What's up with Marvel villans?

[truxartis]

You know, the other day I was hidiously bored at work, so I was sitting there thinking of what I would do if I was going to make a new Marvel expansion, and somebody mentioned on the boards an Avengers theme... So I sat there thinking and started to put down Avengers villans, old ones mostly. Grim Reaper, Baron Zemo and... What? Who? Well, there was Wonder Man, except he turned into a hero, then I got to thinking. And I came to the conclusion that Marvel villans suck.

Yes, that's a bold statement, but I have an odd reason for it. My reason? They dont let the villans be villans!

Magneto, Punisher, Wonder Man, Vision, Quicksilver, Electra, Kingpin, Venom, Namor, Thanos, Gambit, Wolverine, Deadpool, Mystique, Sabertooth... All were cool villans who because of their popularity got their own books... And in almost none of them were they still villans. So now Mystique works for Professor X? Juggernaught joins the X-Men? And about, give or take, a third of the Avengers over the years are reformed villans.

And the list above is just the ones that had their own book, I can think of a half dozen others off the top of my head who never had their own book, but converted anyways. Hawkeye, Black Knight, Juggernaught, Rogue, Scarlet Witch and Black Cat, just to name a few.

I think that's why I'm gradually loosing my interest in Marvel comics, they won't let the villans be villans anymore. It seems like Dr. Doom is the only one they still allow to be bad.

Oh well. I'll still read New X-Men anyways.

[zaurial]

there arnt very many villains that are still villains and havent been made into clix. dragon man, modok, mole man, loki, rhino, arcade, belesco, mephisto, vermin, volcana, mysterio, mastermind, hydro man, blacklash, the enforcers, stilt man... well, the point is, there are way too many COOL villains that went good because the newbies to comics said "oh, he's cool, but i think he should be a good guy, cuz he could fight crime and beat up the bad guys cuz evil sucks!" what they dont know is that evil is what MAKES comic books. if all the cool villains became good guys, comics will suck! i swear to god, i almost put up a ban when juggernaut turned good. his whole concept was his vendetta against xaviar!!!! it pisses me off.

[truxartis]

Exactly exactly. And a few villans that they actually let stay villans, they killed. (Examples, Kraven, Green Goblin and Magneto) Now I'm not saying this is bad in anyway (well, except for maybe Magnetos terrible death) but they haven't come up with anything to replace them. I mean when was the last time you can think of them actually creating a cool new villan in Marvel comics in the last five years? Or even taking an old kinda lame one and turing them cool. (Only one i can think of off the top of my head is Mysterio in Kevin Smith's Daredevil..)

Oh well. I've still got my Flash rogues.

[Comte]

Well if you look at the way the marvel universe is set up the hero's are usualy thier own worse enemies, they don't paticualrly need a villian. Look at the x-men, heck lets use X2 as an example. It is a fairly typical comic story. The challenge wasn't lady deathstrike, the challenge wasn't magneto, and it wasn't saving professor x. When you look at that portion of the film it was all done rather neatly and effeciently. The challange that the charecters in the movie faced was taking thier collective thumbs out of thier asses and getting the job done.

Wolverien: Arrrge someone put this amazing adimantium skeleton in my bady, making me basicly imortal, but I have no memories boo hoo my life is so terrilble.

Cyclopse: Oh the big bad man is trying to take my woman away, my poor poor low self esteem self.

Jean: Men are fighting over me...I have a choise between an angsty man with claws are a sissyboy crybaby

Magneto: The world hates me because I am diffrent cry me a river please.

Some of you may have noticed a hint of sarcasm in these above comments. Cookie for you. Anyway yeah were the villians any better in the marvel univers they owuld of overrun the place by now. It is only when the heros get over thier moaning, saddness, and whatever personal problems are going on, take some responibility and do the job at hand dose anything happen. Otherwise they are to busy wringing thier hands to really do anything.

