Lame Villains- Should be made better or not?

Re: Ultimate Spider-Man #86 discussion (spoilers)

icemastertron said:
:shock:

Um....yeah....
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What, I meant strapped to his hands. So he doesn't lose them. What's the matter, what did you imagine?
 
Re: Ultimate Spider-Man #86 discussion (spoilers)

I think the way artists have drawn the compressed air has confused people... That and his name is Shocker...
 
I think it's currently dispicable how writers treat 'lame villains', which is one of two ways:

1 - They point out how lame they are and have them just be beaten up by the heroes and mock this poor lame villain constantly throughout the issue. This is self-defeating as the appeal comes from taking the piss out of a pre-existing character that people have to know about prior to reading the issue. The character isn't lame within the confines of the issue, within the confines of the issue he is just a victim of the writer's scorn. This is the writing equivalent of bullying. Indeed, if there is a lame villain, watch the heroes become bullies. Nice role models super heroes become. "It's okay to kick the crap out of someone if they have a stupid name." The lame villain is just a cheap gag, and an injoke at that. Pathetic.

2 - In a desperate bid to make the villain 'not-lame' they make him a depraved sicko who's content to rape and murder children when, just three years ago, all he did was rob banks with robotic toy constructs. This is abominable because it equates suffering with drama and monstrous behaviour with entertainment. The character isn't a sudden and terrifying revamp of a pre-existing character, but rather a depraved form of masturbation in which the writer can fulfill some sort of base desire to pretend he's a monster. Not only is this somewhat sick (except when it's handled properly as is done many times) but it's a travesty to an innocent character that has now been violated in pretty much the same way he now violates others. Abhorrent.

So, that's what happens with lame villains.

Here's what I think should happen.

A lame villain is used in a story because the writer loves that villain, perhaps because he sees a potential untapped or because he loves the fact he is indeed, quite lame, and wants to show us the fun and innocence of a man who thinks he can get what he wants in life by dressing up as a bolt of lightning or a rhinocerous and yelling at people. I think lame villains should not be made better, nor be bullied through the course of an issue because the writer can't be bothered to create a new supervillain with which to threaten his heroes.

Lame villains, like any other character, should only be written by people who love them.
 
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Bass said:
I think it's currently dispicable how writers treat 'lame villains', which is one of two ways:

1 - They point out how lame they are and have them just be beaten up by the heroes and mock this poor lame villain constantly throughout the issue. This is self-defeating as the appeal comes from taking the piss out of a pre-existing character that people have to know about prior to reading the issue. The character isn't lame within the confines of the issue, within the confines of the issue he is just a victim of the writer's scorn. This is the writing equivalent of bullying. Indeed, if there is a lame villain, watch the heroes become bullies. Nice role models super heroes become. "It's okay to kick the crap out of someone if they have a stupid name." The lame villain is just a cheap gag, and an injoke at that. Pathetic.

2 - In a desperate bid to make the villain 'not-lame' they make him a depraved sicko who's content to rape and murder children when, just three years ago, all he did was rob banks with robotic toy constructs. This is abominable because it equates suffering with drama and monstrous behaviour with entertainment. The character isn't a sudden and terrifying revamp of a pre-existing character, but rather a depraved form of masturbation in which the writer can fulfill some sort of base desire to pretend he's a monster. Not only is this somewhat sick (except when it's handled properly as is done many times) but it's a travesty to an innocent character that has now been violated in pretty much the same way he now violates others. Abhorrent.

So, that's what happens with lame villains.

Here's what I think should happen.

A lame villain is used in a story because the writer loves that villain, perhaps because he sees a potential untapped or because he loves the fact he is indeed, quite lame, and wants to show us the fun and innocence of a man who thinks he can get what he wants in life by dressing up as a bolt of lightning or a rhinocerous and yelling at people. I think lame villains should not be made better, nor be bullied through the course of an issue because the writer can't be bothered to create a new supervillain with which to threaten his heroes.

Lame villains, like any other character, should only be written by people who love them.
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I know a lot of that had to do with Bendis. But I totally lean towards your preachings there.
 
