Scum and Villainy
 

I'm interested in hearing who peoples' favourite villains are and why (comics and cartoons). Also what type of villains you find most interesting in general outside of Turtles.

I like:

- Zagato from Magic Knight Rayearth. Most complex antagonist ever.
- Dornkirk from Escaflowne. Mainly because of his civilian identity.
- Galaxia from Sailor Moon. Has background. Both in the manga and the anime.
- Zarm from Captain Planet. Wants revenge badly.

From TMNT I like the rat king.. Not sure why, but I've always liked him..

Otherwise:

The Millennium Group - Millennium
Cigarette-Smoking Man - The X Files
Scorpius - Farscape
Sylar - Heroes

And when I was young I always liked the Phantom Blot in the Mickey Mouse-comics :P

I guess I like the kind of villain that seems to be able to do whatever they want because no one really knows much about them or what they're capable of...

Thanks PAAATE! That's exactly the sort of stuff I want to hear.

See I'm a big fan of villains with identity issues - The Chameleon and Clayface for example, but I'm also a big fan of unpredictable villains - Boba Fett - I loved the Hobgoblin when he first came onto the scene. And you can't really go wrong with the Joker either.

I think the Rat King probably stands as my favourite villain in the comic universe. I wasn't a fan of the Pantheon story though -- I'd always imagined the Rat King as having a more grounded origin. Something more in line with what we saw in the 2k series.

Agreed :P

I would've preferred if he was just some random psycho who had fled and then stayed hidden in that place where the TMNT first encountered him.. A factory..?

If he so badly needed an origin I think he should've been.. Just some crook who clearly is on the verge of insanity and then when he meets the TMNT (before ToTMNTvol1#4) that drives him straight over the edge... And when the TMNT meets him again in ToTMNTvol1#4 they, of course, don't recognize him..

Why didn't I think of that before we got the current origin.. :roll:

Oh, speaking of insanity, insane villains (if their illness is portrayed in a kinda believable way) always fascinates me too :)

Magneto, one of the best comicbook villains ever(at least when he was written by Claremont).

I also like the smart/calculating villains like Thanos during the Infinity mini series or Ozymandias from Watchmen.

Hell yes, seriously so few people know about that series.

Let's see villains I love

Rat King - He's a dirty, crazy, homeless guy who has control of rats. It also appears that he has some mystical powers of some sort. Though I enjoyed him more in the new cartoon when he could beat the living hell out of all the turtles and Casey without even trying. Something about that just made him more believable, though why I'd look for that in a cartoon is beyond me.

Patrick Bateman - Some will argue he's just an anti-hero, which in the film he is, but ultimately he's an evil dude. I love this character because while he is this insane psycho mass murderer he still puts up the believable front that he's a respected businessman. He's also so normal about things. Like in the film*never read the book* he's working out while watching "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and there's another scene where he's watching porn while talking on the phone to his mistress. He's also completely self absorbed. There's a scene where he's having sex with these two hookers bu the entire time he's watching himself in the mirror flexing. How meticulous he is I also enjoy. The entire opening sequence of the film where he describes his morning routine is hilarious but also, I think, a great look into how insane this person really is.

Mr. Gone - I just love this guys humor. He has no regard for what happens to him and even when he's reduced to a head in a box still manages to be a menacing villain.

Emperor Zombie - He was only in the short lived "Screw-On Head" series but I thought he was funny villain. I tend to like villains that are funny yet do extremely messed up this with almost zero conscious behind their actions. There's a scene where he smokes some guy to get the information he needs out of him. His origin is pretty funny too. He ate some ancient evil candy when told not to and because of that died and became a zombie. Now he kills off Screw-on Head's butlers.

Killer Croc - The version of him I like is from the cartoon series of the 90's. I just love how brutal he is. He's a dumb hulkish creature with the power to crush Batman in half if he wanted. I love the episode "Sideshow" where he escapes his prison train and runs off into the wilderness the chase scene in it is amazing. It also shows how evil Croc really is.

