The Root Of All Evil
Posted by: Alex Zalben on July 15, 2009 at 8:00 am
An interesting question was posed at last night’s Comic Book Club (and shame on all of you who weren’t there. SHAME I SAY!), which was: who’s the most evil character in comics?
Which, on the surface, is a pretty easy question to answer, as there are so many villains in superhero comics… But it actually turned out to be more complicated than we first thought. A few ground rules:
- To be truly evil, you can’t really be sympathetic or helpful. That rules out some major villains like Magneto and Dr. Doom, who fight with honor, for causes, protect people, and sometimes team up with the heroes.
- You also can’t be totally freaking crazy. This was a highly debated one, as one of the audience members shouted out “Joker!” But Joker is only evil when we has focus, like in Killing Joke. That’s a pretty rare occurrence. The random Joker who just kills people wily-nily, which is most of the time, isn’t necessarily evil, just crazy. Like I said, not everyone agreed with this one, though for the sake of this particular game/post/whatever, let’s assume it’s a rule.
So who does that leave? Who is truly the most evil character in comics?
My first, gut instinct was Norman Osborne/Green Goblin. Ignoring the past two years or so of Marvel continuity, where Normie has, lets be honest, pretended to be a good guy for his own gain, he’s been probably the most consistently single-mindedly evil character in comics. What’s his motivation for wanting to destroy Spider-Man? It’s not to protect his family… He hates his family. It’s not to even, necessarily, protect his business. Most of those funds going into Spider-Man destroying type apparatuses. His motivation is that he completely, utterly, hates Spider-Man. That’s it.
I’m sure people maybe can point out a story here and there where it’s varied a little, but I would argue that 99% of the time, Norman Osborne’s sole motivation as a villain is, “I just came up with the most vile, complicated, horrific plan possible, that will destroy many, many lives and relationships, for the sole purpose of f–king with Spider-Man. The end!” No subtext, no complicated plan, just Spider-f–king.
Even Lex Luthor has had redeeming characteristics. He’s almost the same character at this point as Norman, but at least Lex thinks he’s doing the right thing, trying to get rid of Superman so either he can solve the world’s ills, or humans can stop depending on the man in Red and Blue.
Norman? Nope. Why does he throw Gwen Stacey off a bridge? To hurt Spider-Man. Why does he sleep with Gwen Stacey for that matter? To literally screw over Peter. And though we don’t know where it’s going, given the groundwork, I would not at all be shocked if the entire Dark Reign is just a way for Ozzie to legitimize making Spider-Man’s life utter hell.
So what do you guys think: is there any character more evil than the Green Goblin? The only other one that came even close was probably The Anti-Monitor, who again, has no motivation other than “I would like to destroy all reality.” So that’s pretty evil.
27 Responses to "The Root Of All Evil"
1 | Jordan D. White
Mark Millar retconned a motivation into Norman: he established that some sort of power elite (unlear if it is political or corporate or what) put a system in place to arm and fund supervillains in order to keep heroes with giving these mystery power players any trouble. Norman was, apparently, one of the people through whom this happened: he apparently used to help all those tech villains who still feel the need to steal diamonds even though they have these expansive weapons. So, that is how he became a “bad guy” for the money, basically (and possibly power).
He still went nuts, too.
2 | Bill
Osborn is a good one, because he pulls it off. A lot of times the villains don’t pull off their deeds, they get stopped. So the Green Goblin does take that cake, but he’s still mental. He’s a sociopath (whereas the joker is a schizophrenic psychotic), and that makes him downright bad (Ted Bundy, Dahmer, BTK bad), but if his purpose in life is to destroy Spider-Man, that is still a hugely skewed perspective on the world.
Folks like the Anti-Monitor, Annihalus (sp?), Darkseid, the “death is my purpose” guys don’t really cut it either, because I almost think you have to have some redeeming notion. It’s not really evil if it’s your nature to destroy, if it is simply what you do.
The truest evil I think sort of needs some twisted perspective in which you think you are doing good in order to be the most evil. Ozymandias, Apocalypse (unsure whether he falls into Death is my Purpose crowd or not), and hey, just because I’ve watching some eps recently, Angelus (Angel’s dark self).
3 | Uthor
Mephisto. Literally the devil, and thus pure evil.
(I didn’t think about this too much.)
6 | Jrrd
First, I say keep your “shame”! I’ll be there when the PIT is 45 mins from my Apt or you guys start flying in guests. Also, this convo would be more fun if we were all drunk. :) Going with Uthor here with a simple answer, if were talking “pure evil”. Yeah, it might not be fun to admit Meph. as the king of evil, but let’s face it. Every writer and their dog finds it too tempting a plot device to give us a “complicated” or “sympathetic” villain. God forbid the writers at Marvel remind us Osborne had a mommy, Alex. Your pick is automatically downgraded to “sympathetic”, even with all that spiderf_ing. DC might have Marvel beat with the simple villain. I’ll throw Doomsday in with pure-evil lot, and maybe Darkseid? There was an old Wolvie villain I thought was underrated in the evil dept. –Cyber. He did is own version of spiderf_ing. That’s for you Pete. :P
7 | Mario
Define evil? There are myriad of shades of malevolent behavior. Personally,when it comes to amoral characters, the Red Skull is an example. What is Red Skull’s machination? The Red Skull is not crazy, or honorable; he is a rational person, who wants total order. However, Osborn does fuck with anyone just to get to Spider-Man. Black Hand is selfish by nature, he wants the light to be out, and in order to do that, kill everyone! Anti-Monitor, enough said! I would exclude gods, like Loki and Pluto, because that is their purpose. Cobra Command, perhaps? Ultron?
