Family. The word is such a complicated thing, isn’t it? While some people are lucky enough to have great families, with loving parents and siblings who are like best friends, others are unfortunate enough to find themselves dealing with nightmarish family lives. While this is a sad but normal thing in real life, art often imitates life, and the Marvel Comics universe is no exception.

The Marvel Universe is filled with complex family situations. From the early days of the comics to the first Marvel films to the current MCU, the world of Marvel and it’s entire multiverse are filled with complex and sometimes disturbing relationships. Don’t worry, we’re not talking about the weird twist in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s brother/sister relationship from the ultimate universe, (i.e. Game of Thrones style). No, today we are going to take a deep dive into the history of the Marvel universe and see which Marvel heroes have villainous relatives.

From two Avengers with a legendary evil mutant villain for a father to spies with secret brothers turned villains and pop stars turned X-Men team members who learn of secret sisters with scary powers, and the way that relationship sours into a villainous rivalry. The Marvel universe is filled with some of the most powerful families in the multiverse, but often these families find themselves divided morally, turning against one another. That’s why today we are going to explore the 25 Marvel heroes who are secretly related to villains in the multiverse.

25 Brotherly Spies

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Most fans both younger and older know the name Nick Fury. The man is a legend in the spy community. A staple of the Marvel Comics brand and the MCU, Nick Fury is the head of the secret spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D. and one of the most impressive and tactical spies in Marvel. However, he had a brother who felt resentful that he could never match Nick Fury’s heroic actions during times of war.

Jake Fury was a pacifist until he joined the army and became a soldier, where his resentment for his brother grew.

He later went on to become an enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D., becoming the villain Scorpio and wielding a cosmic weapon to destroy his brother. This plan of his failed, however, and he ended up being defeated time and again. His story has been reworked several times, with some versions reviving him after his loss of life and others saying the reincarnated villain was just an LDM (Life Model Decoy), and the real Jake was working undercover for his brother and S.H.I.E.L.D. Either way you never would have guessed the ultimate spy had a villainous brother. It must be tough having to constantly scrutinize the people you meet, always worried if one of them is secretly a spy in disguise.

24 Second Hand Brother

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While the story of Ultron is known to MCU fans thanks to James Spader and his take on the villain in the second Avengers movie, the Marvel villain is actually quite stronger in the comics, having a more cold and calculated attitude and a complex relationship with his creators. When the villain Ultron created the Vision (technically making him his father, but let’s not go there), he used a mapped version of Simon Williams' brain to create the Vision. Williams is also known as Wonder Man, an Avenger. However, both Williams and now the Williams infused Vision were brothers with the villain known as the Grim Reaper.

The Grim Reaper, otherwise known as Simon’s brother Eric, had vowed to destroy his brother. After Williams passed on, Eric focused on his robotic brother the Vision. He couldn’t destroy him, and instead tried to lure the AI hero to his side. The Vision refused, but identified with the villain and recognized their sort of brotherly bond. Later, however, the original Simon rose from the grave and he and Vision grew closer, sharing in the bond the Grim Reaper had wanted. He ended up blaming them both for making him feel as if he lost both brothers that day.

23 Telepath Wars

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The most powerful Marvel mutant to ever exist is (or at least one of the strongest ones is) Professor Xavier. The fandom is often torn on the actions of the mutant leader. While usually presented as a beacon of hope and peace between humanity and mutant-kind, Xavier has a history of troubling actions that lead to future conflicts. His powerful telepathy usually makes him feel he knows more about a situation that others, and ends up leading to more problems than he needed. The head of Xavier’s School for Gifted Children, he founded the X-Men to protect both humanity and mutant kind, hoping to bridge the gap between both groups and find a world that both could exist peacefully in.

However, his family history is anything but peaceful. While in the womb, Charles had a twin sister named Cassandra. With his powers already developing in the womb, Xavier sensed the evil radiating off his sister, and tried to destroy her before she could be born. She survived as a mass of cells and transferred herself into a human body years later. She would go on to wage war with Xavier and the X-Men in a bid for revenge and survival against her brother.

