15/11/2023

The MCU Just Repeated A Major Villain Mistake, 9 Years Later

Captain Marvel is a tough hero to beat, but Marvel managed to repeat a big mistake with The Marvels’ villain, Dar-Benn, that it’s made before.

Warning! This post contains spoilers for The Marvels.

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Summary

The Marvels sees the repeat of a past mistake with its villain, Dar-Benn, who lacks the power to pose a significant threat to the powerful Captain Marvel.
Dar-Benn is armed with a powerful weapon that turns the heroes’ abilities against them, but ultimately fails to truly endanger Danvers and her companions.
Despite Dar-Benn’s exceptional performance and sympathetic motives, her underpowered nature diminishes the threat she can pose, ranking her somewhere in the middle among MCU villains.

The Marvels was not a perfect movie, but it constituted a return to form for the MCU – unfortunately, that also included repeating past mistakes with the movie’s villain, Dar-Benn. In the lead-up to the release of the Captain Marvel sequel, the question hung over what kind of villain could pose a significant threat to Captain Marvel, whose as-yet unparalleled power levels saw her nearly solo Thanos. Rather than introduce a villain more powerful than Thanos in a non-Avengers movie, however, Marvel instead hamstrung the eponymous heroes by causing them to swap places when they used their powers – which was a solid MacGuffin.

The Marvels also armed the villainous Dar-Benn with a weapon powerful enough to turn the heroes’ light-based abilities against them in conjunction with the already mighty Universal Weapon. In tandem with her exceptional hand-to-hand combat abilities (a staple for MCU characters without superpowers), this gave Dar-Benn the ability to stand up to the trio. At least, she did for a spell, though she still failed to present a threat that genuinely felt like it put Danvers and company in danger.

Related: The Marvels Cast & Marvel Character Guide

The Marvels’ Villain Repeats Guardians Of The Galaxy’s Ronan Problem

The Marvels

Release Date November 10, 2023 Director Nia DaCosta Cast Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, Samuel L. Jackson Runtime 105 Minutes

Despite Zawe Ashton’s exceptional performance, which helps to counterbalance Dar-Benn’s relative lack of power with her sinister sense of conviction, there is no getting around the fact that Dar-Benn is a distinctly mortal Kree. While Kree are critical to Marvel Comics and many plot lines, as villains – particularly solo ones – they barely hold a candle to the MCU’s most powerful heroes. This diminishes the threat that such a villain can pose, and it was already suffered by the Guardians of the Galaxy arch-villain, Ronan the Accuser.

Related: The Marvels Cliffhanger Ending Explained & MCU Future Set-Up Explained

Ronan the Accuser was a significant threat to the Guardians because the ragtag team of vagabonds aren’t super-powered themselves – without counting Star Lord’s ephemeral Celestial powers. Even still, what made Ronan a threat to the Guardians and beyond was his possession of the Power Stone, without which he might have been subdued relatively easily. Ronan, being an above-average Kree in possession of a powerful weapon (that spews out purple energy, no less), represents already well-trodden ground, and yet Dar-Benn fills essentially the same role. Only this time, she is up against one of the universe’s most powerful beings.

How Dar-Benn Ranks Against Other MCU Villains

From her menacing demeanor to her sympathetic motives, Dar-Benn ticks a lot of boxes, but she wasn’t given much time to shine. Her ignoble defeat as a result of being too underpowered to wield two bangles at once, meanwhile, was enough to affirm just how meek she was even against the young and inexperienced Kamala Khan. Yet she was still capable of bringing about apocalyptic conditions through her schemes and political influence while holding sway over the population of an entire planet as the de facto “Supremor.” For this reason, she already ranks above Ronan the Accuser.

That is also not to mention that she held her own against The Marvels, reaching an untimely end as a result of her hubris. Dar-Benn does not pursue power for power’s sake, either, acting out of a ruthless and unbending loyalty to her struggling people. This nearly puts her on par with sympathetic villains like Thanos and Namor – who are ranked among the best MCU villains. Without enough time to shine, however, and with some questionable final decisions, Dar-Benn is somewhere in the middle when it comes to comparing her with the entire MCU rogues gallery.