to see them starting putting the same amount of effort into their villains as they did into Loki and Kilgrave, and stop treating them as the leftover scraps from Friday night brainstorming session. We know that they're capable. We know that they're also capable of fitting good villains into lighthearted stories. So I'm not sure when they're going to do it, but I'm looking forward to them eventually adding iconic villains to their movies.