Here you go, the top nine supervillains in all of comics, plus a few honorable mentions.
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.
"The top nine supervillains in all of comics"? Um, no. This is the top nine from Marvel and DC. Any list of the top nine in all of comics would necessarily include at least one of 9-Jack-9 and Dekko.
No Dr Sivana or Mister Mind? Mister Mind's an evil worm, for goodness sake.
An Honorable Mention -must- go to Queen Klitora, ruler of an undersea empire, into whose aquatic caves the Red Torpedo steered his Red Torpedo sub.
No, I'm not making that up.
I humbly nominate Dormmamu. He controlled an entire dimension. Not even Darkseid rules an entire dimension (although he'd like to).
Also, I un-nominate the Anti-Monitor. Visually uninteresting, uninteresting combat powers, and only has the body count because of his lead role in the original Annoying Gimmick Crossover. Feh!
No Legion representation? How about Mordru? Not just because of the funky hat, but this was a bad guy who, in his first shown appearance, had Superboy and Mon-El running away from him like rats from a sinking ship without even engaging him in combat first.
I'm glad Chris wrote what he wrote, because if he didn't, I was gonna write it. The Anti-Monitor is only marginally more interesting than the Beyonder.
I also second the nominations for Sivanna and Mr. Mind, and add nominations for P'Gell, Catwoman, Loki (Marvel version), and Terra Man. Because how can you not like a space cowboy?
What's that? Do I hear a lot of whiners who need to make up their own lists? I think maybe I do 8)
I contemplated throwing Flintheart Glomgold into the mix to escape Marvel and DC. Lev Gleason's the Claw might also be considered for the list, but his lack of modern appearances hurts him. 9-Jack-9 and Dekko (and the shapechanger from The Elementals) are significant, but then, who on the list would they displace? And both 9-Jack-9 and Dekko can be parsed as Joker riffs.
Sivana is terrific, but I think he's #11 or so--his territory is largely covered by Luthor. Mr. Mind is a credible choice as well and is also in the top 18.
The Legion representation is carried in part by Darkseid, who's the villain of their best story. I arbitrarily excluded groups, or the Fatal Five, their best villains, would have qualified. Mordru's got the hat, which is a major plus point, but he's so ill-defined that I excluded him.
Is P'Gell a supervillain? I considered Loki; he might be in the top 18 as well. I also, arbitrarily, excluded more than one villain per main character, so Catwoman would probably make an expanded list without that criterion.
On my hypothetical list, outside of DC and Marvel I would have included Kid Miracleman.
Okay, so before I read elmo's list, I made mine up just to see how close we were. My rationale was a bit different, however, I said "Who are the top superheroes, and who were their best villains" and then I asked "Who'd I miss that should be on but isn't because they weren't fighting a top hero" which would, for instance, put Grodd on my list, except it doesn't.
My list of the top heroes in superhero comics (with my personal favorite villains in parentheses and creating a different list than the followup) was:
1. Superman (Terra-Man)
2. Batman (Scarecrow)
3. Captain Marvel (King Kull, Mr. Mind)
4. Fantastic Four (Galactus)
5. Spider-Man (Scorpion)
6. Legion of Super-Heroes (Pulsar Stargrave)
7. Justice League of America (Mike the Parademon)
8. X-men (Magneto)
9. The Avengers (Legion of the Unliving/Grim Reaper)
This results in the following list of greatest villains:
1. Lex Luthor
2. The Joker
3. Dr. Sivana
4. Dr. Doom
5. Green Goblin
6. Mordru
7. Starro
8. Magneto
9. Kang the Conqueror
Honorable mentions: Barry "The Flash" Allen probably had the best roster of villains, and it would be nice to recognize that, but I don't see immediately who to kick off to include Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Abra Kadabra or Grodd who would be my top candidates. In like fashion, Spidey has a lot of deserving candiates including Kraven, Kingpin, Doc Ock, Electro, and others, but Green Goblin has always gotten the head of the class. Batman has a lot of well-known villains, mostly on account of the tv show, but the Joker is clearly his best villain, though I nearly went with Catwoman anyway.
Captain Marvel rivals Flash for the best complete roster, and his villains are probably the most blood-thirsty of the lot, but ultimately, a guy named Captain Nazi is just trying too hard to be on the list, and Sivana is clearly the Fawcett choice.