I could list off more villains but I don't want to go on and on.

Could you possibly explain why Dragon Turtle? I'm doing a little bit of research here and I'd like to get as much as possible, rather than jumping to my own conclusions, even if the reason I think you say that is the right one...

Hans Gruber from Die Hard would be one of my favorite villains of all time, as well as being evil, he has both charm and sarcasm, Agent Smith from the matrix was also great.
I liked the leech from The River Trilogy, and I agree with you guy's about the Rat King, he is a good character, but I'd much prefer him to be a guy who just went crazy and started believing he was some kind of Rat whisperer or something.
As for Patrick Bateman, I'm not sure I'd class him as a villain, while he's a good character(Bale is a brilliant actor, I love the confrontation with his lawyer at the end) he really just fantasized about killing those people.

Probably because he was moralistic, Kindhearted, and possibly justified. He was the ultimate ends-justify-the-means sort of guy, only the facts could easily support his way of doing things. He had thought out motivations and careful structure. And his epilogue in Clarmont's last issue (X-Men issue 3) was priceless. He wishes Charles goodbye as he dies, tells him he hopes he gets his wish, but doubts it will.

For Me?

Magneto
Joker. (Force of nature, unpredicable, wonderful)
Two Face (dark opposite of a character. Former friend turned enemy, blames hero for condition. Slide into madness)
Mr Freeze (SEE: DINI)
Clayface (SEE: DINI)
...

any dini villain

for Turtles, its the origional baxter stockman from Mirage. start to finish he had one of the most distirbing character arc's, with such dripping evil. and his final death, with donnie having kept him alive in hope of making use of him was priceless.

Others on the list...hmm...

Johnny Bates. (cookie to he who knows who this is.)

Darkseid (Irredeemable, undefeatable evil, and yet it's just the BRAINs.
Shredder isn't bad (Old mistakes coming back to haunt you.)
Char Aznable (Justified Villain+slip into madness+old mistakes coming back to haunt you-WHO's side are you on?!?)

There is no better villain than the Joker. Period.

Although a good point was made about how much Hans Gruber rocks.

As far as TMNT goes, definitely the Rat King (pre-Pantheon nonsense).

Can you explain why you reckon this?

I agree on alot of the mentioned villains (the others I really don't know of -- not watching the show or reading the book routine).

Will add in a few more for now:


Dr. Zin, from the Classic Jonny Quest and Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. A calculating villain.

Dr. Surd, from Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. Another calculating villain, who has a beef with Race; and through a forced alliance, equipment to trouble the Quest Team in various ways.

Ezekial Rage, also from Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. A former covert agent who lost his family, and turned against the world; each scheme of his an attempt to bring about the end of the world.

My top 3, in no specific order.

Green Goblin - He manipulates things behind the scenes and make the Spidey's life a living hell. He knocked up Gwen Stacy, then killed her shortly after she gave birth, and then used his own Goblin-enhanced children as part of one of his schemes. He's turned the public against Spidey before, masterminded the events of the Clone Saga, gathered the Sinister Twelve, among many other schemes.

Magneto - I like him because he's a gray-area villain. While some of the things he does could be considered 'evil', you can still understand where he's coming from and why he does the things he does. Pretty much, I like him for all the same reasons everyone else does.

Mr. Sinister - Another villains who manipulates from behind the scenes. He's completely and irredeemably evil. He has manipulated Scott Summers' life since the 19th century, He subconciously put the suggestion for Madeline Pryor to name her's and Scott's child after him (Nathaniel Essex, Nathan Summers). He's worked for the Nazis, he taught the High Evolutionary much of what he knows. He masterminded the Mutant Massacre and had the balls to betray Apocalypse. In my opinion, he has a lot more potential than just being an X-Men villain. Plus, he gets bonus points for the costume.

