10 Marvel Cinematic Universe Characters Who Are Completely Pointless

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has brought us some of the most recognizable, successful and just plain awesome superheroes in the whole of cinema. However, not everyone that the franchise touches turns to gold. It's only natural that, in the MCU's increasingly overpopulated movies, some of the characters end up being totally pointless. Now, we're not necessarily talking about the worst characters in the MCU - though there is naturally a lot of crossover in this venn diagram - but instead those heroes, villains and supporting players who add practically nothing to the movies they feature in. If someone cut these guys out of their films, no one would weep, or even notice. To be fair, it's an MCU staple that characters will make a cameo in an earlier movie before making bigger impacts later on. For example, Everett Ross, Ulysses Klaw, Michelle Jones, etc. In those cases, we'll let their pointlessness pass. Every other useless character, though, is up for grabs here, so let's dive right in. Vision Hey, don't get us wrong, we love JARVIS. Tony Stark's A.I. was like a weird and wonderful blend of Siri and Alfred Pennyworth and was one of the best inventions of the MCU, first appearing in 2008's Iron Man. It's a shame, then, that JARVIS' humanoid form is such a non-entity. Sure, Vision has a long and interesting history in the comics, but he sticks out like a sore thumb when surrounded by the rest of the Avengers on screen. And not just because he looks ridiculous in sweaters. Vision has very little personality, causing him to fade into the background of any group scene. What's worse, despite his immense power-set, it's difficult to say just what Vision's role is in the movies he's appeared in so far. Obviously, he'll no doubt have more to do in Avengers: Infinity War, as he'll likely have to face Thanos, who'll be after the Mind Stone lodged in his forehead. That confrontation might even result in his death. But, be honest, would you be that bothered if it did? Quicksilver It's usually Fox's job to mess up classic X-Men characters, but in the case of Quicksilver, Marvel gave them the day off. Due to Pietro Maximoff serving on both the X-Men and Avengers teams in the comics, the MCU was able to introduce Quicksilver and his sister Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron. But while Wanda Maximoff made enough of an impression to become a franchise mainstay, Quicksilver was unceremoniously killed off at the end of his debut movie. It was a decent twist in the moment, but it has had the effect of reducing a long-running comics character to practically a red-shirt. Goodbye Quicksilver, we hardly knew you - or cared that much about you, to be honest. To be fair to writer/director Joss Whedon and Marvel, Quicksilver's death came out of necessity, as the studio didn't want to compete with the X-Men franchise's (frankly far superior) version of the character, first seen in the previous year's Days of Future Past. Still, that doesn't excuse the lacking presentation of ol' Quickie in Age of Ultron itself. Howling Commandos The inclusion of the Howling Commandos in Captain America: The First Avenger was a clever reinterpretation of a classic comic book property - usually Nick Fury's loyal troop in the source material, the MCU made them into Steve Rogers' team of oddball soldiers. But, while their addition was a welcome one for fans, the Howling Commandos didn't actually add a lot to the movie, if you think about it. Here's the clincher of our argument: how many of them can you actually remember? We bet you came up with Neal McDonough's red-headed Dum Dum Dugan and then hit a blank, right? That's because apart from him and Bucky, who joins the crew slightly later in the film, the rest of the group add literally nothing to the movie. Not even particularly memorable comic relief. Sure, it's been nice to see Dugan crossover to the TV world now and then in the likes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, but you probably didn't notice that the rest of the group were recast in those appearances. That says it all, really. Crossbones Brock Rumlow AKA Crossbones is one of Captain America's deadliest enemies in the comics. Quite literally, in fact, as the supervillain was (mostly) responsible for assassinating Steve Rogers in the wake of the Civil War event. While the character did appear in the movie version of the classic comic book storyline, his role was a lot more superfluous and forgettable. It's a shame, too, as he had a promising set-up in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Rumlow was introduced as a crooked STRIKE agent actually working for HYDRA who, by the end of the movie, suffers terrible burns. The stage was set then for the villain to return as Crossbones in Captain America: Civil War and be a formidable thorn in Cap's side. As it happened, however, Crossbones was quickly dispatched (and killed) at the beginning of the movie. His destructive clash with the Avengers did kickstart the Sokovia Accords but, as the name suggests, they were created in response to the fallout of Age of Ultron. As such, there was literally no purpose to Crossbones in the film. Jane Foster Jane Foster is a character who's been made retroactively redundant. Natalie Portman is a great actress, but never gave her best work in the first two Thor movies as the God of Thunder's astrophysicist love interest. She did, however, at least have a role. That being to act as Thor's tie to Earth. Come this November's Thor: Ragnarok, however, and Jane will be completely absent. Apparently, her and Thor weren't meant to be, after all, so it seems we sat through all those lacking romantic scenes in the first two films for nothing. Besides, by the looks of things, Thor has found himself a much more interesting prospective