It isn't just the x-men...

Daredevil: Yarg the promis I made to my father lawyer by day...super dude by night

Ghost Rider/ Hulk/ Sleepwalker/ Thing/ lots of x-men: Boohoo I'm a horrible monster whatever shall I do?

In the stream of anti superman comments awhile back people touted the frailties of the mavel chafrecters making them more human and blah blah blah. Recently however, it has gotten so bad that if any of the villian bothered to to anything then Iceman would be to worried over his gay fantasys to bother stopping anyone. Marvel has employed this stradigy for a long time but recently I agree I think it has gotten out of control. The obviouse symptoms of this is to bring the villians into the fold so that too can get on the action.

I long for the days when a villian really was a villian and the world was at stake. Now they are all practicly writing bad goth poetry every time they squish a bug. Thats why I love the Joker. He's a good guy.

[Comte]

posting problems tripple post

[Comte]

posting problems triple post...also for another good villian look up Arcane. yeah the spider dude from DC you prolly have a fig of him in the unused box. Anyway I have this one comic where he broke out of hell, took control of swampthings extrodinarly powerful baby and started raising an army of zombies. He even took a break to get breast fed. Thats a real villian ladies and gentalmen

[truxartis]

I suppose thats it isn't it? The books went from actual thinking breathing characters, like Spider-Man in the 70's or the 80's X-Men, to horrible soap opera parodies of themselves. I guess it was inevitable that some villans got sucked into things. Of course, this has been going on since Hawkeye Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch joined the Avengers back in what, issue 20? Three reformed villans hanging around with Captain America.

Sigh. And I note everybody keeps bringing up Uncanny X-Men stories from the last few months. That's why it was officially dropped and my collection of them will soon be available on ebay if anybody wants it.




Don't know why the would....

[Grizzly]

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Well Magneto might not actually be dead and in Uncanny they are actively replaceing Magneto with his former apprentice Polaris

[Kid Zero]

Anyone else remember when Doctor Doom (a villain) and Namor (a non-hero) had their own book? Very weird for two villains to have their own comic back in those days.

[eshuroger]

Super Villain Team-Up, yes, I remember. DC also had the Secret Society of Super-Villains back in those days. The Joker also had his own book for a while. Then, of course, was Suicide Squad.

The problem with villain protagonists, is that the book compels you to sympathize with the villain, and they don't seem that villainous at that point. Sometimes it can be successfully done though. Geoff Johns has certainly pulled it off with Icicle and Captain Cold (though Cold only seems to be a borderline villain anymore).

[truxartis]

I don't know, they certainly pulled off villans as main characters while keeping them villanous with the Suicide Squad, although they did have some "heros" sprinkled around from time to time to balance things out.

And yes, what Geoff Johns did to the Flash villans is spectacular, I mean, he made me think of the friggin Weather Wizard as a dangerous powerful guy. (Wish his click represented this but oh well.)

Course this is just all part of my problems with Marvel latetly.... I've dropped almost all my Marvel books in the last few weeks... Mostly because Chuck Austen comes in and starts writing them. How in heck can he keep writing these things? How?

[cracker_nate]

I am huge fan of super villains. When I first started buying comics (14 years ago), I would buy anything that had Juggernaut on the cover. (Dark secret: I bought a copy of "Thunderstrike". The shame!) Last week I went out and bought the Avengers issues where the MOE attacked, and a Thunderbolts graphic novel. The problem with super-villains is that they fall into 1 of three catagories.

1) They use their abilities for personal gain (Vulture, Apocalypse).
2) They exist solely to extract revenge on a super-hero (Venom, Doc Ock).
3) They suffer from a messiah complex (Magneto).

That's all well and good because everyone, hero and villain, needs motovation. But super-villains are defined that way, making most of them two dimensional characters. Super-villains need depth to them, like Spider-Man and the Hulk. Examples of super-villains done right? Look at the one's with stories other than "X tries to rob a bank and X gets pounded by Daredevil."

