How evil should a super villain be?

[bluebeast]

The thing I always thought about Lex is that his speech about Superman preventing him from doing great things is all bull****. If you read Up, up and away, Superman asks Luthor just about this. He talks to him about how Luthor had an entire year without Superman in order to change the world but did nothing. I think that Luthor wants to be loved by humanity, which is why he justifies his acts by blaming Superman. Luthor does evil things because he thinks with Superman out of the way that he can finally take back control of the world. But Luthor can never be satisfied, because when he became president he had full control but still commited evil acts.

With the Joker I also don't think that he's motivated by evil. The Joker does do evil things, of course and is a terrible person but not because he wants to be evil. The Joker does what he does because he thinks the concepts of right or wrong are a joke. The Joker has a flawed personality in that he finds the unacceptable acceptable and the aweful benificial.

Another interesting person is Bullseye. I think that Bullseye knows that he does evil things and that he's a terrible person, he just doesn't give a ****. Other people are meaningless to Bullseye and he just does what he wants.

 

[McCheese]

I think Black and white can work in certain cases, like Cap vs. the Red Skull, Cap is 100% right and der Skull is 100% wrong, that's what makes their relationship so interesting. Everything the Skull does is vile and contemptible, that's what makes him a good villain. Sometimes pure good vs. pure evil can be fun.

However that doesn't work with lex, he isn't pure evil, he is more amoral then immoral, every action serves a purpose he never does things without fitting into some larger scheme, he does evil things without a purpose behind them. Magneto is also interesting because he isn't 100% wrong, he does have some good points.

Somethings you want a villain who is sympathetic and other times you want a completely vile villain.

My response to this is that I have never found the Red Skull to be an interesting character. Lex and the Joker have gone through several changes in their personality and their motivations. They've evolved as characters, but the Skull is the same two dimensional villain he was when he was created. And he was created to be the complete antithesis of Captain America and everything "American". He is a propaganda piece against a social movement that has, for the most part, ceased to be relevant in today's culture.

Captain America should have stopped fighting the Red Skull 50 years ago. Cap works best when his comics represent the political climate of the day. That's why Millar's Red Skull equivalent in Ultimates 2 was from the Middle East. And the most compelling part about him was that he had good reasons for hating America and SHIELD. A goofy red-faced Nazi sitting in the shadows maniacally wringing his hands and plotting to do evil Nazi stuff just because he's just such a bad guy is ridiculous and decades past being relevant or interesting.

 

[The Overlord]

My response to this is that I have never found the Red Skull to be an interesting character. Lex and the Joker have gone through several changes in their personality and their motivations. They've evolved as characters, but the Skull is the same two dimensional villain he was when he was created. And he was created to be the complete antithesis of Captain America and everything "American". He is a propaganda piece against a social movement that has, for the most part, ceased to be relevant in today's culture.

Captain America should have stopped fighting the Red Skull 50 years ago. Cap works best when his comics represent the political climate of the day. That's why Millar's Red Skull equivalent in Ultimates 2 was from the Middle East. And the most compelling part about him was that he had good reasons for hating America and SHIELD. A goofy red-faced Nazi sitting in the shadows maniacally wringing his hands and plotting to do evil Nazi stuff just because he's just such a bad guy is ridiculous and decades past being relevant or interesting.

Have you read the recent captain America comics? The Red Skull is no longer just a Nazi, he is now nihilist, Nazism wasn't hardcore enough for him. He is no longer behind the times, he is now a timeless symbol of pure evil and Brubaker makes it work.

The thing I always thought about Lex is that his speech about Superman preventing him from doing great things is all bull****. If you read Up, up and away, Superman asks Luthor just about this. He talks to him about how Luthor had an entire year without Superman in order to change the world but did nothing. I think that Luthor wants to be loved by humanity, which is why he justifies his acts by blaming Superman. Luthor does evil things because he thinks with Superman out of the way that he can finally take back control of the world. But Luthor can never be satisfied, because when he became president he had full control but still commited evil acts.
.

