When will get a proper Masters of Evil?

[DJ1107]

who is Stilts Man?

Arguably the worst Marvel villain ever. He's mostly a joke villain which is why I put him on.

Psycho-Man's an odd choice.

Eh I wanted someone obscure.

[Michael Watkins]

Arguably the worst Marvel villain ever. He's mostly a joke villain which is why I put him on.


Eh I wanted someone obscure.

so you wanted your Masters of Evil to be a joke? interesting...

p.s. Wilbur Day, Stilt-Man, retired. he was replaced by Lady Stilt-Man.

[MichaelC]

so you wanted your Masters of Evil to be a joke? interesting...

p.s. Wilbur Day, Stilt-Man, retired. he was replaced by Lady Stilt-Man.

Hey! Taskmaster is cool! Screw you, Deadpool!

[DJ1107]

so you wanted your Masters of Evil to be a joke? interesting...

p.s. Wilbur Day, Stilt-Man, retired. he was replaced by Lady Stilt-Man.

No I just wanted that one joke character for my MoE. Give Zemo some insane reason why he enlisted Stilt-Man into the team like a serviceable distraction or that he's secretly a badass nobody saw coming.

[Michael Watkins]

No I just wanted that one joke character for my MoE. Give Zemo some insane reason why he enlisted Stilt-Man into the team like a serviceable distraction or that he's secretly a badass nobody saw coming.

fair enough. I would have chosen the new Plant-Man; because he was one of the only joke villains to show up for Zemo's craigslist recruitment drive.

[Agent of Wolfram & Hart]

a question to the thread: if you had a maximum of 10 spots to fill, who would be in your preferred Masters of Evil? please specify a leader/organizer.

1. Count Neferia
2. Graviton
3. Abomination
4. Absorbing Man
5. Titania
6. Whirlwind
7. Klaw
8. Grey Gargoyle
9. Moonstone
10. Baron Zemo (Too bad all his development in Thunderbolts has been ignored, but if he's going to be a villain)

[Michael Watkins]

1. Count Neferia
2. Graviton
3. Abomination
4. Absorbing Man
5. Titania
6. Whirlwind
7. Klaw
8. Grey Gargoyle
9. Moonstone
10. Baron Zemo (Too bad all his development in Thunderbolts has been ignored, but if he's going to be a villain)

formidable lineup. but is Zemo working for Nefaria or vice versa?

[Huntsman Spider]

The sad thing was that they could have done a lot more with Zemo's return to villainy than they actually did. I mean, Brubaker was the one who set it up, but he had Zemo coming from a very logical sense of outrage at the hypocrisy of the superhero community, that they could so easily accept a murderer like the Winter Soldier as one of their own and even allow him to don the Captain America suit, just on Steve Rogers's say-so alone, while Zemo himself had struggled and bled for his redemption, only to be perennially distrusted and disdained by those same "heroes." Really, a lot of dramatic tension and great stories could be mined from "villains" who actually have very understandable and perhaps even logical reasons to hold a grudge against superheroes, and when you look at a lot of the morally dubious (if not downright amoral) things the superheroes have either done or allowed to slide, it's not that much of a leap to reasoning that the "heroes" are hypocrites who do what they do for the sake of exercising power and control and dominance over others, no different or better than the "villains," only for the pretense/pretext of being the world's protectors. I could see a new Masters of Evil stemming from this motivation, only calling themselves that to mock those who deem them evil simply because they stand in opposition to so-called heroes who aren't nearly as heroic, selfless, or goodhearted as they pretend to the world or to themselves.

As for my roster of ten . . .

1) Baron Zemo
2) Moonstone
3) Atlas
4) Fixer
5) Titania
6) Absorbing Man
7) Black Ant
8) Taskmaster
9) Deadpool
10) Tom Foster

What's their big motivation for joining? As outlined above, exposing the hypocrisy and two-facedness of the superhero community, much of it stemming from lingering wounds like the Civil Wars and their fallout, Avengers Vs. X-Men and its fallout, Inhumans Vs. X-Men and its fallout, and most currently Secret Empire and its fallout. Tom Foster's still angry that Tony Stark and Reed Richards were never punished for their role in Bill Foster's death and that it was effectively swept under the rug so everyone could be buddy-buddy again. Deadpool, Black Ant, and Taskmaster are pissed that being part of HYDRA-Cap's Secret Empire made their names mud, but Thor Odinson, Scarlet Witch, and Vision were accepted back with open arms by the superhero community. Baron Zemo's motivation is already elaborated above, that he thinks the heroes are hypocrites who arbitrarily pick and choose which murderers and thieves and criminals they'll embrace into their ranks, and the others are there either out of personal loyalty to Zemo or because Zemo promised them a chance to thoroughly humiliate and debase the "heroes" who've made their lives so difficult over the years. Moonstone just wants to see how far Zemo's willing to take this new crusade of his, and when called out to explain herself, her reasoning amounts to, "At least I admit I do what I do for myself. Maybe you should look yourselves in the mirror sometime and ask who you really do this for."

