I think Darkseid is a largely overrated and not particularly exciting villain.
There, I said it. I feel better now.
I may well get pounded for this, but really, how excited am I supposed to get about a villain who spends an inordinate amount of time with his hands clasped behind his back?
Seriously though, there are only three instances in which I truly enjoyed ol' Stone Face as a villain. The rest of the time I have found him to be not very compelling and quite a bit less enjoyable than Thanos, or even Mongol (Morgol? Whateverthehell his name is -- okay, at least Darkseid's name is more memorable, I'll grant you that).
Am I mad? Have I lost my senses? We'll see...
So the three instances in which I thought Darkseid was a crackerjack villain (in order of coolness):
#1: The Great Darkness Saga, Legion of Super-Heroes.
Duh. I'm not ashamed to admit that I had never even heard of the guy before this story arc (alas for those halcyon days when five issues packed with a main plot -- including huge amounts of action *and* multiple subplots! -- that came to a definitive conclusion was a major story arc).
To me he was just this very mysterious, powerful villain with equally powerful and mysterious minions. He was already one of the most exciting supervillains I had ever read -- and I didn't even know who he was! Given that I didn't know who the guy was, the big reveal didn't do much for me, but Levitz and Giffen did a superb job of selling it through Brainy's reaction and by ratcheting up everything about Darkseid's evil and badassness after the reveal.
Later on, as we'll discuss in a moment, I read most of Kirby's original Fourth World stuff, only to realize that Levitz's Darkseid really doesn't read like the King's Darkseid (I'd say the discrepancy is greater than the variation between Dr. Doom's by different writers in the 70's and early-80's). Still, Levitz didn't violate the spirit of the character or anything, and I think he's still Darkseid-ish enough to keep everyone happy -- especially when used in such magnificent fashion.
#2: Kirby's original Fourth World stories.
Darkseid is actually kind of hit-or-miss for me in these stories -- which is not surprising, given that the stories themselves are kind of hit-or-miss for me. However, like the stories as a whole, Darkseid is generally a whole lot more hit than miss. So the episodes where Darkseid is being deadly-dull hands-clasped-behind-the-back guy are countered nicely by the episodes where Darkseid flips out and goes into full arm-waving-loon Kirby Villain mode (nobody body-rants quite like a set-off Kirby villain!). In fact, there's almost a bipolar quality to the Great Stone One that's part of the fun, at least for me.
Anyway, the point being that while this Darkseid is presented as a brooding, planning, master villain, one who sends minions to do his dirty work and isn't afraid to Omega Beam 'em when they fail, he also isn't afraid to roll up his proverbial sleeves, Boom Tube down to Earth, and trade punches with anyone from the Man of Steel to Jimmy Olsen (okay, that last one's a stretch, but I bet Jimmy could tick Ol' Stoney off enough to forget about the Omega Sanction for a minute and go for the fisticuffs).
Darkseid -- like the whole pantheon of Fourth World characters -- is greatly aided in these stories by Kirby's frenetic, sincere, unpolished, unbridled, on-his-sleeve and on-the-nose storytelling. You don't need footnotes or annotations to grok Kirby's symbolism. Hell, most of the characters have torrid mid-battle mini-soliloquies where they *tell* you what they symbolize at one point or another. Anyway, it's clearly not as important (to the stories or to Kirby) as the good guys-versus-bad guys morality play being slugged out in front of you.
So as the Dr. Doom-meets-Professor X of Fourth World villains, I enjoyed Darkseid greatly -- although Kirby's storytelling is just a little too sprawling and a little too sloppy for me to enjoy him as much as I did in the Great Darkness storyline. But if someone wanted to swap 1 and 2 here, I would happily concede it as a matter of personal preference.
#3: Darkseid in "Superman: The Animated Series."
I have said many times that the "DC Animated-Verse" crew has been turning out the best superhero stories of the last dozen years, and this is a perfect example. Although their Darkseid is a little more stoic and a little more restrained than I'd like (I like Levitz's version, a villain who isn't afraid to laugh maniacally or get intensely threatening in a really emotional way -- in other hands Darky just seems too darned even-tempered, and what fun is having Omega Beams at your disposal if you're a basically dispassionate guy?), but with that said, the Ani-verse crew managed to perfectly capture the essence of menace and fun from the original Kirby stories, while (coincidentally or not) also hitting some of the same notes Levitz hit that I liked so well all those years ago.
Just superb superhero pathos in the Mighty Marv--er, that is, just the way I like it.
And other than those stories (and one of them isn't even from a comic book), I haven't liked a single instance of Darkseid that I've read, and have found myself actively disliking most. (Including, quite surprisingly to me, Walt Simonson's handling of the character.)
Now you may say, "Okay, but that still gives the Browridge of Granite two stellar appearances, which is a pretty good track record." Yeah, but it really isn't. Arcade has two stellar supervillain appearances. Whiplash/Blacklash has three in Iron Man. And, of course, Dr. Doom has something like 24 stellar supervillain appearances (I said that to be a comical exaggeration, but I'm not even sure it is).
So whenever people start talking about wanting to see more of Darkseid, my reaction is: "What for?"
That said, yeah, you could write a screenplay where Darkseid would make a pretty badass Superman movie villain. :-)
Posted by Chris M. at July 9, 2006 1:55 AM