The only problem I see with using lame villains is that many lame villains were only made lame, most of the classic lame characters were taken quite seriusly back in the day. Any villain could be villain of the day; the only thing that determines whether the villain is lame would probably be based on guessing fan reaction. Would they dare make Venom lame? Never, he's awesome and good with the kids, apparently. What about Doc ock, Green Goblin? Definately not, they had movies and were taken seriously. What really surpirsed me was Punisher in the ultimate universe. Here's a pretty popular character who has in the 616 verse taken down both DD and Spidey. Bendis writes both of his appearances and he's really a lame joke.

Off the top of my head, there should only be one lame villain who would actually be based on his origins; Mysterio.
 
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Punisher was lame? Did you read the teamups? I agree anyone could become a threat. Shocker could be the one who kills Aunt May. How lame would he be then? He's a desperate criminal and that in my book makes him more threatening then the other pyschos.
 
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TheManWithoutFear said:
Punisher was lame? Did you read the teamups? I agree anyone could become a threat. Shocker could be the one who kills Aunt May. How lame would he be then? He's a desperate criminal and that in my book makes him more threatening then the other pyschos.
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Maybe he meant Punisher in USM?
 
I thought Punisher was pretty lame compared to his 616 counterpart. I was refering to UMTU and USM. I was just saying that this was a guy who gave a hard time to many heroes during his tenure. And he is pretty much taking down with a kick from spidey twice. Punisher was able to wound Spidey in 616, he's never touched Spidey in the Ultimate. That's all I'm saying.
 
Ultxon said:
I thought Punisher was pretty lame compared to his 616 counterpart. I was refering to UMTU and USM. I was just saying that this was a guy who gave a hard time to many heroes during his tenure. And he is pretty much taking down with a kick from spidey twice. Punisher was able to wound Spidey in 616, he's never touched Spidey in the Ultimate. That's all I'm saying.
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Fair enough. He did sneak up on Daredevil.
 
Bass said:
I think it's currently dispicable how writers treat 'lame villains', which is one of two ways:

1 - They point out how lame they are and have them just be beaten up by the heroes and mock this poor lame villain constantly throughout the issue. This is self-defeating as the appeal comes from taking the piss out of a pre-existing character that people have to know about prior to reading the issue. The character isn't lame within the confines of the issue, within the confines of the issue he is just a victim of the writer's scorn. This is the writing equivalent of bullying. Indeed, if there is a lame villain, watch the heroes become bullies. Nice role models super heroes become. "It's okay to kick the crap out of someone if they have a stupid name." The lame villain is just a cheap gag, and an injoke at that. Pathetic.

2 - In a desperate bid to make the villain 'not-lame' they make him a depraved sicko who's content to rape and murder children when, just three years ago, all he did was rob banks with robotic toy constructs. This is abominable because it equates suffering with drama and monstrous behaviour with entertainment. The character isn't a sudden and terrifying revamp of a pre-existing character, but rather a depraved form of masturbation in which the writer can fulfill some sort of base desire to pretend he's a monster. Not only is this somewhat sick (except when it's handled properly as is done many times) but it's a travesty to an innocent character that has now been violated in pretty much the same way he now violates others. Abhorrent.

So, that's what happens with lame villains.

Here's what I think should happen.

A lame villain is used in a story because the writer loves that villain, perhaps because he sees a potential untapped or because he loves the fact he is indeed, quite lame, and wants to show us the fun and innocence of a man who thinks he can get what he wants in life by dressing up as a bolt of lightning or a rhinocerous and yelling at people. I think lame villains should not be made better, nor be bullied through the course of an issue because the writer can't be bothered to create a new supervillain with which to threaten his heroes.

Lame villains, like any other character, should only be written by people who love them.
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To be fair Bendis made a goofy villain like Purple a really dark psychopath and many people thought that was a change for the better. However you are correct, sometimes making a lame villain darker, just doesn't work, like making Dr. Light a rapist, the JLA should not fight rapists. Making a goofy villain dark
can succed or fail depending on the context of the title they are in.

Your fogetting one thing you can do with a lame villain, make him more sympathetic. Look at what BTAS did with Mr. Freeze and the mad hatter, took two lame villains and made them sympathetic and interesting.

Also look at what Geoff Johns did with Flash's rogues gallery, he took a bunch of lame villains and made them interesting. For the most there are no bad characters, only bad writers (with some exceptions, of course, like Turner D. Century).
 