Exactly this is just rationalizations Lex, lots of people give themselves BS justifications for their own evil acts, that's completely realistic. People hide their true intentions behind a bunch of BS.

616 cap is practically a saint, at least compared to his counterparts. This is why Cap is an interesting character and the Skill too, they arte Golden age characters outside of their time, they the pure good vs. pure evil stories you would see back in the 40s.

 

[McCheese]

Have you read the recent captain America comics? The Red Skull is no longer just a Nazi, he is now nihilist, Nazism wasn't hardcore enough for him. He is no longer behind the times, he is now a timeless symbol of pure evil and Brubaker makes it work.

616 cap is practically a saint, at least compared to his counterparts. This is why Cap is an interesting character and the Skill too, they arte Golden age characters outside of their time, they the pure good vs. pure evil stories you would see back in the 40s.

I have read 4 volumes of Bru's run and found it to be average and EXTREMELY drawn out. As far as the changes to Skull's character I didn't notice much of anything different. He's still a two dimensional caricature of a villain who isn't terribly interesting.

 

[The Overlord]

I have read 4 volumes of Bru's run and found it to be average and EXTREMELY drawn out. As far as the changes to Skull's character I didn't notice much of anything different. He's still a two dimensional caricature of a villain who isn't terribly interesting.

Others would disagree, especailly comic book reviewers, besides who else would Cap fight? Tons of people are that evil in real life.

Another interesting person is Bullseye. I think that Bullseye knows that he does evil things and that he's a terrible person, he just doesn't give a ****. Other people are meaningless to Bullseye and he just does what he wants.

Bullseye not giving a **** about other human beings makes him pretty pure evil.

 

[McCheese]

Others would disagree, especailly comic book reviewers, besides who else would Cap fight? Tons of people are that evil in real life.

What others, most especially internet comic book reviewers, think is quite inconsequential to me. The fact is that for 4 volumes Captain America ran around stopping minor terrorists threats and chasing Bucky while the Red Skull subplot did not advance forward in any meaningful fashion. And I should also note that I firmly believe that Lukin was a far more interesting opponent for Cap before the Skull wound up in his head.

 

[bluebeast]

Bullseye not giving a **** about other human beings makes him pretty pure evil.

And I agree that he's one of the most evil characters in the Marvel Universe just for the fact that doing evil is like a drug to him. It's his high and he can't stand to be without it. I honestly think Bullseye can't go too long without killing someone or it will drive him insane. Even when he was in the Thunderbolts the only reason he didn't kill Jack Flag was because of the nanites in his body but he did everything short of killing him by severing his vertabrae. This is also why I think Colin Farrell in Daredevil is one of the greatest movie villains of all time.

 

[The Overlord]

What others, most especially internet comic book reviewers, think is quite inconsequential to me. The fact is that for 4 volumes Captain America ran around stopping minor terrorists threats and chasing Bucky while the Red Skull subplot did not advance forward in any meaningful fashion. And I should also note that I firmly believe that Lukin was a far more interesting opponent for Cap before the Skull wound up in his head.

Inconsequential to you maybe, but not me.

Its like when most critics like a movie, sure not everyone will agree with them, but its a pretty good indication of a good movie.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it a bad comic.

 

[Zombipanda]

Apologies if my thoughts seem scrambled and non-sensical. I'm still rather ****ed up.

I could not disagree more. As I've already said, no one can be "pure evil" or "pure goodness". As human beings (or sentient and remarkably human looking aliens) we are all born with the innate capability to do both good and evil. Spider-Man is a great hero because he struggles with it. He wants to do selfish things like win money wrestling or take a night off from superheroing so he can get the girl, but he doesn't. That inner struggle is what makes him so easy for readers to identify with. It's what makes him a compelling character.

