Early Versions Of Marvel's Avengers Didn't Have Loki As The Only Major Villain

You probably know that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was the big bad of 2012's "The Avengers" and his role there is why he's still the defining villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not even Thanos can say he got his own TV series like Loki did! It's not just the God of Mischief being in the right place at the right time, though.

"Avengers" writer/director Joss Whedon overhauled Loki, turning the meek sad boy from 2011's "Thor" into a wickedly charismatic megalomaniac. Hiddleston took that change and ran with it, proving he can wield an evil grin as effectively as he can puppy dog eyes along the way. Every subsequent Loki appearance has been trying to meld the two characterizations; Loki's an evil bastard, but he does love his mum and big brother Thor (even if he loves himself a bit more).

Loki (really Hiddleston) holds the screen all on his own in "The Avengers." As the movie was written, though, there was concern he might collapse under its weight. Remember, it wasn't foregone that "The Avengers" would be a blockbuster revolution. One risk was pitting six superheroes versus one supervillain; without a strong enough screen presence, the latter could be lost in the sea.

Original "Avengers" scribe Zak Penn told CBR in 2012 that he considered bringing back the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), villain of "Captain America: The First Avenger," as Loki's accomplice. That way, the scales would be balanced just a tad more. Though Whedon basically forced Penn off the picture (even if Penn retained a "Story By" credit), he shared this concern that Loki would need a partner to justify a superheroic team-up.

Whedon's pick for villain #2 was different though: Ezekiel Stane, son of Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger (Jeff Bridges), the villain of 2008's "Iron Man."

Ezekiel Stane is the creation of writer Matt Fraction (who these days is the co-creator of the "Godzilla" spin-off "Monarch: Legacy of the Monsters") and artist Barry Kitson. When Fraction started writing "Invincible Iron Man" in 2008, he used "Zeke" as the villain of his kick-off arc, "The Five Nightmares" (art by Salvador Larroca).

Fraction and Larroca's "Iron Man" was transparently started to give audiences who adored 2008's "Iron Man" film a ramp onto the comics. Part of that synergy was having a Stane as the villain. Fraction wisely chose not to resurrect Iron Monger I, though (the character was long-dead, having died by suicide in 1985's "Iron Man" #200 after he failed to beat Stark). "The Five Nightmares" is about Tony reckoning with how he can't control the future his ideas and technology will build; digging up a dead villain from his past would be contradictory. That's why Ezekiel's vendetta isn't entirely about avenging his father either.

Stane Jr. intends to do what his father could not by systematically destroying Stark Industries and usurping Tony as the shepherd of the future. Zeke wears combat armor to face Iron Man, but his true strength is biotech; he upgraded his own brain to run more efficiently and his body to produce more energy, which he can channel into energy blasts with no repulsor rays needed. ("Iron Man" is science fiction, folks.)

During "The Five Nightmares," Zeke is assisted in his quest by his lover Sasha Hammer, niece of another of Stark's enemies: Justin Hammer (played by Sam Rockwell in "Iron Man 2"). This is yet another parallel between him and his adversary; Sasha is to Zeke what Pepper Potts is to Tony.

The 2018 Thrillist feature "The Battle of New York: An 'Avengers' Oral History" features an interview with Whedon, wherein he discusses his unrealized ideas for the movie. One of them was to introduce the Wasp, played by Zooey Deschanel. (On one hand, this sounds like a recipe for another of Whedon's fetishized manic pixie nerd girls, like Fred from "Angel" or Kaylee from "Firefly," but on the other, Deschanel would have been a much better pick for the Wasp than the eventual Evangeline Lilly.)

As for Ezekiel's inclusion and then removal, Whedon explained it like this:

"I also worried that one British character actor was not enough to take on Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and that we'd feel like we were rooting for the overdog. So I wrote a huge draft with Ezekiel Stane, Obadiah Stane's son, in it. [Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige] looked at it and said, 'Yeah, no.'"

Of the Avengers, Whedon most favors Iron Man and the Hulk. In the sequel "Age of Ultron," he rewrote them as Ultron's creators, rather than Hank Pym/Ant-Man like in the comics, thereby making the narrative orbit Tony Stark once more. So, I'm not surprised his back-up villain was an Iron Man foe.

Whedon does hit on something in that quote that shows how he understood what he was doing. "The Avengers" needed to come together for a threat worthy of their combined power; otherwise, this first-of-its-kind crossover wouldn't feel earned. In the final film, that threat is Loki's alien army the Chitauri, which started the trend of MCU villains having faceless drone armies for the heroes to smash.

In another version though, that threat could have been villains from each of the Avengers' pasts (Loki, Red Skull, and Ezekiel Stane) joining forces, making the heroes respond in kind.

12 years after "The Avengers," Ezekiel Stane still has yet to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's easy to imagine an only slightly different "Iron Man 3" where he's the villain, not Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), but that wasn't the case.

However, there is a film which shows us what that alternate "Iron Man 3" I just proposed could have looked like: the 2013 anime film "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore." Produced by studio Madhouse, this movie gives Iron Man and Ezekiel the silver screen clash they were denied in "The Avengers."

The movie is not MCU canon (it's loosely a follow-up to the 2010 "Marvel Anime: Iron Man" series, also produced by Madhouse), but it was made for MCU synergy. Iron Man and War Machine have their movie designs, while Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Hawkeye show up in supporting roles. The film's original Japanese voiceover even features Tony, Fury, and Pepper played by the same actors who dubbed Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, and Gwyneth Paltrow for the Japanese releases of MCU movies: the late Keiji Fujiwara, Hideaki Tezuka, and Hiroe Oka respectively. (The "Rise of Technovore" English dub settled for Matthew Mercer, John Eric Bentley, and Kate Higgins.)

"Rise of Technovore" loosely combines the first two arcs of Fraction and Larroca's "Invincible Iron Man" — "The Five Nightmares" and "World's Most Wanted." After Ezekiel's first attack, Tony sets out to stop this new rogue even though S.H.I.E.L.D wants Iron Man off-duty for questioning. So, Tony spends the movie dodging Black Widow and Hawkeye too. This "Mission: Impossible" style fugitive arc, with Tony Stark as Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), betrays the movie's clumsy scripting; in "World's Most Wanted," Tony was being hunted by Norman Osborn, who'd seized control of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and rebranded it as H.A.M.M.E.R.). Fury, though, should know Tony better, so him chasing after Iron Man feels like artificial conflict to pad out the movie.

Ezekiel is combined with another "Iron Man" villain, the tech-devouring parasite Technovore. He also has a different, more alien-looking armor, while his powers manifest as techno organic nanites which can dissolve and remake matter. This portrayal is where the film's anime tropes show; Ezekiel looks not like the square-jawed brunet of the comics but a blonde bishounen. In the third act, Technovore's power eclipses his own and he becomes a biomass monster right out of "Akira."

I think more superhero films should embrace animation, but even as a comics and anime fan, I can declare that "Rise of Technovore" is a middling effort. Should Ezekiel Stane make his way into the MCU one day, the movie won't be a high bar to clear.