What are the evil acts in comics? Surely there's a difference in scale between Dark Phoenix destroying a solar system and Frieda reporting Snoopy to the Head Beagle, but both of these actions troubled and horrified me when I read about them. Where is the line of evil?
Okay, reporting Snoopy to the head Beagle probably wasn't actually evil, but it annoyed me.
My opinion is that the worst villains in superhero comics were from the old Fawcett Captain Marvel crew including King Kull, Captain Nazi, Mr. Mind, Sivana and Black Adam. Yes, they are a goofy bunch, but they have to be because otherwise your average reader couldn't stomach them. King Kull is evil. He wants to shrink the Earth and crush it. I mean, at least Brainiac restricts himself to cities and then satisfies himself with bottling them.
Mr. Mind is determined to kill everyone he meets. How evil is he? The Monster Society of Evil calls him boss.
Captain Nazi. If you call yourself "Captain Nazi," you're just showing off. It's advertising, but it's also a lot to live up to. Captain Nazi tried his best though.
Dr. Sivana is actually the least evil of the old crew. He wants to kill people, but he also wants to keep some people alive. He just wants Marvel out of the way.
Posted by Mike Chary at July 7, 2005 9:05 PM
The original Hate Monger was evil because he was Hitler!!!
Actually, coming across those stories in the mid-80s, they seemed sort of silly, but for a reader in the early-60s, maybe there was soemthing there. Eichmann had been caught only a few years prior, Mengele was out there somewhere, and who knows if maybe Hitler really had escaped that bunker and was lurking out there somewhere.
In terms of actions, the Joker and the Green Goblin are pretty evil, but then you have to wonder whether they are truly cognizant of their actions. I mean, Joker keeps getting sent to Arkham, which means some judge in Gotham keeps finding that he is incapable of distinguishing right from wrong (or possibly, depending on what the law is in Gotham's state, that he has an irresistable impulse to kill). Is it really an act of evil for him to go around killing people given that he has no conception of right and wrong and/or given that he has no ability to stop himself from killing?
The thiing about the Joker is not whether he's insane, but whether we learn anything from keeping locked up. I can't help but think the Joker and Gobs were driven insane by chemicals. Their actions might not be evil because there's questionable moral content.
I'm actually still really bugged by Frieda reporting Snoopy to the Head Beagle. I mean, in Kantian terms she was not only using Snoopy as a means, but when he refused to capitulate his inherrent dignity of personhood, she reported him to an authority. Also, she carried cat around like she was Ernst Stavro Blofeld or something. Also, her naturally curly hair makes her a femme fatale.
I mean, we all know Peanuts has angst, but the target for that is usually Charlie Brown, and then it's Peppermint Patty. But Snoopy is Joe Cool. He struggles, but he at least gets to live the adventurous life when he's shot down. And then Fireda destroys our confident hero by reporting him to the Head Beagle.
I don't know DC, but I'm fairly good with Marvel. Most evil villains:
Red Skull: The last remaining 3rd Reich war criminal. Probably responsible for more deaths than all other Earth villains combined. How often do you think Marvel Earth History channel has a show about him? Unfortunately, most of his stories coast on this implied background and do little to demonstrate it.
Magneto: The mutant Hitler if he could be. He did destroy a Russian city too.
Thanos: Another mass murderer on a cosmic scale. Stories actually reflect it too.
Mephisto: Because he's the devil. Same with all the other demons and pseduo-demons out there. Very little exorcist type horror though in his appearances. That's unfortunate.
Dormammu: He's sufficiently different from the typical demon to get his own rating. Would be greater if better stories were told about him, although the way JMS had Strange talked about him in ASM brought chills.
Kang the Conqueror: Evil in the way Genghis Khan was evil. He'd kill anyone to build his empire. Measure the males on the wheelcart and slaughter everyone above it. Busiek did a good job outling exactly what Kang wanted to do once he conquered this time era: eugenics cleansing, Big Brother media, brainwashing by propaganda.
Ultron: Anyone who intends to exterminate humanity is pretty chilling.
Annihilus: Obstensibly he has committed genocide several times in the Negative Zone.
Mister Sinister: Although he became boring around Inferno, ordering the annihilation of the Morlocks is up there. Shows his character.
I'd like to include a communist villain, but most either died early in their careers, defected to the West, or were plainly stooges. No super-powered Pol Pots or Stalins among them.
For non-Marvel, Warren Ellis had a string of great villains in every arc he did for the Authority. Great comics.
Actually, Mags was careful to slow the volcano's growth so the city could be evacuated. He did send the sub that launched nukes at him to the bottom of the ocean, tho.
"Aphid eats leaf. Ladybug eats aphid. Soil absorbs dead ladybug. Plant feeds upon soil...
is aphid evil? Is ladybug evil? Is soil evil?
Where is evil, in all the wood?"
--The Parliament of Trees, written by Alan Moore
Compare the Sun-Eater, which destroys solar systems but has no consciousness, to Galactus, who destroys inhabited planets in order to survive, but has ample consciousness to understand the morality of his actions, to Dark Phoenix, who destroys inhabited worlds without the excuse of necessity.
Are you looking more for a definition of evil or examples thereof?
How about Darkseid, whose evil arises inherently from selfishness, to, say, DeSaad, who is evil out of inherent cruelty?
Spider-Man's burglar's acts are evil, but considered objectively, not unusually so. Subjectively, however, it's clear that they are the greatest evil to befall Peter Parker. A significant part of that is because they were catalyzed by Peter's own act of evil, the single act he is cursed forevermore to expiate at the cost of his own happiness.
I kind of liked how Grant Morrison drew a line in the sand with "Planet X" and basically said, Here, Magneto is a bad guy, he always will be a bad guy, his actions are horrible.
Of course, as long as Chris Claremont is around, that line will always be scuffed over.
Ah, "Planet X"...it made me realize that for years writers had been saying that Magneto is a crazed ideologue, but none had been SHOWING it, at least not until Morrison came around.
I don't know why - and maybe it's just me - but "Erik is the name our human oppressors gave me!" is one of the funniest yet most chilling lines I've ever read in any literature.
Nobody's brought up Byrne's infamous Luthor short story, "Metropolis 900 Mi," so I will. You know -- the one where he makes the waitress an indecent proposal (a few years before the movie) and then leaves before she has a chance to answer. In the limo back to Metropolis, he gloats that she will torture herself for the rest of her insignificant life, never knowing how it might have turned out differently. That's evil on a small scale, but evil nonetheless.