What kind of villains do prefer in comics?

[The Overlord]

What kind of villains do prefer in comics?

Anti Villains: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiVillain

Magnificent Bastards: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard

Complete Monsters: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompleteMonster

Also name any other types you can think of.

 

[Franklin Richards]

 

[SuperFerret]

In short, all of them, but it needs to be appropriate. Dr. Doom is a textbook Magnificent Bastard, but I doubt he would work as well if he were an Anti-Villian (in fact, one of the reasons he's such a great Magnificent Bastard is that he sees himself as an Anti-Villain). Mr. Freeze is a great Anti-Villain, but barely got any attention until that angle was used for him, but it just works so well. It all depends on the villain and what works for them.

 

[The Dude]

I love them all, but there is nothing more satisfying than watching a battle of wits between the hero and a Magnificent Bastard.

 

[BLACKVULCAN]

magnificent bastards as in

cause unlike most.... the dude actually won! until he became a lunkhead and gave it all up

 

[Chris Wallace]

In my view, there are 3 types of villains:
Those who do bad things with bad intentions, hence they are evil.

THose who do bad things with good intentions, hence they are misguided.

And those who don't know the difference or just don't care, hence they are insane.

I think I would like to see more evil villains, because comics & especially comic book movies seem intent on trying to make us sympathize with the bad guy nowadays.

 

[Punisher Rising]

I like all different types of villains and as long as they've got well-written and portrayed personalities, I don't have a real preference. I enjoy tragic villains, completely evil villains, villains that are insane, etc.

 

[Spike_x1]

As much as those big names deserve the recognition they get from fans, I think that there's something to be said for the thuggish villains with buttloads of power, but not enough smarts to use the power to its full effectiveness.

Like the Absorbing Man:

...or Metallo before his slow downgrading to his Silver Age namesake:

...and especially the Parasite.

 

[Chris Wallace]

You left out the Spot.

 

[Anubis]

I like good ones.

Megalomaniacs, low level thugs, jokes who don't know they're jokes, Jokes who know they're jokes but go on anyway. I'm not picky.

 

[fifthfiend]

I enjoy a totally petty *****ebag every now and again. Your Biff Tannens of the world, who you hand the key to rewrite causality and bring all their wildest dreams into existence, and they start a ****** casino and turn one town into kind of a suckhole and shoot a guy because some chick stood him up for a dance one time.

 

[Sentry2005]

Anti-Villains I guess... I just like my villain to be more manipulated by events, or at least seeing themselves as that. Believable justification, either internal or external and I'm happy

 

[Chris Wallace]

Anti-Villains I guess... I just like my villain to be more manipulated by events, or at least seeing themselves as that. Believable justification, either internal or external and I'm happy

I think ideally, a hero's rogues gallery should have a nice variety. Irredeemable *****ebags, disturbed individuals, decent people just trying to find their way, and total whack-jobs who just don't give a f***. Because that is what the world has. And if you are a person devoted to protecting people, this is what you're going to encounter.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The motivation doesn't matter as much the means to me. I like very subtle, Machiavellian villains. That's why I loved Lex Luthor when he was manipulating everything behind the scenes, before they reverted him to his terrible mad scientist schtick from the Silver Age/movies. Loki's another favorite of mine.

Of course, it's always nice to see a magnificent bastard every now and then, too. Villains who are unabashedly evil for whatever reason are just tons of fun, especially when they do stuff like Doom did in "Unthinkable," reuniting with his old girlfriend and showing a very caring, human side with her... up until he kills her and uses her skin for a magic spell.

 

[The Overlord]

In my view, there are 3 types of villains:
Those who do bad things with bad intentions, hence they are evil.

THose who do bad things with good intentions, hence they are misguided.

And those who don't know the difference or just don't care, hence they are insane.

I think I would like to see more evil villains, because comics & especially comic book movies seem intent on trying to make us sympathize with the bad guy nowadays.

The problem is a lot writers don't know how to write crazy, Joker often just comes across as a psychopath then someone who is criminally insane. What is Bullseye supposed to be, someone with bad intentions or someone who is crazy?