22 Strange Siblings

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One shocking sibling relationship that you probably never knew about was that of the sorcerer supreme himself, Dr. Strange. Strange is known in the Marvel universe and more recently the MCU as the sorcerer supreme, a master of magic and supernatural arts that allows him to travel between various dimensions and battle inter-dimensional threats no other heroes are capable of. Before that, he was a skilled yet arrogant surgeon, who suffered an accident that disabled his hands and forced him to leave surgery behind, which led to him seeking the Ancient One and learning the ways of the Sorcerer Supreme.

Stephen Strange has a brother named Victor. When Stephen was still a surgeon, he and his brother got into an argument that led to Victor getting into a pretty serious accident. Stephen felt guilty, putting his brother into cryo. Years later Stephen would use his magic to summon a spell that would heal his brother. However, once his brother was let out of cryo and the spell used, his brother didn’t just heal. He became a vampire-like creature. He tried to curb his thirst by drinking the blood of criminals as the vigilante Baron Blood, but he learned he only created more vampires, and so he sadly staked himself, ending his curse. Kind of a tragic end to the heroic/villainous brother relationship born out of magic.

21 Curse Of The Riders

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One of Marvel’s most supernatural anti-hero and demonic-looking hero has to be Ghost Rider. A legendary figure who, much like Dr. Strange, traverses the supernatural realm, several characters have taken the mantle over the years. The most popular version of Ghost Rider in the Marvel universe has to be Johnny Blaze. The daredevil turned spirit of vengeance has been the infamous Ghost Rider for years and years. The motorcycle riding, flaming-skull-bearing anti-hero rides around taking on supernatural threats and fighting the curse of Ghost Rider as well.

However, one day Johnny discovered he wasn’t the only Ghost Rider out there, and not only that, but it was his brother.

Johnny had managed to banish and exorcise the demon Zarathos from his body after years of struggle. Afterward, he learned of a brother he had named Dan Ketch. Dan had received the Ghost Rider as it was a curse that befell the eldest of every generation of their family. Johnny’s mother spared Johnny from the curse, but sadly she didn’t know it would skip to Dan or that Johnny would end up becoming a very different Ghost Rider. This means that there is an entire lineage of Ghost Riders that Johnny is related to. Talk about a hellish family relationship.

20 With Great Power…

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One relationship that recently got teased in the MCU’s Spider-Man: Homecoming was between the Ultimate Spiderman Miles Morales and his uncle Aaron, otherwise known as the thief The Prowler. Unlike Peter Parker and his Uncle Ben, Miles Morales discovered his uncle was far more devious and villainous than he could have ever imagined. Miles Morales was the successor to the Spider-Man legacy, having inherited it after the untimely passing of Peter Parker in the Ultimate universe. Eventually, he made his way into the Earth Prime Marvel universe after his world was destroyed in a cataclysmic event, but before that fans around the world were able to explore the complex relationship between him and his uncle.

Donald Glover just played the Prowler, referencing having a younger nephew in the movie. In the ultimate universe comics, Aaron learns of his nephew’s powers and tries to recruit him into being a henchman for The Prowler. However, when Miles refuses, Aaron beat him up and ended up being defeated by one of his own thieving tools. It served to give Miles the lesson Peter Parker received from his Uncle, albeit for very different reasons: with great power comes great responsibility.

19 Bring Your Daughter To Work Day: Mutant Edition

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MCU fans will surely know by now that Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch is related to the speedster Quicksilver, played by Aaron Johnson. The actors played brother and sister in Avengers: Age of Ultron. In the film, they were created by Hydra and blamed Tony Stark for their parent’s demise years earlier, joining Ultron for a brief time before they saw the results of their actions and wanted to atone for their mistakes. However, the thing about these two characters is that in the comic books, they are also mutants with a history with the X-Men, and their father is the most famous mutant villain of all time: Magneto. That’s right, the master of magnetism is the father of two Avengers. While both brother and sister were originally used as villainous pawns, they ended up fleeing from their father and turning to heroism to save the world on countless occasions, even going up against their father several times. While the MCU version has altered their history somewhat, the upcoming rumblings of the FOX/Disney merger has fans eager to see if they will have a new backstory where their father makes a dramatic reappearance.

