Board 8 > Scarlet Ranks 225 User-Nominated Super-Villains: Part II

(+) Yeah! (+)

The last topic filled up, and so here we go on part dos.

I plan to still start this tomorrow barring any unforeseen complications; my store is pretty much running smoothly, and I'm ready to get back to this.

Thanks to Wickle, I have all of the old write-ups, and they can be posted on the Board 8 wiki if anyone desires to re-read them.

Anyways, #142 was where we left off, and I'll pick up with it tomorrow!
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Snake5555555555 posted...

Retag

Retag.
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Tag! Glad to see this again and can't wait for more.
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#143 - Merlyn (Arthur King) Nominated by: Cybat
First Appearance: Justice League of America #94 (Nov. 1971)
Created by: Mike Friedrich, Dick Dillin, Neal Adams

Fundamentals: 5/10
Track Record: 5/10
Scarlet Factor: 6/10

I have a soft spot for the average villain. And that's exactly what the comic version of Merlyn is. His best appearances aren't as a primary antagonist but as part of the gang, part of that club of villains that rotates in and out of team titles and larger events. Merlyn is a body in the war between good and evil (if you can call it that).

Take a look at events like Identity Crisis, for example. Merlyn props up his feet on a a table and hangs out in the Calculator's anti-Justice League satellite. Why? Because he's a midcard threat who, like most people in the world, enjoys a little downtime. He's a man who wants to just grab a beer with his friends. He's a simple, honest, hard-working bad guy. For me, that's the kind of villain I like. The villain with a life. That's why Flash's Rogues are so great. That's why the Superior Foes of Spider-Man was a fantastic little run. Give me Merlyn over a Magneto any day. Give me a normal person with some extraordinary skills.

It's hard to quantify why having casual villainy is so important to comic books. I think if I was to take a stab at it, it's because we all have a little streak of larceny in our blood. And to see evil humanized - at least the palettable version of evil that Merlyn represents - makes it easier for us to set the heroes on a pedestal and dehumanize them at the same time. When it's easier to relate to a Riddler struggling with his own weaknesses than the ultimately cold and callous force of vengeance trailing him in a bat costume, you can't help but root for the bad guy a little bit. And when the villains are more, shall we say, "social" than the heroes... Look. If the villains can get their shit together and hang out and act like normal people while even the most godlike beings in the DC Universe are all on the outs and incapable of even being in the same room with one another without blowing up, then you can't help but think that the bad guys who commit the lighter comic book crimes might not be all that bad. At least they're socially well-adjusted.

Of course, that isn't to say that Merlyn is some fantastic demonstration of phenomenal writing aptitude. Even on the show Arrow, it's quite clear that Merlyn himself isn't a creative bastion of a house of ideas. Rather, the crux of Merlyn is all personality. Otherwise, you're just dealing with a less political Green Arrow. The show Arrow pretty much proves that it's all in the voice and the performance. There's nothing really going for Merlyn; he's got a simple gimmick without much depth. He's easy to understand and remember, but beyond that... there's not a hell of a lot to him. It just takes a good writer to motivate this character and propel him beyond mediocrity.
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yay, tag
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I just looked up Merlyn.

I wonder how often a character isn't a master martial artist and genius-level at some skill.
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I honestly can't imagine a situation in which I would want average skill-level villains with no gimmicks.
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#141 - Magneto (Eric? Max? Who the fuck knows) Nominated by: Johnbobb
First Appearance: X-Men #1 (Sep. 1963)
Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Fundamentals: 9/10
Track Record: 5/10
Scarlet Factor: 3/10

I want to talk about perversion.

The perversion I'm speaking of is this - when great characters go bad. And by bad, I mean badly written, replete with origin change after origin change to attempt to justify bad decisions made by a character who flits between good and evil like a leaf in a breeze. Magneto is just such a character, a mutant mastermind that is corrupted by writer after writer after writer. The story of the young boy who watched the world around him treat the young Magneto and his family like monsters is the story that should in theory shape and develop this character into the broken man he is in modern times. But then, of course, you have writers come along and make him an actual Nazi soldier and the entire conceit of the character is thrown out the window.