Turkishproverb hit most of the main points on the head, the most important thing to emphasize was that, Magneto had scruples, something that a lot of writers post Claremont didn't seem to grasp, in too many cases the writers seemed to want to have their cake and eat it too (Keep him as a multi-layered sympathetic character as well as a traditional comic book super villain).

Too many times I've seen writers write themselves into a corner with Magneto, they have him say all the right things even present evidence his way may be the best, but since this just makes the heroes look bad, the writers usually had to find some way to get the readers back on the side of the X-Men (it is their book after all). Instead of having the X-Men come back with counter arguments to defend their position, writers would take the easy way out and just have Magneto do something crazy, like threaten to kill or enslave humanity, thus turning him into one of those generic crazy villains who came up with their own set of moral codes to justify some insane hair brained scheme to save the world.

One-dimensional bad guys are not only boring and predictable, but also inspire boring one-dimensional good guys.


Another thing that separates Magneto from the rest, is actual linear character development (as opposed to other villains who’s motivations and characters are continuously recycled). His turn from generic Dr. Doom clone into a sympathetic character didn't happen overnight, and still stands as one of the better cases of a character, good or bad, switching over to the other side.


Kid Miracleman? I remember him making the Wizard's top ten list of all time greatest supervillains (at least for 1998 ) in Wizard's Dark Book 98, Which might be a good resource for you Tristan, in researching comic book bad guys.

We Loved that show when I was younger, And we just finished watching the entire series on DVD.

The way that show evolved was so neat, especially the views of the Millennium group themselves. The group seems so well-intentioned, but they change over time to something really powerful and dangerous. That is a 'villain' that you can really look at and 'almost' sympathize with...

I liked most of the villains from the Gargoyles series. Demona, Xanatos, MacBeth, all were not 100% evil, all had justifications, all were more than just 1 dimensional stereotypes of villains.

Yeah, but please don't say much more.. Some of us has just started watching the final season and don't wanna hear too much ;)

But agreed, from the beginning you don't really have any specific opinion on them, but then in season two you're beginning to understand.. Though, as I said I haven't finished the series yet, so I'm still not sure exactly why they're doing what they're doing :)

Btw, why does everyone keep saying season two's the worst? I thought season one was growing kinda... repetitive... I can understand the whole X Files-copy-argument, but I've seen way worse X Files-copies...

Thanks Dragon Turtle, that was exactly the kind of response I've been after. And I'm getting on to a friend now who I think might have that very back issue too!

Something I'm working on introduces a couple of new villains, and I just wanted to see what people thought made good villains, or what they liked about particular villains as well. I'd be interested in hearing some more Turtle based ones too, be it cartoon or comic.

Those are the worst... I'm currently developing a TV-series and my worst fear is that the main villain will seem one dimensional early on before I have the chance to introduce his backstory and who he really is

AH! Consider my lips sealed... :embarass:

Well, considering the two shows were made at the same time by Chris Carter... I could see how some stuff could be seen as similar.

I'll just say that third season is AWESOME... ;) And don't forget to see the Crossover ep with X-files...

Done :P I've seen every X Files :P Though I don't remember much of it, so I'll probably watch it again when I'm done with Millennium

And, going back on topic, in one of my earlier posts I said I like mentally ill villains when they're made believable.. A good example would be Annie from Stephen King's Misery (the book, I won't watch any of the films made from his books if I don't have too)

SPOILERS BELOW

She's just growing more and more crazy over time.. Or not really, but at least she seems more and more crazy all the time to the reader, and then Paul goes nuts in the end too mumbling about the goddess and all that... She's a good.. Uhm.. "villain".. That you can feel sorry for at the same time..

Green Mile is a pretty direct adaptation.

Yeah, but I haven't read that book yet, so even though I probably will see the movie I won't do it yet ;)

Loved the books, but only really read them because I loved the movie....that's how I roll...

However don't do that with Mrs. Doubtfire, it's very disappointing.

