Each one has a role to play and no other villain can really take their place.
But try to think of Green Lantern's rogues gallery. Try to think of Superman's enemies that regularly challenge him. Try to think of three Wonder Woman villains. DC simply tends to not have the same name power as Marvel's characters (Dr. Doom, Venom, Galactus, so on), but I think there are some truly great villains in DC's repertoire, and they don't involve giant yellow space bugs, twisted clones, or whiny entitled super-powered fanboys.
In fact, I think there's at least eleven!
Disclaimer: I'm not sure what the status of the "Nu52" versions of these characters are, but I'm willing to point out why they were great before the reboot in the hopes someone at DC realizes what they need to keep.
11: Roulette
You know how we have professional wrestling which is, essentially, the alpha male soap opera? Well, comics have already established that there are professional wrestling leagues for people with superpowers. Imagine, instead the UFC mixed with Fight Club and most of the fights were to the point of hospitalization, if not to the death.
Now imagine people (and super villains) betting on these fights.
Now imagine that every now and again superheroes were mind-controlled or forced to take part in these against their will.
You've just imagined the set-up Roulette has in DC Comics.
Strangely enough, when you get past the kidnapping, mind-control, and willingness to let people die for a profit, she has a rather twisted sense of honor. If you win, she'll let you go, even if you're barely alive and can't put up a fight. In fact, this same twisted sense of "Fair Play" seems to have come from the belief that her father was the original Mr. Terrific, hero of the original Justice Society.
So you have a villainess with a direct tie to an established superhero and a multitude of storytelling potential with various contests and arenas for fights to take place in without the stigma Arcade has of being "an assassin who never successfully killed a superhero," and I think you have a brilliantly thought out character.
Of course, in the new DC I bet she just goes around with an old revolver with only one bullet in it. Ugh.
10. Starro
People might remember how sorely disappointed I was that the huge pan through the depths of space at the end of Thor didn't include a planet floating around by itself with a beard. Even the slightest cameo of Ego, the living planet, would've made that one of my all time favorite Easter eggs in a film ever.
DC has something close, if slightly more ridiculous: a race of interstellar starfish that are large enough to fill Hudson Bay. Oh, but it gets better. They also release spores that latch onto the faces of people near them and instill instant mind control.
Yeah, that's just creepy. However, it's also huge and epic and a genuine threat any time it shows up. DC has used characters like Darkseid and Lex Luthor as secret manipulators of large numbers of enemies, but I don't think they've ever used a sneak attack by starfish to form an Injustice League or anything like that. It's something to think about.
9. Amazo
A great way to have your hero try a creative means of using their powers is to have them fight someone with similar (if not identical) powers. It works in comics, in movies, and even in video games.
It's a classic trick, but one that still holds up to this day, especially when the threat doesn't just have your powers, but the powers of every other hero who's on your team. It's why Amazo is so effective, with the additional terror of the fact that he's already as powerful as your most powerful member, but with extra goodies included. Strength, durability, heat vision, and everything else comes from Superman, but then you get phasing from the Martian Manhunter, speed from the Flash, constructs from Green Lantern, shrinking from the Atom and....well, I'm not really sure what Hawkman would bring to the party besides confusing origins and reincarnation, but whatever. However you slice it, any time this android shows up, everybody on the side of good gets nervous.
8. Abra Kadabra
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
Born in the 64th century, at a time when stage magic is made completely pointless by advances in technology, this guy decided to go back in time with the help of a stolen time machine (it's a more common origin than you'd think, looking at you Booster Gold) and amaze audiences. Upon discovering that it's not quite enough attention, he decided to graduate to robbing banks and committing other crimes before the Flash stopped him repeatedly.
Now, what I love about this guy is he allows such storytelling freedom. Pretty much anything you can imagine technology of the future to do, this guy can utilize without needing any explanation given by the writer. Turn an ant into an elephant? Sure. Erase someone from a timeline? Sure. Summon creatures from another dimension? Why not?
Now, while magic has strict rules (or at least comics keep telling us it does), technology from the 64th century doesn't necessarily have rules, which is why Kang the Conqueror is so effective over for Marvel. This guy doesn't want to conquer the entire planet, he just wants to get the respect and admiration he feels he deserves, which would come with the Flash's defeat.
But hey, why not have him fight some other heroes as well, just to make things interesting?
