Yeah, but they drew Loki as totally Schizo. Sometimes he’s a joker, just going around doing hilarious things and causing mayhem, but without a real evil will behind it. Sometimes they go way the other way and turn him into the JOker. Personally, I like the former version.
It’s all really because one oddball monk way back when wrote Loki in as the villain of Ragnarok in his own tales. People started taking that as the definitive version, though Loki classically had been a sort of prankster and was firendly, albeit often annoying, to all the gods.
You can’t be crazier than the Joker (at least while being able to interact with the real world at all). The Flash is the fastest man alive. Hulk is strongest one there is. The Joker is the very definition of utter malicious insanity. He’s the craziest. He killed Robin! An American icon! Who has Carnage killed? Gwen Stacy? Piker. Green Goblin did that years ago. Kill Lois Lane (Joker did! In Kingdom Come) and we’ll talk.
Besides, body count isn’t everything. The Joker gets more points for style. Also, Joker has Harley Quinn. Which, while on th surface, is cute, is severely screwed up once you examine their relationship.
Darkseid is still the baddest. Hitler was more evil than Bundy.
Yes, but the person we’re discussing actually did do good, and knew full well what the necessary collateral damage was…something about omellettes and eggs…
I like to think I’d do the same in his position.
My vote goes for Judge Death or the Big Bad Guy from Preacher, although I’ll always have a soft spot for Slough Feg from Slaine
Nova reappeared and traveled with the Silver Surfer for a while, and eventually he fell in love with her. When he admitted his love and pledged her his soul, her mask was cast aside to reveal that it was never Nova at all, but Mephisto, Lord of Hades, Prince of Darkness, the Devil Incarnate. Having had something similar happen to me in the past once or twice, I can tell you that this wins hands down.
I dunno if you can compare. It takes one kind of evil to sign an order that will lead to the deaths of millions before taking the dog for a walk and going home for a vegetarian meal, and quite another kind to use your own hands to kill a woman who’s right in your face and screaming for mercy.
Carnage killed a good portion of New York City. He “killed” Dagger of Cloak and Dagger. By “killed” I mean as dead as any marvel character gets. He strung Venom up over a fire and tortured him in the Statue of Liberty. He plugged Deathlok full of live wires from a lit billboard in Times Square. He killed an entire diner because he didn’t like the food.
And a messed up relationship. Check. He even had a messed up little family with Demogoblin and Carrion as the kids and the Spider Man doppleganger as the family pet.
Don’t get me wrong. Harley and the goon squad are cute, but they just don’t match up. Carnage and company managed to commit indescriminate slaughter through New York City and hold the entire city hostage all on their lonesome.
And I’ll say it again, Thanos has saved the universe as much as he’s harmed it even giving his life permanently to recreate the marvel universe. He doesn’t count.
Really “evil” people don’t think they’re doing “good”—they just don’t care about if it’s good or bad. (Though I’ve heard it said that the most dangerous thing in the world is a decent man who thinks he’s doing the right thing.)
And…do we have anything like a total cumulative body count from the Joker’s years of activity? He might actually edge out Carnage’s kills, just from being active longer—kind of like how automobile accidents can be said to have killed more people than nuclear attacks. (Winning on a technicality…is there anything more evil than that?)
Plus, the Joker did manage to take over the planet, once, as I remember. (It got better)
Hmm … “comics history”? Well then, I am gonna vote for General Zod, the alternate one that John Byrne had running around c. Superman #21 (v.2). If we’re using body counts as yardsticks, killing for no reason, yeah Carnage and Kid Miracleman certainly should be mentioned. But Zod and his cohorts killed in the millions.
You KNOW you’re evil if even Superman decides to KILL you. Now, THAT’s evil.
My Marvel choice would be Tim Boo Bah, a tyrant from a short sci-fi monster story in the early days of Marvel by Stan Lee (and I wanna say Steve Ditko). I won’t reveal his fate though.
I gotta say, this convinced me. It’s often said that the measure of a hero is the villains he fights. Is there another example where a villain’s actions pushed a hero to betray what he stood for and believed in to such an extreme?
He once infected Lois Lane with a poison that would kill her unless she was injected with the antidote. The antidote was only available in Joker’s blood. To save Lois, Superman (or Batman, I guess, but J was really gunning for Supes this time) would have to kill Joker (I can’t remember why he couldn’t just cut him, but I’m sure a reason was given). Naturally, killing even someone like the Joker would have either driven Superman insane or sent him off on another self-imposed exile or something and Joker was quite aware of this.
Superman, unable to take Joker’s life, lets Lois die. He’s understandable distrought until… she comes back to life! She was never going to die in the first place. And what a great joke on Superman that would have been! Even better, only Joker would have known, and he’d have been dead!
A serious contender here is Michana Loomis, the youngest and most vicious of the Loomis Sisters from Nexus.
Nexus, for comics fans younger than, say, 35, was one of the most stunningly original comics of the 1980s. For the unknown reasons of an alien demigod, Horatio Hellpop–the son of a hated and deposed tyrant–would dream about actual mass murderers. These dreams would get progressively worse unless he went out and killed the murderers. Most of the murderers were quite hateful, and good riddance. A few were more complex.
General Loomis was one of the complex ones. He built a space station called Gravity Well around a black hole, and it produced cheap, abundant energy for several planets. Dozens of people were accidentally killed during its construction, some of whom could have been saved if Loomis had scuttled the project. It’s debatable how many lives the Gravity Well was worth, but Loomis decided it was worth finishing, for ll the benefits it would bring. He still fell within Nexus’ purview and had to die. After a civilized dinner and discussion, Loomis owned up to his responsibilities and agreed to submit to an execution–under the condition that Nexus take responsibility for the upbringing of Loomis’ three daughters, Lonnie, Stacy and Michana.
Lonnie, the eldest (College-age), was focused and ruthless. Stacy, just a little younger, was the stablest and most morally-aware. Michana, the youngest (about 8) was a bloodthirsty psycho. After one of Hellpop’s later missions went awry and many innocents died, he abandoned the Nexus mantle. The Loomis sisters cut a deal with the alien demigod to take up the mantle. Their first assignment was to kill Horatio Hellpop. (They failed.)
Lonnie died in battle. Stacy eventually bacame a confidante of the Hellpop family (and was briefly a nanny to Nexus’ two super-powered daughters). Michana became a recurring villain.
There’s something uniquely terrifying about a psychotic 8-year-old with fusioncasting abilities and a license to kill. Michana gets my vote,
A kryptonian weapon-armed Joker kills Robin and Batgirl, while forcing Batman to watch (and beg) helplessly. (It’s been awhile since I’ve leafed through it, but I think the deaths were pretty grisly, to boot) Batman managed to break free and, in a rage, beat the Joker to death on live TV. After which he managed to crawl back to the batcave, before collapsing in near hysteric catatonia.