Which Super-hero (or team) has the best villains?

Cafe Society
1

Everyone knows that a hero is only as good as his/her villains, so I wanna know, who has the best batch of baddies to fight on a regular basis.

Note I said Villains–plural. In other words, you can’t say “The FF 'cause they’ve got Doom and he’s the coolest”, you have to include the rest of the FF’s regular bad guys, which for the FF would include The Wingless Wizard, The Red Ghost, Galactus, Annhilus, Blastarr, The Thinker (WHO MEN CALL (bwahahahaha!) MAD!) and his Awesome Android, Dragon-man, Diablo, etc. (Which overall, isn’t that bad a batch)

Some of my thoughts would include [ul]
[li]The Avengers (Kang, Arkon, The Squadron Sinister, Masters of Evil, Ultron, Grim Reaper)[/li][li]The JL of A (Amos Fortune, Dr. Destiny, Dr Light, The Royal Flush Gang, Starro, The Construct, The Lord of Time (well, maybe not him… ;p ), Felix Faust, The Three Demons, etc)[/li][li]Batman (The Joker, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Ras Al Ghul and The Penguin)[/li][li]Superman? Probably not. The Earth-1 Luthor was interesting and the post Grant-Morrison current Luthor is interesting, but Mongul? Parasite? Toyman? Prankster? Metallo? Terra-Man??? Not so much.[/li][li]Spider-Man? I dunno. Venom, Doc Ock and Green Goblin just rock, but The Scorpion, The Rhino, The Kangaroo, Razorback the CB Bandit, Slyde? Not as much. [/li][li]Green (Hal) Lantern: Dr. Polaris, Star Sapphire, Black Hand, Krona, Myrrhwiddin (sp–imagine a Myxtzptlk who’s chaotic evil rather than mischevious), Sonar, The Shark (and his invisible yellow aura), Goldface etc. [/li][li]Dr Strange? After you get past Baron Mordo (who’s not all that interesting) you have Dormammu and Umar and…well…not that many others who really stand out (“Silver Dagger”? ).[/li][/ul]
My pick, after some thought would be The Flash–First you got The Rogues (Mirror Master, The Top, The Trickster, Captain Boomerang, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, the Pied Piper and The Weather Wizard), the Rogue hanger-ons (Golden Glider, Rainbow Raider (bwhahaha!), Computron, etc), the MODERN Rogues (Tarpit, Girder, Blacksmith, Murmur, Double Down) and finally the ones too scary for the Rogues: Grodd, Abra-Kadabra, Professor Zoom, etc. All-in-all, a damned cool lot.

Anyone else?

Fenris

2

Morrison-era Doom Patrol and to a lesser extent the rachel whats-er-name DP. The Brotherhood of DADA all by themselves trump most of the baddies on your list.

3

Though I’m not an X-Fan, they do have the coolest villians…

  • Mystique
  • Dark Phoenix
  • Sentinels
  • Juggernaut
  • Apocalypse
  • Sabertooth
  • Hellfire Club
  • Lady Deathstrike
  • Mr. Sinister
    and that Magneto guy
4

Rachel Pollack.

I don’t think the BoD really trumps all others on their own, but the DP, particularly under Morrison and Pollack have a good rogues gallery.

The Brotherhoods of Evil and DADA.

The Men From NOWHERE. Both versions.

The Scissormen.

Red Jack.

Those warring aliens that kidnapped Lodestone and Rebis.

The thing under the Pentagon.

The Candleman.

The Chief, near the end of Morrison’s run.

The Chinese demons from the third series.

Even General Immortus has his moments - particularly in the Kupperberg series.

Next tier down would be Batman. He’s had few misses in his enemies, although few of them reach the level of the DP’s coolest.

Flash does have some really cool villains, but not quite the mass of them that Batman or the DP do. Cicada, Captain Boomerang, Mirror Master (the second one, specifically, altough I’m more familiar with him vs Animal Man and the JLA.), Trickster, and Grodd are cool enough, but I’m not impressed with the most of their villains. Pied Piper, I prefer as a good guy. The others…while I can’t think of any real losers, his adversaries aren’t all that great on the whole.

Superman I have to disagree with Fenris on. He has a few of losers, but he has a few good ones, too: Luthor, Brainiac, Parasite and Mongul, are all great, IMO. And Toyman I like. (Although I like the new Toyman more than the original. On strength of the Composite-Superman-Batman-Robot. That had me laughing for almost 15 minutes.) Metallo is pretty cool, too.

I notice, something, though. There’s a lot of villains I prefer when someone brings them into a book other than where they’re native.

Particular examples:

Joker in Outsiders.
Mirror Master in Animal Man.
Dr Destiny in Sandman.

(Villains of JLA members being in JLA don’t count, although they’re often handled pretty well there. Ditto with Teen Titans villains in Outsiders. They just followed Arsenal and Nightwing.)

5

I’m tempted to say The Legion, but for every cool one, there’s a lame one.

On the plus side you got The Fatal Five (Validus and Mano especially), Mordru, Nemesis Kid, and The Time Trapper (as the mysterious powerful enemy, not the Controller gone bad or that horrible conclusion during Zero Hour)

The best Time Trapper story was the Legionairres 3 mini-series where he kidnapped Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad’s baby and they and Cosmic Boy went to rescue him. It was just… chilling…

Of course, on the negative side you have way too many villain who duplicates the power of a legionaire (Saturn Queen, Lightning Lord, Sun Emporer, Calorie Queen).