18 Future Son

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One famous story in the Marvel X-Men comics is the story of Cable. While current moviegoers know he is the antagonist of the recently released film Deadpool 2, Cable has a much more complex history. A time traveling cyborg warrior from the future, Cable is actually the son of Scott Summers. The son of Scott Summers and Jean Grey’s clone, known then as Madeline Pryor. Sent back into the future as a child to protect him from Apocalypse, Cable was raised in a ruined and apocalyptic future where he was forced to become a tough as nails soldier and ruthless in order to survive. He ended up coming back to the present to meet his father in the past and try and prevent the future in which Cable was forced to live in. It’s a complex relationship, as present day Cyclops and his future son Cable sometimes come into conflict, when Cable’s ruthless tactics get in the way of Scott’s morality. Cable tows the line between villain, anti-hero, and full-blown hero a lot in the comics. A soldier first, he takes it upon himself to protect the timeline and make sure no harm comes to it.

17 The Mad Titan’s Daughter

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One relationship that has only recently in the MCU come into attention is the relationship between Guardians of the Galaxy team member Gamora and her adoptive father, Thanos. As fans of the recently watched Avengers: Infinity War know, Thanos destroyed half of Gamora’s people when she was a child, taking her as his adoptive daughter as her real mother fell to Thanos and his Black Order. She spent years in service to Thanos, always hating him but forced to become his chosen child. Becoming the deadliest life-taker in the MCU, she eventually found an escape with Peter Quill, who along with Groot, Drax and Rocket, formed the intergalactic team Guardians of the Galaxy. Together they battled Thanos’s lackey Ronan the Accuser, as well as Peter Quill’s evil dad Ego the Living Planet. She found a real family with the Guardians, even developing a will they/won’t they romance with Quill and becoming the voice of reason amongst the off-the-walls antics of the rest of the crew. We won’t get into too spoiler specific plot points of the film, but Thanos showed his villainous intent with the universe as a whole and his daughter Gamora as well.

16 My Brother’s Throne

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Besides Infinity War, one character that has dominated the charts and captured fans hearts this year in the MCU has to be Black Panther. The King of Wakanda, a secret city that houses the most advanced civilization and technology on the planet, T’Challa takes on the mantle of king after his father’s untimely passing in Captain America: Civil War. He goes on a journey of discovery as he learns more about his father’s history, the impact of ignoring the problems of the rest of the world around them and the way secrets and betrayals have a habit of coming back from the past to impact your own future.

One story that classic Black Panther fans will know well is the story of T’Challa and his brother Jakarra.

Jakarra resented his brother for ascending to the throne, and instead led a rebellion to try and take the throne by force. However, this may seem familiar to fans, as it’s the same plot of the film Black Panther in the MCU. That’s because it is adopted in the film to be the story of a secret cousin he never knew about, revealed to be Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger.

15 A.I. Madness

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The MCU fans out there know the story of Ultron in the second Avengers movie. After witnessing a vision in which the Avengers are brutally defeated by some unseen galactic threat, Tony Stark believes the best way to protect the planet is to create an advanced AI capable of defending the planet from powerful threats. Using the scepter Hydra used to create Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Tony went to work building the foundation for a new kind of hero. One that would be programmed to take on the threats the Avengers couldn’t. Created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, the A.I.-turned-robot-villain Ultron had a personality similar to Tony Stark, with a hatred for humanity and an obsession with upgrading his robot body. However, this villain is not the creation of Tony Stark in the comics, but rather Hank Pym, aka the original Ant-Man. Ant-Man always felt inferior to the other Avengers and created an A.I. Avengers team to deal with technological threats. However, unlike the movie version, the original Ultron was a cold, calculating machine who misook his mission directive to protect humanity and warped it to mean humanity was it’s own worse enemy, and therefore needed to be destroyed.