With you on that one. They made the series more interesting. A hero is only as good as the villain he faces. Or something along those lines.

My favorite villains include Darth Vader and Venom. I started liking Vader after watching the original trilogy, because he was so incredibly powerful and ominous. Say what you will about the prequel trilogy, but I love that it showed his gradual turning to the Dark Side. It's interesting that he thought he was bringing balance to the Force by wiping out all the Jedi. In a way, he's right. If there's only one or two Sith, then balance would be having only one or two Jedi.

Venom is a fave because he's such a wild card. One moment he's hankering after Spidey's spleen, the next he's saving an innocent from injustice and danger. His strong moral code even while one half of a crazy twosome made for an interesting facet of a very interesting character. I also liked that he knew all about Spidey through the symbiote, and totally played the horror movie psycho angle in some of the comics. (Am thinking of McFarland's issues specifically.)

Give the man a cookie!

Pure, unadulterated evil. Power for power's sake.

I'll be honest, I've never been a huge Venom fan. I was at first, I dug the idea, but when he went all Lethal Protector he lost me. Maximum Carnage was total nonsense to me. The only time I enjoyed Venom recently was in Mark Millar's MK run, where he sold the suit and Mac Gargan got it, but even now, writers just don't know how to treat Venom. He's startig to fall into the same traps now in the Thunderbolts as he did back in the day. I'm hoping Dan Slott can breathe some fresh air into the character... Anti-Venom is an idea I dig!

Wow, it sounds like a lot has happened to ol' Fang Face since I last read an ish. Sold the suit??? WHY???

Absolutely. The Joker is simply heartless and cold. His background is unknown (every attempt has been later discredited by DC), he murders simply to create chaos, his main goal in life is simply to frustrate and mentally destroy the protagonist, and the most horrifying thing about him is that HE DOES IT ALL FOR HIS OWN ENJOYMENT!

If you think about it, The Joker is truly an enigmatic demon. He has no purpose in life except to create havoc and misery. He's never just an "ordinary guy". He's simply a heartless and relentless sociopath.

The other thing I love about the Joker is that he is the complete opposite of Batman. Every aspect of him from appearance, to personality, to behavior is the complete opposite of the Dark Knight. Thus he is truly Batman's arch-nemesis.

When the Joker makes a joke, he's the only one laughing. Thus he is the perfect villain.

Yeah, "Sideshow" was the episode that made me hate Croc (in a good way, of course).

That's the best thing about the Joker. Batman is this dark, imposing figure who scares the crap out of thugs but he's really a great person, saving the city and whatnot. Then the Joker who's this hyper wacko in bright clothes and always laughing, but he's evil as hell and dosen't value life at all.

My favorite type of villains are what would consider anti villains like Magneto ,Ra's al ghul and Lex Luthor.

Anyone watch the bonus feature from the 2-disk SE of Batman: Gotham Knight, "A Mirror for the Bat" which talks about how Batman's villains and their personalities speak to Bruce and his persona.

I wouldn't call Luthor an "anti-villian", I say he's %100 scum.

Try Brian Azzarello's "LEX LUTHOR: MAN OF STEEL"

Might change your mind.

Oh, I'm not too into Superman so I'm sure he's more of a complex character than I realize, but from what I've seen he's a cold-hearted bastard.

My favorite villians would be
RatKing
Bishop
Dr. Doom
Kingpin
and I really like any evil scientist

so is batman.

Right, but he dosen't kill. Plus my favorite version of Bats is TAS Batman, it kept Batman scary and sinister, but Bruce Wayne was an honest to goodness good man. Then you have All-star Batman and Robin, where he increases Dick's trauma 10 fold, for no apparent reason (other than the fact that it helps makes sense of what happens to Dick later in that particular time-line).

Yea, but even in BTAS he was a bit of a cold bastard. And lex usually isn't the one doing the killing. He gets other people to. ;)