Word. The reason so many of Marvel's characters are compelling is that there's some inherent and very human conflict front and center. They're generally regular people who are thrown into the role, whereas DC's stable is composed of much more mythic, iconic characters. I think that's why Captain America (and maybe even the Fantastic Four) haven't aged as gracefully as Spidey or the X-Men.

One of the reasons I've never been able to stomach Superman is that there is no internal struggle. He is perfect in every conceivable way. He always does the right thing without a seconds hesitation.

I've gotta disagree with you. I used to not like Superman, but now, maybe cuz I've gotten older, I see an interesting impotence in the character. Everything Supes does is reactive. Whereas Batman's a detective, Superman's just the beat cop, or the fireman. If a disaster happens or a crime occurs, he stops it. But he's just a custodian. He loves humans, and does his best to help them along, but he'll never fully understand them. And the key point is, he never actually has the balls to make the proactive change necessary.

I like to think of it in quasi-Christian terms. There's God and there's the Devil, and they're both active inside of us, but it's not straight good vs. evil. God is compassion: as the sum of all things, he represents unity, balance of the whole, meekness and humility. Since God (in Christian theology) is All Things, then he also represents the absorption of the self into the greater whole, or compassion. Satan is the will to power, the advent of the self, or ambition. Evil is when these two traits are out of balance. When someone's wholly consumed by ambition, you have people like Hitler, or Jeffrey Dahmer, who's personal desires wholly subsumed any sort of empathy for their fellow man. It's harder to argue the evil of someone who is compassionate without ambition, but think about it this way. If ambition is the willingness to violate another person's rights as beings, for the good of yourself or others, than utter compassion means to be too meek and too fearful to do anything great, for fear of overstepping your bounds.

Good, then, is when these two traits are acting in harmony. Batman is a good counterpoint to Superman. He's perfectly willing to throw his financial resources at social problems, to violate the social contract we all prescribe to (see Outsiders), and to violate the civil rights of the criminals if that's what it takes to fight for what he believes in. Does he break the law? Sure. All the time. Superman's the opposite, too timid (or pure, if you can't stomach that) to impose himself on the world at large, for fear that his ambition will outstep his compassion. But let's be honest. Take all the lives Superman's saved in his lifetime, and it's just a drop in the ocean. Everybody dies, and the amount of good Superman does will ultimately amount to nothing. Social change, the kind of change that Bruce Wayne and, even Lex Luthor, enforce without even thinking about it will have a much larger affect on things in the end. Lex Luthor employs a million people without even trying to be philanthropic. Superman can't hold a candle to that.

Good is where these two points intersect. It means being aware of both your flaws and your strengths, and being ashamed of neither. It's acting with unquestionable ambition, but being driven by a compassion for others. It means breaking the social contract now and again, but being self-aware enough to not overstep your bounds. I think the collective conscious' (sound-minded) fear of despots isn't seated in the fact that governments in the hands of one person are naturally evil. It's more that, time and time again, we've found that people rarely have the greatness to reach for that kind of power and still act with a righteous balance of the will of the individual and the will of the public. Good is about living, in balance, to your fullest potential, whether this means you're a kick-*** bus boy or (like me) one of the greatest minds of your generation.

All this coming from a self-confessed stoner. Irony of ironies, yeah?

However that doesn't work with lex, he isn't pure evil, he is more amoral then immoral, every action serves a purpose he never does things without fitting into some larger scheme, he does evil things without a purpose behind them. Magneto is also interesting because he isn't 100% wrong, he does have some good points.

Amoral is a good word for Lex. He thinks himself to be above conventional orders of morality.

The thing I always thought about Lex is that his speech about Superman preventing him from doing great things is all bull****. If you read Up, up and away, Superman asks Luthor just about this. He talks to him about how Luthor had an entire year without Superman in order to change the world but did nothing. I think that Luthor wants to be loved by humanity, which is why he justifies his acts by blaming Superman. Luthor does evil things because he thinks with Superman out of the way that he can finally take back control of the world. But Luthor can never be satisfied, because when he became president he had full control but still commited evil acts.

