So I finished reading the TPB of the recent New Invaders series from Marvel, and it’s occured to me that one of the villains, Meranno, is one of the most hateful scumfucks I’ve seen yet in a comic book. Besides the whole Nazi thing and being involved in numerous acts of death and devastation, he’s also a serial rapist who sexually abused his own daughter.
Of course, comic super-villains have a lot of crimes to answer for. Joker crippled Batgirl, Bullseye killed two of Daredevil’s lovers, and Galactus has devoured how many worlds? That’s just a few obvious examples. I think Baron von Strucker should be shot just for giving his twins those awful matching names (Andrea and Andreas – ick!). What’s your pick for most hateful villain in a comic book series? Don’t just name names, you also have to back up your pick.
Magog. In … I don’t recall if it was ‘Kingdom Come’ or ‘Kingdoms’, he
Travels forward through time to each day Superman exists, and kills him off a different way each time, starting at the ‘far end’ of the spectrum, so he has the ‘pleasure’ of killing him off without damaging his later pleasure.
Perhaps only hateful of one person, but trully… Hateful.
Though, to his credit, he wasn’t (as far as I know) a sex offender.
Then there’s the Lethal Legion. “Uncle Heini” and “Uncle Joe” on the same team. :eek:
I suppose we should probably exclude villains who are the clones/reincarnations/robot-encased brains of infamous real-world tyrants, shouldn’t we? :smack:
Oh! I remember one…there was a thread here, years ago (I can’t find it now.), about the “Most Despicable Acts by a Comic Villain,” and someone mentioned a villain (Can’t remember who it was, but he was described as “having the powers of a ‘Dr Who’ Time Lord, but insane.” Something like that.) who, in the middle of a battle with the heroes, popped back in time molested one of the heroines when she was a child, and then went back to the fight, which seriously screwed up the heroine’s psyche.
:eek: Jeez. Now that’s evil. Not the classy, “Lawful” evil, either. Whoever he was, 'hope something suitably nasty befell him.
Ranchoth. A jaw dropping moment from Mark Millar and Frank Quitely’s run on THE AUTHORITY.
As I recall, the villain suffered a moment of great empathy with all living creatures that prevented him from wantonly killing – the heroes took that moment to kill his ass wantonly: burned alive. The superheroine in question kicked his flaming decapitated head off.
Seconded. “Galactus does what Galactus must”. And when he met the Beyonder at the outset of “Secret Wars”, he was all for having the big B take away his insatiable hunger. He seems to be a long way above anything like malice or cruelty.
I remember that, as well as reading a ‘secret origins’ story on the big G. It basically ends with him explaining how he will end up giving back to the universe much more than he has ever taken from it. The reader is left wondering whether
there’s something bigger and badder than Galactus out there, and he’ll defend us from it
2)all of the worlds he consumes will be the building blocks of a new universe after some universe-wide cataclysm
I second the evil Doctor from the Authority, btw…though that series was chock full of truly vile characters (some of them were even villains!)
Back when Alan Moore wrote Miracleman, Kid Miracle had an “evil side” he kept bottled up. The evil side kept taunting him and insisting KM turn him loose whenever the kid was in trouble.
One time KM was in a hospital in a coma, when one of the orderlies was doing something perverted to him. The evil side finally got him to remove his barriers. The evil side came out, took over KM’s body, and killed everybody in the hospital, leaving dismembered corpses lying everywhere. Except for one nurse.
First panel: She’s paralyzed with fright, sobbing uncontrollably.
Second panel: KM comes up to her and tells her he spared her life because she was the only one who showed him any kindness.
Third panel: He’s leaving, while she’s muttering thanks to God and Jesus for letting her live.
Fourth panel: He’s back, and tells her, “I’m terribly sorry. They’d think I had grown soft, wouldn’t they?”
Well, hell. Although there have been some stories published in graphic novel format, Wild Cards, though a series about people with super-human powers, is not firstly a comic book. And that is a real shame, because Puppetman is one seriously evil son of a bitch.