Finally, there are some wonderful villains who don't see enough play time but otherwise would be on the list like Fury, Computo, Graviton, Jim Jaspers, and the like. In another category is The Time Trapper, who has a narrative problem in that DC could never decide just who he was.
I second the un-nomination of the Anti-Monitor, both on the grounds of having a horrible name and for being a one-trick-pony.
Incidentally, are _any_ of these villains' best appearances written by the person who created the villain in the first place?
I'd like to have seen Professor Zoom on the list. It's not his fault that he's associated with the interminable trial of the Flash, after all.
And I'd give Honorable Mentions, at least, to Mongul, for being the last good [villain] created for the pre-crisis (which is to say one, true) Superman mythos, and to the Purple Pile-driver, for the sheer deterimation and grit involved in continually fighting Superman even thoug he outmatches you like Mike Tyson does Stephen Hawkings.
[Having the Purple Pile-Driver in a story in that era was a good sign that the character side of the story was going to be excellent, since the obligatory super-powered fight scene would be done extremely quickly...]
Chary:
Kang the Conqueror is a yutz, who has yutz written all over him, and whose DNA coils up into chromosomes that remarkably resemble the word "yutz".
Otherwise, your methodology is in fact quite similar to mine.
Jeff: Mongul is a Jim Starlin knockoff of a Jim Starlin knockoff of a Jack Kirby character, so despite being the last good pre-Crisis DC villain, he ain't on the list.
I'd say Vandal Savage and Professor Zoom would work for the Flash. Vandal Savage has the staying power, but Proffy fits the "highly educated villains" motif and his motivations are nicely whacked. The Trickster doesn't qualify, but he got really interesting when he turned to good.
I like R'as Al Gul better than the Joker, but I'm not sure if he's more "top" than Mr. J.
I'd like to see a WW villain on the list, but I hate Egg Fu.
Greg: This from a man who put Anti-Monitor on his list and gave The Shark an honorable mention. Kang is a brilliant villain. Not only is he arguably the greatest Avengers villain ever, he's also arguably their fifth or sixth greatest villain as Immortus, not to mention the time he put in as the Scarlet Centurion and Rama Tut, plus he's a blood relative to Reed Richards.
Oh, and the real last good Pre-Crisis DC villain was Ambush Bug, who doesn't count because he transcended comics to become real and is now running for President as an independent since the Green Party didn't want him this time.
Ambush Bug? Fah, Ambush Bug-as-[villain] was a plague. [As funny as the issue was, The Legion of Substitute Heroes didn't deserve to be destroyed as serious characters. And when Action Comics was turned into Ambush Bug stories every third month, it was clear that the writers had absolutely nothing more to say about the (one, true) Superman and were just marking time until the Crisis.]
It occurs to me that I ought to be pushing for a Firestorm [villain] to make the list, but I just can't think of any who come close to making the grade. Ditto for the Teen Titans [Where at least I can argue for Deathstroke, but that would invite claims that Bullseye is more qualified.]
Chary: I gave the Shark an honorable mention only so I could repeat the "invisible yellow force field" line, which I consider to be one of the high points of unselfconscious writing in the superhero genre. He's not actually that significant a villain.
As for Yutz the Conqueror, the fact that he also wants to show up on the list in four different kinds of drag contributes to his yutzian nature. The first Avengers villain to make the list is probably Ultron.
Croft: The Duke of Deception is probably the first WW villain on the list.
I am, obviously, a huge Ultron fan. I suppose we could just chuck methodolgy and do a list entirely based on what might be called "Cool Factor." IOW, a list made up of villains who are just plain cool. Ambush Bug aside, such a list might include:
1. Brainiac
2. Dracula
3. Dormammu
4. Mysterio
5. Ultron
6. Pulsar Stargrave/Mr. Starr
7. Lobo (Omega Men/First couple JL appearances)
8. Grodd
9. Dev-Em (who'd rank higher had he not reformed)
Other candidates might be Arcade, Juggernaut, Lady Shiva, Funky Flashman, the Foreigner, Hobgoblin, and Catwoman. hmm, I suppose black Adam might qualify.
Jess: where and when did anyone get away with naming a female villain, "Queen Klitora?"
Dekko is not a million miles away from the Joker, I'll grant you, but he delivers more moral, philosophical, and intellectual action than the Joker could even imagine. Plus he has the Chrysler building on his head, which is basically the ultimate in cool.