It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and I'd be shocked to see a President who didn't at one point commit ambiguous acts for the greater good. Besides, the little bit of Superman I read during the President Luthor storyline was pretty garbage anyway.

With the Joker I also don't think that he's motivated by evil. The Joker does do evil things, of course and is a terrible person but not because he wants to be evil. The Joker does what he does because he thinks the concepts of right or wrong are a joke. The Joker has a flawed personality in that he finds the unacceptable acceptable and the aweful benificial.

I don't get how that ceases to be evil.

Exactly this is just rationalizations Lex, lots of people give themselves BS justifications for their own evil acts, that's completely realistic. People hide their true intentions behind a bunch of BS.

Yeah, they do. And as long as their true intentions are just as interesting as the BS, that's cool. But with Lex, I think there's more to it than that. He uses Superman as a crutch for his own failure, but there's no changing the fact that he's an incredibly brilliant character. The guy's been the President of the United State for Christ's sake. He built one of the strongest businesses in the universe out of nothing, and he still manages to be a thorn in Superman's side. The fact that any normal human can do that with such regularity is a staggering accomplishment.

616 cap is practically a saint, at least compared to his counterparts. This is why Cap is an interesting character and the Skill too, they arte Golden age characters outside of their time, they the pure good vs. pure evil stories you would see back in the 40s.

There's a reason writers aren't telling the same stories they told in the 40's.... because Captain America punching Hitler in the face and fighting one-dimensional propaganda from the war is terribly outdated. It's boring. It's repetitive. It's insulting to the reader's intelligence.

And I agree that he's one of the most evil characters in the Marvel Universe just for the fact that doing evil is like a drug to him. It's his high and he can't stand to be without it. I honestly think Bullseye can't go too long without killing someone or it will drive him insane. Even when he was in the Thunderbolts the only reason he didn't kill Jack Flag was because of the nanites in his body but he did everything short of killing him by severing his vertabrae. This is also why I think Colin Farrell in Daredevil is one of the greatest movie villains of all time.

Colin Farrell as Bullseye didn't do it for me, but he's an interesting villain in his own right, and a decent foil for Daredevil. But he won't be a great villain until someone really pushes him to his limit. I mean, he was wicked cool when Frank Miller wrote him, but "adrenaline junkie hitman" can only get you so far without adding any layers to the formula.

Have you read the recent captain America comics? The Red Skull is no longer just a Nazi, he is now nihilist, Nazism wasn't hardcore enough for him. He is no longer behind the times, he is now a timeless symbol of pure evil and Brubaker makes it work.

Because nihilism is so timeless. A poor understanding of Nietzsche is what influenced the birth of Nazism, but that doesn't make nihilism any more than an incredibly shallow philosophy, and mostly just a license to have a character be evil without needing any deeper explanation. (We believe in nuzzing! NUZZZZZZZZING!)

Mind telling me how Bru turned Red Skull into a timeless symbol of pure evil? 'cuz, the issues of Cap, he mostly sat in the background and wringed his hands like Blofeld.

Inconsequential to you maybe, but not me.

Its like when most critics like a movie, sure not everyone will agree with them, but its a pretty good indication of a good movie.

Except there's a big difference between comic book critics and film critics. The range of film reviewers is deep and wide and steeped in almost a century of history. Comic book reviewers are usually just comic book nerds who decide they want to give their opinions on comic books. They're not very well paid and I'd imagine, like the video game critic industry, that they're probably in the pockets of the two big companies anyway. Saying "It got good reviews" isn't an argument.

And besides, let's be honest. We're all smarter than comic book critics anyway.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it a bad comic.