love interest in Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie. If Jane's career as an astrophysicist was ever actually explored, she might have had a purpose. However, Portman's Thor co-star Stellan Skarsgård, who plays Erik Selvig, has become the MCU's resident go-to science guy, after his appearances in both Avengers movies. Christine Palmer Sticking with underwhelming love interests for the moment, we bring you Doctor Strange's Christine Palmer. Yet again, the MCU was guilty for wasting a talented actress - this time Rachel McAdams - in a thankless role. In Christine's case, she's mostly pointless because she feels like a placeholder for not one, but two more interesting characters. Firstly, comic readers will know that Palmer is not Stephen Strange's true love. The sorceress Clea is his longterm partner in the source material and thus, is bound to make an appearance in Doctor Strange 2. So, why did they even bother setting up this temporary romance in the meantime? Likewise, Christine is a loose version of Night Nurse from the comics, who runs a facility where superheroes go to get patched up after a fight. The problem is that the MCU already has a version of Night Nurse in Netflix's Claire Temple. If the movies are planning on introducing the character in future, just bring Rosario Dawson on board instead. Happy Hogan Let's be clear, we have a huge amount of respect for Jon Favreau as a filmmaker. His successful direction of 2008's Iron Man is the reason that the MCU was able to get off the ground at all, so in a sense we have him to thank for everything since then. As an actor, though, his role in the MCU is fairly superfluous. Favreau's played Tony Stark's bodyguard and pal Happy Hogan in all three Iron Man movies and recently reprised the role for Iron Man 4 Spider-Man: Homecoming. After four appearances, we should probably feel a great deal of warmth and love for the character. But, in actual fact, he's just kind of there. We have nothing against Happy - like we said, this isn't a list of the worst MCU characters - but he never really adds that much to the proceedings. Take Homecoming, for example. It felt like Favreau was only involved because Robert Downey Jr. didn't have the time to be around for the whole shoot. The Warriors Three No one's denying that Jaime Alexander's Sif is a good addition to the Thor movies. Though she really should be given more to do, she's a welcome extra action heroine in a franchise that still has too few of them. It's Thor's other Asgardian pals that are really lacking in the character department. To their credit, you'll probably be able to drudge up the memory of the Warriors Three more easily than, say, the Howling Commandos - there's the big beardy one, the blonde one and the Asian one. However, beyond their physical appearances, there isn't much that makes an impression about the Warriors Three. The first two Thor films are cluttered enough as it is, what with Jane, Selvig and Darcy on Earth, so did they really need three more extraneous supporting characters? Thankfully, it looks like the trio will have a reduced role in Thor: Ragnarok, where the God of Thunder is swapping them for his new best bud: the Hulk. Maria Hill In the comics, Maria Hill is a much more interesting character than she is in the movies. As a hero-hater, she often clashes with the Avengers and Nick Fury. Movie Maria is probably more likeable, then, but she doesn't have the personality and layers of the comic book character. The version played by Cobie Smulders is just Fury's loyal stooge. That would be fine if she was fleshed out a little. With some more work, Maria could become the Avengers' indispensable right hand woman. Unfortunately though, she has one simple purpose in the movies: to spout exposition. Remember how Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest complains how her only role is to read out what the computers are saying? That's Maria Hill in a nutshell. She's hardly got any scenes which don't involve the character relaying information to either Nick Fury or Captain America. After three movies and a bunch of appearances in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Maria should have some more flesh on her bones by now. Seeing as she hasn't appeared since 2015's Age of Ultron, though, it looks like the character is now... wait for it... over the hill. Sharon Carter It's tough to pick the most pointless person in the whole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we have a pretty good contender. Ladies and gentlemen, we put it to you that Sharon Carter is the most useless and unwanted character in these movies. Initially just known as Sharon, Emily VanCamp's S.H.I.E.L.D. agent first turned up in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a neighbour of Steve's that Black Widow tried to set him up with. She didn't do much but, like we said, characters being introduced for major roles in future are par for the course, so we let her appearance there slide at the time. Come Captain America: Civil War, though, and there was no real payoff for Sharon's introduction in the previous movie. In fact, her character got worse. First, it was revealed - though comics readers already knew this - that she was Peggy Carter's niece before she later shared a single kiss with Steve - her aunt's former beau. The problem with Sharon's character is threefold. Not only is her romance with Steve laughably weak, with VanCamp sharing little chemistry with Chris Evans over their short amount of screentime together, and also just plain weird (we repeat: she's Peggy's niece!), but it's utterly unnecessary. Civil War has enough to be getting on with without trying to matchmake Captain America. Russo brothers, why not just use the Time Stone to bring Peggy to the 21st century and give us a character and a romance we actually care about in Infinity War?