The relationship between Xavier and Magneto is a tense one, but you build to a Magneto slowly coming to accept that Xavier might have the right answers only to yank that away. And there's nothing wrong with having the rift be repaired and restored once or twice, but to consistently allow Magneto to switch sides is insanity. What is most important to understand about Magneto is he is angry and feels as if he has nothing to lose. That's all that matters. Magneto isn't a misguided character - he's an evil character. I think Grant Morrison probably provided the best take on the character ever; he's a damned terrorist, a sick old man who has lost sight of everything good in the world. The reason the Xavier and Magneto relationship is so interesting is that Xavier is weak and Magneto is strong. But Xavier is right and Magneto is wrong, and both of them know it. So Magneto tries from time to time to do it the right way, gets frustrated, and decides to take the easy route.

Magneto is a racist and a fearmongering warmongerer. Yet, as is always the case with the X-franchise, fans like fan service. Writers tend to cater to fans in order to garner sales, and therefore we get good guys borne from nonsensical bad guys. Mystique is a manipulator and a coward. Magneto is a terrorist. The Juggernaut is a brutish monster with a massive hate boner for his own brother. These characters are about as incapable of heroics as possible, but the desire to root for these characters from X-fans (a fanbase that has about as much nuance as a sledgehammer) creates schizophrenic versions of every character. It's why, literally in the same year, Magneto both tried to destroy the Earth by warping its entire magnetic field and also attempt to save the world from the Beyonder.

What is most important to note about a character like Magneto is that his forays into heroics have always always ALWAYS resulted in failure. In fact, it's always the exact same story arc. Magneto works with a random assortment of X-characters, the going gets tough, Magneto essentially checks out, and everyone dies. That's Genosha. That's Age of Apocalypse. That's Magneto. And yet, this idea that telling the same story over and over and expecting different results still persists. Magneto is an asshole. Get used to it.

I don't have much room left, but Magneto is also the victim of massive oversaturation in the market. I'll cover this more with later villains, but let me tell you something important - if you are putting a character into a story just because that character sells comics, you're doing it wrong. Magneto is often a victim of bad characterization because everyone uses him with little to no reason. If you want a character to be consistently and logically developed, stop forcing him into every other storyline.
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#140 - Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot) Nominated by: PS2_4Life
First Appearance: Detective Comics #58 (Dec. 1941)
Created by: Bill Finger and Bob Kane

Fundamentals: 6/10
Track Record: 7/10
Scarlet Factor: 4/10

When it comes to the Penguin, the comics spent decades doing him so much disservice that it's truly hard to imagine that the current generation writing comics will ever be able to undo all of the damage. Given a bird gimmick in the 40s and 50s on top of his original conceit, it's hard for me to imagine that the Penguin could ever live that down. Much like Aquaman, the corniness of the early Silver Age has never really been eradicated from the character. What the Penguin SHOULD be is far different from what he is.

Consider that Oswald's story is the tale of the logical conclusion of bullying. Decades before mass shootings at Columbine, writers saw the dangers of one of society's most easily preventable ills. Cobblepot, physically deformed and poorly treated in every aspect of his life, was a warped and twisted individual, and what he wants more than anything else is for people to care about him. But he sees himself as society has trained him to see himself - a monster, a reject, less than human. And Batman himself treats him the same way. In fact, Batman treats any obstacle in front of him with detachment, and that's why a character like Wonder Woman is always better than the Dark Knight. The Penguin could be healed - you can teach the Penguin what love is supposed to be. Instead, this poor misshapen and isolated child has been bamboozled by women preying on his financial reserves, beaten by insecure jocks looking for power, and abandoned by the family who should have cared for him.