And just because you DO like it and some reviewers like it, doesn't make a justification for your argument. If you want to argue why Red Skull's such a great villain, you need something more substantive to back up your claim. I'm not convinced, at least.



Finally, the answer to the question is "Very". A super villain should be very evil.

 

[Gothamite]

I could not disagree more. As I've already said, no one can be "pure evil" or "pure goodness". As human beings (or sentient and remarkably human looking aliens) we are all born with the innate capability to do both good and evil. Spider-Man is a great hero because he struggles with it. He wants to do selfish things like win money wrestling or take a night off from superheroing so he can get the girl, but he doesn't. That inner struggle is what makes him so easy for readers to identify with. It's what makes him a compelling character. One of the reasons I've never been able to stomach Superman is that there is no internal struggle. He is perfect in every conceivable way. He always does the right thing without a seconds hesitation.

The same thing works in reverse. Lex is evil because he just is sucks. But with Lex believing that he was the future of the world and having that future ripped from him by a ridiculous alien in spandex his actions become far more believable and interesting. He's not a good man, but we can relate to him. He lost something that he believes is rightfully his and he wants it back.

That's the big secret of comics. Black and white is boring as hell.

I'm not saying that I want Superman comics to go completely black & white again, I just don't believe that Lex trying to save humanity from the evils of the Kryptonian Alien is an interesting enough motivation for him to act as he does. I prefer the background he was given during the Byrne era (the troubled childhood, his parents in the 'mysterious' car crash, the trust fund).

I really can't stand the idea that Lex Luthor's 'evil' begins and ends with Superman and if Superman ever stopped being super, Lex would devote all of his time and energy into the betterment of mankind. As a supremely intelligent human, Lex could conceivably do a lot more to help mankind than Superman's he-man superpowers ever could and Superman would have to recognise this. You could argue that Superman wouldn't want to take the chance of stepping down, for fear of Luthor going out of control with power or something; but Superman isn't stupid either. One of his most defining characteristics is that he can see the good in everyone, including Lex Luthor.

While we're on the subject of "relishing in evil" being a bad thing; I hate the idea of teams of supervillains that call themselves "The Legion of DOOM" or "The Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants". This is a fine example of the concept of 'purely bad' supervillains being a terrible one. At least with the Legion, they're a gang of baddies who go around robbing banks and things. With the Brotherhood, they're supposed to believe that they're helping in some way and yet they still refer to themselves as 'evil'. Sheesh.

 

[McCheese]

Word. The reason so many of Marvel's characters are compelling is that there's some inherent and very human conflict front and center. They're generally regular people who are thrown into the role, whereas DC's stable is composed of much more mythic, iconic characters. I think that's why Captain America (and maybe even the Fantastic Four) haven't aged as gracefully as Spidey or the X-Men.

I agree with all this.

I've gotta disagree with you. I used to not like Superman, but now, maybe cuz I've gotten older, I see an interesting impotence in the character. Everything Supes does is reactive. Whereas Batman's a detective, Superman's just the beat cop, or the fireman. If a disaster happens or a crime occurs, he stops it. But he's just a custodian. He loves humans, and does his best to help them along, but he'll never fully understand them. And the key point is, he never actually has the balls to make the proactive change necessary.

That's an interesting take on him.

Amoral is a good word for Lex. He thinks himself to be above conventional orders of morality.

I know how he feels.

There's a reason writers aren't telling the same stories they told in the 40's.... because Captain America punching Hitler in the face and fighting one-dimensional propaganda from the war is terribly outdated. It's boring. It's repetitive. It's insulting to the reader's intelligence.

Indeed.

Because nihilism is so timeless. A poor understanding of Nietzsche is what influenced the birth of Nazism, but that doesn't make nihilism any more than an incredibly shallow philosophy, and mostly just a license to have a character be evil without needing any deeper explanation. (We believe in nuzzing! NUZZZZZZZZING!)

