One of my favorite quotes comes from a scriptwriting book. Irwin R. Blacker writes:

There is no heroism in vanquishing a weakling or a fool.

A great villain has to have stature, has to be a foe worthy of defeating. Relatively few Superman villains are great villains, because most of them (J. Wilbur Wolfingham, Toyman, Prankster, Terra-Man) don't have either the power to stand up to the Man of Steel for more than a few seconds or the intellectual chops to keep him occupied. Their stories are about circumstance, gimmick, and fiat, not their greatness as villains.

In a serial medium like superhero comics, longevity is a necessary condition for great villains; they have to keep coming back time after time, bedevilling their opponent repeatedly while accreting mythology.

This, unfortunately, is not much of a criterion, since it simply begs the question of their longevity. That is, a villain appears again and again because they're a great villain; appearing again and again doesn't really tell us why they're great.

But it does lead us to an actual criterion: A great villain makes his next appearance easy. Batman, the Flash, and Spider-Man have large, popular Rogues' Galleries because their villains have gimmicks or hooks that make it easy to write their next appearance, which guarantees that they'll have a next appearance, which helps them build the longevity they need to be great. Mordru struggles as a villain because his abilities, desires, and goals are so ill-defined that he doesn't have a good starting point for his next story, but you can write a Penguin story in a weekend just by working in some birds and umbrellas.

If their next story isn't easy to write, they can still reach for status as a great villain by having their rare stories be big deals. A Ra's Al Ghul story takes a lot of work to pull off, but it has a big payoff.

A great villain is often an example of some kind of superlative. Sivana is the World's Wickedest Scientist. Luthor is the cleverest and most resourceful of all Superman's mad scientist foes. Darkseid is a god of evil. The Green Goblin screws up Spidey's life more than anyone else. The Joker is the most dangerous combination of traits (homicidal tendencies, unpredictability, cunning) of Batman's foes.

A great villain has great visuals. Comics is a visual medium, and a good design elevates a character as much as a good story. One factor in the Joker's success is that he has the good visuals of an evil clown, while the Penguin has the less effective motif of birds and umbrellas. Compare the Silver Surfer to the Black Racer for a crystal-clear example of how good design matters to a character.

A great villain complements his opposite number in some fashion. Femme fatales like Catwoman seduce the masculine hero. Two-Face has all kinds of complementizing going on--dual identity, tragic origin taken in a different direction, fallen good guy, personal friend. Spider-Man's best villains are always mixed up in both his superhero and private lives. Luthor didn't cement his position as Superman's best villain until his origin was tied to Superboy in Smallville.

Well,I explained my methodology in picking my list. I suppose one of my requirements for a villain I enjoy is that he win once in a while. Catwoman, for instance, actually got what she wanted: Batman.

My list of the villains who win once in a while.

1. Catwoman
2. Brainiac
3. Ultron
4. Kingpin
5. Baron Mordo
6. Universo
7. Per Degaton
8. Luthor
9. Star Spaphire
10. Captain Boomerang

Note that we now have a couple women on the list. I list Captain Boomerang, possibly the lamest of the rogues, is that he actually seems to make money because he always had the keen secret base.

I would argue that Superman's great villains are limited to Luthor, Brainiac and the Phantom Zone villains, with the second tier consisting of Mongul (a copy of a copy, yes, but Darkseid doesn't belong solely or primarily to Superman), Metallo, Mxyzptlk, Parasite, the Ultra-Humanite (the brain switching makes him... they so should bring him back), Bizarro, and the Superman Revenge Squad. Any of these would live up to your rule about next appearances... Bizarro and Mxyzptlk show up because it would be inconvenient for Superman for them to, and the rest either hate him enough or covet his power enough to be easy appearances.

I defend Brainiac's status as on the first tier by pointing out that not only can Brainiac hide behind that force field all damn day, not only did he shrink Kandor and thus forces Superman to chase after him in an attempt to unshrink it as well as keeping him from doing it to anyone else, not only is he an evil robot with no ties to his former creators who can do whatever evil he now chooses, but furthermore Brainiac was so ruthless and cold-blooded that he could weld an entire army of supervillains together by sheer dint of the fact that he'd kill anyone who crossed him. Anyone who remembers what happened to the Luthor of Earth 2 knows you don't fuck with Brainiac.

I'll disagree that Luthor didn't become Superman's big villain until the origin link in Superboy. While there was admittedly early confusion between Lex and the Ultra-Humanite, the core take of Luthor's being Kal-El's opposite number is 1) Luthor is a non-physically powered Terran. He's gotta work to be a worthy foe to Mr. I Get A Good Tan And I Can Shove Planets Around. 2) Brains vs. Brawn. Luthor's got the smarts, while even the Silver Age Superman never really used his super-intelligence at full blast. And the current version's an idiot in comparison (I'd put Clark's IQ at around 125-130; he's smart, but no one's going to mistake him for a genius).

