All 10 Villains The Avengers Created In The MCU

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Over the course of the MCU, there have been a handful of villains who were inadvertently created by the Avengers. Whether it was through negligence or the result of doing good with unintended consequences, there are notable instances in which Earth's Mightiest Heroes had to defeat the very threats they unintentionally made themselves. As such, the Avengers have left quite the legacy, notably saving the world on more than one occasion while also being responsible for a number of its foes.
One Avenger in particular can perhaps be blamed more than others for creating villains in the MCU. That being said, there are villains who were born because of the Avengers as a whole and not through Iron Man's actions alone. After all, Vision did have his equation in Civil War theorizing the Avengers' very existence invited bigger and worse threats to emerge over time. Here are 10 of the most notable villains who were created by one or more of the Avengers in the MCU.
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10 Whiplash

Seeking revenge for the slights his father received at the hands of Howard Stark, Ivan Vanko created his own arc reactor-powered whips to punish Tony Stark for the "sins" of his father in 2010's Iron Man 2. However, Tony did not give Vanko much thought due to his pride, having had nothing but success as Iron Man since building his suit. As such, Vanko allied himself with weapons contractor and Stark rival Justin Hammer, allowing Whiplash to become an even bigger threat with a legion of "Hammer Drones" he unleashed upon the Stark Expo.
9 Aldrich Killian

Continuing the theme of Iron Man's sins coming back to haunt him, Aldrich Killian was rejected by Tony Stark years before he'd become Iron Man. As such, 2013's Iron Man 3 saw Killian's think tank known as AIM having developed Extremis, a nanotechnology to manipulate the body's bioelectricity. However, Killian used Extremis in a bid to control the war on terror, creating his own terrorist figure known as the Mandarin while also installing his own puppet to become POTUS. However, he also had his own personal goal of killing Stark, seeking revenge for the humiliation he'd suffered all those years ago resulting in an unhinged transformation as the "real" Mandarin.
8 Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver)

Along with his twin sister Wanda, Pietro Maximoff hated Tony Stark after missiles made by Stark Industries killed their parents and nearly killed them as children in the nation of Sokovia. Growing up, Pietro and Wanda's hatred of Stark motivated them to volunteer for Baron von Strucker's experiments, giving them powers as enhanced individuals. Following an initial conflict with the Avengers, Pietro and Wanda joined forces with Ultron in a bid to finally get revenge on Iron Man and his fellow Avengers. However, the discovery of Ultron's true plan to end humanity saw the twins joining the Avengers to stop him.
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7 Wanda Maximoff (The Scarlet Witch)

Although Pietro and Wanda joined the Avengers, Pietro lost his life during the Battle of Sokovia. Likewise, Wanda would end up losing Vision in Avengers: Infinity War after Earth's Mightiest Heroes failed to stop Thanos as they were still divided from the fallout of Civil War. Once the universe was saved following Avengers: Endgame, Wanda's grief resulted in her taking over an entire town with his powers as seen in 2021's WandaVision, finally becoming the magical nexus being known as the Scarlet Witch.
Although Wanda released the town, the Scarlet Witch's studies of the Darkhold saw her becoming a villain in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. As such, much of her darkness was instigated by the Avengers' initial failures and shortcomings. This is also combined with the fact that she was seemingly left to mourn Vision alone after Endgame which directly led to the incident in Westview.
6 Ultron

Despite having noble intentions to build "a suit of armor around the world", Ultron became a mass-murdering AI robot in 2015's Age of Ultron created by Iron Man and Bruce Banner's Hulk. Ultron believed that the only way to achieve world peace was to kill the Avengers and destroy humanity, and Tony Stark's refusal to admit that he was wrong in creating Ultron saw him receiving a lot of flak from his fellow Avengers. However, his stubbornness did see Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk creating the Vision who was more aligned with what Stark had originally intended to create using AI and the Mind Stone.
5 Zemo

The threat of Baron Zemo was a direct response to the lives lost during the Battle of Sokovia. Having lost his family, Zemo created a revenge plot against the Avengers using the Winter Soldier and his dark past as a potent weapon. In the face of the United Nations wanting to put regulations around Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Zemo took advantage of the tensions and successfully divided the Avengers by the end of 2016's Captain America: Civil War. However, Zemo never would have tried to dismantle the Avengers if not for the Avengers themselves.
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4 Vulture

In a similar vein, Adrian Toomes' Vulture was created after Iron Man stepped in with the Department of Damage Control to help clean (and profit from) the Avengers' destruction following the Battle of New York. This resulted in Toomes and his salvage crew facing financial hardship due to the lack of work. As such, they all turned to crime creating and selling weapons from the stolen alien salvage, becoming criminals as seen in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming.
3 Mysterio

Another MCU villain created due to the inadvertent actions of Tony Stark, Quentin Beck created the augmented reality technology which Tony Stark renamed BARF, completely disregarding and belittling Beck's life's work. Joining with other disenfranchised Stark employees, Mysterio was born as seen in 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home as a fabricated hero to stop threats they themselves created using holographic illusions. While this was part of Beck's plan to become the next Iron Man and enjoy the fame and power that came with it his plans were foiled by Spider-Man, the true inheritor of Iron Man's legacy following Stark's death in Avengers: Endgame.
2 Flag-Smashers

The Avengers bringing everyone back from Thanos' Snap in Endgame was a good thing, but it still had its consequences. This included the rise of the radical group known as the Flag-Smashers as seen in 2021's Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Following the five-year Blip, the new government organization known as the Global Repatriation Council started giving back homes and jobs to those who were snapped. However, this forced out those who had moved in and taken those jobs in the five-year interim. As such, the Flag-Smashers sought recreations of the Super Soldier serum in an attempt to force people to listen to their "One World" message.
1 The Skrulls

2023's Secret Invasion has confirmed that there are more Skrulls living on Earth than even Nick Fury knew about, having come to Earth while Fury was gone in the Blip. While not all Skrulls are a threat, Fury's absence due to the Avengers' initial failure to stop Thanos motivated the Skrull Gravik to take matters into his own hands regarding Fury and Captain Marvel's unkept promise to find them a new home. Even though Fury is back, several of the shapeshifting Skrulls have been galvanized by Gravik to take Earth for themselves from humanity, infiltrating various levels of government and society in the MCU.
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