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Disclaimer: Surprisingly, I couldn't get a good Google result for this one. And the only Marvel Universe knowledge I have is from the movies. So forgive me if this is a dumb question.

Most all of the Marvel superhero movies that I have seen have some sort of villain. And a lot of them want to destroy the city, world, universe, etc. But the other villains must live in the same city, world, or universe and likely don't want to be destroyed (or they want to destroy it themselves). So I would imagine that it would be in a villains interest to stop other villains' plans.

For example, I just watched Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2. And I think that villain was trying to do some sort of takeover of all of the planets in the universe. This plan must have affected some other Marvel villains. So why didn't any of them try to stop it?

Is villain interaction ever addressed in the movies? Or is it just ignored because that would make it too complicated?

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  • Well, you could see such situation in the very movie you mention. Ego saved heroes, destroying fleet.
    – Mithoron
    Nov 3 '18 at 23:10
  • @Mithoron It's debatable whether the Sovereigns count as villains. They were only after the Guardians because Rocket stole some of the extremely powerful and valuable batteries that the Sovereigns had hired them to protect.
    – F1Krazy
    Nov 3 '18 at 23:29
  • @F1Krazy what makes a villain a Villain?
    – HorusKol
    Nov 4 '18 at 0:07
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A villain can't stop another villain's plan if they don't know about it.

To use your example: the Guardians only knew about Ego's plan because he explained it to Peter in the mistaken belief that Peter would go along with it. With the exception of Mantis, there's no indication that anyone else in the entire galaxy knew what Ego was planning. The first they knew about it would have been when his plant things started growing.

Of course, we can't say for certain that every MCU villain didn't know about every other MCU villain's plan, at least until it was too late. In most cases, however, it seems like a pretty reasonable assumption.

There is at least one example of a villain trying to stop a worse villain: Loki's attempt at stopping Thanos at the start of Avengers: Infinity War.

It doesn't end well for Loki.

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  • Well, one could as well argue that Loki wasn't a "villain" for quite some time, by then.
    – Mithoron
    Nov 3 '18 at 23:57
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Probably the most classic example of this in the MCU is Thor: Ragnarok.

  • Hela is a villain who wants to take over Asgard, and rule.
  • Surtur is a villain who wants to fulfill his destiny and destroy Asgard.

Obviously only one of these can really get their way.

As it turns out, this is exactly how Thor finally defeats Hela, when he realises that she is too strong for him.

There are a couple of other instances where villains become antagonistic towards each other:

  1. Ronan turns on Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy, because he's sick of being treated poorly and realises he has an Infinity Stone in his grasp. This doesn't exactly further Thanos' goals.
  2. Ultron and Ulysses Klaue in Avengers: Age of Ultron are both villains, but don't get along super well outside of doing business.
  3. Erik Killmonger betrays and murders Ulysses Klaue in Black Panther.

There are a few other minor interactions (Kaecilius/Dormammu etc.), but I've tried to contain that ^ to major villains, and people with a more equal footing rather than a subordinate/superior relationship where betrayal and getting in each other's way is kinda .... normal.

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