14 Hulks Smash

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One of Marvel’s more tragic characters is The Incredible Hulk. Played by the incredible Mark Ruffalo in the MCU, Bruce Banner got caught in an experiment that unleashed wave after wave of gamma radiation into his system. This triggered a monstrous condition, in which any amount of anger exerted would transform him into the giant, strong, and nearly indestructible Hulk. This proved to be too dangerous for Bruce to be able to have a normal life, as his one true love Betty Brant was put in danger thanks to both her relationship with Bruce and her relationship with her father, the general obsessed with taking the Hulk down, General Ross. While everyone knows the tragic story of Bruce Banner and his curse to live his life as the Incredible Hulk, few fans know about his connection to fellow Hulk and villain/anti-hero Red Hulk. The Red Hulk is actually Bruce’s wife’s father, General Ross. Bruce’s father-in-law took a drug and radiation combo experiment to make him into the thing he supposedly hated, gaining power to stop his son-in-law once and for all. The relationship was tumultuous, and nearly ended both Thor and The Hulk. However the Hulk outsmarted him, using the Red Hulk’s anger to make him overheat and tire out.

13 Unstoppable Forces

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Cassandra wasn’t Charles Xavier’s only sibling. As you’ll soon learn, Xavier has quite a large family of mutants turned villains. Some are of his own making, while others he is just unlucky enough to have been born into. While he may have thought he was doing good, his actions against his sister in the womb led to her violent rebirth and revenge-fueled mission of survival against the X-Men later on. Yet, what about his brother? He has a stepbrother who went on to become The Juggernaut, the X-Men villain who is unstoppable and indestructible. He wears a large red helmet to keep Charles out of his head and block him from mind controlling him during his villainous schemes. The Juggernaut is nearly indestructible, and unstoppable once he begins running. He is a human freight train, having been granted his power from a gem known as the Gem of Cyttorak while stationed in Korea during the war. He resents his stepbrother, as his father favored his stepson Charles Xavier over him and instead tormented his firstborn son throughout their childhood. The villain has tried time and again to destroy his brother, and only the X-Men have stood between the two warring siblings.

12 Attack Of The Clones

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When we talk about superheroes who have siblings or relatives that have gone on to become villains, we tend to imagine blood relatives that were born without our knowledge, or who were raised in a completely opposite living situation than the heroes. Yet, when we talk about these family histories, we don’t really take into account the complex world of superheroes and the cosmic, scientific, and even supernatural causes in which one could have a secret relative.

For instance, in the comic books, there is the constant use of cloning technology to make evil clones of heroes that do a villain's bidding.

One hero who has two brothers thanks to a supervillain cloning experiment is Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker. While an only child who lives with his Aunt May, a supervillain captured some of his DNA and used it to create several clones, including Ben Reiley and Kaine. Ben was an exact clone who ended up taking on the mantle of the hero Scarlet Spider, but Kaine was a villainous monster who used his sticky web hands to rip the faces off of his victims. However, he too went on to become a hero eventually.

11 Son Of A Mutant

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Alternate timelines are a big part of the Marvel universe. These twist and turn the classic stories and characters that fans of the original Marvel Universe have come to know and love. One alternate universe sees Wolverine and Mystique, the shape-shifting Brotherhood of Mutants soldier, having a child together named Raze. Raze has both Wolverine’s crazy claws and his mother’s blue skin and shapeshifting abilities, making him the world’s greatest life-taker as he also carries his father’s natural hunting skills and bloodlust.

Raze would go on to work with Charles Xavier II to go back in time and stop his father’s X-Men from succeeding. They believe Wolverine and Kitty Pryde is an affront to what the original Charles Xavier wanted, and so the son of the mutant leader brainwashes other mutants to go back in time and stop them once and for all. However, the shapeshifting life-taker doesn’t need a reason to go back in time and work with the second Charles Xavier. Raze just wants to hurt his father. He ended the life of his mother and tried to end his father as well, and can even reportedly shapeshift better than his own mother.

10 The Best Laid Plans…

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After a stunning defeat at the hands of the West Coast Avengers, the damaged Ultron spoke to a woman named Marianella Mancha to help gather materials he needed to rebuild. She thought he was a messenger of God and he used that faith to have her help him in exchange for giving her a son. Having fallen into a landfill, the damaged Ultron relies on this woman to gather the materials needed to rebuild himself, preying on her desperate need for a child after the loss of her own child previously. He delivered, creating another human/robot hybrid to be a brother to the Vision, named Victor Mancha. Victor was programmed to love heroes and use the programmed electromagnetic powers given to him by Ultron to join the Avengers, where his secret programming would activate and allow him to destroy the heroes once and for all. He became an unwilling pawn in Ultron’s scheme to destroy his biggest obstacle in completing his original programming, which was his misinterpretation of protecting humanity from threats to their lives, which he believes are humans themselves. However the teenage superhero team the Runaways intercepted Victor first, stopping him before it was too late.

