- *Are female villains treated differently from male ones?
Not really. It's a matter of circumstances. Everytime a female villain becomes popular, she is turned into a anti-hero and as a result, all you've left then are female villains who are even less popular and as a result, male villains are those who will get used since they are more popular by default
- *Why does it seem that the majority of powerful villains at a global scale are men?
Because everytime a female villain is popular, women want her to be nice because that's a new hero for them and men want her to be nice because as women, they can forgive them. Even someone like Cheetah gets to be a anti-hero rather than a despicable villain and it's stupid. Look at Poison Ivy. What is her potential as a hero ? Small. What is her potential as a villain ? Big yet, all people want is her as a hero... And that's all the problem when using female villains. People will not allow them to be bad, like really bad
- *Why are female villains often relegated to femme fatale roles of lesser importance?
Because comic books is still a very male fantasy place and the femme fatale, just like the powerful hero, is a male fantasy. We like the idea of this sexy woman with who we have a ambiguous relation and who is hiding in the shadow ( and that makes me think I would love to see The Joker as a female because he kind of remind me of a Femme Fatale )
- *What female villains do you think could be elevated to a higher standing in the DC Universe?
Poison Ivy first. People love their fantasy of Batman taking on Superman, man vs god ? Poison Ivy is a literal god
Circe... Like, seriously, the most powerful sorceress on Earth, how has she never been apart of a Justice League story ?
Cheetah, the literal embodiment of hunt. a ruthless villain that will hunt you and always gets a piece of you. Have you played Injustice 2 ? In her ending, she uses planets for the sole purpose of hunting those who live there, it's scary and who she should be
Roulette is another character that could be great when used against street heroes, especially after how great Arcade was in Avengers Arena, and give a powerful woman for the underworld of DC
- That applies to any villain that isn’t a complete monster. And even a few who are. See Magneto and Sabertooth.
Also, when male villains are written into becoming heroes, it doesn’t stop the writers from developing or creating other male villains. So this excuse doesn’t fly because there are plenty of female villains that can make for great antagonists but don’t have the focus to become such. Of the Sirens, only Selina can really be called an antihero. Harley simply realised the Joker doesn’t care about her anymore and Ivy just acts nicer towards Harley than the Joker does.- *Why does it seem that the majority of powerful villains at a global scale are men?
I don’t recall anyone wanting Hela to be a hero.
When has Cheetah been written as an antihero?
How do you know? They’ve never written her as a hero long enough to see it.
This I’ll agree with.
Circe appeared in a JL story by Morrison.
Doctor Bifrost
"If Roy G. Bivolo had seen some B&W pencil sketches, his whole life would have turned out differently." http://doctorbifrost.blogspot.com/
Still my favorite female DC villain.
Shame they didn't know what to do with her. She could have easily taken over HIVE (fittingly) and/or become DC's equivalent to Doctor Doom...
But no, they killed her off and eventually brought back the alien version.
At least the Young Justice cartoon used her very well.
Oh, and my second favorite would be Blackfire.
But since the Green Lanterns have monopolized DC's cosmic corner, I guess all other non-Earthlings are on permanent vacation.
Last edited by Lee Stone; 02-26-2018 at 01:41 AM.
"There's magic in the sound of analog audio." - CNET.
Except Magneto had been a major villain before being turned into a hero. He had time to do a bunch of evil plots and writer had used his potential, this was improving the character and allowing him to touch new scales. And yes, it can work for some characters like Harley Quinn ( who won't be a villain anytime soon, maybe temporary with a Suicide Squad cross-over but she's no more someone you can have be evil ), it does not work on someone like Catwoman who is losing her edge ( depending on the writer ) when that's what makes her relationship with Batman interesting
The thing is that for a female villain to go big ( meaning every comic book fans should be able to tell you who she is just by hearing the name ) and stay full evil is pretty rare, especially when as soon as they are iconic, they aren't used as villains so much anymore
As for creating female villains, most writers are male writing for male characters. Unless it is a effort, they won't write women characters. It is a vicious cycle. Woman villain gets created, people love her because women characters aren't that many, she gets turned into a anti-hero to appeal to more and you no longer have a A-villain.
