Villains who switched rogues galleries

[The Overlord]

How many villains have switched rogues galleries over the years, picking fights with different heroes then the one they started out fighting?

The most famous rogues gallery switch was Kingpin going from a Spidey villain to a Daredevil villain and I think that worked, with DD becoming more a noir crime title in the 80s.

Another example, though more obscure, is Scarecrow starting as a Iron Man villain and becoming a Ghost Rider villain in the 80s. I think this worked, because Scarecrow seems like a rather macabre villain, who works better as a for of Ghost Rider then Iron Man. Scarecrow seemed far sinister and creepy in Ghost Rider then he did in other titles.

Also there are villains who you would think should switch rogues galleries?

 

[tfn]

Sabretooth started as an Iron Fist villian.

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Logan was created to pretty much be a one-off Hulk villain...

 

[SpideyInATree]

Kingpin was originally a Spider-Man villain and then he got worked into being more of Daredevil's main rogue. Kingpin seems to split between a lot of the street level heroes though.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Sandman only had about 3 appearances in the Lee/Ditko run, before becoming a Fantastic Four villan, when he joined the Frightful Four.
he didn't show up again in Spider-man until the mid-70s, and then it was only to take a time out from being a FF villan, to settle old scores with Spidey.
He showed up once more in Spider-man as a member of the Frightful four, so he was still a FF villan primarily.
edit: fug, i forgot he showed up teaming up with Hydroman one time, i never read that one.

He didn't show up again in Spider-man until the mid-late 80s, when he was a reformed character, saving Spidey and Silver sable from the sinister Syndicate.

 

[venom892]

Both Juggernaut and Rhino have spent time slugging it out with the Hulk but have never been permanent additions to his rouges.

 

[runawayboulder]

Norman Osborn went from Spidey's nemesis to just about everybody's.

 

[venom892]

In the 90's Venom spent time fighting everyone from Hulk to Iron Man to Darkhawk.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Logan was created to pretty much be a one-off Hulk villain...

From what I have read, they had long term plans for Wolverine beyond that issue, when he was conceived. He was never a Hulk villan though, was he? The hulk has fought just about every major Marvel superhero, and then some, his 1st appearance was along those lines, a superhero sent in to fight the hulk, who the authorities thought was on a rampage.

Funnily enough, the first two issues of Wolverine's 1st regular ongoing series I bought, were the ones that guest starred the Hulk, that was why they caught my eye in the comic book store, they were great together, and i ended up buying the rest of the series back issue.

November 1974, a good year! haha

 

[runawayboulder]

Sabretooth started as an Iron Fist villian.

He was also involved heavily with Spider-Man in the 80's.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

He was also involved heavily with Spider-Man in the 80's.

He was only in two issues of PPTSS as far as I recall, one fighting Spidey, and the other fighting the Black Cat, so he only fought Spidey once. He was a lot less powerful until they decided to make him a Wolverine villan.

 

[venom892]

Wasn't it for one arc in the #320s? That also involved Red Skull?

 

[chamber-music]

I think Kingpin works better as a villain for Daredevil and Punisher than he does for Spider-Man.

I remember reading old Power Man and Iron Fist comic from the early 80s in wich Sabertooth attacks Luke Cage model girlfriend scarring her face so bad she ended up in hospital and had to get plastic surgery. That was years before the whole silverfox thing with Wolverine.

 

[Themanofbat]

Electro seems forever linked to Spider-Man, but in spite of his first appearance being in ASM #9, he then appears in DareDevil #2, then he appears in ASM Annual #1, the he appears in DaeDevil Annual #1, then he appears in ASM #82, then he appears in DD #87 & 89, then he appears in MArvel Team Up #56 starring Spider-Man and... you guessed it... DareDevil...

I think the '67 Spider-Man cartoon really cemented Electro as a Spider-Man villain.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

The Silver Samurai...started out as a Daredevil villan, then fought Spider-man a couple of times in Claremont's run on Marvel Team Up, before Claremont made him predominantly a villan of Wolverine and the X-Men.

 

[moraldeficiency]

Kingpin was a Spider-Man rogue, the owl was actually the original idea of apocalypse. DD has also stolen and completely changed the Black Tarantula. Wolvie took sabretooth from Iron Fist. Namor has basically been an ally and rogue of everyone but really he belongs to the original human torch (or maybe you could make the case for Captain America).

I don't mind and actually quite enjoy when villains switch off from time to time. What I don't like is when the villains are either completely changed in character and motivation and just made to fit a storyline.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

Also, a really famous one...the Punisher of course started out as a Spider-man villan, before becoming an ally of Spider-man's, but of course is still regarded by a lot of superheroes as a villan, as we saw in the Civil War mini-series.

 

[Thundercrack85]

As these shared universes become more crowded, overlap is fairly inevitable. Take New York City for example. A city which is (depending on whether or not the writers remember it) home to Spider-man, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Iron Man and a hundred other prominent characters. Not to mention super-villains. They must take turns terrorizing the city.

Really, just commuting to work you will see super-villains and heroes walking around. So inevitably, many characters will share villains.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

King Cobra, Mr. Hyde, the Wrecking Crew, and the Absorbing Man all started out as Thor villains, but they've since become associated with others.

 

[moraldeficiency]

Other than the absorbing man though those are pretty awful thor villains, better to have them fighting other people.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I always liked the Wrecking Crew as Thor villains if they were working together. But then Thor could exploit their stupidity or lack of teamwork or interpersonal problems and beat them separately.

But yeah, nobody really misses King Cobra and Mr. Hyde from Thor's rogues gallery, I don't think. Loki, Ulik, Surtur, Zarrko, the Rigellians, et al. are quite enough.

Oh, another fun fact, though: Galactus did definitely start out with the FF, but he was almost as much a Thor villain early on because Kirby found more room to delve into the character in Thor's comic. The first telling of Galactus' origin is in an issue of Thor's series.

 

[runawayboulder]

He was only in two issues of PPTSS as far as I recall, one fighting Spidey, and the other fighting the Black Cat, so he only fought Spidey once. He was a lot less powerful until they decided to make him a Wolverine villan.

Really? It seemed like there was more.

Wasn't it for one arc in the #320s? That also involved Red Skull?

Yeah, during the Assassin Nation Plot 6 part story. Skull hired him to assassinate the PM of Symkaria (home country of Silver Sable) in order to start a war between Symkaria and America. I don't think Creed knew who his employer was.

 

[The Overlord]

I always liked the Wrecking Crew as Thor villains if they were working together. But then Thor could exploit their stupidity or lack of teamwork or interpersonal problems and beat them separately.

But yeah, nobody really misses King Cobra and Mr. Hyde from Thor's rogues gallery, I don't think. Loki, Ulik, Surtur, Zarrko, the Rigellians, et al. are quite enough.

Oh, another fun fact, though: Galactus did definitely start out with the FF, but he was almost as much a Thor villain early on because Kirby found more room to delve into the character in Thor's comic. The first telling of Galactus' origin is in an issue of Thor's series.

I think someone like Mr. Hyde works better as say a Daredevil villain, because Hyde is more of a Gothic, macabre character, who seems out of place in Thor's rogues filled with villains who Fantastical villains who are very epic in nature. Mr. Hyde's crimes would be more off beat, but also more psychologically disturbing then the more larger then life villains Thor faces. Hyde's crimes are more the stuff DD should be handling then Thor, in terms of scope and tone.

 

[THANOSRULES]

Let me say that "rogues gallery" is a DC term...no marvel fan refers to any pantheon of villains as That.....

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I call Spider-Man's group of villains his rogues gallery. Although I think I did hear it first in reference to the Flash's villains...