9 No Time Like The Present

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Another Marvel team that has a surprising relationship with a monstrous villain is the Fantastic Four. Led by Mister Fantastic, his wife Sue Storm aka The Invisible Woman, her brother Johnny Storm aka Human Torch, and their best friend Ben Grimm aka The Thing, the team is known for being pioneer scientists, discovering new dimensions and realities, time traveling, and even going up against threats in both space and under the ocean’s surface of Earth. They are considered the ultimate superhero family. Their nemesis and also a galactic threat to the Avengers is none other than a master of time, Kang the Conqueror.

Kang is the descendant of Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. With his real name being Nathaniel Richards, Kang goes throughout time to establish dominance over various time eras and take powered individuals to serve him. With the FOX/Disney merger happening and the next phase of the MCU needing a master villain behind the scenes, may this be the time for Kang the Conqueror to rise up and take his place as an MCU villain? The introduction of the Fantastic Four and a rumored plot involving time travel in Avengers 4 could set this up perfectly.

8 Devil’s In The Details

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While it’s never really mentioned or touched upon in the films, X-Men star Mystique (played by Jennifer Lawrence in the new films) is the mother of X-Men hero Nightcrawler. After learning her husband was unfaithful, Mystique shape-shifted into several different forms to have intimate relationships with several different men, hoping to get pregnant. However, the man who did help her conceive a child was Azazel, a red demon-looking mutant who could teleport. Together they bore a child, but her local town saw the blue skinned demonic form of Kurt and she was chased out of town. She felt cold and distant from her son and left him to Azazel, who found him a home to be raised in peace in. Kurt was subsequently raised by Azazel’s servant Margali Szardos, who took the mutant child with her on the road in a circus, where she hid her talents as a sorceress by posing as a fortune teller. Kurt was never adopted but instead raised from within the circus, until Charles Xavier found him and brought him to join the X-Men. The mother/son relationship between villain and hero has never been resolved, with both constantly at odds with one another’s moral standing.

7 Say Hello To Ragnarok

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Marvel hero and Asgardian god Thor has one complex family history. His father is Odin, the King of Asgard, while his half brother is Loki, a frost giant baby that was adopted and made an Asgardian by Odin after discovering the child during his war with the frost giants. Loki has proved to be quite a nuisance to Thor, trying to take the throne of Asgard several times, trying to take over Earth, and faking his demise several times in order to escape and live to fight and scheme another day.

Yet, Thor soon learns in the MCU that he has more siblings than he could have ever known about, including a sister.

One relationship explored in the recent Thor: Ragnarok was between Thor and Hela. In the comics, all Asgardians are related somehow, but in the MCU they are actually aliens with godlike powers. In the comics, Loki was Hela’s father, but in the MCU it was revealed Odin was her father, who banished her until the time of his passing. It turns out she is Loki and Thor’s sister, who sets off a chain reaction that leads to Ragnarok, the apocalypse for all of Asgard.

6 They Are Many

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Professor Xavier really has bad luck with family. We’ve seen at least two of his siblings turn to the dark side in a manner of speaking, both harboring great resentment towards Charles and becoming a constant villain the X-Men have to tackle. While his siblings have gone on to become villains, his own son has also taken tragic steps into villainy. His son, Legion, was born from a relationship between Xavier and a holocaust survivor named Gabrielle Haller, and his telepathic abilities are so powerful that they shattered his psyche after witnessing the demise of his step father, creating several different personalities with different levels of power. Charles Xavier took Legion in, having been oblivious to his son’s existence for years and wanting to help his son gain control over his powerful abilities and repair his mind. However, his time at the school was short-lived, as Legion’s growing break from reality caused some powerful villains to emerge. Despite Xavier learning he had a son and trying to help him repair his mind, Legion sometimes has violent personalities emerge and make him an unwilling participant in evil, villainous activities that the X-Men have to fight him over.