Oh For A Secure Undisclosed Location

[filkertom]

We've got Hurricane Irene bearing down on NC, with paths projecting it heading right up the coast into New York and New England.

We had a frickin' East Coast earthquake yesterday.

I'm supposed to be getting severe thunderstorms and possibly a tornado.

I'm seriously beginning to think we're passing out of the realm of nature and into supervillainy.

Who's your favorite supervillain, and least favorite? Mine's Doctor Doom, if he's well-written, with a lot of love for Thanos and The Red Skull. Least favorite? Norman Osborn, no question. Somehow, everything they've done with him in the past fifteen years (including, y'know, bringing him back to life in the first place) has seemed pathetic.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

At their best, the Joker and Harley Quinn are hard not to love. Well, in a "wow, I wish I were that good, if not that evil" sort of way. On the Marvel side, I'd have to concur with Doctor Doom, though with a serious nod to Magneto.

Vice versa, I really hate what Marvel has done to and with Loki. I mean, the dude's a freakin' GOD, and he is often played as dumber than a box of rocks. Back in DC-land, there's not one Flash villain for whom I have any respect at all. Clowns, the lot of them.

At least yesterday's alleged earthquake (hey, I slept through it; it might even have happened :-) isn't the result of one or another Supermales punching Time, or turning the Earth backward to reverse time. I think.

[sdelmonte]

Sinestro. Because in his mind and heart, he's a hero. Because everything he's done with the Sinestro Corps is about bringing order to the universe through fear. He's a bad guy, of course. Little more than a tyrant. But he's so much more interesting than most villains. And most heroes. (The news that he will, at least for a while, be the lead in the rebooted Green Lantern comic really thrills me. Because he has layers that Hal Jordan never will.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The Joker would easily get my nod for Best Villain if I could cherry-pick the stories. After a certain point, the "oh he's crazy and homicidal ha ha ha" bit wears thin. Same reason I'm not that fond of Deadpool.

Magneto's had a few too many heel/face turns for me to really respect him. The movie Magneto is much better, in my opinion -- he's focused.

I try not to think about Loki too much. Just... gaaaaaah.

The only member of the Rogues Gallery I ever liked was Digger Harkness, the original Captain Boomerang, and only because of his turn in Identity Crisis, which had many problems but Digger damn sure wasn't one of 'em. Apart from that, yeah. Especially given some of their staggering potential power levels. (Mirror Master vs. Animal Man, in the Grant Morrison run, was pretty fun.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Green Lantern: First Flight handled that so well. Didn't hurt that Sinestro was voiced by Victor Garber.

[cathain.livejournal.com]

It's the run-up to 2012! Quick! Hide!
OTOH maybe Jesus really *is* gearing up to come back. God knows I hope so. SOMEBODY needs to get these stupid Christianists in hand.
However, I have this sinking felling that if he ever did come back the ones he'd take are not the ones who *think* they are going.

[aulayan.livejournal.com]

Gaddaffi, like all supervillains, has started up his doomsday devices. The earthquake generator and the weather machine.

As for villains. Doom, Magneto. Johns-written Captain Cold. (I had to throw someone from DC in there)

[dhstein.livejournal.com]

here's an odd choice - Chase Young from Sholin Showdown. He was well written.

[ericcoleman]

Lizzie and I had the same conversation about The Joker this morning.

I had forgotten Digger. I need to see what I have in my boxes.

[ericcoleman]

Magneto, Dr Doom and, as you said above, when written well, The Joker.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Hard for me to pick a comic villain, since I haven't really picked one up since I got out of college. If I was forced to choose I'd go with Omni-Man (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Invincible), just because he managed to live for over fifteen years among humans pretending to be a Superman when he really was a General Zod.

Right now my favorite webcomic supervillian is the Gene Mage (http://www.terinu.com/GalleryImage.aspx?Gallery=6&Image=4) from chaypeta's comic Terinu (http://www.terinu.com/). He's a punch-clock villain who'd much rather be working in his labs than helping his race conquer the universe, but he barely notices when someone asks for a genocidal plague to be cooked up. You don't get more dangerous than that.

[djonn]

Hmmm.

Favorite archvillain: easily Demona, from the animated series Gargoyles. She's impeccably devious and strongly motivated; she has reasons for the plots and schemes she hatches, and she's among the very rare archvillain characters in modern media that is both forthrightly wicked and tragically sympathetic. No one from the DC or Marvel universes really compares. (Some Gargoyles fans may argue a case for David Xanatos, with good reason; Xanatos is arguably more fun to watch as he schemes, and the TV Tropes folks have rightly named various plot tropes after him. But Demona's more emotionally complex, and so a more interesting character at the end of the day.

Least favorite villain: the Joker. The more DC's writers make him into an archetype rather than a character, the less interesting he gets, and the harder it is to find reasons to read about him.

[djonn]

Not all that odd, now that you mention him; you're right, that series did an excellent job of making him considerably more interesting than most archvillains.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

That's what I mean about "at their best" -- in the many stories in which the Joker is not merely a homicidal maniac, but a genius, or does a sudden, utterly unexpected bit of kindness, or Harley demonstrates true love even as she executes a criminal plot just to get a medium-level compliment. Unfortunately, the stories in which the writer just plays the Joker for insane and violent are legion.