7. Brainiac
Whatever he is, Brainiac became great right before the conversion to the new DC Universe, and he managed to incorporate some of the animated series Brainiac (both from the Superman and Justice League cartoons) in his motivations. The guy captures and preserves civilizations, sometimes before disaster strikes them, sometimes destroying them himself after he takes a sufficient sample. That, I think, is great, if only because a) it allows for a potential link between Superman and Titan A.E., and it also presents a great single-minded villain who will take advantage of whatever means become available to achieve his goal. Let him be a free-floating consciousness in the Internet, make him a cybernetic being who just always updates himself, let him upload his intelligence to a satellite where he can record data, as long as eventually he comes back to a giant floating skull ship and a big green form to try to escape with his gained knowledge.
6. T. O. Morrow
I love me a quality mad scientist, and T. O. Morrow is one of the best even if he's also one of the biggest hacks in science. See, he invented a device that allows him to see into the future. That's right, the man has a "see what's going to happen" machine and instead of using it to invest wisely in stocks or win the lottery eighteen times in a row, he instead uses it to observe future technology that he can then create in the present and use against superheroes.
While this isn't as great as "64th century technology," it does allow for some rather interesting ideas. For one thing, T. O. Morrow is ultimately responsible for the creation of two superheroes, Red Tornado and Tomorrow Woman. He's also shown regret for some of his actions, such as his part in the creation of a monster known as "Genocide," to the point where he helped Wonder Woman destroy it. He's been a friend to Will Magnus (and teacher, apparently), helping him when needed, and also aided Rip Hunter and Booster Gold against Mr. Mind.
However, his shining moment was when he was successful in inventing his own time machine and programmed it to be able to determine what he would have to do to ultimately be victorious as well as rule over a utopia. Perhaps it meant introducing the aritificial heart back in the 40s, or the microwave. Perhaps it was putting a satellite in space decades before they were invented.
Ultimately, he realized he wasn't a "strong enough" villain to be able to rule, and almost went back in time to kill his own mother to see if it would make him grow up to be "harder" until he was stopped by the Flash and realized what he was becoming.
A mad scientist who attempts to take over the world and yet keeps helping people and creating heroes to fight against evil...that sounds like a pretty deep character that can be explored a lot better. Besides, he also managed to single-handedly take down our number five villain.
5. Black Adam
Black Adam is what you call "complex." Originally born in ancient Egypt, Black Adam was the original bestowed-upon of the gifts of the Wizard Shazam. When he and the wizard had a small "falling out" about Adam's methods, he imprisoned Adam, later to be found by a criminal who merged with him and started a spree of crime and general "evilness."
Later, when the "criminal" aspect of Adam was removed, Adam did his best to attempt to be a hero, finding modern heroes having little tolerance for things like "find the leader of the terrorist cult after slaughtering his men and tearing him to pieces" or "overthrow a cruel government and set yourself up as ruler to protect the people." It's just one of those cultural divides, I guess, like how you don't tip bartenders in England.
Dancing on the line between villain and hero (depending on your perspective and if he's fighting for you or against you), he's fiercely loyal to his allies, has a strong sense of nobility, but also a temper that lead him to massacre an entire nation of people when the leaders of the country sent four quasi-literal "horsemen of the apocalypse" out to kill his wife and brother-in-law.
In other words, he's complex, and that makes for an awesome villain.
4. Atomic Skull
First off, that's an awesome design.
Second, the Atomic Skull is what you call a "tragic" villain. Exposed to radiation during a really lame major event in the DC Universe, the Atomic Skull gained superhuman strength and his skin turned invisible. He was later attacked by a gang and gained brain damage that caused him to forget his own identity and become delusional.
Seeing what he looked like, he became convinced he was "The Atomic Skull," the hero of a movie serial from a long time ago, which would normally be fine except he became convinced that Lois Lane was the love interest from the serial and that Superman was the villain from it.
He later was cured of the madness and attempted to be a hero for a little while, but writers got lazy trying to make him interesting and turned him back into a villain again. I realize the last sentence there sort of fights against my listing him as a great villain, but if they had just stuck with that original story line of a man convinced he was the hero and he couldn't convince anybody else that the man they all worshiped was the villain, I think that has some strong storytelling potential.
Personally, I love the idea of a man who's convinced he needs to kill the world's greatest hero, but he still sees other villains as villains, but he can't get the help of other heroes due to that whole "I want to kill Superman" deal.
