Marvel has been around for a long time, with its roster of respected heroes capturing the imagination of generations of fans. These heroes have starred in some of the greatest comics ever created and yet without villains, the vast majority of those stories would be lackluster, at best. These villains run the gamut of powers and personalities and are often as compelling as the heroes that they fight.
However, a tried and true villainous trope in comics has been to pit heroes up against villains who are pretty much the same as them, except evil. Many of these villains have become icons, their villainous pedigrees as well known as their heroic opponents.
10 Sabretooth Is Wolverine Without The Adamantium
Wolverine ends up fighting a lot of enemies who are pretty much just him but evil and Sabretooth was the first. Wolverine and Sabretooth have been teaming up and clashing for decades, with Sabretooth taking particular glee in doing horrible things to Wolverine. As far as powers and methodology, the two are basically the same person.
While Sabretooth is more sadistic than Wolverine, they both have no problem killing their foes, have both been secret agents, and have nearly the same mutant powers- super senses and a healing factor. There are some differences - Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, their claws are different, and Sabretooth has super strength - but they have more in common than most.
9 Baron Mordo Is Evil Doctor Strange
Baron Mordo has always been one of Doctor Strange's greatest foes and one of the reasons is probably because of how similar they are - each of them are men of privilege as Strange is a doctor and Mordo royalty - who trained under the Ancient One to become the Sorcerer Supreme. Strange was the one who won out and their rivalry has flourished ever since.
Mordo and Strange are so similar that both men even have goatees, although Strange's is a bit cooler. Other than that, they both seem like someone put them through a copy machine, with one set to good and the other set to evil.
8 Crimson Dynamo Is Communist Iron Man
Back in the Cold War days of his debut, Iron Man represented the ultimate ideal of capitalism - a wealthy genius who made weapons that secured America and fought the communist menace in all of its forms. Many of his villains wore armor or used advanced technology but he did have one villain who was just the communist inverse of him - the Crimson Dynamo.
Iron Man battled the Crimson Dynamo for years. Many have worn the armor of the Crimson Dynamo over the years but since the end of the Cold War, Iron Man's armored adversary has rarely been seen, especially since Marvel was playing down the Cold War connotations of many of its Silver Age stars.
7 The Shadow King Was Professor X's Villainous Opposite
Telepathic powers are rife with the potential for abuse. This is something that Professor X has never had too much problem with, as he's had no qualms about using his abilities for some shady purposes. However, he once met an evil telepath who used his powers with even fewer morals than Xavier did his own - Shadow King.
Xavier first encountered the Shadow King in Cairo and the two telepaths have been battling ever since. Shadow King even had a group of thieves who did his dirty work for him, kind of like Xavier's X-Men if they were thieving street urchins.
6 Red Skull Has Literally Been A Clone Of Captain America For Years Now
Red Skull and Captain America have always been extremely similar - both of them represented the ultimate ideals of their respective countries and were the secret weapons for both sides. There were only two differences - Cap's super-soldier serum and Red Skull's penchant for atrocity. However, post Cap's thaw out, Red Skull made the two men more similar than ever.
Using Cap's DNA, which he gained many times over in battle, Red Skull has created clone bodies for himself, giving him all of Cap's physical advantages. Red Skull finds himself needing new bodies a lot - dude dies all the time - and putting himself into Cap's body is yet another way he hurts Cap, using his own body and powers to do terrible things.
5 Stryfe Is Cable's Clone
Nathan Summers, the boy who would become Cable, was infected with a techno-organic virus and taken to the far future, where a group called the Askani helped him learn to deal with it. However, Apocalypse was the ruler of this terrible future and got his hand on some of Cable's DNA and created his own version of the powerful psionic mutant - Stryfe.
Unlike Cable, Stryfe didn't have to use his mental might to hold back the virus, allowing access to his powers that Cable didn't have. The two clones clashed many times over the years, with Stryfe even forming his own paramilitary mutant group, the Mutant Liberation Front, to battle Cable's X-Force.
4 Romulus Is Just A Taller Wolverine With More Claws
Romulus is one of those villains that sounded cool on paper but never really panned out. Revealed as a master manipulator behind all of the bad things in the Wolverine's life, Romulus had all of Wolverine's powers, but was taller, stronger, and had more claws. Between that and having no qualms about killing, they are basically the same person.
Romulus's role in Wolverine's life was complicated - at one point they worked together but after Wolverine lost his memory because of Weapon X, which he only joined to further the plans he, Romulus, Remus, and Sabretooth had made, they became bitter rivals. However, he always looked faintly ridiculous and the fact he's gone is a good thing.
3 Venom Was Created To Be The Anti-Spider-Man
While he's a hero nowadays, Venom first debuted as a villainous opposite of the Wall-Crawler. Wearing Spider-Man's former alien symbiote costume, Eddie Brock gained pretty much every ability Spider-Man had, allowing him and the symbiote to take revenge against Peter Parker. The only difference between the two was that Venom was stronger.
In the ensuing years, thanks to his popularity, Venom would become a hero but even then, he was still pretty much the opposite of Spider-Man. He protected the innocent but had no problem using lethal force, something Spider-Man would never do.
2 Abomination Is Communist Hulk
Another Silver Age Marvel hero, another communist Soviet version. Emil Blonsky was a Soviet spy working at the lab where Bruce Banner was making the gamma bomb and exposure to gamma radiation transformed him into the Abomination, Hulk's more villainous opposite. Like most carbon copy villains, though, there were some differences.
Abomination always kept his intellect, didn't get stronger with anger, and was uglier. These differences, though, were minuscule and the two engaged in some brutal battles, where their advantages over the other played a key role.
1 Daken Is Wolverine With Pheromone Control
For a time, Daken made himself into one of Wolverine's greatest foes. Wolverine's son was pretty much just a younger version of Wolverine, down to having an obnoxious signature hairstyle. Both mutants had super senses, a healing factor, and claws, except Daken only had two on top of his hand and one that came out of his wrist like a dewclaw and pheromone control.
The extra power was pretty much the only difference between the two. The two mutants had some violent clashes, with Wolverine even drowning his son, before reconciling on the mutant island of Krakoa.
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