I am a huge fan of the Gotham television series, particularly in its complete reinvention of the Penguin. However, too often the Penguin has been used as a punchline. It wasn't until the mid-90s that the Penguin began to come into his own, serving as a character who definitely is the "nicest" of Batman's villains. Penguin could most easily switch sides because he sees the value in the dollar. And there is money in not being shut down. The Penguin also has consistently been shown to have hatred for certain types of criminal. However, to him Batman his a bully like those he has fought his entire life, and it makes sense for him to be willing to side with the psychopaths of Arkham against yet another threat to Penguin's meager happiness. It all combines in a unique mishmash of warped and stunted emotions, a package that has finally started to be explored in stories like Penguin: Pain and Prejudice.

Anyways, Penguin is on his way to being a great character.
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So what you're saying is that the Apocalypse movie nailed Magneto's characterization when he tried to destroy the world and killed millions of people and everyone shrugged and let him go?
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That's pretty much how everyone treats Magneto constantly. This is a man who starred in an issue called "The Trial of Magneto!" and was given a final sentence, only to be running around cavorting with the Avengers months later.
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I've always liked Penguin quite a bit but he's never really had a solid complete story out of Pain and Prejudice. He's a character I just like to show up in larger stories I suppose, along the line of the Arkham games.
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I always point to No Man's Land as a great use of Penguin, too. He's a great facilitator.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

That's pretty much how everyone treats Magneto constantly. This is a man who starred in an issue called "The Trial of Magneto!" and was given a final sentence, only to be running around cavorting with the Avengers months later.

Man, who HASN'T been an Avenger at some point?
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I didn't say he was an Avenger. Just cavorting.

The biggest name to never be an Avenger is probably Ghost Rider.
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Tag
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#139 - Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius) Nominated by: Cybat
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #3 (Jul. 1963)
Created by: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Fundamentals: 7/10
Track Record: 6/10
Scarlet Factor: 4/10

The ranking of this character mainly boils down to one fact: I don't like fats.

Doctor Octopus is one of those designs that is just goofy enough to not be taken seriously ever while still serious enough to be utilized as a major villain. The major problem with Ock is that he's a fat guy in a track suit with big ol' goggles, and he looks like a fool. Sure, he has this dramatic story of a scientific Icarus, but he also ended up with the better end of that deal. I mean, would you rather be known by millions as you fight against heroes or just lead a sad normal existence in the Marvel Universe? If you go by the percentages, an A-List villain is more likely to survive a fight than an A-List hero in the Marvel Universe, so it's kind of a sweet deal.

I tend to feel nothing but apathy towards Ock. I'm no brilliant mind, but I would think that even in my arrogance I would realize that I dress terrible, talk like a really bad rendition of a Vaudevillian villain, and go after the superhero who is pretty much the all-time bottom of the Marvel pecking order. So when Ock tries to do something dramatic, I always remember that he's fighting against the guy who has quit more times than any other superhero - than every other superhero combined - and I realize that if Ock just sat back and waited for Spider-Man to quit again (which is always likely), he would have a free rein in downtown Manhattan.

Ock has had some recent fun with the Superior Spider-Man gimmick, and I will admit that I enjoyed the Octo Spider. However, the fun has pretty much ended and I really care so much less about the character once again. Probably because he was not fat during that brief period. I don't know.
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I understand not liking blobs but this is going a little far.

Plus the Penguin is fat too.
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Penguin's fat has a purpose to the character. Ock is just overweight. Fuck that noise. Spoilers that's only part of what contributes to a terrible dated and uninteresting design
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Ah, ok, it's more about superfluous fat.
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#138 - Solomon Grundy (Cyrus Gold) Nominated by: davidponte
First Appearance: All-American Comics #61 (Oct. 1944)
Created by: Alfred Bester and Paul Reinman

Fundamentals: 5/10
Track Record: 7/10
Scarlet Factor: 5/10

I have never seen a grunting monochromatic massive brute with shredded clothing and poor grammar who can shrug off pain be used so effectively in comics.

