Spotlight On...HIGH EVOLUTIONARY!

[Monolith]

Herbert Edgar Wyndham was a self-taught geneticist convinced he would be the one to uncover the secrets of life. His genetic accelerator elevated simple animals into sapient bipeds known as the New Men. In order to teach them ethics and a code of conduct, Wyndham stylized himself as the Lord High Evolutionary to train his Knights of Wundagore. Wyndham's ego has only grown since then, and exposure to his own genetic accelerator unlocked evolved powers which feed his ideas of grandeur. A tinkerer and perfectionist, the Evolutionary will experiment on living things just to see what will happen, then destroy sentient lifeforms or entire societies he had created for not meeting his exacting standards. While not strictly a villain, the High Evolutionary has little regard for the rights and lives of creatures he considers beneath himself, and his God Complex has extended that disregard towards all of humanity.

https://uncannyxmen.net/characters/high-evolutionary

[WorldWideWade]

I'm glad I read the spotlight before watching Guardians Vol 3. It made me appreciate the motivations of the villain more, having so recently brushed up on his comic history. They definitely made him more of a full-on villain in the movie but I don't think it was too far off the characterization of the comics.

[Monolith]

What kills me on a full readthrough was how little Wyndham accomplished on his own. He had some ideas, but played around with radiation enough to only successfully kill dozens of test subjects. Once Phaeder handed him a cheat code, he was successful in getting his New Men up and running, but that was it. He then artificially evolved himself to be smarter and more aware, conjured a bunch of technology in Deus ex Machina fashion, then devolved himself back to near-human in order to use it. He's constantly a child fooling with equipment beyond his kin, but artificially powerful enough to consider himself a God and no one can deter him.