What a bunch of bad dicks.
In case you missed it, my mate Tom McGhee produced a definitive list of the greatest comic superheroes of all-time – seeing as I know nothing about comics and my definition of a superhero is Mighty Mouse.
It generated plenty of debate, with many nodding their virtual heads in approval, whilst others raging that a) Superman was completely absent; and b) there was a perceived bias against DC Comics characters.
Due to popular demand (at least three people), Tom has returned like [insert reference to a superhero who famously returned once] to provide a list of best/worst supervillains of all-time. Is it comprehensive? I have no idea.
Over to Tom…
I blame Christopher Nolan. With Joel Schumacher effectively killing the genre – George Clooney’s bat nipples were *not* well received – the idea of a successful superhero film had left the building (the film building – it’s in Hollywood).
Enter Nolan, along with some fantastic casting, and the modern superhero genre was born; a genre which now accounts for 78% of Studios output (don’t check this). Of all these films – Marvel: largely great, DC: largely awful, Fox: just stop – the two most recent films have been dedicated almost entirely to villains.
Now, although both these films were terrible (I haven’t seen either to be honest), it does lead me nicely into this top 10 supervillain list (the other list did as well to be honest, but Noz wanted a longer intro…)
10. Doomsday
Largely rubbish, Doomsday (aka The One Who Killed Superman), killed Superman. Like proper fucked him up to death. Grown on ancient Krypton through a process of being tortured to death and cloned, he shockingly went bananas and killed his creators before launching on a 245,000 year slaughter-fest – eventually leading him to Earth/punching Superman’s face off. Also shockingly, Superman came back to life again later.
9. Galactus
Complicated this one – it’s a bit unfair to class him as a villain, but he’s definitely not a hero and there isn’t a ‘Cosmic devourer of worlds’ category. Like a tsunami (but in the form of a MASSIVE guy with like the best costume), if you can see him, you’re pretty much fucked. Unless that is you have ‘The Ultimate Nullifier’, which was given to Reed Richards by the Silver Surfer, acting as Galactus’ herald. Galactus might also be Franklin Richards, Reed Richards son…like I said – complicated.
8. Mystique
It’s like Annie Lennox sang Thorn in my Side just for her. Thanks to Fox/Jennifer Lawrence, everyone thinks of Mystique as some Prof X/Magneto cast-off; in truth (by which I still mean ‘fiction’), she is unbelievably badass. She went toe-to-toe with Wolverine and came closer than most, and is usually involved in most of the X-Men’s worst experiences. The fact they continue to trust her on occasion reflects badly on them in my opinion.
She can mimic anyone and had a kid with Sabretooth (who later ran an anti-mutant platform for President…but was shot by a future version of his mum…and then was later dug up and infected with the phalanx techno-organic virus. Puts Mourinho’s Watford result in perspective.)
7. Sabretooth
Basically the evil Wolverine, Victor Creed was originally intended to be Wolverine’s dad. The idea was leaked though, so they made him his arch-nemesis and changed their relationship to a 100 year fight-off. That was made much harder for him recently due to Logan cutting off his head, but that turned out to be a clone and he’s back.
After a spiritual inversion, he is now good, working with the X-Men in Wolverine’s absence (NB: He had a kid with Mystique, who got shot by Mystique, and brought back to live as a techno-organic creature at the behest of Bastion, a Sentinel with access to the future. Puts Mourinho’s Feyenoord result in perspective.)
6. Ra’s Al Ghul
Batman’s less famous but equally awesome nemesis, The Demon’s Head has been alive for centuries thanks to his frequent Lazarus baths (like a spa which makes you virtually immortal). Leader of the *Bane Voice* League of Shadows, Ra’s is Batman stripped of his moral code and given awesome sword skills.