Wait. Let's start over.

There is so little to Solomon Grundy - what you see is exactly what you get. And I have no problem with that. What's amazing is that despite being an extremely simple character, Grundy has found his way into hundreds of appearances and permeated almost every franchise in the DCU. Solly the Grund (as Jack Knight is fond of calling him) even transcended the concept of the character entirely during the phenomenal Starman series, and his rebranding should have given him a new lease on life.

Sadly, the writers at DC continue to push only one message with Grundy - he's a violent monster and he's coming back. What Starman presented was something entirely unique: with each death, Solomon Grundy returns with a slightly different personality. When Cyrus Gold died in Slaughter Swamp, his psyche was fractured, splintered in many different consciousnesses. What resulted was a being that could return from time to time as nice or thoughtful or pensive. However, this has been largely ignored ever since (although Justice League Unlimited to explore the peaceful side of Grundy). That's utterly depressing given that it was actually a fantastic take on the character. Grundy suddenly had way more possible depth than the Hulk. Hell, he was the Hulk mixed with Legion.

Alas, what we still get to this day is a monster made of plant material that can beat the shit out of just about anybody. And don't get me wrong, I like a good fight between super-strong behemoths. But what we could have had is far more interesting.
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Scarlet, what do you think of Morrison's take on Grundy in Seven Soldiers of Victory? Would that create something interesting to explore with the character, or is it Morrison tying two things together in an interesting way to be Morrison?

I think it was a nice Morrison-type connection, but I don't think there was much to it outside of the basic presentation.
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That's fair. It caught me by surprise in a new way, so I figured I'd get your sage thoughts on it!

Starman's portrayal of Solomon was amazing. So glad to have read that excellent series.

Can't wait for Nash
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#137 - Dracula (Vlad Dracula) Nominated by: Wickle
First Appearance: Suspense #7 (Mar. 1951)
Created by: Gerry Conway and Gene Colan

Fundamentals: 5/10
Track Record: 7/10
Scarlet Factor: 5/10

This will be one of the shorter write-ups, as there isn't a ton you can say about a character who is essentially just a complete rehash of another character. Vlad-o boy was Marvel's immediate knee-jerk reaction to their revolutionary disregard for the Comics Code Authority, and what a response it was. The comic, Tomb of Dracula, was probably only a tenth as gruesome as the Hammer Dracula films of the time. However, the story stayed very faithful to the tone and continuity of the popular Dracula films of the time in many ways. Dracula was beat for beat the vampire everyone knew and loved.

After the series eventually ended in the 80s, Dracula slowly began migrating to a franchise where he didn't belong at all - the X-Men. By the 2010s, it was almost impossible to separate Dracula from the Marvel's lovable menacing mutants, and that's where I began not to care about him anymore. Marvel has this strange fixation with constantly killing off Dracula and resurrecting him as well. I think he's almost tied with Jean Grey in the death and rebirth tallies. I think most recently they had a Sentinel throw his head into the sun. I don't know.

Anyways, if you like the character of Dracula, you'll like this version too. Unless you were hoping for something more Dracula-like in terms of the stories featuring Dracula. Then you'll probably not enjoy seeing Jubilee run around as a vampire. That is just disconcerting quite frankly.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Marvel has this strange fixation with constantly killing off Dracula and resurrecting him as well.

