Whiplash

Whiplash, aka Ivan Vanko, had the potential to be very good – he had a beef with Tony Stark and was being portrayed by Mickey Rourke – but, in a nutshell, he really, really wasn’t.

This version of the character was a weird amalgamation of the comic book versions of Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo (with possibly even a hint of Omega Red) and it just didn’t work – although this was, clearly, in no small part due to Rourke’s own indifference towards appearing in the movie (he hated the experience, citing the fact that Marvel Studios didn’t allow him to be creative with his portrayal as the main reason).

And what was with the bird? Vanko had a pet bird that he was obsessed with, which was weird. Whiplash was an all-round failure as a character, quite frankly.

We will now move on to a character who was simply underutilized in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Crossbones

Frank Grillo first appeared as Brock Rumlow in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In that movie, he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was revealed to be working for HYDRA, after it was also revealed that the evil organisation had been growing inside S.H.I.E.L.D. itself.

At the end of the movie, he was badly injured – suffering burns to his face and body – and he reemerged in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War in his more familiar Crossbones outfit from the comic books.

Unfortunately, the character turned out to be nothing more than a glorified suicide bomber, blowing himself up in an attempt to also kill Captain America.

Now let’s move on to a character who was utilized to an even smaller extent than Crossbones.