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Comic books, science fiction and fantasy are full of fantastic, weird often gruesome villains. They are a necessary part of most subgenres. Stories fall apart without conflict. Sometimes a villain type overstays their welcome. Others, you wonder why they were popular to begin with. Anyway, here is a top ten list of villain types that I've grown kind of sick of.
- The Foreign Terrorist - This one I'm sick of for several reasons. A huge part of it is because most fantasy and comics writers barely try to bulk up their characters beyond that of cardboard cut out racial stereotype. Most of these types of villains ranging from DC's Egg Fu and Kobra to Marvel's Madarin or Man Ape come off as incredibly racist. I understand that comics in particular have their roots in World War II propaganda but just because something is a tradition doesn't mean we should hold on to it. The other reason I'm sick of this villain type is if I wanted to read about foreign terrorists I have a much cheaper way of doing so. It's called The Express newspaper- shorter free version of The Washington Post. That's right- I'm an admitted dinosaur. I get my news on paper and read it for things other than the funnies.
- The Politician - It is hard to pull off a politician as a villain in a mainstream comic or television show since they want to appeal to a wide audience. Give them any actual political beliefs and it comes off as if the writer is saying all fill in the blanks are evil. The best example of this is the TV series Heroes where Nathan Petrelli was a congressman and later a senator. Even when he was one of the good guys, he was still vaguely evil. He was willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands to get elected. In spite of the fact the area of New York he's supposed to be representing is extremely liberal- he struck me as a conservative. Especially in season three when he got in bed with the military industrial complex and the religious right. That could just be me projecting my own views of political evil. I've seen conservatives claiming Petrelli was too liberal. He did, after all, eventually agree to let the 'terrorists' go. Chris Claremont flip flopped on Robert Kelly- another political type quasi-villain. Whenever he was anti-mutant he was a Republican and whenever he was pro-mutant he became a Democrat. The truth is almost every politician in comics, science fiction or fantasy novels are depicted as being opportunistic, amoral and corrupt or just plain incompetent. This of course being a common American myth that one has to be one or the other. History will show you that one of the few things that is truly bipartisan is stupidity. Samuel L. Clemens once wrote that politicians have : " ...the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes."
- The Corrupt Corporation - The evil corporation has become so prevalent that it is almost impossible to avoid this cliche in modern era sci-fi or super hero comics. Believe it or not, not all corporations are evil. Sure, plenty of them dump industrial waste in ground water near that lake your family swims in and don't bother telling people about it for fifty years. Others purposely release buggy versions of software so they can then force you to buy the patches in three to six months. All the large corporations now officially own the election process in the United States. However, your run of the mill corporations are really nice people. They just want a chance to give you anti-freeze to brush your teeth and feed your dog new Soylent Canine Chow. Though I'm fairly certain no corporation actually wants to take over the world. For one thing- ruling the world costs a lot of money. To run a planet effectively would cost more than any corporation makes. Since corporations exist to make money, the idea of corporations wanting to conquer humanity is patently absurd. If they ruled the world- who'd bail them out when they failed? It is easier to do what real corporations do- let someone else rule the world or a large chunk of it then buy that guy's loyalty or, barring that, rent it. The concept of an evil corporation creating mindless super powered soldiers or zombies is also complete nonsense. Where's the profit? They can only benefit if they have a buyer. Where is the market for uncontrollable killing machines that are just as likely to kill the people giving them commands as anyone else? There isn't one. Well, not since 2008 anyway. (This portion of the Top Ten Countdown was paid for by Co-Opt Democracy Now which is solely responsible for its content.)
- The Broken Super Hero - This one has really only been around since the late 70s. Sometimes it really works. Alan Moore pulled it off not once, but twice, in his masterwork Watchmen. However since that time it has become cliched. Now what was once a rare occurrence is now the norm- Batman has a nemesis in the Red Hood. Bucky became, for a time, Winter Soldier. Roy Harper (Speedy, Arsenal, Red Arrow) went from being a recovering drug addict to relapsed addict and mass murderer almost over night. Over the past fifteen years Cyclops has gone from being a very flawed super hero to the very type of self-righteous dictatorial mutant supremacist that the X-Men were formed to prevent from coming into existence in the first place. Yet for some reason we're still he supposed to believe that he's 'the good guy'. Some writers do it in a well thought out manner but those instances are rare.