I should also say that I have a soft spot for Bizarro and Solomon Grundy, again when they're not just treated as cardboard counters. Their stories play well for tragedy and human interest, but they're all too often written as buffoons.

[ldydragon7.livejournal.com]

Magneto when he is written well, is my favorite villain - though I agree with the length of time he's been written in the comics and the multiple heel/face turns its getting a bit ridiculous.

I really enjoy Deadpool, but not in the villain role, and I'm really picky about who writes him. What I love about him are the times he tries to be a hero but its hard and he has his moments of 'I'm not good at this, why should I even bother' but then something convinces him to try anyway. When he tries to do the right thing it’s a constant struggle, and his sense of right and wrong is skewed enough that he sometimes has trouble even figuring out what the right thing to do is. That is what I find interesting about him. The 'haha I'm funny and crazy' is just one layer to his character. Unfortunately they way he is being written right now seems to be focusing solely on that aspect of him which is why I've been avoiding any of the newer stuff and going back to the Joe Kelly run. The current X-Force looks like they might be giving him some of the Joe Kelly characterization so I might try reading that at some point.

Ummm wow, I didn’t really mean to go on quite so long about Deadpool. *blush*

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Someone once said the most interesting thing about Batman are his opponents. I can understand that. Isn't the first question in any Batman (or superhero movie for that matter) is "Who's the villain?"

[j-e-richards.livejournal.com]

Lucretia Monkfish Heterodyne from "Girl Genius". Now there's a character who really plans ahead....

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I think Thanos is one of the better villains because he's more complex. Not just complex, but powerful. He doesn't plan bank robberies, he plots universal destruction/recreation. I like the scope of his plots and how in some ways, he goes beyond good/evil designation. He's the villain who would join the heroes when there's a bigger threat that threatens everyone. He's also more introspective than most villains I've read. More than once he has contemplated his current path and justified his actions to himself. Some of his lines have been surprisingly deep. At the end of Infinity Wars he's sitting alone in the dark thinking, "Prophets and devils constantly make promises. But in the end, their words always prove empty. Salvation, whatever that may be, will never be found amongst the external. It is always within."

[90scartoonman.livejournal.com]

When written well, I can see why the big ones ARE the big ones, meaning Doom, Magneto, and Luthor.

I've liked some of what they've done with Osborn after they brought him back, but the problem is, very often he just come across as a second rate Lex Luthor.

I also have a special place in my heart for Captain Cold and Mysterio, not big name threats by any means, but always enjoyable.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

While he's been walking the line between villain and hero lately, Helmut Zemo is still one of my favorite villains, as well as a member of the select "World Conqueror Club," with a duration that is second only to Victor von Doom.

Least favorite villain? Stilt-Man or Rainbow Raider.

Least favorite A-list villain? Prometheus, who was designed to be ridiculously powerful for no apparent reason, and appears to be decaying rapidly. Villains should move up in the world, not down.

[gimmeahand.livejournal.com]

Since this East Coast earthquake, I'd have to vote for the villain featured on the "Extras" section of the "Dr Horrible" DVD,
TUR-MOHEL! Our national phallic symbol has actually been circumsized!!! Bet Tur-Mohel had something to do with it! ;-)

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Osborn doesn't rate that highly, in my book.

Luthor (in his current incarnation, at least) is sane. Insane villains never are as good as sane ones in my book, because the insane ones can't get my sympathy.

It's those little glimpses inside Luthor's mind, showing why he hates Superman, that make him so good to me. Because I know that people can rationalize their actions like that, he isn't just some caricature of villainy. He thinks he's the hero, even as he goes down the slippery slope.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"I really hate what Marvel has done to and with Loki."

Worse, he's not just any god. Marvel's version of him is a trickster god. He's supposed to be the smartest guy in the room. He's not necessarily the wisest guy in the room, but he should be the smartest.

"there's not one Flash villain for whom I have any respect at all."

I don't think you're supposed to respect them. They're jumped-up bank robbers, one and all. They don't have the ambition to be great villains.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Trickster god is fine -- he is a trickster in the tales. You're exactly correct, though: he's supposed to be smart, and unlike other trickster gods (say Anansi, or Coyote) he not only doesn't tend to get caught in his own tricks, but is malicious, above and beyond being a trickster. We get that last, but rarely the other, in Marvel's version of him.

The problem with Flash constantly defeating jumped-up bank robbers is that, even more than usual in superhero comics, a man is judged by the quality of his enemies. The way you describe them, Flash would be a third-rater, when in fact there have been times and incarnations of the hero that place him the top rank. (Mostly I'd say he's right there with the Atom and Green Arrow in terms of quality, despite being much higher-powered.)

[ldydragon7.livejournal.com]

Seconded very, very much.

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

Costumed person beating the crap out of a street gang/bank robber/anther costumed person (this one having killed people).. I place money on #2. May not be a sure bet all the time, but pretty serious money, none-the-less. :)