TheManWithoutFear said:
I know a lot of that had to do with Bendis.
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Not really. Bendis, yes, but also Millar (Spot) and Meltzer (Identity Crisis) as well as Alan Moore (Killing Joke), and generally the whole trend that's been going since 1986.

TheManWithoutFear said:
Punisher was lame? Did you read the teamups? I agree anyone could become a threat. Shocker could be the one who kills Aunt May. How lame would he be then? He's a desperate criminal and that in my book makes him more threatening then the other pyschos.
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See? Your idea to make Shocker a threat is to have him kill Aunt May. It's gratuitously violent, uneccessary and false. Instead of making Shocker a threat, it makes him 'lucky'. He's no better qualified to kill Aunt May than Venom, so why have him do it? Because it's 'shocking' (pardon the pun). It's completely contrived.

However, you also hit the nail on the head - make him a desperate criminal and that alone makes him threatening. Body count doesn't equal threat level.

Green Goblin's only claim to fame is he killed Gwen Stacy. Venom, on the other hand, is extremely popular and hasn't killed a single Spidey supporting character, yet is perceived as one of Spidey's greatest foes. Same for Doc Ock, if I recall. The Sin-Eater, on the other hand, killed Captain Stacey and people don't even remember who he is. It's not the body count, its the meaning of the act. Yes, Shocker could kill Aunt May, but if the purpose was to showcase Shocker, well... that's a little sick, don't you think?

The Overlord said:
Your fogetting one thing you can do with a lame villain, make him more sympathetic. Look at what BTAS did with Mr. Freeze and the mad hatter, took two lame villains and made them sympathetic and interesting.
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Good god, yes. But I didn't forget. I was pointing out that if the writer truly loves these 'lame' villains, or reworks them to a point where they love them, and doesn't just dismiss them as worthless, or abuses them for shock value, you can have something great. Millar and Hitch did this in Ultimates 2 #6 with "The Defenders", by turning all these lame characters into these desperate hopefuls, commenting on the state of celebrity culture and the tragic nature of those who want fame, but don't have the ability to do anything worthy of that acclaim. (You can tell they loved these Defenders by the way - if they didn't, there is no way Nighthawk would've got that splash page.)

But, as you say, "Heart of Ice" (Mr Freeze's B:TAS debut) was a beautiful story. Mad Hatter was wonderful, particularly in "Perchance to Dream" (which taught us all why you can't read in a dream), and even the Clock King became an actual threat. In fact, the B:TAS show is one of the finest, if not the finest work in the superhero genre, in my opinion. It was able to go from far more light-hearted goofy episodes (like "The Last Laugh", "The Joker's Favour", and pretty much any episode with "Harley" in the title) to very tragic episodes ("Heart of Ice", "Two-Face", "Mudslide"), personal and poignant character pieces ("Appointment in Crime Alley", "Robin's Reckoning", "I Am The Night"), mystery ("Perchance to Dream", "Dreams in Darkness"), fantastic action episodes ("The Laughing Fish", "Bane") and then there were those that were all of the above ("Almost Got 'Im", "The Man Who Killed Batman", "A Bullet for Bullock") each and every week in an effortless manner. And they did all this without straying from the core concepts of each character, hero, villain, or supporting cast - no matter how lame.
 
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Bass said:
Same for Doc Ock, if I recall. The Sin-Eater, on the other hand, killed Captain Stacey and people don't even remember who he is.
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Actually, Doc Ock killed Captain Stacy in one of the early issues of ASM. He was crushed under a pile of debris from Doc Ock. Unless, of course, they have since retconned that, too. :roll:
 
Doc Comic said:
Actually, Doc Ock killed Captain Stacy in one of the early issues of ASM. He was crushed under a pile of debris from Doc Ock. Unless, of course, they have since retconned that, too. :roll:
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Really? I thought that was Sin-Eater. Crap. Okay, so I was wrong above, but my argument still is true. :shifty:

Waitaminute. What do you know anyway Comic? You're full of ****. You don't even know what Shazam stands for when Black Adam says it. :roll:




:p
 
Bass said:
Waitaminute. What do you know anyway Comic? You're full of ****. You don't even know what Shazam stands for when Black Adam says it. :roll:
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Nice coverup for blatantly failing up there, "Nexus." 8)
 
I'm sorry, all I can hear is, "I don't know what the Shazam stands for when Black Adam says it because I'm a doo-doo head."
 
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