The Top Nine Comic Book Supervillains

Here you go, the top nine supervillains in all of comics, plus a few honorable mentions.

1. Lex Luthor (pre-Crisis). He's unbelievably smart: he figured out how to bust out of prison using only his pen and writing pad, and he didn't use it because then, the next time he was in prison, they wouldn't give him his pen and writing pad. And he's bald as a cue ball, which you wouldn't believe how angry that makes him at Superman. And the best sense of fair play among comics supervillains: He broke into Fort Knox and stole the gold, only to break back in and put it back when he discovered that it was just a Superman robot he defeated. Plus, his Earth-2 and Earth-3 counterparts are interesting in themselves. Best appearance: Superman: Last Son of Krypton.
2. The Joker. If he has to have an origin, he prefers it to be multiple choice. He kills. And kills. And kills some more. And then, for a change of pace, he does some killing. He's an evil clown and he's got evil clown toys and he commits evil clown crimes. He's Batman, if Batman were psychotically obsessed with murder instead of stopping crime. Best appearance: "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge", Batman #251 and widely reprinted.
3. Darkseid. He's a god. Of evil. He's got eyebeams that will follow you throughout the universe and erase you completely from existence, and his greatest desire is to find the secret that will wipe out free will in the universe. Plus he's going to be killed by his son, who's got a kind of werewolf-Moses thing going on. Best appearance: The Great Darkness Saga.
4. Green Goblin. You want Peter Parker karma? You can't beat a psycho nutjob who's your best friend's father, knows your secret identity, drives your best friend and his only son as psycho as he is, and kills your girlfriend when she's wearing the best-looking miniskirt and go-go boots combination this side of the Atlantic. Best appearance: The Death of Gwen Stacy.
5. Doctor Doom. Hideous deformed Man in the Iron Mask riff whose constant torment is the knowledge that he's the second-smartest guy in the Marvel Universe, and the smartest guy was his freaking college roommate. Also, his mom's soul is held captive by the devil. Owner of his own country with the highest standard of living in Europe except for having no freedom, which is a metaphor for the post-Soviet American dilemma if I ever heard one. Best appearance: Probably Emperor Doom, which I haven't, technically, read.
6. Super-Gorilla Grodd. He's not your ordinary gorilla. He's super. Seriously. He's strong, he's fast, he can talk, he can walk upright, he can transform into a human any time he wants. And he's got "force-of-mind", which is mind control and psychokinetic blasts all wrapped up into one inexpressible forehead light show. Plus, and I can't emphasize this enough, he's a talking gorilla. Best appearance: "Beyond the Super-Speed Barrier", Flash Spectacular.
7. Magneto. You want thematic opposition in your supervillains? You can't beat Magneto, whose approach to human/mutant relations could most concisely be summed up as "Move to the back of the bus, pitiful Homo sapiens". With world-girdling magnetic powers and a nifty helmet, this guy's political opinion deserves some listening to. Best appearance: Probably Uncanny X-Men #150 and a couple issues leading up to.
8. The Anti-Monitor. He's got a jones for power that can only be satisfied by destroying the entire multiverse, and he's designed by George Pérez. Does anyone else in comics have this guy's bodycount? Even just counting individually-visible deaths? Only appearance: Crisis on Infinite Earths.
9. The Red Skull. Mister Evil Sick Bastard Undying Nazi Nazi Nazi with a Cigarette Holder himself. Roughly half of the ultra-convoluted layers-upon-layers suspense-thriller Captain America stories can be summed up with the simple observation that, with Cap, it's the Red Skull. It's always the Red Skull. Generations from now, when Nazis are viewed with the kind of evolved distaste that chronological distance brings, like we have for slaveholders now, the Red Skull will still be trying to kill Captain America and create the Fourth Reich. Best appearance: Probably the conclusion of the Captain America as Nomad story.

Honorable mention: The Shark, for using an "invisible yellow force field" for protection against Green Lantern. Because Green Lantern's ring can't penetrate anything yellow, even if it's invisible. That's just plain good comics.

Honorable mention: Thanos, who doesn't qualify on account of being a Jim Starlin knockoff of a Jack Kirby character (who's on the list), but who would otherwise qualify for, as the man said, being the kind of guy who'd kill half the universe just to impress Death enough to get in her pants. That kind of psychosexual shenanigan is just plain good comics.

Honorable mention: The Punisher, for sheer unimaginable success in managing to be so widely perceived as some kind of superhero while racking up a body count in the dozens. Per issue. But anyone who can be described as Batman crossed with the Joker, who's a ripoff of a men's adventure novel series character is too derivative to make the list.

Posted by Greg at June 18, 2004 12:29 PM