Mind telling me how Bru turned Red Skull into a timeless symbol of pure evil? 'cuz, the issues of Cap, he mostly sat in the background and wringed his hands like Blofeld.

Thank you!

I thought I was the only one who saw that.

Except there's a big difference between comic book critics and film critics. The range of film reviewers is deep and wide and steeped in almost a century of history. Comic book reviewers are usually just comic book nerds who decide they want to give their opinions on comic books. They're not very well paid and I'd imagine, like the video game critic industry, that they're probably in the pockets of the two big companies anyway. Saying "It got good reviews" isn't an argument.

And besides, let's be honest. We're all smarter than comic book critics anyway.

Newsarama had a good review for Ultimates 3 #1. Nuff said.

Finally, the answer to the question is "Very". A super villain should be very evil.

Agreed.

I really can't stand the idea that Lex Luthor's 'evil' begins and ends with Superman and if Superman ever stopped being super, Lex would devote all of his time and energy into the betterment of mankind. As a supremely intelligent human, Lex could conceivably do a lot more to help mankind than Superman's he-man superpowers ever could and Superman would have to recognise this. You could argue that Superman wouldn't want to take the chance of stepping down, for fear of Luthor going out of control with power or something; but Superman isn't stupid either. One of his most defining characteristics is that he can see the good in everyone, including Lex Luthor.

You can't stand it. I love it.

I really dig the idea that this guy is so smart that he could literally revolutionize the world, but his jealousy and ego get in his way. It's far more interesting to know that in some way Superman, just by being who he is, is partly responsible for Lex being a bad guy. It adds a great dynamic to their relationship.

 

[Zombipanda]

I really can't stand the idea that Lex Luthor's 'evil' begins and ends with Superman and if Superman ever stopped being super, Lex would devote all of his time and energy into the betterment of mankind. As a supremely intelligent human, Lex could conceivably do a lot more to help mankind than Superman's he-man superpowers ever could and Superman would have to recognise this. You could argue that Superman wouldn't want to take the chance of stepping down, for fear of Luthor going out of control with power or something; but Superman isn't stupid either. One of his most defining characteristics is that he can see the good in everyone, including Lex Luthor.

Nobody's saying that Lex Luthor would become a saint overnight and revolutionize the world. It's obvious that he uses Superman as a crutch so he doesn't have to admit his own flaws. And he probably does more good than Superman regardless.

While we're on the subject of "relishing in evil" being a bad thing; I hate the idea of teams of supervillains that call themselves "The Legion of DOOM" or "The Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants". This is a fine example of the concept of 'purely bad' supervillains being a terrible one. At least with the Legion, they're a gang of baddies who go around robbing banks and things. With the Brotherhood, they're supposed to believe that they're helping in some way and yet they still refer to themselves as 'evil'. Sheesh.

Agreed. I suppose someone could make the rationalization that Magneto and his crew see themselves as being above human morality, and they're trying to be ironic... or something...

 

[The Overlord]

According to Bryne, Lex was corrupt to begin with, Superman just gave him something to focus his petty hatreds on, Lex made his money through several immoral tactics (including the murder of his own parents) I doubt he is interested in improving humanity at all, unless they make him a king in return for his services, which means he was always an amoral creep. Plus lex corp seems like a pretty evil company (polluting the Earth, exploiting the third world) so I have question if Lex is truly interested in improving the world.

As for the red Skull, tons of stories through out fiction have black and white tales: Star wars, LOTR, etc. Good old fashion black and white tales can be fun too.

 

[Gothamite]

Nobody's saying that Lex Luthor would become a saint overnight and revolutionize the world. It's obvious that he uses Superman as a crutch so he doesn't have to admit his own flaws. And he probably does more good than Superman regardless.

Well...actually,

Spoiler

Mark Millar is saying that in Superman: Red Son. Superman gives up and pretty much overnight, Lex Luthor heralds in an era of world peace and scientific advancement.

My least favourite part of that story.