I agree that the best villains tend to contrast or compliment the hero. Brainy Luthor vs. brawny Superman. Chaotic Joker vs. disciplined Batman. Spidey is guilt-ridden and bound by honor and family ties; Green Goblin doesn't give a crap. Reed Richards cares only about helping others; Dr. Doom cares only about his own ego. Wonder Woman's lack of memorable villains may be a symptom of her own lack of a strong defining characteristic (at least in the modern era).

I think that George Perez gave WW a strong villain in the war god Ares. Which of course went along with her mission as an envoy of peace.

Matt:

I agree that the Ultra-Humanite is sadly underused. I can't imagine why a character whose first two modern appearances (JLA 195-197, Infinity Inc. 1-10) were home runs didn't find a recurring role somewhere.

I might suspect that it's because those two appearances ran the character into a conflict: The strong visuals and mythology of a super-evolved ape squarely preclude the character's primary characteristic of body-hopping.

But that doesn't explain the similar resurrected-but-abandoned character The Monocle, whose debonair appearance and mannered malevolence would seem easy to take advantage of.

As for:

Any of these would live up to your rule about next appearances... Bizarro and Mxyzptlk show up because it would be inconvenient for Superman for them to, and the rest either hate him enough or covet his power enough to be easy appearances.

I think that I may not have made my point as clearly as I'd like.

A villain can gain the many appearances he needs to become great by being easy to use. That doesn't mean he's got a powerful motivation, because a motivation isn't a story; you have to make up events to go along with it. The kind of ease of use I'm talking about is when a lazy deadline-hounded writer needs a story in a weekend, and that means gimmicks and shtick. You can write a Penguin story by dummying up a couple of generic robberies with some bird and umbrella references. A Mxyzptlk appearance just needs a new twist to make him say his name backwards, and then some big silly gags. A Bizarro story just needs some silly gags about reversing cultural norms.

The SRS comes at recurrence a different way, and that's by the time-honored technique of making random shit up. Since the SRS don't have consistent membership, abilities, or goals, the writer can just create some generic stuff and he's done. But this process adds very little weight to the villain's mythology.

Making random shit up has been a major factor in the Time Trapper's career and a minor factor in Mordru's career, and it's obvious how it's hurt their stature.

So, how in the wide wide world of sports does the Anti-Monitor manage to fit into these categories, anyhow?

You know, I'm getting a lot of appreciation for Starro as [villain], going over these criteria. You've got the cool giant-starfish visual going on, you have the twin evergreen gimmicks of fighting with an army of civilian hostages and taking over members of the team (and that last one stays fresh as long as the team's roster is changing up regularly)

I'm a huge Starro fan as well. He barely got excluded from the other list, but I couldn't have included him without including Ultron and I couldn't pick two to exclude in their place.

And, unfortunately, there is a large class of pignorant folks who make fun of Starro as shorthand for the things they think they don't like about Silver Age DC.

The Anti-Monitor has impressive visuals, but his stature comes from being powerful enough to stand up to a Kryptonian-class assault force, having a scope of ambition larger than anyone else (taking to its last resolvable end the impulse to destroy anything he can't control), and killing more identifiable characters (many high profile indeed) than anyone else.

And, perhaps most importantly, being first. The first company-wide crossover was about defeating him, and all the ones that followed are but shadows.

He's also never returned, perhaps the one example of a great villain who breaks the rule of longevity. Except that his effects are still felt, still being talked about twenty years later, the same way we talk about Gwen Stacy's death.

The SRS comes at recurrence a different way, and that's by the time-honored technique of making random shit up. Since the SRS don't have consistent membership, abilities, or goals, the writer can just create some generic stuff and he's done. But this process adds very little weight to the villain's mythology.

To my mind, Hamilton made such good use of the SRS in Superman under the Red Sun that they qualify as mythologically potent, as does their stated goal: a galaxy-wide collection of evil bastards who want to kill Superman. Mixy is more random than the SRS is: he shows up, does whatever the hell he wants, Superman has to figure out how to get rid of him because the imp's powers dwarf his own so much. (I liked what Grant Morrison did with the 5th dimension in JLA, and hoped that would result in a renaissance of Mixy, but so far no dice on that one.) The SRS, especially in their 60's and 70's heyday, were all about eliminating the man of steel, and that made their various appearances worthwhile to me. Still, I don't think of them as being great villains, as I said... for me, it's Luthor, Brainiac and the Phantom Zoners who stand out as having all the characteristic you could want. Compelling visuals, potent motivations, a real and credible threat to Superman.

