The MCU has been home to some of the most recognizable and fascinating villains, such as the terrifying Thanos and Ultron, with most of them having grandiose dreams of attaining incredible amounts of power and control over people, countries, and the universe itself.

Related: Marvel Villains Ranked from Worst to Best

Marvel might have better success with their hero protagonists than their villains in terms of an audience's appreciation and love for certain characters, but certain bad guys have been given tragic backstories, redeemable traits, complex motives, or a mix of all three, making them more relatable than others who just want world domination.

Yelena Belova

Yelena Belova on the rooftop in Hawkeye

As the sister of the late Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), aka Black Widow, Yelena (Florence Pugh) suffered the same kind of rigorous and cruel training in the Red Room, where she committed violent acts that definitely could be described as villainous, but they were mostly against her own will. Audiences were introduced to Yelena in 2019's Black Widow when she reunited with her long-lost sister as they worked together to save their fellow assassin prisoners from the clutches of General Dreykov.

Related: Florence Pugh's Best Performances, From Lady Macbeth to Black Widow

Yelena shows off a more playful side than her stoic older sister, which provides some of the funniest moments in the film and establishes a great sibling dynamic between the two, exploring Natasha's past and personality in a way that was unshown in previous films. Following her death, Yelena is persuaded to hunt down the man she believes to be responsible, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), in an act of bitter revenge. Her methods of coping with grief are unhealthy, to say the least, but her motivation to avenge her sister is understandable.

Nebula

Karen Gillan as Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy

An MCU villain who deserves her own spinoff, Nebula (Karen Gillan) is one of the quintessential tragic figures in the franchise, with her desperate longing for acceptance and love being the driving force behind her more unsavory actions, like betraying Rocket and Groot as well as trying to kill her own sister via spaceship. She spent most of her childhood literally being torn apart by her adoptive "father" Thanos, only to rebuild her with weaponry and machines when she fails to win in combat against Gamora.

Nebula understandably develops a deep resentment toward Gamora for inadvertently being the cause for so much of her suffering, culminating in an emotional outburst in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 where she expresses anger at Gamora for letting Thanos treat her so cruelly and expressing that all she wanted was the support and love of her sister. The two soon begin to develop a better relationship and work together on a more heroic path, but it took quite a while for them to get to this place.

Erik Killmonger

Erik Killmonger challenging T'Challa for a fight on the waterfall top.

It's always pretty rare when a film presents audiences with a villain whose motives are more convincing than the hero's, but Erik Killmonger's (Michael B. Jordan) desire to share Wakandan technology to help oppressed peoples prove that he is an MCU villain with a valid point, even if his methods are a bit brutal and bloody. His own father was a member of the Wakandan royal family who was murdered when Killmonger was a young child because of this cause, so it's understandable why he would want to carry on his father's mission and avenge his tragic death.

Related: 'Black Panther 2': Release Date, Cast, Filming Details & Everything We Know So Far

Killmonger makes a compelling point about Wakanda's lack of responsibility and empathy to help people "just like them" all around the world, even persuading the main protagonist and hero of the film, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) to open Wakanda's borders by the film's end. Killmonger's desire to end racial injustice is more than commendable, and his last words are some of the most heartbreaking in the entire MCU.

Helmut Zemo

daniel-bruhl-zemo-captain-america-civil-war

Another character seeking justified revenge, Helmut Zemo's (Daniel Brüle) is motivated to destroy the Avengers following the catastrophic events of Avengers: Age of Ultron where his family was killed due to the large-scale fight between the superhero team and Ultron in Sokovia. Zemo is first introduced in Captain America: Civil War and goes to extreme lengths to enact the end of the Avengers by pitting Iron Man and Captain America against each other.

The Avengers are really at fault for the careless and avoidable death of Zemo's family, whether they had good intentions or not, so his reasoning why the superhero team should no longer exist is pretty hard to dispute. He makes a return in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and even teams up with the Avengers, providing the show with some killer dance moves that are enough to redeem him as a solid hero.

Wanda Maximoff

WandaVision I can't feel you

If there is any character in the entire MCU who deserves a hug it is undoubtedly Wanda Maximoff, (Elizabeth Olsen) since she probably experiences more grief and pain than anyone else. Her parents are killed by a missile created by Tony Stark when she is very young, she then loses her brother — the last remaining family she has — then has to kill the other most important person in her life, Vision, with her own powers, and then has to watch him die all over again. It is not surprising she became a villain because seriously...that is a lot of trauma for one person to go through.

In order to cope with this heavy and brutal level of grief, she places an entire town hostage in a fake reality that replicates the TV shows that brought her comfort during the worst moments of her life as one of the most extreme forms of escapism. She also causes more mayhem in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and gives in to her anger as well as incredibly powerful abilities before supposedly sacrificing herself to save the universe. She is arguably Marvel's most tragic figure and hopefully, this isn't the last we see of her.

NEXT: 10 Marvel Characters Who Have the Potential to Return