This was after one of the other members of the Authority sneaked into the ultra-high security prison where the villain was being held, and under cover of a holographic projector showing the villain alone in his cell, tortured the guy mercilessly to extract some bit of information.
There never really were any superheroes in THE AUTHORITY; I think that was the point.
Another comic universe with no heroes, albeit for a different reason, was Mark Waid’s Empire. The Doctor Doom-like character Golgoth has ruled Earth for a decade after having defeated all the planet’s superheroes, and now is only faced with occasional isolated pockets of resistance. In one instance, rebels have taken over an island; although Golgoth’s forces could easily eradicate them from the air, he instead decides to use them as an object lesson by demonstrating his unlimited power and resources. He has his forces surround the island and begin construction of a giant bridge from the mainland. Every day the blockaded rebels see the bridge growing nearer and nearer to completion, until at last Golgoth’s tanks roll across and kill everything on the island. That’s pretty messed up, I thought.
The most hateful super-villain in Empire, though, is writer Mark Waid, who created such a fascinating backdrop for a series, made me wait something like two years for the rest of the story to be published after the original comic company went under, and then pissed the entire premise away with one of the limpest, wettest non-conclusions ever.
Killed his lover in order to use her enchanted skin as a new, magical suit of armor.
Used baby Valeria as a medium for his spells to attack the Fantastic Four.
Sent Reed, Johnny and Franklin to Hell.
He seems to have lost whatever admirable qualities he once had.
Torquemada, from the old Nemesis The Warlock strip.
He’s a demented bigot who thinks all aliens are “impure” and should be exterminated, and ruthlessly carries out this policy on a murderous religious crusade.
He killed Nemesis’ infant son with a hedge-trimmer.
He keeps aliens in concentration camps, relieving them of their valuables before their deaths. Tortures and experiments on them, as he does with human captives: has quite literally written the book on torture.
He profiteers off his bigotry, selling kitschy items proclaiming the owners purity: buying them is strongly recommended, as is denouncing family members for impurity.
He ruthlessly polices the population of Earth, instantly anyone even suspected of dissent. This even extends to the unconscious. “Sleep is no refuge for impure thoughts.”
He makes a hypocritical exception to these purity laws for himself, secretly donning a custom-tailored alien body after his human frame was destroyed, and killing his guards in order to destroy any hint of suspicion.
Drove his first wife insane. Had her locked up. Coveted another man’s wife. Like Davis with Uriah, sent said soldier off on a suicide mission in order to pinch her. Drove her insane too. Locked her up. Did I mention he locked his brother up?
Per Degaton in the JSA series is a pretty hateful villain. As a time traveler he enjoys going to different time periods to witness the suffering of the heroes in the JSA. He even taunts them with how they will fail in the future, and that he will outlive them all. He’s a perfectly villainous villain.
Reverse Flash (the new one) is another hateful villain. He is mind is so twisted, he is convinced that he has to harm supervillains and cause them to suffer horrible tragedy not because it is an “evil” thing to do, but because if the hero survives the tragedy, they will be a “stronger” hero. That’s pretty hateful, regardless of his mental gymnastics that justify the deeds.
Did I mention I really enjoy Geoff Johns’ writing?
IIRC Johnny Bates was out of the coma and in an orphanage when some of the other boys decided to rape him. He whispered “I’m sorry, Miracleman” releasing KM.
He not only killed everyone there, he proceeded to slaughter almost all of London, doing various bizarre things with the body parts just to attract the attention of MiracleMan.
In Starman, The Mist’s daughter does something spoilery but definitely hateful:
She drugs and rapes Jack Knight in a successful effort to get pregnant so she can hide away and bear his child, who she will raise to hate Jack and eventually become his supervillian nemesis. He has no idea until she writes him a letter after the baby is born to inform him of her plans.
The Purple Man is a mind controlling villain. It was recently revealed (in Alias? The Pulse? Daredevil? One of Bendis’ books) that he kept Jessica Jones as his slave for something like a year, humiliating her in every way imaginable.
Alias. While I can’t say I approve of his actions, I do like the way some writers take hoary old villians and actually make them villainous, rather than Kapowie pathetic.