I find Kilgrave so terrifying I couldn't watch Jessica Jones because of it. He's extremely true to life in how actual abusive men behave and think, and his power makes him even more terrifying because of it. I mean, this is a guy who can literally make you do whatever he wants--and he wants to rape and torture and kill. That's terror.
I also really loved Mariah a lot, partially because she's such an interesting and complex character. She has this backstory where she's tried to rise above her roots in perpetuating a cycle of inequality, poverty, and crime, and she struggles to balance her family obligations with clawing her way away from them. The fact that she ends up killing Cottonmouth and that was her start to villainy--her essentially sinking down to their level--makes her much more tragic and multifaceted than if she'd always been fine with crime or if she'd never tried to be a good person, or as much of one as a skeezy politician can be. She really believes in lifting up Harlem while preventing gentrification, even though she's also holding herself apart from more 'ordinary' people in Harlem itself (she lives in a brownstone, is very rich, is powerful and exceptionally well-educated, and is noticeably not connected emotionally with normal people basically at all).
Shades is basically Wesley, tbh. He's just got a better sense of things.
Fisk actually seems like kind of a bad villain to me, because he alternates between being fucking terrifying (him running the prison, decapitating a dude with a car door) and hilariously cartoonish (him being too socially awkward to effectively run a mafia, him looking like a toddler in a onesie when he tries to threaten Frank Castle). Madame Gao is sort of super orientalist--a literal dragon lady who does kung fu poses and sells heroin and is only vaguely sympathetic. I think Alexandra was a much better villain than Gao, because she had a very clear motive for going nuts and forming the Hand, and because she was very enjoyably badass and also creepy as shit with her Elektra brainwashing.
Re: What makes a good villain?
I also really loved Mariah a lot, partially because she's such an interesting and complex character. She has this backstory where she's tried to rise above her roots in perpetuating a cycle of inequality, poverty, and crime, and she struggles to balance her family obligations with clawing her way away from them. The fact that she ends up killing Cottonmouth and that was her start to villainy--her essentially sinking down to their level--makes her much more tragic and multifaceted than if she'd always been fine with crime or if she'd never tried to be a good person, or as much of one as a skeezy politician can be. She really believes in lifting up Harlem while preventing gentrification, even though she's also holding herself apart from more 'ordinary' people in Harlem itself (she lives in a brownstone, is very rich, is powerful and exceptionally well-educated, and is noticeably not connected emotionally with normal people basically at all).
Shades is basically Wesley, tbh. He's just got a better sense of things.
Fisk actually seems like kind of a bad villain to me, because he alternates between being fucking terrifying (him running the prison, decapitating a dude with a car door) and hilariously cartoonish (him being too socially awkward to effectively run a mafia, him looking like a toddler in a onesie when he tries to threaten Frank Castle). Madame Gao is sort of super orientalist--a literal dragon lady who does kung fu poses and sells heroin and is only vaguely sympathetic. I think Alexandra was a much better villain than Gao, because she had a very clear motive for going nuts and forming the Hand, and because she was very enjoyably badass and also creepy as shit with her Elektra brainwashing.