MCU Villains Whose Tragic Backstories Make Their Motivation Understandable

Sylvie Laufeydottir was a child in Asgard, playing with toys, when Ravonna Renslayer and other members of the TVA showed up to arrest her for the crime of being a Variant against the Sacred Timeline. Young Sylvie was able to escape before her scheduled “pruning,” but was thereafter forced to live her life on the run, hopping back and forth between various apocalypses to stay ahead of the TVA.

As she ran, Sylvie eventually made it her mission to return to the TVA and burn it to the ground, both in the literal and figurative senses. While she spoke often about the tyranny of the TVA, and how their dedication to one singular timeline constituted the removal of free will, it was always clear that her primary motivation was to stop the TVA from destroying the lives of more innocent individuals - innocents like her. 

Ava Starr lost both of her parents in an accident where a quantum tunnel exploded and left her with a molecular instability that has her constantly switching between tangible and intangible states of being. This shifting between quantum states is extremely painful for Ava, and would've eventually led to her demise had Janet van Dyne not cured her at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Are the childhood loss of both your parents and constant pain from molecular instability an excuse to commit crimes? Um, well, no. However, it's hard not to see Ava's side of things - and something tells us we haven't seen the last of the character in the MCU.

After a traumatic childhood involving the slaying of his father at the hands of his uncle, Erik Killmonger became a ruthless member of a US black ops group. He would go on to make his way to Wakanda, challenge his cousin T'Challa for the throne, and become the king of Wakanda - all with the goal of arming oppressed African immigrants around the world.

Was Killmonger a monster who had no scruples about dispatching anyone who stood in his way? Unquestionably. But at the end of the day, his passion for trying to help oppressed peoples around the world instead of hiding away is admirable. If only he wasn't such a bloodthirsty madman.

As traumatic as losing a parent or partner is, it's often said there is nothing more harrowing than losing a child. So imagine just how horrible it would be to lose your father, your partner, and your son all in one fell swoop. That is exactly what drove Helmut Zemo to break up the Avengers in Captain America: Civil War.

Zemo blames the Avengers for the loss of his family and takes it upon himself to make sure there are no more innocent casualties from their epic conflicts with the evil powers that be. What machinations will he get up to in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? We'll have to wait and see.

Right after the Battle of New York in The Avengers, salvage company owner Adrian Toomes gained a contract to help clean up the wreckage of the city. Toomes invested all his money into bolstering the company's capabilities - then the Stark-backed Damage Control took over the clean-up, wiping Toomes's business out in the process.

With seemingly nowhere else to turn for revenue, Toomes and his crew turned to reverse-engineering Chitauri weapons for sale on the black market. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that. Still, selling illegal weapons doesn't seem like the best way to make a living.

Ultron's heart was in the right place, but his mind was just a tad broken when it came to executing his plan to save the Earth. And how did this Stark creation decide he was going to save the Earth from its ultimate demise? Do away with all of humanity, of course! Talk about an environmental extremist.

Tony Stark's idea of creating Ultron - a being to help protect the Earth against all enemies - was a sound one, but he just got it a little bit wrong. A flawed creation from a flawed creator, Ultron was doomed from the start and none of it was really his fault.