Plus I don't see how there are too many sympathhic villains around, there are tons of monstetrous villains with no redeeming qualities, Marvel for example: Red Skull, Bullseye, Purple Man, Mr. Hyde, Shadow King, Mr. Sinister, Green Goblin, etc. Where are you getting the idea that there are too many sympathetic villains?

 

[Chris Wallace]

1-I view Bullseye as someone who either doesn't see the difference between good & bad or just doesn't care, hence he falls under my definition of insane.
And I'm mainly referring to the movies when I say we're getting an overabundance of sympathetic baddies.

 

[The Overlord]

1-I view Bullseye as someone who either doesn't see the difference between good & bad or just doesn't care, hence he falls under my definition of insane.
And I'm mainly referring to the movies when I say we're getting an overabundance of sympathetic baddies.

in the movies there are tons of villains who aren't sympathetic: Lex Luthor, General Zod, Obadiah Stane, Green Goblin, Venom, Joker, Scarecrow, Abomination, Dr. Doom, William Stryker, Kingpin, Bullsdeye, Blackheart, none of those movie characters are sympathetic, so I don't see where you get the idea that there are too many sympathetic villains in the movies.

But the fact is Bullseye is willing to get involved in carrying and clearly well he likes killing, he has other ambitions as well, considering he seems to like money, just not as much as killing people. I mean Red skull has often done things for no reason beyond sadism, does that make him "insane"? Your terms are too vague, what's the difference between being "insane" and just being psychopath?

 

[Anubis]

Luthor should be sympathetic, but the guys that make the movies don't know what the f**k they're doing.

 

[The Overlord]

Luthor should be sympathetic, but the guys that make the movies don't know what the f**k they're doing.

How is Lex sympathetic? He's a magnificent bastard, sure, but how is he sympathetic? He's cool and impressive, but not particularly sympathetic.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

He wants humanity to achieve its potential. The main reason he hates Superman so much is because he views him as an impediment to that--an alien giving people free handouts by saving them from their own stupidity. Lex wants to see the best of humanity survive and the worst (which happens to include most of the normal, non-super-smart people) stop holding them back. It's both a cruel and an idealistic philosophy.

 

[Spike_x1]

I would also prefer his pre-IC origin, where he grew up with Perry White in Suicide Slums, instead of having grown up with Clark in Smallville. The Suicide Slums origin gave more emphasis to Superman's supporting cast by making Lex and Perry rivals in a way (and made it seem more poignant when Lex bought the Daily Planet), and gave a character arc that I really loved, in that Lex had risen up from the s**ttiest of s**tholes to become the backbone of Metropolis. And then this god-like alien came out of nowhere and he became the city's new favorite son, somehow managing to outshine Luthor's success story.

Add all that with what Corp just wrote, and we had a great villain that you could easily sympathize with. With the retcons recently done to Lex's origin story, however, I sympathize with him a lot less now than I did before.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, me too. Now he's just some crazy *****e who grew up with Clark.

 

[The Overlord]

He wants humanity to achieve its potential. The main reason he hates Superman so much is because he views him as an impediment to that--an alien giving people free handouts by saving them from their own stupidity. Lex wants to see the best of humanity survive and the worst (which happens to include most of the normal, non-super-smart people) stop holding them back. It's both a cruel and an idealistic philosophy.

Superman left the Earth in 52 and Lex did jack for humanity. That's just a line Lex uses, he has no intention of actually doing it.

 

[Anubis]

Well, who said that that's the way he's really portrayed? I'm just saying, that's the way they should take his character in a movie. Sure, he's bad, but he should have a point other than, f**king real estate.

 

[Spike_x1]

When he was president, aside from the evil things he did that the public didn't know about, he was actually really helping humanity (ie: defending the Earth from alien attacks, using B-13 technology to improve people's lives, trying to help with crap going on in Zod's nation of Pokolistan). And let's not forget all of the technology that he and LexCorp developed even before Superman hit the scene.

Evil or not, Lex has already done quite a bit to push humanity's advancement along.