So do the films to be fair.
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I remember seeing a Marvel thing where a panel even specifically promises that this is the end of Dracula forever, and that he'll never return no matter what.
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#136 - Trickster II (Axel Walker) Nominated by: Simoun
First Appearance: Flash #183 (Apr. 2002)
Created by: Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins

Fundamentals: 5/10
Track Record: 7/10
Scarlet Factor: 5/10

Inferior in every way to the original, Axel was a replacement for the James Jesse Trickster when said Trickster went on the straight and narrow. The brainchild of Geoff Johns, Axel was always the punk kid that the Rogues accepted begrudgingly. He was more manic than the original Trickster, but he lacked that key component that made the original Trickster so great: wit. You see, the original Trickster was a con artist as well as a big bag of gimmicks. The new Trickster was all of the visual flair with none of the mental acuity. Unlike, say, the second Blockbuster, the second Trickster did not up the game of the original character at all.

That said, Axel's interactions with the Rogues was priceless. Not for Axel, but for the Rogues. The Rogues are so tightly knit that to honor James' legacy was so important to them that they would put up with a snot-nosed brat like Axel. There is a beautiful twisted sense of duty, honor and family amongst the Rogues. You've gotta love when Captain Cold chastises Axel like a disappointed father disciplining his unruly child. It's the sort of thing that the Sinister Six would never be able to emulate. Even the gang from Arkham can't recreate the chemistry over in Flash. It's just its own thing.

Axel may be a pale imitation of a great villain, but he's still invaluable in certain respects and he deserves to be recognized as one of Johns' great early creations.
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#135 - Oliver Haddo Nominated by: Simoun
First Appearance: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (Nov. 2007)
Created by: Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

Fundamentals: 5/10
Track Record: 7/10
Scarlet Factor: 5/10

I tend to enjoy the villains that have long histories. They are able to insert themselves into a variety of settings and intertwine their experiences with those of the larger universe. Haddo is one such example, as Alan Moore wove Haddo into the Dark Lord Voldemort, and he presented the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with a compelling, century-long plot.

Now, I have to say that while I love the Moore concept of LXG, I hate his hypocritical attitude towards DC Comics in particular. Claiming they are constantly bankrupt creatively and bereft of ideas, what I see happening at DC is a renaissance fueled by a few of his old concepts. Writers like Geoff Johns have taken throwaway stories and built on them, creating better tales. Alan Moore really just tells fanfiction, a crossover-hungry cameofest of Brobdingnagian proportions. And yet Moore has the gall to claim that his clever but definitely stolen Tom Riddle storyline is on a different level creatively from the 95% original Blackest Night. Geoff Johns took one panel and made an entire crossover out of it. Alan Moore took 7 books and made 4 issues out of it.

Haddo is a great one-shot villain, and I enjoy the usage of pre-established characters in stories like this. But Haddo isn't wholly unique nor innovative, and for that, I have to bounce him here at #135.
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#134 - Nekron Nominated by: Murphiroth
First Appearance: Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #2 (Jun. 1981)
Created by: Mike W. Barr, Len Wein, Joe Staton

Fundamentals: 5/10
Track Record: 7/10
Scarlet Factor: 5/10

Nekron was a decent major antagonist for a popcorn blockbuster event, but on closer inspection there's really nothing to the guy. He wants death and oblivion. Why? Because reasons.

And that's where he falls apart. The reason I don't rank him lower is simply because he has a great design, great power set, and he has the stature to be one of those mysterious but ultra-deadly foes that requires a universe to defeat him. That's great for a title like Blackest Night. That story is about the heroes confronting their own personal demons. The Black Lantern Rings and Battery are themselves the real enemy of the story. Putting a singular face to the chaos is necessary in order to bring such a massive world-spanning story some closure. Beat this guy, the rest goes away. Simple. It's what is necessary in a Crisis-level event.

