O.K. I know the late 70’ and early 80’s were filled with unbelievable, silly, pathetic villains, but I want to know which one you think takes the cake.
My vote goes to Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, issue 24 from 1978…yes, the Hypno-Hustler!
Holy Crap! Peter Parker in a white disco suit fighting your stock Jimi Hendrix-reject with an afro and spiked white disco boots. And the guy actually got in a few shots against Spider-Man! Give me a break!
If I hadn’t been a 11 year-old kid at the time, I would have stopped buying comics forever at the exact moment I first viewed the Hypno-Hustler.
I once asked for someone’s opinion of a really stupid Spider-man villian for a story I was writing and he suggested the Kangaroo, who had the power of super bouncing. I couldn’t use him, since he was killed, so I used the Rhinoceros.
Probably any villain created in the 70’s qualifies as “most ridiculous.” Doctor Bong of “Howard the Duck” fame comes to mind. Most 70s Spidey-villains were up there too…the Hypno Hustler shares the proud company of the White Rabbit and Leapfrog.
Doctor Bong was supposed to be ridiculous, or did you actually think Howard the Duck was a serious comic?
My choices?
Most Ridiculous DC Comic Villain: The Ten-Eyed Man. His “power” what that he had eyes on all ten of his fingers. Seriously. I wish I was making this up. I believe this guy first turned up in the pages of Batman before finally dying in an issue of the short-lived Man-Bat series. You see, even though his eyes were now on his fingers, his instinctual reaction was still to throw his hands up to protect his face from an exploding smoke bomb . . . I think it was a smoke bomb anyway. Not sure. Anyway, temprarily blinded, the guy walked off a roof. Good riddance.
Worst Marvel Comics Villain Ever: Turner D. Century. Turner was raised by a freaky dwarf confined to a motorized scooter. Following the death of his mentor he goes on a rampage against the young in an attempt to bring back the “good old days”. Dressed like a dandy from a early-1900’s period piece, he gets around on a flying bicycle built for two (the second seat is occupied by a mannequin in a hoop skirt whose head doubles as a napalm bomb.) and his weapons include a flamethrower umbrella. One scheme of his involved a bicycle horn that kills anyone under the age of 65. Finally, he was wiped out along with a whole pack of other losers by automatic weapon fire courtesy of Scourge in the pages of Captain America. He shan’t be missed.
I dunno, the Riddler sounds like he should be up there. Like Seanbaby says he’s a guy whose only superpower is to tell the heroes he’s about to commit a crime.
Interestingly, the majority of Batman’s villains tend to be at least five metric crap units* above and beyond the crappiness level of any other comic villain. Even the Golden Age villains, the ones we tend to associate with Batman automatically…Two-Face, the Penguin, the Riddler…step outside the “Batman” mythology and take a good, hard look at them by the cruel light of day. What the hell?! Two-Face…with the power to count to two! The Riddler…who tells you about his crimes! And the Penguin… Actually, the Penguin is at least mildly cool in that he is *so uncool that he sort of achieves negative uncoolness, and becomes cool again. Don’t ask me to explain this. Even the Joker only narrowly escapes being completely lame on the basis that clowns are intrinsically evil. And these are the guys who were deemed worthy of repeat appearances; the one-shots are even more * appalling, as evidenced by the Eraser. For those who don’t remember the character, this is the guy who deduced Batman’s secret identity by recognizing Bruce Wayne’s distinctive smell. Think about that, for awhile.
To be fair, the White Rabbit was absurd even within the context of the stories. A bored rich girl who decided it would be fun to deliberately make herself into a “super-villian”. Her mind was somewhere out in the hinterland between crazy and stupid.
He looked like a giant cucumber with arms and legs (ala Mr. Potatohead) and he fought the Mighty Crusaders…um…or maybe just one of 'em.
IIRC, he had all the powers of…um…a vegetable.
There’s also Uglyman from the same issue…his power was that he was…well…ugly. Not “make people go insane” ugly, just normal-level ugly. Kinda like the Mole Man without the pathos, without the cool fighting stick, without the underground kindom filled with vast resources and without the hordes of evil minions.
The Mighty Crusaders are probably the worst comic team ever written.
Except the super-hero versions of the Blackhawks. NOTHING’s worse than them. :: shudders ::
OK, here’s my vote. Arcade . First ran into this joke in a copy of X-Force. He was trying to “test” Shatterstar or some such tripe. He is truly ridiculous. I mean, look at that bow tie!
Nah, Arcade can be wickedly cool if handled by a good writer (Chris Claremont comes to mind). He can definitely look like a dork if a weenie is at the helm, though.
Consider, too, some of the villians that were produced for the Batman TV series of the '60s and it goes for awful to WTF!? I mean, c’mon… Liberace as a piano playing villian? :eek:
“Ridiculous” is a difficult term to pin down; as in rjung’s example, many seemingly ridiculous villains can be genuinly effective when used by a competent writer.
That said, the evil gay robotMachinesmith (aka Starr Saxon) is one of my favorite campy badguys.