16 Most Iconic Deadpool Villains (Ranked)

Deadpool is an awesome character created by Marvel Comics. His abilities are great, but his unique, dark sense of humor sets him apart from other Marvel superheroes. One other thing that makes him so interesting is the villains he so seamlessly battles, keeping his quirky attitude even when battling the most iconic enemies – and there are a lot of them.

Without further ado, here are the fifteen most iconic Deadpool villains ever, both in the comics and the movies. The list is not ranked but in alphabetical order.

16. Ajax

Ajax was a human, just like Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, before Dr. Killebrew got them both and subjected them to testing and experimenting – but in completely different ways. You see, Ajax was not a “specimen” like Wade but rather Dr. Killebrew’s right hand. 

He would torture Wilson and the others during the experiment, but he went too far at one point. Wade retaliated and shot him several times from very close range. He would’ve died within minutes, but Killebrew wouldn’t allow it. He saved his assistant by turning him into one more experiment, only this time creating a cyborg.

After Ajax came back from almost dying to be stronger than ever, his only mission was to kill Deadpool and everybody with whom he’s associated. Of course, things didn’t go as planned, as you can’t kill a guy who can’t be harmed.

15. Bullseye

Although Bullseye is primarily a Daredevil villain, it’d be wrong not to put him on this list as he truly is an iconic Marvel villain, and his battles against Deadpool were epic. They fought several times, and it was always a super fun affair, seeing that Bullseye is one of the best mercenary assassins in the Marvel Universe, and Deadpool is, well, Deadpool.

They last fought in the storyline of Norman Osborne’s Dark Avengers. The Green Goblin managed to take control of S.H.I.E.L.D. and created his version of the Avengers, putting mercenaries and supervillains on the team instead of real heroes. Bullseye made the cut playing Hawkeye (even wearing his costume and using a bow and arrow).

Bullseye doesn’t miss, of course, so it wasn’t a big deal for him. He even managed to shoot Wade through the head with an arrow. Luckily for Deadpool, his healing abilities quickly made it better, so he turned the fight around. Bullseye gave up his mission and paid Wade to let him go because he had him on a platter, ready to cut him up with a chainsaw.

14. Carnage

I felt like the Deadpool vs. Carnage mini-series in 2014 went under the radar a bit, but it was seriously an epic storyline. It had only four issues, but the notorious symbiote was a highly iconic and dangerous supervillain for our favorite crazy hero.

I loved that the story really reflected Deadpool’s somewhat weird ethics, as he and Carnage only got into a conflict because Wade didn’t find Carnage’s actions morally justifiable. What is more, Carnage bonded with a serial killer, making him even more psychotic and sinister, and his powers had him destroy Deadpool and decimate him into pieces several times before Wade realized he needed to try something different.

He knew his powers weren’t enough, so he bonded with four other symbiotes simultaneously, and they managed to defeat the supervillain eventually. If you have time on your hands, check out the series – it’s well-written, and the artists did a spectacular job, too.

13. Crossbones

You might not even know this, but Crossbones is a character who appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, too. Known as Brock Rumlow, he was a HYDRA operative serving as Red Skull’s assistant, causing havoc for the Avengers to clean up several times. His main adversary is considered to be Captain America.

Crossbones worked as a double agent for HYDRA after infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. Later, he became a mercenary – kind of like Deadpool, but evil and with no superpowers. Once the hit had been put out on Deadpool’s head, he came to collect. Wade defeated him and escaped in the end, but it was a great battle of the mercenaries that I’d love to see again.

12. Evil Deadpool

One of the most dangerous enemies that Deadpool ever had to face was himself. Albeit, an evil, psychopathic version of him. It was a bizarre, darkly humorous storyline, but it was also quite an epic battle.

Evil Deadpool came to life after Wade discarded his severed body parts into a dumpster after they got chopped off in battle. He has the healing factor allowing him to grow new limbs, but he didn’t count on the severed body parts having the same ability.

The body parts merged into a new, Evil Deadpool, who had all the same abilities and powers as his original counterpart, but he lacked humanity, and yeah – had two right arms. Both survived their encounter and meet once again when Evil Deadpool joins a team of multiversal evil Deadpools created by the mastermind called Dreadpool. After the entire group perishes, Evil Deadpool remains the only surviving member of the sinister group, so he continues independently.