[Michael Watkins]

I don't know that Deadpool and Tom Foster make sense as team members. but I love the team. it's a good mix of new and classic.

[MichaelC]

The sad thing was that they could have done a lot more with Zemo's return to villainy than they actually did. I mean, Brubaker was the one who set it up, but he had Zemo coming from a very logical sense of outrage at the hypocrisy of the superhero community, that they could so easily accept a murderer like the Winter Soldier as one of their own and even allow him to don the Captain America suit, just on Steve Rogers's say-so alone, while Zemo himself had struggled and bled for his redemption, only to be perennially distrusted and disdained by those same "heroes." Really, a lot of dramatic tension and great stories could be mined from "villains" who actually have very understandable and perhaps even logical reasons to hold a grudge against superheroes, and when you look at a lot of the morally dubious (if not downright amoral) things the superheroes have either done or allowed to slide, it's not that much of a leap to reasoning that the "heroes" are hypocrites who do what they do for the sake of exercising power and control and dominance over others, no different or better than the "villains," only for the pretense/pretext of being the world's protectors. I could see a new Masters of Evil stemming from this motivation, only calling themselves that to mock those who deem them evil simply because they stand in opposition to so-called heroes who aren't nearly as heroic, selfless, or goodhearted as they pretend to the world or to themselves.

As for my roster of ten . . .

1) Baron Zemo
2) Moonstone
3) Atlas
4) Fixer
5) Titania
6) Absorbing Man
7) Black Ant
8) Taskmaster
9) Deadpool
10) Tom Foster

What's their big motivation for joining? As outlined above, exposing the hypocrisy and two-facedness of the superhero community, much of it stemming from lingering wounds like the Civil Wars and their fallout, Avengers Vs. X-Men and its fallout, Inhumans Vs. X-Men and its fallout, and most currently Secret Empire and its fallout. Tom Foster's still angry that Tony Stark and Reed Richards were never punished for their role in Bill Foster's death and that it was effectively swept under the rug so everyone could be buddy-buddy again. Deadpool, Black Ant, and Taskmaster are pissed that being part of HYDRA-Cap's Secret Empire made their names mud, but Thor Odinson, Scarlet Witch, and Vision were accepted back with open arms by the superhero community. Baron Zemo's motivation is already elaborated above, that he thinks the heroes are hypocrites who arbitrarily pick and choose which murderers and thieves and criminals they'll embrace into their ranks, and the others are there either out of personal loyalty to Zemo or because Zemo promised them a chance to thoroughly humiliate and debase the "heroes" who've made their lives so difficult over the years. Moonstone just wants to see how far Zemo's willing to take this new crusade of his, and when called out to explain herself, her reasoning amounts to, "At least I admit I do what I do for myself. Maybe you should look yourselves in the mirror sometime and ask who you really do this for."

Well they do use those themes a lot, but mostly as a pretext for hero-vs-hero fights. Ironically, this has resulted in villains being even less likely to be treated as having nuance and legitimate grievances, and more likely to be written as simple embodiments of pure evil. The reason is twofold: (1)the protagonists need to still be justified as heroes, so the worse they are, the worse the villains have to be to justify that view. If your heroes are dark grey, then your villains need to be pitch black for the heroes to be still considered heroes. (2)the villains also have become minor bookends in stories about the "heroes" dealing with their own sins. Villains become cold-open characters, or only show up a couple of times in the story to do something really evil and then die at the end, and the other 99% of the story is the "hero" dealing with his own sins.

[Huntsman Spider]

I don't know that Deadpool and Tom Foster make sense as team members. but I love the team. it's a good mix of new and classic.

Thanks, and I understand your point where Deadpool and Tom Foster are concerned. I'm mostly going off the basic motivation for this team to form at all --- that "good" and "evil" don't mean s*** because the people calling themselves good and others evil are themselves barely worth rooting for and almost as bad in their own way as the people they call evil, and it's time they were made to answer for it.