Dr. Doom - Spends years trying to master the mystical arts to help him rescue his mother from hell. That's a new take on a classic villain, and the character is better for it.
The New Thunderbolts - Good stuff. Shows us a guy who doesn't want to be a super-villain, who loves his mom and his baby, but can't escape the life.
The Old Thunderbolts - How cool is that! Six average, run of the mill villains with a huge twist. Granted, it had it's problems, but the first twelve issues are great super-villain stories.

See, so you can have good super-villains, but they need as much depth and backstory as the super-heroes.

(Now I'll go back to waiting for a Mr. Hyde on-going series.)

[Briel]

The Punisher didn't change. He thought Spider-Man was the bad guy. The comics code just woudn't allow him to have a book back then. I do have to say though, trying to pretend Sabretooth and Venom are anything other than evil scum deserving of death is ludicrous and stomache turning. What I like about The Punisher, is that he is never reffered to as a hero by the writers, editors, or other characters, and specially not by himself. They have talked on several occasions on where Frank knows he's going for his deeds.

[truxartis]

I suppose that's true about the Punisher, although that's always bugged me about Punisher and Elektra and the like, especially Elektra lately. They keep pretending she's a hero of some sort or another... She's not tho. She kills for money. Daredevil himself has fought tons people who do the exact same thing.. But now that she's apparantly a very popular character. (Must have missed the memo myself) She's not a "hero". Nuh uh, don't think so.

[zaurial]

well, this can be put in 2 words: elektra sucks.
and in responce to the hawkeye/quicksilver/scarlet witch in the avengers thing, quickie and wanda were villains against their will to begin with, when magneto forced them into the brotherhood. hawkeye, i dont know, just becuase i dont know hawkeye.
and comte, you're kinda being a little hard on it. i know you're kidding, but the thing got over his rockiness a while ago, and ghost rider does lose control, but not that much anymore. he's like etrigan, doomed to have a demon half, but can CONTROL (<----key word) it.

[Kid Zero]

Zaurial, Hawkeye was originally a circus performer who was duped into attacking Iron Man by the then villainous Black Widow.

[truxartis]

Actually, I was thinking about it again, and in the DCU there are more heros that became villans than the other way around. I mean for reformed villans there's Black Adam, Mr Bones and Major Disaster and that's about it.

But the other way around happens all the time! Hal Jordan, Hawk, Guy Gardner, possibly Atom Smasher, Cosmic Boy, Element Lad, Jericho, Terra, Fatality (could be mistaken on that one) and at least two or three more I could think of back then. I don't know. Weird isn't it? The difference in philosophy.

[Bug]

couple nearly irrelevant notes:
truxartis - the evil Black Knight died still evil, it's his nephew that's the hero, and he was always on the side of good. And if you're looking for Avengers villians.. didn't they start because of Loki?

zaurial - Stilt Man retired, he ranted a bit then gave his suit to Daredevil in issue 41.

[GammaBomb]

I think Daredevil's rogues gallery are some of the only one's staying on their side of the tracks. I'm glad Bendis is doin something good with the Kingpin.

I dig what Mark Waid is doing with Dr. Doom. Its good to see a vilian of that magnitude doing something of his calibre.

Venom, there's a possibility this new guy will do that character justice. Turning him into some kinda hero/vigilante was a terrible idea. Keep him creepy and try to forget about Carnage and the other symbiote ####.

I've been happy with the current state of the Incredible Hulk. Hulk's a monster, not a hero.

And I'm kind of curios to see what happening with the Red Skull in the latest run of the Avengers. So far so good...

[Briel]

The Red Skull is the most irredeemable evil villain that Marvel has. Read Captain America vol.2 #14 from a few years ago. Very chilling, and that was after the editors lightened it a bit. I would like to see a director's cut of Mark Waid's unchanged script.