An odd subsection of comic books that’s gaining quite a bit
of notoriety in recent years are villain comics. Partially this is due to the build up for things like the Suicide Squad movie but overall there
have just been more villain comics in the works nowadays. Just the week we’ve seen installments
of Sinestro and Magneto comics as well as the ongoing Secret Wars: Future Imperfect comic which follows the villain
Maestro’s point of view. Villain
titles are hardly anything new for superhero comics so I thought it’d be cool
to go through the plethora of previous books about the bad guys. This won’t be touching on every
villainous ongoing, one-shot, graphic novel, and mini-series ever because we
really don’t have the time, just the ones I think are worthy of checking out
for the curious. What’s more I
won’t be touching on comics that feature reformed villains like Thunderbolts, Superior Spider-man, or the Flash Thompson Venom comic. This is
just comics about villains doing their villain thing, with that said let’s look
at the comic that arguably started this whole trend with…
TOMB OF DRACULA
Tomb of Dracula
was part of a concerted push by Marvel in the early ‘70s to continue expanding
the scope of their universe in genre terms. Tomb of Dracula
was part of a push for more supernatural and horror characters in the Marvel
universe, the same push that gave us cult classics like Michael Morbius, Moon
Knight, and Ghost Rider. At the
time there were other monster books like Manthing
or Werewolf by Night but Tomb of Dracula was the only one where
the monster at hand was truly villainous rather than just sort of
misunderstood. Dracula is a true
cosmic level villain in his comic, scheming and plotting and often battling
other Marvel heroes like the X-men or Spider-man. This might be why Tomb
of Dracula proved the most popular of Marvel’s horror comics, lasting for
nearly the entire ‘70s and even getting an anime adaptation. Tomb
of Dracula is a great intro the concept of villain comics for just how
amazingly well written it is.
That’s most likely owed to the murders row of talent the book sported
with comic Gods like Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Marv Wolfman, and Gardner
Fox, one of the most influential scifi authors of all time. Tomb
of Dracula is also noticeable for partially inventing popular vampire
slayer Blade.
SUPER VILLAIN
TEAM-UP
The success of Tomb of
Dracula inspired Marvel to forge a second villain comic 3 years later: Super Villain Team-Up. Despite the name the comic is mostly
focused on the misadventures of Dr. Doom with a particular eye aimed towards
his rivalry with Namor the Submariner.
Super Villain Team-up is a
more inconsistent comic than Tomb of
Dracula owing to its odd scheduling nature but still holds a lot of good
elements. The central thing that
helps elevate the series is Dr. Doom himself. Dr. Doom, even more than Dracula, is the perfect villain to
fill the role of a protagonist.
He’s a master of science, strategy, and magic as well as a self made man
who clawed his way up from nothing.
Super Villain Team-Up
emphasizes Doom’s identity as a megalomaniacal lunatic most of all but that’s
still a fun component of his character to explore. Like a lot of egomaniac villains Doom’s self confidence,
legitimate skill, and unbreakable tenacity in the face of defeat make him
actually pretty sympathetic.
DOOM 2099
What Super Villain
Team-Up started Doom 2099
finished, perfecting Dr. Doom’s transition into more of an anti-villain than
anything else. Doom 2099 actually paired a lot of key
ideas together to really change the concept of a villain comic. From Tomb of Dracula it took the emphasis on the villain trying to adapt
to a new world as that comic had dropped the classic Dracula into the middle of
the 1970s. What it really brings
to the fore is the idea of Dr. Doom as a legitimate protector and ruler of his
subjects, with the books main focus on Doom trying to reclaim control of his
country after 100 years of absence.
It’s a good comic and really laid the groundwork for a lot of key villain
books going forward, especially the idea of a villain as someone willing to
take any action to protect people he deems his subjects. It’s a real reversal of the standard
betrayal approach that informed Super
Villain Team-Up and its sister comic at DC.
THE JOKER
The Joker comic
came out the same year as Super Villain
Team-Up and took a similar if slightly different tract. Written by Batman maven Denny O’Neil, The
Joker was more of a straight ahead ongoing series that just happened to
feature a main character who committed crimes. Everything about the structure of the stories at hand is
classic Bronze Age superhero storytelling from DC just with the morality
inverted. The main thesis of the
comic seems to be an attempt to recreate DC’s monster success with Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents, comics that paired
Batman and Superman respectively with other heroes for one-off adventures. Consequently The Joker does feature a guest star character for every issue but
it’s a bit iffy on the team-up sections.
Sometimes it’s a rivalry, sometimes it’s a team-up, sometimes it’s just
a hero the Joker happens to be fighting.
The highlight of the comic is a body swap issue where Lex Luthor and
Joker switch personalities. The
Joker’s had a plethora of comic spotlights over the years since this but the
1975 comic is the only time the Joker was non-violent enough to be a character
that’s kind of sympathetic to the audience. This was still before a even Death in the Family so most of the stories just revolve around
Joker trying to steal money and being playful but still dangerous. The only other great Joker comic didn’t
even really feature him in it.