I've resisted piling on otherwise because, well, I am writing a long series of essays on Superman right now and he's on my brain. But certainly Starro is a credible and terrifying villain and not at all a joke: the use Morrison put him to in JLA proves that. As for Ultra... chalk it up to a lack of imagination, I guess. I mean, hell, I always thought it was a right shame they didn't team up Ultra and the Brotherhood of Evil to pull brain switchery on the Doom Patrol, and for that matter why couldn't Ultra sneak into Gorilla City and put his brain in the body of Solivar (or Solivar's kid in the current continuity) forcing the Flash to actually team up with Grodd in order to set things right? (And you know there'd be plenty of back and forth betrayals going on there.) I mean, you could switch his brain into a whole host of ape characters in DC. Congorilla, Titano, the mind boggles.

FYI, apparently the Monocle will be appearing in Identity Crisis.

We still talk about Anti-Monitor not because he was so cool or his story was so cool but rather because he and his story had lame consequences.

First, in order for a villain to be great, the villain needs to hold up a mirror of some sort to his hero. It can be an "I am your opposite" mirror -- witness the relationship between Captain America and the Red Skull, or Magneto and Professor X. It can also be "I am you, but twisted." Ra's Al Ghul arguably fits in this category, and of all Wolverine's foes, Sabretooth comes closest to greatness because he is a mirror image of Wolverine. The Shocker is one of my favorite Spider-Man villains, but he's not great because he doesn't say anything about Spider-Man. The Green Goblin says something about Spider-Man (particularly the Spider-Man/Peter Parker duality). Doctor Octopus says something about Spider-Man (the brain/brawn duality). Venom, loathe as I am to call a character created after Secret Wars "great," says something about Spider-Man (the great responsibility that comes with the great spider powers). Shocker says nothing about Spider-Man.

There's a corolary to this, which has been implicit in this discussion, but not stated outright until now: the great villains are associated with particular heroes or hero teams. The Rhino is not a great villain for many reasons, but foremost among those is that he bounces around the Marvel Universe fighting whoever it is that needs to beat up on a tough mook this month. Thus, whenever he returns to fight Spider-Man, he's just another schmuck.

Third, the great villains have goals that place them naturally at odds with their foes. Ra's Al Ghul is elevated to great (arguably) not just because he wants to destroy the bulk of humanity and Batman keeps stopping him. Ra's Al Ghul is great because he wants to groom Batman as a successor. If not for that (and the Batman/Talia relationship), Ra's Al Ghul wouldn't be any different from Kobra.

Fourth, great villains have staying power. They keep coming back time and again. This is what keeps Obadiah Stane off the list -- he's the closest thing Iron Man has to a great villain (No, Mandarin doesn't qualify). The Wizard and his Frightful Four were great villains in the 1960s, but dropped off the radar due to disuse.

With that in mind, I nominate the following villains for greatness:
Luthor
Brainiac
The Phantom Zone villains
Joker
Catwoman
Ra's Al Ghul
Sinestro
The Reverse Flash
Grodd
Starro
Darkseid
Dr. Sivanna
Green Goblin
Dr. Octopus
Venom
Dr. Doom
Magneto
Ultron
Kingpin
The Red Skull
Thanos

I think Typhoid Mary may belong on this list as well, but 1) I don't read enough Daredevil to be certain, and 2) My inner pre-mid-1980s snob gave in on Venom, but he's holding the line on any further recent characters.

And, of course, I forgot Loki from my list. This blog needs an edit function.

Something else that works in favor of some of the [villains] proposed here, but against others (like Myx, Starro, Galactus, and Ultron), is that the great [villains] tend to be ones that can be beaten honestly, on their own terms.

Whereas some [villains] are set up as so overwhelmingly powerful that the only way to defeat them is by some trick or gimmick. The early stories of those ones can be excellent, but eventually you end up spending too much of the story explaining why last fight's gimmick can't be used [This time, he's got an anti-Hex magic shield, he's sealed up his own mouth, and Rick Jones borrowed all the Antarctic Vibranium and the Ultimate Nullifier when he left for spring break.], that you get in the way of the actual story.

I think that the Anti-M falls deeply into the gimmick class, and would have gotten dreadfully so if he were a returner. Plus, he got upstaged in his own series by Braniac. If we're letting in one-storyline villians, Terra makes a better pick.

The Anti-Monitor is only "important" because of the role he fills -- Big Bad in a Big Crossover. There's absolutely nothing *inherently* interesting about the character. He has no personality, no motivation, no metaphoric underpining. He hasn't been used again because he's an empty plot device, and there's nothing he brings to the table that can't be supplied by a dozen other marginally more interesting villains (see: Krona in JLA/Avengers).