9-Jack-9 as a Joker riff I just don't see at all, sorry.
As for who they bump off: I'd be willing to see either of them displace the Anti-Monitor, the Red Skull, or Grodd. (A telekinetic super-gorilla; whoop dee.)
I liked the original idea that Kang's different supervillain identities represented different points in their life. It has a lot of story potential(even if it is underused). And you're ignoring Kang War at the end of Busiek's run on Avengers. It drags on a while, but it is some of Busiek's finest work. Kang explains why he doesn't just go pop off to the future every few seconds to get a newer, better army. He takes over the world because he feels he is the only one who can guide it safely. He uses his time-travelling abilities to set up contingency plans for a Sentinel attack.
Ah, lists. Just be glad that yours isn't likely to attract the type who insists its demotic tastes must acknowledge the work of genius that is Pussey! But that experience won't stop me from second-guessing your list myself.
I'd like to join the swelling ranks of the Anyone But Anti-Monitor movement; he's only great by fiat, which is to say about as great as Doomsday or Bane (albeit much better drawn), and he's got one of the worst names in comics. (Shouldn't the Anti-Monitor just... I don't know, not watch people?) Also, I'd say Grodd's presentation has rarely lived up to his potential, and the Red Skull is just coasting on that whole Nazi thing. It's like he doesn't even try any more.
Ultron is a must-include, as is Mr. Mind. (Sivana's just as fun, and the more classic Captain Marvel villain, but as you say most of what he does is subsumed under Luthor. Besides, you have to give it up for a worm so evil, the state electrocutes him.) Vandal Savage wouldn't make a bad Grodd replacement, and he's certainly got the staying power.
If the list were opened to more than one villain per hero, Ra's al Ghul and Galactus (the ultimate high concept villain) would be musts, and Jason wisely adds some classic femmes fatales to the mix.
Here's a question I'm fond of: what are the guiding principles behind our various lists? What do we all (not just Greg) think makes for a great villain?
Everything is improved by the judicious application of primates, and there's no better primate villain than Grodd. He has to be on the list.
Mike--Queen Klitora appeared in the Golden Age. Writers got away with a lot of borderline material in the obscurer hero strips in the Forties, just because they figured (correctly) that the kids who read the strips wouldn't get the comments, and the adults who read it would be more amused by it than anything.
Vandal Savage is a tuna sandwich; he doesn't make the list. I'd go with Brain Wave or Solomon Grundy first. (If my list lacks anything besides megalomaniacal worms, patricidal robots, and women, it lacks a diehard puncheminnaface villain like Grundy.)
Ha, this is fun! My list (with more long-winded explanations at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/jkcarrier ):
1. Dr. Sivana. Just for the sheer sadistic glee with which he carries out his evil schemes. Heh! Heh! Heh!
2. Galactus. He's not out to conquer anything. He doesn't want revenge on anyone. He's not even greedy. He's just HUNGRY.
3. The Joker. Pure chaos, the perfect counterpoint to the rigid, hyper-disciplined Batman.
4. Doctor Doom. He can't stand the idea that there's even one person in the entire world who's smarter than him. Overcompensation on an epic scale.
5. Eclipso. Literally his own worst enemy.
6. The Composite Superman. Completely and utterly humiliates Batman and Superman every time they fight. Only through the dumbest of dumb luck do they even survive.
7. The Green Goblin. Not only did he kill Spidey's one true love, he even broke up Spidey's creative team!
8. Flash's Rogues Gallery. You can't really separate them out, since part of their charm is the fact that they were all pals / friendly rivals.
9. Egg Fu. So retarded, he's magnificent!
Greg sez: "Vandal Savage is a tuna sandwich."
No. While I'm also a fan of Priest's writing, I don't think Justice League Task Force gets to be the definitive take on anything. And Priest is (and was even moreso, at that time) suspicious enough of the whole comic-book supervillain concept that I don't think any villain would thrive under his pen.
Look at DC One Million for a great Vandal Savage story that fully capitalizes on his distinctive shtick while also nailing him in one pithy phrase: "the last caveman." All his fascist dreams stem from that one hook; he's a suave, sophisticated, fantastically intelligent bastard who's a raging brute at heart, and if given half a chance he'll drag the rest of the human race screaming back down to his level. If anybody else does what he does, they don't do it nearly as well.
Gentlemen - to evil!