JOKER’S ASYLUM
Joker’s Asylum was
an anthology mini-series from DC that surprisingly predated the very popular Arkham Asylum video games. Each issue spotlighted a different
Batman villain with a unique author/artist team for the issues. They’re a great collection of tales and
tragedies that really delve into the psychological core of the villains they
spotlight without resorting to a lot of the disappointing cheap tricks that
populate a lot of slick, modern Batman villain focuses. Overall the second series of one-shots
is better than the first with the Clayface, Mad Hatter, and Killer Croc comics
as serious standouts. The unique
blend of horror, crime, and tragedy makes the whole series deeply reminiscent
of Batman the animated series which
also gave a major focus to the bad guys.
The best issue though is the Penguin one-shot which stands as a truly
chilling rendition of this character and the horrific brutality he’s capable
of. It’s all a great exploration
of character psychology and I might need to come back to it in future.
THANOS QUEST
Speaking of comics worthy of a full review Thanos Quest is almost definitely
something I’ll be looking at next time a Marvel film rolls around with a
predominant part for the Mad Titan.
Thanos Quest was a 2-issue
prestige comic by cosmic comic king Jim Starlin that served to set-up the
events of The Infinity Gauntlet. The plot follows Thanos as he goes
about collecting the Infinity Gems from their previous guardians: the elders of
the universe. It’s most similar to
Super Villain Team-Up but the limited
format and quest focus really crystallizes the concept’s best elements. Thanos’ cunning and clever approach to
his enemies is instantly endearing and the fact that his quest is motivated by
a kind of love is actually pretty sympathetic. Despite his morbid obsessions Thanos comes off as more of an
unfortunately obtuse protagonist than anything else, like you get the sense he
just doesn’t graps how relationships work more than anything else. It also helps that this is one of the
few villain comics where the villain totally wins.
ACTION COMICS:
QUEST FOR THE BLACK RING
Another
quest based villains story that owes a lot of inspiration to Thanos Quest. In the last days before the New 52 relaunch DC was in a very
weird place. Most of their major
events like New Krypton and Black Night were wrapped up and the
individuals authors were in a weird limbo zone of complete creative freedom
while knowing their stories wouldn’t really matter. It was in this weird morass of factors that Action Comics decided to shift gears and
make Lex Luthor the main character.
The story is a direct follow up to the events of Blackest Night in which Luthor received an orange lantern
ring. In Action Comics Luthor was involved hunting down several anomalies in
search of some ultimate power. Action Comics uses the set-up much like Thanos Quest: a chance to globe trot
through the craziness of the DC universe while also exploring Lex Luthor’s
identity. The big difference is
that Luthor is a more versatile and unique character than Thanos with less of a
locked in identity and motivation.
It’s a very well written comic that features a lot of cool villain
appearances like Gorilla Grodd and Mr. Mind.
VENOM: LETHAL
PROTECTOR
As I stated earlier this week I’m an unapologetic fan of
‘90s comic books and that includes the ‘90s obsession with Venom. Venom:
Lethal Protector isn’t exactly a great comic book but it’s one of those
unique pieces of ‘90s ephemera that remain very satisfying in a manner beyond
the simple bounds of nostalgia.
It’s even more surprising given that Venom:
Lethal Protector is incredibly formless without much focus, working its way
through a ton of weird elements and story plot points with very little
cohesion. In a lot of ways the
disconnected nature of the comic is what makes it so enjoyable, a hodgepodge of
genre elements drawn from across the range of scifi, action, and blockbuster
all welded together by the ‘90s favorite narrative focal point: base
indulgence. It’s a great comic to
read through for the pictures and visual plotting rather than narration or
characters.
THE SUPERIOR FOES
OF SPIDER-MAN
The Superior Foes of
Spider-man is like the polar opposite of Venom: Lethal Protector, a comic that rises completely on character
more than anything else. Set
during the Superior Spider-man era
the book revolves around 5 D-list Spider-man villains trying to survive as
costumed criminals in Manhattan.
The main hero is Boomerang, an obscure Spider-man villain who was
already a bit of a rip-off when he was first invented. It’s a brilliant superhero comedy with
a major emphasis on the idiosyncrasies of depicting real, grounded humans
caught up in the madness of superheroes and supervillains. It’s very similar in that regard to
comics like Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye
or the ongoing Ant-Man. It’s a lot like if prime Guy Ritchie
had directed a Netflix series for Marvel.
Oozing in personality and comedy it’s a really great exploration of the
idea that just because characters are criminals doesn’t mean they aren’t people
with stories to be told.
MAGNETO
The most recent entry on this list Magneto arose out of the slew of villainous X-Men comics that spun
out of Avengers vs. X-Men. Avengers
vs. X-Men had the impact of basically turning Cyclops into classic Magneto,
a genocidal egomaniac with a cultish terrorist strike force of mutants at his
disposal. As a result of this
Magneto has had to carve out a new identity for himself as sort of a street
level defender of mutant kind and splinter group from Cyclops’ forces. His comic is basically The Punisher but
with a bent towards anti-Mutant crime and starring a holocaust survivor. It also does a great job keeping
Magneto firmly in the villain camp, doing a lot of really horrible and
unforgiving things to people that fall firmly in the category of wrong or
evil. It’s hard to tell how much
more of this comic we’ll get with the oncoming Marvel reboot rumbling towards
us so this is a good one to check out before it goes the way of the dodo.
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