Since no one agrees with me about the Anti-Monitor, I think that means I win 8)

What a fun set of conversations. I recently had cause to revisit my collection. (I categorically deny any catalyzing effects to Marc pointing me here, or to Matt's Super-extemporizing. Categorically.) Even accounting for its relative modesty (a scant 5 boxes) and idiosycratic nature (only v. Muhammad Ali to represent Supes, yet yards of "CPT Carrot" "Star Hunters" "Creeper" "SGT Fury" and other marginalia)...even accounting for that what struck me was the relative SPARSITY of these creme-de-la-villainry. For every Goblin/Doc Ock battle, Spidey spent an interminable amount of time with the likes of such luminaries as Rocket Racer, Stegron, et al. Yet still, entertaining, fun stories.

All of which puts me firmly into the "great appearance" camp, with a visceral twist: who are the villains whose mere presence in a story makes me sit a little straighter and think "hey, this is going to be better than the issues around it"? It seems two seperate conditions can do this -- either a prior appearance so effective it generates interest in perpetuity, or a villain of such rarified nature that his very presence was special.

Under this metric, luminaries like Kang, Ultron, Catwoman, Red Skull fall away. Joker is almost too omnipresent, his great appearances mitigated by reams of mediocrity. I suppose killing Robin and the Hulk/Batman appearance override that. Ditto Luthor, except that Moore's 1-page Swamp Thing cameo single-handedly rescued him. The Name that Tune school of writing: "I can redeem that villain in one arc" "I can redeem that villain in 1 issue" "I can redeem that villain in 1 page" "Redeem that Villain" I digress badly. Here's my swag:

Two-Face. There was a 70's Neal Adams story where Batman played off the fact that he MUST BE GOOD if the coin sez so. What a great hook, probably not fully exploited until then. Tommy Lee Jones blew it.

Shapeshifter. The best-realized sociopath in comics, at least through the 80's. Thrilling and chilling and turned to 11 compared to her contemporaries.

Baron Karza. Yes, a Darth Vader clone, but one (and this is important) without the wussy "you are my son" taint. And that Mike Gold art made even the cheesey toy design look wicked.

Hate Monger. He's HITLER! C'mon! Hitler!!

Gorilla Grodd. 1) he's an ape 2) he talks 3) he comes from a city of talking apes 4) it's been said before but it bears repeating: he's a talking ape!

Dark Phoenix. The only real corrupted hero tale worth its salt and a touchstone for its time.

Solomon Grundy. I have vague memories of a Golden Age Green Lantern story that wowed me as a pre-teen, and have been ever since enamored of the pale swamp guy.

Mr. Mind. See Grodd, just so much more fun than Sivana.

Submariner. First and best of the sometimes-hero, sometimes villain archetype. Though he went through long periods of hero-only status it's the occaisional bouts of villainy that make him complex and cool.

Loki. Whatever his plots, whatever his schemes his petulance and imagination made him just pure fun.

Bizarro. There was a surprisingly touching story in the 70's that magnified the pathos of Big B rather than just highlighted the funny talk. Since then the talk am no funny and me no look behind for him.

Oops, I'm over 9 and didn't even mention Thanos for the Marvel Team-Up/Logan's Run backup and Darkseid for the Great Darkness Saga. Maybe this criteria isn't discriminating enough.

Does seem interesting that under this "new issue excitement" metric the book-centric villains (ala Magneto or Fu Manchu) have to work harder to overcome all the ho-hum mediocrity their omnipresence generates.

I retract the "excitement" criteria. Not discriminating enough. I omitted Doc Doom (made the list for the super-villain teamup where he DID conquer Earth and battled Magneto out of boredom), Green Goblin (most infamous girlfriend murder in comics), Galactus, Dracula (thanks to Mr. Wolfman. If only he had been illustrated by Chester Frankenstein) ...

And for expectant excitement I'd have to add Dr. Bong from Howard the Duck and Mysterio (due to the 'Honey I shrunk Spidey' story and his cool costume). Going this way, the list may never end.

Solomon Grundy. I have vague memories of a Golden Age Green Lantern story that wowed me as a pre-teen, and have been ever since enamored of the pale swamp guy.

Me too: Something about GL imprisoning Grundy in a bubble on the moon, and then subsequently escaping. That idea alone, of a villain so implacable, so unstoppable, that he needed such imprisonment, and a hero who could create by will such a permanent effect, that was awe-inspiring.

Must have been in a 100-pager reprint from the early seventies.

Oh yeah, Solomon Grundy, good call. He was really creepy and scary in those golden age stories. His origin story, where the thugs explain to him what the word "kill" means. The JSA story where the team chases him across the country. Even that Mike Friedrich JLA/JSA team-up where he mops the floor with the Earth-2 Superman. Great stuff.