supervillian

[jothemarxist-migration]

no-one likes a good guy as we all know, so who is veryone's favourite villian/supervillian? and what takes an average goon and puts him on supervillian status? here's a pciture of one of my favourties in action.

[chrisco37]

The best "baddy" in comics, bar-none, is Dr. Doom. Ruthless, ego-maniacal, highly intelligent....A classic foil to Reed Richards.

 

I think, in order to have a successful villain, there has to be some tie to the hero (Doom and Richards were 'rivals' in college). Also, a great villain should have, really, one single purpose (Doom is bent on world domination, Kingpin wants total control of organized crime, the Joker wants to destroy Batman, etc...) Their motivation never changes, despite the situation.

 

Chris

[Zonker]

In DC land, 2 villians stand out. Despite being recently overexposed and mis-handled, their original conceptions were pure and iconic.

 

I agree with Chrisco-- great villians need to have a tie to the hero (the yin/yang duality) and need to have an over-arching reason for being, a goal the hero must thwart.

 

1- Ras al Ghul. Wants to purify the Earth from over-population and ecological disaster. Doesn't mind killing 90% of the human race to do it. An Osama bin Laden motivated by a 'Green' ideology rather than a radical Islamic one. Tie to Batman through his daughter Talia. Ras sees the Batman as a worthy successor and is willing to use his daughter to seduce the Batman and at a minimum neutralize him as a threat, and at a maximum potentially turn him Ras' way.

 

2- Darkseid. As originally conceived by Kirby, Darkseid is the Platonic ideal of 20th century totalitarians. Darkseid cannot suffer independent thought anywhere in the universe. He seeks the Anti-Life equation in order to stamp out all other free will in the universe apart from his own. The tie to the protagonists is that he is the father of his greatest enemy, Orion of New Genesis.

 

In my mind, this sets these characters ahead of villians like the Joker, Two-Face, Green Goblin, etc. motivated only by hatred of the hero.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[fiendish]

Marvel: Doom, without a doubt.

 

Also Galactus and Thanos.

 

DC: Gotta love the Joker. He's the sociopath's sociopath.

 

Valiant: Master Darque!