The wise supervillain does not bother with revenge plots.
Now let’s be clear. I’m not counseling against revenge. Like all the members of my fraternity I am hate-filled and petty, and if I run across Aquaman in the course of an op I will pause long enough to shoot him in the liver. But I’m not going to set up an operation specifically to do so, because vengeance schemes are stupid. In the first place they don’t make you any money; in fact they cost money, and resources, and time. In the second place, putting the revenge plot in motion gives the Justice League or whoever an opportunity to bust up your lair, kick your ass, and incidentally screw up whatever actually profitable schemes you had in motion. In the third place, even if you do manage to off the hero, you’ve just motivated her friends and sidekick and little brother and mentor and so on to drop everything else they were doing, in an operation that hasn’t made you any money. And in the fourth place, REVENGE DOESN’T MAKE YOU ANY MONEY.
Like I said: revenge plots are for suckers and Welshmen. Take your vengeance as a gift, but don’t stay up at night planning it.
But that’s just me. Let’s talk about fictional supervillains and other criminal types who are too bright to bother with revenge.
True, but isn’t he giving up villainy at that point?
I’m looking for characters who, while not giving up their aspirations to loot Opar or rule the Gotham underworld or whatever, do not aspire to murder Tarzan or frame Batman for murder, because that shit ain’t worth the effort and always backfires.
Eliminating threats isn’t revenge, it’s good policy. If I, a supervillain, know that Batman is going to try to thwart my scheme to turn the Flatiron Building into cottage cheese, then Stage 1 of my plan will be “kill Batman”. Otherwise I’d just be playing defense.
As the good book says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and do it first”.
That’s not what I’m talking about. A revenge plot is a scheme whose sole purpose is to kill the hero, or frame him for a crime he did not commit (a crime whose commission does not further your other aims), or to make him mourn over the corpse of his sidekick, and so on.
Those are not profit makers. They are COST CENTERS.
I’m sorry, but I can’t see how “kill your enemy” or “eliminate your enemy’s ability to fight” is revenge. Revenge is personal; taking your rivals out is business.
Some heroes have to be eliminated if you want to do business profitably in their city. Batman may not have time to beat every street thug’s ass, but he absolutely is all over every supervillain in Gotham. You want consistent profits? You want to concentrate on business rather than recuperating from repeated physical and organizational beatdowns? You want to just not be looking constantly over your shoulder because you know Bats IS going to beat you into a coma AGAIN, you just don’t know when? Then you gotta invest time and money into killing the Bat. Not doing so betrays a penchant for wishful thinking over sharp business practice.
Arguably Mr. Glass from Unbreakable could count as a supervillain who deeds are done to justify or explain to himself his place in the world, as opposed to trying to avenge himself against real or perceived inequities.
I don’t know if Darth Vader would be counted as a supervillain, but I don’t really see him as seeking revenge against Luke. A lesser storyline would have Vader wanting to kill Luke in retaliation for destroying the Death Star, but obviously Vader’s interest in Luke is more nuanced.
Frank Miller once wrote a great conversation between Killgrave the Purple Man and Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. It was in a Marvel Team-Up Annual circa 1980. It went something like this:
Killgrave: After my last fight with Daredevil, I had this one overpowering thought in my mind.
Kingpin: Yes! You thought “I will have my revenge!”
Killgrave: No, actually it was “Who needs the grief?”
I think “revenge” is used as a villainous driver because it offers some variety from profit.
The James Bond villains (in the books) aren’t out for revenge, but for profit: Goldfinger wants to rob Fort Knox, Dr No is being paid to destroy the US missile program, Bloefeld in Thunderball is blackmail, etc. A few have a partial revenge motive (SMERSH in From Russia with Love), and I’m not sure to what extent espionage is tied into revenge. And I think the movies sometimes muddy the waters.
Walter White was determined to eliminate the danger the Aryan Brotherhood gang represented to his family. They had threatened his wife, and were divided on whether she could be trusted not to talk. Notably, when he had the chance to make Jack suffer or beg, he coolly executed him.
It’s a trope that shows up in a lot of hero/villain based stories.
In one episode of Kim Possible it goes like this:
Kim foils Drakken, lair blows up.
Kim foils Drakken, lair blows up.
Kim foils Drakken, lair blows up.
Drakken just declares a HALT to all future take over the world schemes until he’s DEALT with Kim Possible.
It’s a reasonable response to an identified trend. It may not function as revenge - though I think it can be presented that way - but it certainly is an attempt to solve an ongoing, long-term problem.
In the Next Generation episode The Battle, a Ferengi captain undertook various schemes to revenge himself upon Picard for some past grievance. Once his plot was foiled (by Riker? It’s been a while.), the the bad guy was arrested under Ferengi law for pursuing a private and unprofitable venture.
In the Miles Vorkosigan books, Baron Fell says there’s no profit in seeking revenge against Miles. He speaks dismissively of a competitor who is seeking revenge, saying that he will never rise to real power if he keeps letting personal matters interfere with his business.
With respect, this just isn’t so. Gangs in the United States routinely engage in profitable criminal enterprises, and they don’t need to destroy local police departments to do so. They make some efforts to conceal their activities from police, sometimes make efforts to intimidate or bribe police, and accept occasional arrests and busts as the “breakage” associated with any business.
“Ah,” you might say, “But those are merely ordinary criminals! My breed of super-villainy requires the absence of law enforcement, whether institutional or vigilante!”
Well, no, it probably doesn’t. The closest real-world analogues to supervillains, I’d argue, are terrorist organizations. This is not meant as a compliment, or a suggestion that these groups are somehow “cool” - just that, as with many super-villains, they (theoretically) direct their violence and criminal endeavors towards broader social or political goals. Anyway, one point Shapiro makes in “The Terrorist’s Dilemma” (The Terrorist's Dilemma | Princeton University Press) is that absolute anarchy is not an unqualified boon to terrorist organizations. Sure, they’re free from the threat posed by a hostile state government - but there’s no check upon rival groups, and living in a failed state is hard for everybody. (Getting food, electricity, water, etc, is a challenge for terrorists in a failed state, just as for everybody else.) This is one reason that, when they can, terrorists in failed states try to set up state-like institutions. (Also, of course, these institutions can advance their broader political goals).
All of which is to say - if you’re a super-villain, not only is it potentially possible for you to profitably operate within the contraints imposed by super-heroes, it may be to your advantage to let them operate; they constrain rival super-villains, and help to ensure that the basics institutions of the state continue to function while you develop your evil plan.
Of course, it’s easy to imagine circumstances in which a super-villain really can’t tolerate the existence of a super-hero; for example, this hero might be focused upon him exclusively, or possess some unique capacity to counter his schemes. But my point is that it’s not a no-brainer that taking out one’s nemesis is always good supervillain busines sense. It absolutely depends.
And, getting back to the OP: It’s still a bit early to tell, but I’d be surprised to see Whitehall from “Agents of Shield” bothering with revenge as such.
I’ve only just started the Dresden File books, but Gentleman Johnny Marconi seems to fit the bill. He really doesn’t like Dresden, and wouldn’t mourn to see him killed horribly, but he’d still really prefer him to be working for him, or at least to his benefit (it’s to nobody’s benefit if some unspeakable monster from the Nevernever eats the whole city, after all).
One plot failed, he remained one of Europe’s more powerful cardinals, and there’s a statue of him on the outside of the Louvre with hundreds of other eminent Frenchmen. I could do with some utter defeat like that.