Despite his megalomania, he and Batman share a mutual respect for the other, with Ra’s long ago deducing Batman’s true identity but keeping it on the DL. He’s also Damian Wayne’s granddad (Talia – Ra’s daughter – and Batman are somewhat friendlier in the comics…)
5. Elektra
Elektra Natchios falls into a kinda grey area; experiencing the kind of childhood that needed martial arts training at age 9, she later watched her father get gunned down in front of her (whilst attending Columbia with a certain Matt Murdock).
Abandoning her studies, she moved to Japan where she was further trained by the enigmatic Stick before, in what would prove to a really bad career move, joining The Hand (proper bad ninjas). It kinda went downhill from there (Assassin/Kingpin enforcer/murdered/attempted Hand resurrection/actual resurrection, but part of soul missing). After she returned, she hooked up with Wolverine. And it kinda went downhill from there again (further reading: a lot)
4. Mr Sinister
Mister Sinister was an 80s creation, a time when people thought the ‘Mister’ bit sounded good. It didn’t. Now more commonly referred to as just Sinister (or Essex), he’s one of the few X-Men villains who have stood the pace. Born in Victorian London, Nathaniel Essex was an outspoken geneticist fascinated with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Long story short, this eventually brought him into contact with En Sabah Nur.
Making a deal with the devil, Essex allowed Nur to transform him into Sinister (the moniker being the last words his dying wife spat at him – romantic.) With hindsight, this was a mistake. Anyway, he was then responsible for nearly every X-event involving Cyclops/Phoenix and the birth of Cable (NATHAN Summers). Seemingly immortal/invincible, his powers seem to be almost anything. Loves making a clone.
3. Magneto
Yeah, I know he was on the other list but like I said, he’s been both. And whether it’s drowning a Russian submarine, ripping the adamantium from Logan’s bones, or simply decapitating his own son, when it comes to being badass, Mags is *really* good at it.
Remember that time he pretended to be Xorn and claimed to heal Xavier’s spine? Remember when he EMP’d the entire planet? Remember when he sent Jean and Logan into the sun? Remember when he was gonna reverse the Earth’s poles? Remember when he gave Phoenix an electromagnetic stroke? Good times, what a guy.
2. The Joker
Hard call this, but I didn’t want a DC win. Perhaps the most famous of supervillains, the Joker is Batman’s opposite – summed up best by Alfie’s “Some men just want to watch the world burn” quote in TDK. Another character who has undergone so many re-writes its difficult to keep up, latest developments had him turn out to be an ersatz Pennywise of Gotham, which is awesome.
Too many career highlights to mention, but for me: crowbarring Jason Todd to death was long overdue (Jason was a dick); trying to break Jim Gordon in The Killing Joke (the shared laugh at the end being glorious); cutting his own face off and stapling it to a wall (not so funny to be honest). That said, almost battering Alfred to death was a step too far and after the inevitable smack-down/cave collapse/being buried alive with batman, whereabouts is unknown.
1. Apocalypse
You’d never know from the Power Rangers character in the movie, but Apocalypse is beyond awesome.
The first mutant, En Sabah Nur is left to the Egyptian desert as a babe due to his face. Taken in by the fearsome Baal, leader of the Sandstormer nomads, he is raised upon the credo which becomes the definition of his existence: survival of the fittest. Turns out that he’s also a mutant of immeasurable power, which always helps.
Over the next few millennia he is well busy, starting up cults (he’s their God), transforming former rulers into living stone slaves, discovering Celestial technology, stealing it, fighting Dracula, Thor in the 12th Century, and so on.
Having wreaked havoc on the X-Men for decades, he recently came back as a much more benevolent figure to ‘save’ mutant-kind, although this also turned out to be a Machiavellian scheme, leading him to be currently deceased (not proven: the Celestials took him). He is also alive as – you’ve guessed it – a child clone, to whom Deadpool has given Superman’s back-story and everyone is scared of.
Honourable mentions: Dr Doom, Exodus, Thanos, Two-Face
Nowhere fucking nears: Suicide Squad, any Spiderman villain – terrible, terrible villains. The Vulture? I could beat him up.
That was Tom. This is Noz. He lost me at ‘Ultimate Nullifier’.
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