Well they do use those themes a lot, but mostly as a pretext for hero-vs-hero fights. Ironically, this has resulted in villains being even less likely to be treated as having nuance and legitimate grievances, and more likely to be written as simple embodiments of pure evil. The reason is twofold: (1)the protagonists need to still be justified as heroes, so the worse they are, the worse the villains have to be to justify that view. If your heroes are dark grey, then your villains need to be pitch black for the heroes to be still considered heroes. (2)the villains also have become minor bookends in stories about the "heroes" dealing with their own sins. Villains become cold-open characters, or only show up a couple of times in the story to do something really evil and then die at the end, and the other 99% of the story is the "hero" dealing with his own sins.

That's pretty much where I'm at with my idea for a new Masters of Evil; the villains, realizing that the heroes who've beaten them time and again are sanctimonious hypocrites not nearly as different from them as they'd like to pretend, decide to knock those same heroes off their high horses and make them face those unpleasant truths about themselves. Granted, it's a pretext for thoroughly humiliating and breaking their longtime nemeses (whether killing them outright is on the table or not is something I think they'll go back and forth on), but the idea is still that the villains are lashing out from a kind of moral outrage, that at least they admit they do what they do primarily to enrich, empower, or otherwise gratify themselves, but the people who keep foiling them pretend to be righteous men and women when they're really acting out of the same base motivations for power, dominance, respect, and/or thrills. It's a really grandiose and extreme way for them to say to the heroes, "Look yourselves in the mirror and then tell us who are the real Masters of Evil!"

[MichaelC]

Hell, it could be argued that the only difference between superheroes and supervillains is that superheroes are a part of the establishment. That one man's rebel is another man's terrorist kind of thing.
The only problem with this idea, as I've said, is that Marvel has anticipated it, and compensated by making villains incredibly evil. It's an idea that doesn't work if the villains are obviously utter, utter monsters, so Marvel has made them utter, utter monsters specifically to invalidate that criticism.

[Michael Watkins]

there should be more standalone stories told rom the perspective of the villain. might be fun to see what happens to them after they are arrested, as well (or the lead up to the criminal act).

[Michael Watkins]

Thanks, and I understand your point where Deadpool and Tom Foster are concerned. I'm mostly going off the basic motivation for this team to form at all --- that "good" and "evil" don't mean s*** because the people calling themselves good and others evil are themselves barely worth rooting for and almost as bad in their own way as the people they call evil, and it's time they were made to answer for it.

don't get me wrong. it would have worked with Tom; during or right after the Revengers stuff. but they gave him that standalone story (recently) in which he very much chose a side in the "good" vs "evil" debate. if he were to join the Masters of Evil now, it would be walking back that story (and somewhat spitting on Bill Foster's legacy). Deadpool can go either way. I'm more worried about him drawing all of the attention/overshadowing the group. I can't imagine Zemo having the patience for him, either.

[Michael Watkins]

MASTERS OF EVIL NOSTALGIA - I tried to craft my dream lineup around villains with deep roots in the marvel universe. Janice was thrown in just so she could point out that she's surrounded by really "old" villains.

1. Baron Zemo (Helmut) http://cdn2us.denofgeek.com/sites/de...?itok=G62exH-e

2. Moonstone (Karla Sofen) http://www.writeups.org/wp-content/u...lassic-h10.jpg

3. Fixer (Norbert Ebersol) http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/e...nicmasknf3.jpg

4. Atlas (Erik Josten) http://www.marvelmasterworks.com/ave...el_avg021b.jpg

5. Mr. Hyde (Calvin Zabo)
https://img.purch.com/w/640/aHR0cDov...8xNDE4MTY5MzY3

6. Living Laser (Arthur Parks)
http://www.writeups.org/wp-content/u...s-early-h2.jpg

7. Whirlwind (Dave Cannon)
https://i0.wp.com/thefwoosh.com/wp-c.../whirlwind.jpg

8. Beetle (Janice Lincoln) http://www.writeups.org/wp-content/u...-Jenkins-b.jpg

9. Absorbing Man (Crusher Creel) http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OnR53M1QOi...rbingman-1.jpg
20Jack%20Kirby.jpg

10. Titania (SKeeter McPherson) https://scontent-sea1-1.cdninstagram...MDc1Ng%3D%3D.2