But as a villain isolated from his reason for being (in Blackest Night, at least), Nekron lacks a reason for existence. There are so many other, better forms of Death in DC, and furthermore this form of Death actually causes all of the others to fall apart. After Neil Gaiman revealed that his Death of the Endless is all forms of Death in different guises ("I'm a different face to different people"), it clicked for virtually every Death we've ever seen. Black Racer, the Grim Reaper, even the Black Flash... all of these click with Death as DC presented it. But Nekron is more of a demon in a pocket dimension than an actual dimension and yet still considered "Death" in many stories in which he is featured. So you have this massive discrepancy that Geoff Johns didn't bother addressing (and in fact confused it further by just making him the boss bitch of Black Lanterndom). Kind of a head-scratcher.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

Dracula slowly began migrating to a franchise where he didn't belong at all - the X-Men. By the 2010s, it was almost impossible to separate Dracula from the Marvel's lovable menacing mutants

Gross. MAA made me believe he was actually a villain for Blade, and I believe he was in that MI-13 comic you gave me (maybe just a minor moment away from X-men, if I'm right that it was him). Regardless, I got dumb information.
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Yeah he had a great MI-13 role. That was actually more Avengers-like than X-like.

Blade and Dracula has been popularized but it isn't as much of a comic rivalry as you would think.
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Does Nekron have to be Death or can he just be a powerful bring who feeds on death?
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Well, according to his origin story, he is an aspect of Death, also called "Lord of the Unliving", and he is an immortal living in the realm beneath the Silver City. He could just be a powerful being who feeds on death, but no one has ever said, "Hey, what was presented is now wrong."
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I know I know I know, Jesse > Axel so sorry. I wish I also nommed the first one but I had to nom the 2nd one because he was very special to my getting into the Flash. I was actually surprised he got this far up because I can't think you'd be as generous.

One of the first stories that got me into comics was when Blacksmith's Rogues terrorized the Flash. That's when I met this guy who for all intents should not even be a Flash villain and yet he pervades this sense of zaniness. I'm blinded by nostalgia goggles, admittedly. I smile everytime I see this guy. I don't know; maybe its the way random shit falls out of him whenever he gets hit or just his cheesy one-lining lack of morals. He just spoke to me on alot of levels as a kid.

Btw: What do you personally think about all the other "trick" type villains who isn't the Joker or the Riddler: Prankster, Mysterio, Toy Man, fucking Cluemaster? Would they rank significantly lower?
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If Mysterio is on point, Mysterio would win that battle. He has the strongest tech game.
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Sorry I didn't get to any write-ups today. Prepping for the Magic pre-release tonight.
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Woo, it's back!
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#133 - Kulan Gath Nominated by: Eddv
First Appearance: Conan the Barbarian #14 (Feb. 1972)
Created by: Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith

Fundamentals: 6/10
Track Record: 6/10
Scarlet Factor: 5/10

The beauty of the more mystical villains in comics is the sprinkling of little details. Kulan Gath is hardly one of the great villains in the magical side of Marvel or DC, but even the barely-above-average guys diving into the dark arts have juicy nuggets like having their hearts removed or having the essence of their soul live in a necklace. That's the sort of stuff I love. Even when it is trite and derivative (as is often the case with Kulan Gath), there's still a certain fairy tale quality to it. And not the easy-to-swallow Disney style of fairy tale, but the hard-edged and disturbing Grimm fairy tale.

Kulan Gath really doesn't have much under his belt of note. Yet if you were to ask me to name powerful Marvel villains, he would probably end up on that list. He's got the demeanor and stature that makes him feel important, even when Marvel is jobbing him out in Spider-Man storylines. And by the way, never put these magical villains in Spider-Man. They don't belong there. Spider-Man is a man of science, not a man of faith. He has nothing to offer in the spiritual realm. Kulan Gath should be tangling with Dr. Strange regularly; strangely I think they've only fought 2 or 3 times in Marvel history. But whether it's Conan and Red Sonja or more modern fare, Kulan Gath strikes quite an imposing image in any era. He deserves some real, honest-to-god development.
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Wait, Kulan is both a Conan and Marvel villain? Is Conan canonical with Marvel?
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It was.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

It was.

I did once read a thing where Red Sonja showed up in 616. I guess it's an alternate dimension?
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