- The Twisted Future Hero - This one is similar to the broken super hero. A hero who has betrayed his very principles and is given a doorway back in time. Arriving in the present, they generally try to prevent their timeline from coming into existence by any means necessary often coming into conflict with their younger self. Often the younger self will try to prevent the future hero from indulging in actions like unnecessary brutality, torture and murder. Not only has almost every series done this plot at one point or another- it has about three variations on the ending. Either a) the future hero beats the villain with his old set of values, thus granting him some sort of personal redemption but ultimately dying in the process. b) The Twisted Future Hero is unaware of the identity of the great villain who caused his tormented future to occur and surprise, surprise, the mystery villain is himself- his whole timeline exists because he went back to make it happen. c) He's really in alternate past what happened in one timeline won't happen in another. Realizing that all his violence has done nothing but cause more suffering he either goes home or commits suicide. Again there are some great stories that use this basic idea. There are also been a lot of horrible ones.
- Demons - Demons fall on the list for one simple reason- going all the way back to early days of religion they have been portrayed as evil for the sake of being evil. It's not very realistic nor does it make for interesting storytelling. An interesting villain should have a reason for what they do other than 'I am evil'. They need to be more than a counterweight for good. Most demons are not written this way. You get your occasional sympathetic demon but they have come to be few and far between. They all seem to use Milton or Clemens as their inspiration. It is also hard to make one demon character distinctive from another. They become interchangeable parts. You can kill Bh'obb the Demon continue the story with his twin brother Ph'redd and chances are no one would notice. There are exceptions but overall I'm bored with them.
- Werewolves - They're normal people who, during a full moon, turn into feral animals. Okay, kind of creepy but not evil. Most werewolves are mere animals. They are much stronger and agile wolves. Wolves hunt and kill but there is no maliciousness in it. They are doing it to survive. They are no more evil than an avalanche or plague. Evil doesn't mean a creature out to kill people. It implies intent. A being that lacks sentience can not, by definition, be evil. Hazardous yes- but not evil. There are some werewolves that have intelligence, ranging from the Twilight kid, Marvel's Jack Russell- The Werewolf by Night and Joshua from Peter David's Howling Mad. They are all anti-heroes, another category where the werewolf has also become cliche. Though Joshua, a wolf forced into humanity during the full moon, has enough of a darkly comedic twist to keep him interesting.
- Zombies - To me anyway- villains work best when they are an intellectual match for their opponent. It's confusing to me why an opponent with absolutely no intellectual capacity at all would become such an internet cult. Creatures that can't think and generally can't move more than five steps a minute aren't that frightening even when given super strength and an appetite for human grey matter. I have seen many, many, zombie movies in my day and found only a few entertaining. One of them being the original version of Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." This portrayal of zombies as conformity and the status quo of 1960s America as evil is a powerful work of cinema. The others include: Raimi's "Army of Darkness" and Wright's "Shaun of the Dead" which were comedies poking fun at the whole zombie/horror movie concept. Shaun of the Dead especially makes a point that making fun of zombie movies are literally like beating a dead horse. Comics have had their share of zombie stories as well. Very few have done anything to make the zombies themselves all that compelling.
- Vampires - I've never understood the appeal of Vampires. Okay, they suck blood and that's kind of gross. So what? So do mosquitoes, corporate executives and magazine editors. You don't see many young adult romance fantasy novels with a teenage girl falling for any of them. I think the problem is that no one has really tried to do a vampire with a new personality since Brahm Stoker not even James and Deborah Howe in their epic Bunnicula. You can only hear the story of Dracula so many times before he completely runs out of steam. Between Abbott and Costello movies, Twilight, the works of Laurel K. Hamilton and the people at White Wolf Games, vampires have become a parody of the horror they once were. In fact, one almost has to think of Gary Oldman as the hero of the version of Dracula he was in since he was trying to save us from the terror that is Keanu Reeves. Out of all the vampires I've seen or read there are only three I can tolerate for long periods: the aforementioned Bunnicula along with Count Chocula and Count Von Count. Only one of them was particularly evil. Unless of course being part of balanced breakfast is a threat to all humanity.