6

I have to concur with “The Flash”, but that’s mostly becuase the Rogues have been consistantly well-written by a string of very good writers (Waid, Morrison, Johns). I mean, they’re kinda lame, and most of them set their sights horribly low (Weather Wizard can control weather on a city-wide level at least, and he robs banks? ) but they admit it, and they write them as a bunch of losers and malcontents who band together to become something more. They’re like the Titans or the X-Men, only evil. Plus they got together because they share a tailor. That’s just cool. Oh, then there’s Grodd. Grodd rocks on toast.

But if the Batman or Superman villains were written half as well (not that Batman and Superman aren’t written well, its just the writers haven’t delved as deep into the villains, they don’t have to) they’d take it in a heartbeat. Joker, Luthor, Two-Face, Brainiac, Catwoman (if she counts), Zod, Scarface (what? Scarface is cool!), Bizarro, the Post-animated series Mr. Freeze, Mr. MxyzptlkRa’s ah Ghul, the list goes on. Still, Flash edges them out.

7

I think Firestorm deserves an honorable mention, as does Wolverine, as two of the most recent heroes to build up rogues galleries even worth mentioning.

I might actually vote for Iron Man - Mandarin, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, Living Laser, M.O.D.O.K (hey, he’s cool), Madame Masque, A.I.M., and, well… the Melter? And hey, lest we forget, Hawkeye started out as an Iron Man villain. Eh, maybe I’ll vote for Flash after all.

Come to think of it, I might vote for Batman if I can restrict it to pre-WB Batman: TAS.

8

Judge Dredd, although he’s not technically a superhero: he had to contend with Mean Angel, the redneck psychopath who had a dial in his forehead with four mood settings - Surly, Mean, Brutal and Vicious. “This dial on my head’s got four settin’s, see? On One, I ain’t very nice. On Two, I git kinda meeean. But jest fer you, I’m goin’ right up ta Three.” Although not all that tough {Judge Dredd usually just shot him}, he was great fun and got wonderful dialogue from John Wagner and Alan Grant.

9

Agreed. Of course, I don’t really know the list of villains for many other heroes other than Batman and am an unabashed X fanboy so my answer’s more than a teensy bit biased.

10

He’s not a "super’ hero, but Dick Tracy had one of the best rogues galleries in the business.

Flat Top
The Brow
Blow Top
Mumbles
Shakey
Prune Face
BB Eyes
Pear Shape
Fly Face

and so on. Dick’s villains tended to be ruthless killers and often met exceedingly grotesque deaths themselves.

11

Heh heh. BOKK! “Ama gon’ open up a whole passel o’ hurt on you, Dredd”

12

In comic books (which automatically excludes Dick Tracy), Batman is number one by far: Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Riddler, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Two-Face, the Ventriloquist, Bane, Dr. Radium (created by Alfred Bester, BTW), the Outsider, Ras al Gul, and many more. Finger and Robinson got the concept from Dick Tracy, or course, but they came up with dozens of unique villains. Some were one-shots, but many became archetypes.

Spider-Man also had a great line-up.

Third would be silver age Flash. Grodd, Mirror Master, Reverse Flash/Professor Zoom, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Captain Boomerang (one of the best supervillain origins – he was originally the host of a kid’s TV show), the Top, Abra Kadabra (who performed crimes simply to get applause for his audience), the Pied Piper (though he is more interesting after having reformed). I also love they fact they have the same tailor. Gardner F. Fox was a genius at creating memorable villains.

13

Definitely Flash, or Batman. For sheer colorful variety and danger, Batman’s associated lunatics take the cake; for an inventive notion of what it means to be a super-villain, the cliquish Rogues of the Flash are the tops.

And you’re listing FF villains and you don’t mention Paste-Pot Pete AKA The Trapster? For shame.

14

Does it now?

15

i hate Marvel.

Given that, I must admit, the Fantastic Four’s nemisis, Doctor Doom, is clearly the best villain of the lot.

Although Syndrome is pretty cool. Except for the hair. :smack:

16

The coolest single villain ever is Dr. Doom and the FF have a good set of villains. I don’t think anyone else can claim as big of villain as Galactus. The JLA can at least tie the Skrulls with their White Martians, but the Submariner kicks both Aquaman’s and his arch-enemy Ocean Master’s butts at the same time. And the Mole Man may be dorky but he’s got an army of giant monsters and that has to count for something. So, in short, I’ve got to go with FF.

I’ve noticed, through, that Marvel almost invariably has more interesting villains than DC. While there have been efforts to add depth to the DC bad guys in recent years for some reason it just doesn’t feel the same.

17

Don’t forget about his main nemesis - the 4 Dark Judges (Death, Mortis, Fire and Fear). Plus he had some great run-ins with guys like Chopper, Chief Judge Cal & the Kleggs, and the many mutants of the Cursed Earth.

Also, even Batman was a villain in his world once - “ Know what I smell - I smell vigilante. I don’t like vigilantes! “

18

I think I would put Spidey at the top of the list. You’re seriously underrating Scorpion and Rhino, who are good villains when handled properly. And then there are the Hobgoblin (and all the other Goblin types), the Lizard, the Vulture, the Snadman (when he’s not being a hero), and the Kingpin (he was a Spidey villain long before he ever fought Daredevil, wasn’t he?). Plus Venom, Doc Ock, and Green Goblin, whom you mentioned.

19

What about the Tick? You can’t tell me that Chairface Chippendale, The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight, Multiple Santa, and the Breadmaster aren’t cool.

(Yes, I know this isn’t the spirit of the question. I don’t care.)

20

The Tick also had The Deadly Bulb (aka Pig Leg), El Seed, Dinosaur Neil, and lotsa ninjas.

But The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight is the best villan ever!