8 | Mario
Also, Bullseye, because he feels that every time he kills, he get stronger; also, he thinks he is a God! Sabertooth as well.
9 | e-mc
You disqualify your selection right away by saying they can’t be crazy. B/c Norman Osborn’s split personality sure as hell is batshit crazy.
I agree with the ground rules.
And in that spirit I say- Sinestro.
He knows exactly what he is doing, he’s not insane he enjoys his actions- he truly is out to hurt people on a large scale.
Yeah Sinestro even sounds like a synonym for evil.
10 | Jrrd
@e-mc – good points on Osborne. I disagree with the crazy rule. :P @all – And are we talking about quanitifying evil exploits, like Thanos’, or Purest Evil intentions, like Meph? What about Blackheart? @ Mario – I say sabertooth was neutered to sympathetic.
12 | Mauro
I’m gonna throw Mongul’s name in the hat. He’s pretty relentless, and his only purpose in life is to be deemed a God. He only used the Black Mercy on Superman, because that was pretty much the only way Thanos could stop him. AND he fathered another evil son-of-a-bitch, Mongul (jr).
13 | mattm
I would say Bullseye as well. Unlike some villains you never feel empathy for him. I think he may be underrated as a bad guy.
14 | Alex
These are all great points, everybody… I think I’m finding I’m leaning more towards Bullseye/Norman Osborne type villains, as yes, they do have mental problems, but realize they do, and try to hold it together long enough to fuck with Daredevil/Spider-Man as much as possible, mainly because it’s fun.
I think that’s true evil… Having problems, being aware of them, and then ignoring them to your advantage… If that makes sense :)
15 | Mario
What about the Wildstorm villains? I am currently reading Sleepers,and I will have to say that Tao is probably the most villain that I had ever read in the comic books. Apparently, he was a hero, then he became a villain. Also, Irredeemable could take title, despite the fact that we have no idea why he.
16 | vnflcards
I second the vote for Red Skull because he isn’t crazy like Osborn or a megalomaniac like Doom or Luthor, he is simply evil because he wants to be.
The Skull knows good from evil, and he chooses to do the most possible evil because he wants to be the greatest evil doer there is.
17 | Muddy Hymnal
Loki, got to be Loki, I bet when the dark cabal are sat around Loki is the only one making them all nervous. The whole recent re-write of his plot just furthers that. He is not insane he is just totally evil to the point of altering his own origin to be more evil, great stuff!
i agree with the sentiment that a successful villain, one that has achieved his goals to a greater extent than others, is more readily perceived as evil-er.
the goblin/lex comparison is a perfect example, their motivations are essentially the same, but osborn killed peter parker’s lois lane. that’s messed up. the fact that lex would if he could, but hasn’t, makes him the lesser of two evils.
this is a tough question. not as tough as the opposite though: who’s the most virtuous character in comics? are any heroes utterly selfless?
19 | TheRichestManinTown
I don’t think it’s really fair to include Osborne and not the Joker. What Osborne did in American Son was horrible, the only way someone could top that is to do what Joker did in Ashes to Ashes. Jean Loring is pretty ruthless as well, for not having the same depth of history as Osborne and Joker she sure was able to ruin the hell out of a lot of lives.
20 | Jrrd
Okay, I’ve decided I’m going with the cosmic-slash-mystical villains as the purest and highest levels of evil. So, Meph., Thanos, Dormammu, Malebolgia… Dr. Doom when he gets a wild hair. These guys have the purest long range intentions for evil, at the grandest scales. Plus, who’s got sympathy for these guys? Sympathy makes for an enjoable character, not an excused and justified one. And, you just cant deny villains that could possibly destroy entire worlds and deminsions. :)
22 | Mario
@Jrrd – I do not know about that statement. With the exception of Dr. Doom their sole purpose is to do evil. Dr. Doom is just, well, Dr. Doom. It is unfair to put Dr. Doom among those evil beings, of course he has the same level of machination as them, but he does honorable deeds, and his goals are to rule the Earth, and prove that he is smarter than Reed Richards via any means possible.
so they were born into that role. If you want sympathy, then you have to know the character’s history. Also, those characters are a given when dealing with pure machination.
I am going to stand by my answer that Tao, from the Wildstorm, is the most wicked villain. So far, he is one of the few villains that does rationalize that everyone is worthless, and the only way to deal with them, is to kill them, and not caring. Also, his powers are pretty niffy, just by controlling someone’s logic, by a mere word, can be pretty powerful.
24 | Jrrd
@Mario -
Can’t comment on Tao. DrD being on the list was a bit of a joke (like d’sparye). He was ruled out by “Moderator Alex” — a shame I might add! This is the same guy who soundly wants to be a god, and why I mentioned him with the others.
26 | Zak
What about Angstrom Levy? He’s done some messed up stuff and I see him becoming a powerhouse in that title.
William Stryker is also a pretty good one as well.
27 | Zak
Oh, I can’t believe I brought up a Kirkman comic and didn’t mention The Governer. Rape, murder, dismemberment, take your pick.