- Nazis - I'm not saying the Nazis weren't some of the most undeniably evil people of the last hundred years. It's obvious that they were but in comic books- it's gotten kind of ridiculous. Any ranking member, if they were still alive, would be pushing a century or so in age. I'll buy Captain America, a great hero, surviving in suspended animation and Red Skull to serve as a counterpoint. The amount of cryogenics, genetic engineering, cloning and cybernetics needed to keep the Nazi super villain viable into the first two decades of the 21st century has gotten absurd. DC and Marvel each have at least a dozen of these guys still around. On a storytelling level, they've all become cartoonish- a joke. Part of that is because Nazis are one of the few groups that we, as a society, have all said it is okay to hate. Without an emotional hook, they don't really make good villains. If you can't feel sympathy or understanding for your villain then your story falls apart. Nobody really wants to write about a sympathetic Nazi. Granted there are works like The Boys from Brazil but I'm not sure the one sympathetic Nazi there counts because he might not become one- regardless of who his genes say he is.
Congratulations folks, the mob has spoken. They like this series. Also I have a quite a few back logged. So at least till the end of the year Top Ten List will be double sized. Unfortunately the first few months will have nothing to do with each other. Oh well...
About 15 years ago, a friend of mine wrote several Star Trek meets Legion of Super Heroes crossovers fanfics where as I served as one of the beta editors. I was generously given a co-writer credit on chapter three though all I did was rewrite some some Matter Eater Lad and Quark's dialogue. Please, don't try to find them online. Why? I thought it was a crazy idea then- and I think it's a crazy one now even with IDW in the midst of doing one. It makes me think some other crossovers my friends and I have joked about over the years would be good ideas after all. Oh! and if any of the publisher's involved are reading this email me. My per page rate is cheap and I don't eat much at lunch. In other words, I'm the perfect freelancer.
- Warlord vs. Killraven: One is a master of sword and sorcery in a hollow Earth filled with dinosaurs. The other is a master of swords and zap guns in post-Apocalyptic age that should have happened by now. One fights world conquering wizards. One fights world conquering Martians. What if each had something the other world needed? Or what if they had to choose between one world or the other? The possibilities are interesting. However, my interest in Killraven is close to nonexistent and Warlord without Mike Grell just feels wrong.
- Batman meets Scooby-Doo 3: The first two Batman Meets Scooby Doo stories- two installments of The New Scooby Doo Movies- go down as some of the worst Batman stories in any medium. Not only that, but it was in one of the more dreadful eras of Scooby Doo. We're talking so bad Adam West wouldn't go near it with a twenty foot pole. They actually found a bad Adam West impersonator. Over the years many comics fans have said this was their first exposure to Batman. The problem is, even in the silver age the two series don't seem to mesh. A version set in their current relaunches could be truly amazing. Maybe even good. Over the years there have been rumors of comics writers- ranging from Gail Simone, Chuck Dixon to Mark Evanier- have wanted to get this story remade right. I'll believe it when I see it. The really scary thing is I kind of do want to see it. Even if it is a train wreck.
- Sleepwalker and Sandman: Marvel's Sleepwalker really has a serious problem. They can't decide which DC series to try to rip off. In some sense the cop from the realm of dreams who comes to defend humanity thing was an attempt to do a code approved super hero style version of the Neil Gaiman version of Sandman. Though Marvel's execution came out very similar to a concept DC did with Sandman during the 50s by some guys named Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. On the other hand, Sleepwalker's methods were more like The Spectre. Having Sleepwalker meet any or all versions of DC's Sandman would be a welcome addition to the realm of intercompany crossovers. Since every Marvel-DC crossover is obligated to have one villain from each universe- Marvel's obvious choice would have to be Flint Marko - The Sandman.
- Star Trek Meets Dr. Who: If IDW is really married to doing Star Trek intercompany crossovers, why not stick to crossing over with something they already have the license to? You know- in spite of having crossovers with things that made no sense and tons of zombies (see top ten list above)- Infestation wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been. Here though you would be giving comics fans on both sides of the Atlantic a story they've been drooling after for more than 40 years. The two biggest cheese ball sci-fi franchises of the 1960s together. It would be hard to go wrong with this one. Hell, there are enough Doctors and enough Star Treks (including the novels or comics only series) that each Doctor could meet a different Star Trek.