3. Catman ... I mean Deadshot ... I mean Scandal ... you know what, the whole Secret Six.
.jpg)
I love this team so much. The fact the series ended and I'm probably never going to see most of the people who were members again in the new reboot universe makes me sad beyond words. Gail Simone managed to take several of the most overlooked villains in the DC Universe and turned them into a team that might not be able to hold their own against the Justice League, but could cause some major damage to whoever they were fighting, be it a squad of heroes or other villains.
They also walked a fine line between heroes and villains, taking a more brutal approach to jobs, but keeping a sense of honor throughout. They despised slavery of innocent people, but wouldn't hesitate to take assassination jobs. They'd fight to protect small business owners from a street gang, but would later destroy stockpiles and warehouses. They helped save numerous small children who were going to be kidnapped and/or killed in Gotham City, but they would help conquer an entire country if it served their purposes.
They fell in love, developed relationships, and ended relationships. Catman gave up his own son so the child could never be used as a weapon against him (even telling the boy's mother he died). Scandal had one of the first openly gay relationships I remember in comics between primary characters, and we even saw Bane and Deadshot go on a few dates.
They were great, deep characters, and the slightly rotating cast (including members such as Knockout, Black Alice, Jeanette (a banshee), Harley Quinn, and others) kept things fresh with new interactions and new story hooks.
I loved this team.
2. Per Degaton
Three things need to be established right off the bat.
1) He fought the good guys in World War II. I don't know if he was ever an official Nazi, but I believe he's been referred to as such.
2) He's a time traveller.
3) He has the dumbest name and costume I've ever seen.
But here's why he's awesome: he's one of the only villains with time travel who use it to realize that he can't beat the good guys. He actually went through to see what each hero's fate ultimately is on the Justice Society, and realized that he doesn't defeat and/or kill any of them.
So what does a villain do when he realizes he can't be a really effective villain? He becomes twistedly evil.
He travels back to where each hero dies and watches them die. He even stands over them as they take their last breath and he gloats. He does this multiple times, enjoying watching the show each time he does it. He goes to when the teenage hero Stargirl gets her heart truly broken for the first time and watches repeatedly. He shows up and random times and tells the heroes when something bad is about to happen to them or tell them that he just watched them die.
Oh, and he works with other villains to not just try to defeat the good guys, but to completely take control of the time stream so he can change the past, present, and future (and in fact succeeds at least once before the heroes get sent back in time to stop him).
Just the idea, though, of a villain smart enough to realize when simple "bwa ha ha kill the heroes" plans aren't going to be successful, who instead takes private glee at witnessing the personal failures of each person who ever foiled him.
To me, that's almost as evil as Darkseid handing over that VHS tape that one time.
1) The Rogues
Can I go back to that old Ask Erik and change my zombie team? Because I think this team would be awesome to have at my back.
The Rogues might be the greatest villain team to ever exist, in my humble opinion. Each one with a fantastic power (ice, fire, weather, um, mirrors...look, it makes sense in the comics), the rogues are the blue collar villains of the DC Universe. The don't have grandiose plans for world domination. They don't want entire countries bowing at their feet.
They just want to do the crimes, get away with the haul, and not worry about heroes stopping them. But even then, they have strict rules. They don't kill cops, because cops are just doing their jobs. They don't kill superheroes (except for that one time they were tricked into doing it) because they're smart enough to realize that doing so would bring the wrath of every other superhero down on them. They don't kill helpless civilians (they might put them in danger, but that just means Flash has to help them instead of stopping the bad guys). They also have a ridiculous sense of honor, and each one of them, at some time or another, I believe, has helped the Flash defeat other foes or helped save the world.
They are loyal to other Rogues to a fault, and any time one of them breaks the rules or betrays the team in some way, they deal with it "in house." You have a drug problem? Get over it, or you're out. You have a neurosis you're trying to keep under control? They'll have your back and help talk you down when you need it.
I find them to be completely enjoyable to read any time I see them, and I loved their appearance in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon when Orion and Batman struggle against them because it's so easy to underestimate a guy who shoots ice out of a gun and dresses like the boy from Ice Climbers.
Either way, in my book they are the greatest true "villains" of the DC comics universe (who don't fight Batman) an- you know what, I take it back. I think they might really be the best villains in the DC universe, period, as long as they're done right. I've read some of their stuff in the new DC universe, and so far they seem to be doing okay, but I'm not ready to call it great yet.
Runners Up: Cheshire, Gentleman Ghost, Mr. Mind, Parasite
No comments:
Post a Comment