11. Hit-Monkey

Hit-Monkey might be the weirdest villain on this list, but that doesn’t make him less dangerous. The absurdity and humor behind the character grant him a spot on this list. Hit-Monkey is the weird Japanese Macaque wearing a suit and sunglasses, using mostly nunchucks in his fights. He became an assassin after meeting a wounded human assassin who trained him to continue his work.

When he and Deadpool met, it was a really brutal battle of assassins looking to off each other. Luckily, Spider-Man interfered to stop their nonsense, ending the battle without a clear winner.

10. Id, The Selfish Moon

Id might be the most dangerous villain Deadpool ever faced in terms of raw strength – he was a moon that came into existence in the shadows of Ego, the Living Planet. The sentient planet gave consciousness to its moon as well, making Id the only known specimen of his kind in the entire universe. He wandered the galaxies trying to find companionship, but his loneliness eventually drove him insane, as he started crushing planets out of fun and snorting their cosmic energy and dust.

That’s what allowed Deadpool to win the fight against The Selfish Moon. He knew that the planet U-235 was in Id’s path, so he implanted a nuclear fission bomb within it. When Id crushed and inhaled the planet, the bomb went off inside him, making him explode from the inside out.

9. Juggernaut

We’ve seen the battle between the Juggernaut and Deadpool on the big screen in Deadpool 2, but the pair fought numerous times in the comics, too.

They met when another huge hit worth $20 million had been put on Deadpool’s head, and the Juggernaut decided to test his luck. The colossal supervillain had a brutal fight with Wade, almost taking him down several times, but Deadpool just heals too easily.

Eventually, Wade manages to pour cement into Juggernaut’s mouth and seals it. He’d possibly even kill the X-Men nemesis if several other villains and mercenaries hadn’t arrived at the scene trying to kill him, too.

8. Lady Deathstrike

While Deadpool and Lady Deathstrike weren’t supposed to fight each other but rather be on the same team, William Stryker’s trickery puts them on a collision course where the two Weapon X experiments collide.

For those of you who don’t know, Lady Deathstrike is a supervillain whose father developed the adamantium enhancement process that the Wolverine endured. She had done the same on herself, binding adamantium to her skeleton. She’d a whole bunch of other cyber-genetic enhancements to make her a weapon of destruction – and she managed.

Having immense power, durability, and superhuman abilities, Lady Deathstrike went head-to-head with Wade seamlessly, albeit she had a team behind her, including Sabretooth, Warpath, and Domino. It was an epic battle, though, which led to the ultimate battle against Stryker.

7. Madcap

I love Madcap as a Deadpool villain because there aren’t many characters that can match his lunacy and quirkiness. Don’t get fooled by it, though – he is as violent as they get. Madcap’s only purpose is to eradicate as many lives as possible. He believes that the sole purpose of existence is pointless.

His abilities are incredibly powerful, too. He doesn’t feel pain, and he can recover from the most gruesome injuries almost instantly, as the laws of the physical world seemingly don’t affect his body. Instead, he lives in somewhat of a pseudo-cartoon world logic where he can twist, bend, and snap without ever getting hurt. He can also pass his insanity into others’ minds.

Deadpool and Madcap were once merged into one body after Thor’s lightning strike disintegrated them both, and their healing abilities meshed and made them one. They were later separated, but Madcap went further off the rails, wanting nothing more than to kill Deadpool. In the end, he lost interest and turned to other mischiefs, as he always does.

6. Marcus

I don’t know how a character can get more iconic than Marcus. Follow me if you can.

Marcus was a centaur in Ancient Greece that worked as a mighty gladiator and warrior before being bitten by a werewolf. After some time, the centaur werewolf gladiator warrior bonded with a powerful symbiote as well, granting him the skills of a gladiator, and the powers of a centaur, a werewolf, and a symbiote all at the same time. How do you compete with that?

Well, as it turns out, Marcus found out he had diabetes. While battling Deadpool, he opened up to him about being scared of losing his hooves to the disease, so Wade put his mind at ease by chopping off his legs. That wasn’t the end of Marcus, though, as he returned later, having cybernetic prosthetics. If you can think of a villain more iconic than a centaur werewolf gladiator symbiote cyborg warrior, I applaud you.

