Of all the nefarious acts of Doctor Doom, the one that first springs to my mind is the one time that he launched the Baxter Building into space. This was fairly early in his career if I recall aright.
On the other hand, the Joker had to wait nearly 60 years before chalking up the crimes for which he is most noted these days-- crippling Batgirl and killing Robin. I think his highest-profile scheme before that may have been the invention of Joker Fish. How do you even invent a fish anyway?
What would you consider the most distinctively villainous act of a given supervillain? The act that it would be necessary to include if you were trying to sum up the character? Some, like the Joker, may have more than one. Others may not have any.
This thread was inspired by the recent reappearance of Brainiac in Action Comics. Brainiac, as you may know, used to go around shrinking cities with his shrink ray and collecting them in bottles. He also had a pet monkey, which isn’t usually considered a crime. Brainiac sort of got away from the shrink ray business for a while, and I think the character’s focus suffered as a result. Ultimately, Brainiac isn’t just a superintelligent alien robot; he’s a superintelligent alien robot who wants to shrink your city. And who may or may not have a monkey. The monkey does not appear to have made the cut this time around. I submit that the monkey is optional.
To be fair, the Jokerfish and similar tactics were chemical warfare. Killing the victims (or merely incapacitating them) and leaving them with a smile on their face. The Joke that Killed. I don’t know enough about Comicbookery to know what he did in them, all I know is the movies and the Animated Series.
The Brain obviously tries to take over the world every night. That’s his schtick. I love the episode where he thinks he’s figured out that his constant failure is due to Pinky, but in the end, learns that he is his own undoing. Of course, my favorite episode is where he actually succeeds, the botches it up (The Papermache’ Earth).
Eric Cartman: From most of the places he’s cited, the whole Scott Tenorman affair is arguably his most “signature,” although I think he’s actually done much worse.
Your question was kind of a major plot point in the story since the Joker was going around killing people who told him he couldn’t patent a fish that he poisoned.
The second time it was Doom’s ward Kristoff who had been brainwashed into thinking he was Doom but received training that stopped shortly before the original escapade. Reed knew Doom wasn’t behind it because Doom had done it once before.
I think signature acts are tough to pin down on a lot of comic characters since it has to be memorable enough that people keep going back (Green Goblin and Gwen Stacy) to it or so integral to their schtick that when the villain shows up you know they’re going to do it (Galactus chowing down on planets). That kind of cuts off a lot of characters who just have long running careers where they do a lot of stuff but no definitive story about them. Dr. Octopus, for example, doesn’t have one storyline where people go “Yes, that’s what Doc Ock is about!”. He’s got a visual hook but not much in the way of resonating villainy.
There are two good examples I can think of where the villain did something particularly nasty and the consequences stuck around for a while to be revisited over and over. The Leader setting off a gamma bomb in a small western town to kill the Hulk and create other gamma powered individuals drove years worth of story lines for him. Similarly running for President and winning is an act that the modern incarnation of Lex Luthor will be remembered for.
Major Force and Alexandra DeWitt. His killing of her was a notable event in comics. He stuffed her in a refrigerator and so gave rise to the term of the same name (Women in Refrigerators).
Hell, the Joker committed a signature act in his very first appearance in the comics, emerging as a serial killer whose poison left its victims with a smile. It’s such a signature crime that writers keep going back to it in various forms.
Well, he tried to incite genocide on at least two occasions. That’s right off the top of my head.
There was also kidnapping, attempted murder, negligent homicide, (arguably) sexual assault, guilting a pregnant woman into having an abortion just so he could harvest the stem cells, leading a rebel army’s march on the Capital…
Well Cartman has quite a portfolio of villany. Exploiting his dying friend to get Congress to overturn the stem cell ban so as to build a pizza joint cheaply is at the top of the list for me.
That’s true. I guess what I was mostly asking about are individual, memorable crimes, like Green Goblin/Gwen Stacy; not a recurring M.O. like Joker venom, Mr. Freeze freezing people, or Riddler riddling things.
So CalMeacham was correct in pointing out that Brainiac’s signature crime was shrinking Kandor, not any other cities he may have also shrunk over the years. I should have been clearer; maybe “signature crime” isn’t the exact phrase I’m looking for.
I’m not sure about this one, since (a.) it’s mainly the pre-Crisis Luthor, and (b.) it’s not a singular act, but anyway: Lex Luthor’s signature (used to be anyway) that no matter how securely he was imprisoned in ultra-max facilities, he could come up with a way of escaping in any average week. I particularly liked what one novelization once said on the subject: “Luthor once figured out that by melting the ink and plastic from his ball point pen together with the binding from his notepad, and soaking the paper in the resultant mixture, he could make an explosive powerful enough to blow out the wall of his cell. But he would never, ever do that; because if he did, the next time Superman caught him they wouldn’t let him have a notepad and pen”.