The MCU's Oldest Villain Just Made a Surprise Return in 'VisionQuest'

In the 2008 movie Iron Man, the biggest, baddest villain was Obadiah Stane, played by Jeff Bridges. Originally business partners with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Obadiah betrayed Tony by hatching a plot to kill him while he was in Afghanistan. When Tony survived and became Iron Man, Obadiah responded by taking on his own iron identity: The Iron Monger.

That led to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first big boss battle. But while the movie that kicked off the MCU may have built up to a final fight with Iron Monger, there was another villain in the movie that came first, technically making him the official first villain in the MCU. That villain reappeared in episode 6 of VisionQuest in a return that no one saw coming.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for VisionQuest episode 6. Technically, the first villain Tony Stark faced as Iron Man was not Obadiah Stane, but Raza Hamidmi al-Wazar, played by Faran Tahir. Raza was the leader of the Afghan division of the Ten Rings, a terrorist organization that would be explored more in future MCU films like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Raza launched the attack at the beginning of Iron Man and captured Tony Stark. Raza then kept Stark in an Afghan cave and forced him to build a missile, but Tony instead built a means by which to escape. It was in that cave in Afghanistan that Tony built his very first Iron Man armor, the Mark 1.

Once the suit was completed, Tony Stark, with the help of Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub), escaped the cave hideout, killing several members of the Ten Rings. Raza survived, but his face was badly burned in the encounter. Later in the film, we learn that Raza had been hired by Obadiah Stane and the plan was for him to kill Stark immediately, but Raza was not told who he was killing.

Once he realized it was the famous, genius weapons manufacturer Tony Stark, Raza decided to have Stark build him a missile before killing him, which, of course, backfired. When Stane visits Raza in Afghanistan, he finds out that Raza has recovered the Mark 1 armor as Stane requested. Stane then incapacitates Raza with a sonic taser, paralyzing him and making his ears bleed, though he assures Raza that the effects only last 15 minutes.