5. Mister Sinister

I remember the first time I encountered Mister Sinister in the comic. I was still a kid, and I genuinely had nightmares for days. His appearance was terrifying, but the storyline where he met Deadpool was nothing short of awesome.

As Cable and Deadpool developed somewhat of a partnership, one of the storylines made Cable a baby. At the same time, Deadpool had to defend him from the incredibly powerful guy called Mister Sinister.

Mister Sinister was a mutant with immense knowledge in genetics. So, he transfigured his body even further, giving him all sorts of abilities. Still, the most powerful feature was his ability to restructure his body down to the molecular level with a single thought.

Although we’ve never seen how the fight ends, it has been strongly hinted that Deadpool 3 will finally introduce the villain. Most likely, the movie will play into Fox’s X-Men universe, or even the general Marvel Cinematic Universe, depending on where the producers decide to go with Deadpool’s next gig.

4. Stryfe

The battle that saw Deadpool and Stryfe on opposite sides took place within a storyline much darker than what we’re used to from the humorous Wade Wilson. During a crossover event between the Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force, Stryfe appeared as a genetically engineered clone of Cable from the future.

He had been created by Apocalypse and returned to the past after learning the supervillain’s violent ways. It was a brutal battle that had Stryfe use Hope Summers in an attempt to annihilate both his team and the opponents (including Deadpool), but he eventually failed.

Still, he’s an incredibly mighty supervillain that I always loved seeing in any storyline. SPOILER ALERT: The character found his final demise in Cable Vol. 4 #12 which hit the market just a few months ago.

3. T-Ray

Although one could argue that Wade had much more dangerous threats than T-Ray, the supervillain is often referred to as Deadpool’s arch-nemesis, and he’s far from a push-off.

While it’s uncertain if T-Ray is just crazy or if there’s something else going on, he claims that he’s the real Wade Wilson and that Deadpool is merely an identity thief whose real name is Jack. He also claims that Jack, aka Deadpool, had killed his wife, yet another reason he needs to die.

T-Ray is incredibly strong physically but not that brilliant when it comes to his intellect. However, he has an advantage that Deadpool doesn’t have, and that’s magic. He can use mystical energy and subject it to his will after reading some old symbols, which is why it’s so hard for Wade to win against him. What I like the most about the character is the appearance – the artists did a great job depicting a dangerous, insane, terrifying warrior/magic wielder.

2. Taskmaster

Taskmaster is one of the most iconic supervillains in the Marvel Universe, let alone among Deadpool villains. Taskmaster is a brutal mercenary and trainer of assassins with the incredible ability called photographic reflexes, meaning he can memorize one’s movements instantly, using it against them in battle.

He disliked Deadpool so much because he couldn’t copy his moves nor predict them in a fight, leading to a ton of frustration. Deadpool is insane, and therefore quite unpredictable. They fought many times and even worked together as members of Agency X.

Taskmaster fought many battles with the mightiest heroes like the Avengers and proved himself to be quite a remarkable enemy. We’ve also seen a female version of the Taskmaster in the Black Widow movie in 2021, making the character an official part of the MCU as well.

1. Thanos

Last but not least, the most iconic villain that Deadpool ever faced was Thanos, the Mad Titan. Although Wade didn’t participate in the MCU events such as Infinity War or Endgame, the two clashed in the comics, making Thanos the strongest enemy Deadpool had ever faced head to head.

Interestingly, the Mad Titan didn’t have a beef with Deadpool because he’s the insane guy who wants to decimate the universe – they fought for the love of a woman. Well, not A woman – but an entity is known as Death itself.

As you might know, Thanos had a romance with Death, so much so that Death resurrected him when he died, granting him even more power than he previously had. However, Death became obsessed with Wade, and the mercenary reciprocated the love. He was looking forward to dying so they could be together.

Out of jealousy, Thanos found a way to make Deadpool completely immortal – not just from injury, but from anything. You can see why this caused a rift between the two – it was all for the love of Death. Morbid, but kind of sweet, right?

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