- Fallen Angel vs. Supergirl: When I first read that DC's new Supergirl was going to have 'all the power of her cousin and none of the compassion' I thought DC already published this book. It was called "Fallen Angel." It was a damn brilliant book. Lee slowly revealed she did have a compassionate side. In fact that was what drove her to violence. It seems contradictory but it really worked. The one problem with this crossover is Fallen Angel creator Peter David kinda sorta already did this story in the pages of IDW's Fallen Angel revival. It was sort of a wink, wink, nudge nudge sort of way like those Avengers/Justice League/Coyote crossovers that Steve Englehart did. To see these two actually meet could be a lot of fun especially if David were allowed to let his dark and dry sense of humor loose. Then again, it seems these days only two writers at DC are allowed to have a sense of humor.
- Ultimate Spider-Man II meets Blue Beetle III: With all the media hoopla around the new Ultimate Spider-Man you'd think there had never been a Hispanic super hero before. Back in the 80s there was Vibe and his brother Reverb who seemed like bad cultural stereotypes. Then there was Jaime Reyes. It could be really fun to see how these two teenage heroes interact. Especially since they are both relatively inexperienced and have very different attitudes. Give them two really nasty villains, say Venom and The Reach and just let things roll from there. Or Venom could infect someone else with a scarab and... well you could see where that would lead. Total mayhem.
- X-Factor and Spy Boy: The many years ago, Dark Horse ended Spyboy due to work being done on an animated pilot. The ending was somewhat ambiguous. His memory problems were finally gone. He found he had a big brother or clone that went through accelerated growth or something. That wasn't made clear. He may or may not have switched sides in the spy game. He may or may not have been a sleeper agent the whole time. One of the villain teams from an X-Factor storyline that Peter David said we'd see more of later had similar problems. It wouldn't be the first time Spyboy had an ongoing storyline end in a not supposed to be in continuity crossover. X-Factor has been no stranger to weirdness or noir/spy comedy either. It could work.
- Lobo Vs. Deadpool: This is one I've actually heard fans demanding. Lobo was a spoof of the ultra violet vigilante/assassin hero of the 80s and 90s who became a lot like his serious counterparts over the course of time. Deadpool is a dark and grim vigalante/assassin type who becomes (at times) a parody of the genre. So they have a lot of common ground. So much so that Deadpool has even done homage covers to early issues of Lobo. What would happen if they were given the same target and fought over who collected the money. Under the right writers… fun, fun, fun. Why this hasn't happened, I don't know. It seems almost perfect. Somebody lock Keith Giffen, Dan Slott and Mike McKone in a room, give them all the pizza and cherry cola they want and don't let them out until it is finished.
- Superman Meets Astro Boy: Astro Boy is often called the closest thing to a super hero one will find in Japan. Superman is one of the most recognizable super heroes in the world. The whole term super hero comes from him. At their best, they are both beacons of hope and optimism. They are both orphans of sorts- trying to defend the ideas of two worlds. One being a human world. The other being something weird and different. The fact Astro Boy has been around since the 1950s makes it seem odd that this one hasn't happened yet. Oh sure, it would have been cooler to do this when Tezuka, Siegel and Shuster were all still alive but you can't win them all. Besides there is an obvious answer to this dilemma: call Steve Rude.
- Groo vs. Batlash: One is a cartoonish imitation of a barbarian hero. The other is the most fly by the seat of his pants gunmen ever to set foot in western comics. They are both the best there is at what they do. However, they live in different eras and would never have the opportunity to find out who would actually win in a fight. One of the biggest problems a lot of these crossovers have is the companies involved tend to include an impartiality clause into the licensing agreement. Can anyone tell me if Groo creator Sergio Aragones has ever met Batlash co-creator Sergio Aragones? Have they ever been seen at the same convention at the same time? As long as those two can work something out, I'm sure they can be completely impartial on to how that fight would turn out which is really the only thing you'd need for this story to work.
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