The character I have in my avatar shows that. She may be a woman but the only reason she is one is because the storyline called for a traitor and people have more sympathy for women
She's not that popular much like a lot of female villains at Marvel. Known to those who look into the universe for sure but not enough so people who follow Marvel from far away know who she is
Well, the last Rebrith portrayed her in a more heroic than villainous light
Because everything in her is made for a villain. Her powers include poisonning people, it's in her name and that's not what heroes do. Things like caring about children works as a villain because it adds depth to her but as a hero ? No big deal, they all want to save children. And then, her heroic actions are only for plants ( or women being abused ) which can get boring fast when as a villain, she can at least be either someone with right motivations but bad actions or just a crazy one who is totally wrong, she can fight strong heroes like Superman or fight street heroes like Batman. She have range as a villain which she does not as a hero.
And she's been a hero since the New 52 started. The last Batman issues are one of the few issues in the last 5 years that have her as a full blown threat who have to be stopped at any cost. That's pretty long
Not as the main threat which is why one of the reason why this thread exists, about how female villains can rarely be the main threat and will often share the story with another villain, if they aren't just a lackey
DC superhero girls is a great example, their bucket for female villain is less then half full because they turned every major one into a hero, so then their left with just a handful and some men
Catwoman was never really evil anyway. More of a friendly rival to Batman. The most evil Catwoman got was on the Batman TV show and during the weird blue costume days back in the 1970s.
So far the only female ones they have are Granny Goodness, the Female Furies, Giganta, and a female Eclipso. Lena Luthor was evil for a while, unlike the TV version, but I think they may have reformed her.
So the ones that look ugly, unwomanly and abnormal are the villains.
Thanks a lot DC.
I still maintain it’s a power thing. Super villains by default tend to wield more power then their respected heroes, since most heroes are male, that would mean making a female whose more powerful then her male opponent. This seems really seems difficult for some (mostly male) creators to get their head around. Characters like this tend to...
A. Get shunted into obscurity (remember Lady Styx, yeah me neither)
B. Her power gets diverted into her sexuality( the classic Femme Fatale, but also female characters who’s only story lines tend to be about who they are with at the moment)
C. They get revealed to be not as bad as previously thought. This is what is happening to Ivy in my opinion. This a character who in motivation and scope is not all that different from Ras Al Ghoul. Comparing these two characters shows the disparity between male and female villains quite nicely.
Circe to me should be a bigger villain then she is. It’s no accident that she is a Wonder Woman villain( the one franchise built around subverting gender tropes). But rest assured, if she became popular they would probably try and make her chaotic neutral or chaotic good as well.
Last edited by mathew101281; 02-26-2018 at 09:56 AM.
Who fits that other than Granny Goodness?
Also People putting Killer Frost up there on the list, To me She was super sympathetic because she was basically a Super-powered Addict who had to get the next hit to keep her sanity. She went long times before showing up again alot of the time and usually only targeted fire-type heroes to steal their heat to feed the hunger. It was almost certain that she would go straight if she ever got a handle on how to lower her consumption so she doesn't kill people who aren't super powered.
Poison Ivy is like Swamp thing in that you really can't put traditional morality on them because Swampy will do what ever the **** he feels like when defending the green and Poison Ivy basically his second in command when it comes to powers. She doesn't agree with him sitting alot of stuff out so she is the more proactive agent of the green, killing polluters and people who wreck the green. Also Poison Ivy has grown more sympathetic to people because her cause of saving the world is more main stream nowadays and she also is fairly nice to most people as long as you don't **** with Harley or anger her.
Talia Al-Ghul is a monster who may love batman in her own twisted way and loves her son in her own twisted way. She is basically Circe Lannister of the comicbook world, just smarter over all version of her. She is a awful person who has sympathetic moments.
Also Can we talk about How almost all The Main batfamily men have been raped by female villians across the Dc universe. We know of atleast twice Bruce has been raped, Dick Grayson got raped a few times and then his rapist kept trying to tag along like nothing happened even though dick was avoiding her like the plague. Jason was implied to have had terrible things happen to him when he was younger on the street and Tim has had a few close calls with females that almost ended with him tied down in a dungeon with no pants on.
I fully expect when Damian gets older some female villian is going to concuss him too and just rape him on the rooftop like what happened to Dick Grayson.
I wouldn't go that far. She may have had her moments of not being straight up evil, but at the end of Rucka's run she was still very much a villain.
I guess Stompa isn't exactly womanly, either. But a woman's degree of femininity shouldn't factor in to them being villainous.
Don't a lot of the male villains also look ugly and abnormal? Joker, Doomsday, King Shark, Penguin, Darkseid, Gorilla Grodd aren't going to win any beauty contests.
I think the message in general being sent is if you are ugly and deformed you are evil and if you are pretty/handsome and fit you are good.