Who are the Top 10 Superman Villains?

[Vordan]

I truly believe, why no one (general population) knows Superman's villainy, other than mostly Lex Luthor, and every-once-in-a-while General Zod, is, for the most part, Lex Luthor, and General Zod / Phantom Zone criminals, are the only villains used in the Superman movies.

I had just seen an episode of Cash Cab where the question was a Superman villain, 1958, name used for intelligence, word used in mainstream slang today. Those "contestants" and a passerby answered "genius".

That said, I genuinely hope Brainiac would be the big bad of a very soon future Superman or Justice League movie very soon.

1. Lex Luthor
2. Brainiac
3. Mister Mxyzptlk
4. Bizarro Superman No.1
5. Doomsday
6. General Zod
7. Metallo
8. Cyborg Superman
9. Parasite
10. Toyman

Rehashing Lex and Zod over and over again does him no favors it’s true.

[Jon Clark]

1) Lex Luthor: Everyone knows him as Superman's arch-enemy so he gets the top spot. Love him or hate him, you gotta respect his longevity, ability to adapt with time, and his overuse in the past few decades,

2) Brainiac: The other one everyone knows, but the one nobody really knows anything about. Is he a robot spy from Colu/Yod? A machine obsessed with collecting information? A multiversal being? A renegade alien scientist with mental powers trapped in an augmented human body?

3) General Zod: Hyped by the movies from a face in the Phantom Zone crowd to the definitive Kryptonian opponent for Superman.

4) Mxyzptlk: Underappreciated outside of the comics. A foe that can defeat Superman's powers without breaking a sweat but prefers to challenge Superman's intellect.

5) Parasite: The stronger the Parasite gets the weaker Superman gets. And this lets Superman play up his own skill at manipulating the chinks in his Kryptonian powers. Tire poor Parasite out by having him overuse heat vision. Overload his now hyper acute senses.

6) Metallo: The perfect anti-Superman weapon powered by a substance that can kill Superman.

7) Lobo: Because sometimes you just need someone to hit … repeatedly

8) Terra-Man: a western gunfighter seems a bit silly, but someone whose six-shooters are really high-tech ray guns and who can draw on similar tech disguised as outdated items.

9) Dominus: A guy whose power is literally to warp reality or perception of reality around you.

10) Colonel Future/Bruno Mannheim: There is something to be said for a guy who is physically no match for Superman but simply has a large enough and well equipped enough gang to challenge Superman with simple numbers (replace member Superman catches, attack multiple targets at once, etc;

Stolen Villains that need to be returned:

1) Ultra-Humanite: Now that Lex is used so often as a manipulator rather than as a "mad" scientist, let's bring back the original. As long as we remember that he is not a giant white ape but a genius who has his brain transplanted to fit his needs. Let the JSA find their own opponents (Brain Wave, Per Degaton, the Wizard)

2) Cyborg Superman: Note that this isn't the Cyborg Lantern. His powers aren't tied to the emotional spectrum. If he hadn't been teamed with Mongul and had a minor role in the destruction of Coast City he never would have been on Hal's radar.

Not Superman villains:

1) Bizarro: He's a nuisance, a creature who causes trouble but isn't evil.

2) Darkseid: He's a New God- let them deal with him for the most part. And if he appears without them it should be as a threat that the whole JLA, at minimum, is taxed by. Superman might interfere in some part of Darkseid's plans, but if it comes too anything mano-a-mano Superman should be outclassed without question (and that is something I'd rarely argue for)

3) Batman: If I ever see another story where Superman battles Batman it'll be too soon. Superman needs to have his creators focus on giving him actual opponents and not guys who should be allies to fight. And the rest of the DC editors need to find people who aren't heroes to pit their characters against.

[daBronzeBomma]

To me, the top 10 Super Rogues are:

1. Lex Luthor (undisputed #1)
2. Brainiac (undisputed #2)
3. Single Phantom Zoner (Zod/Faora/Ursa/Car-Vex/Non/etc)
4. Doomsday (needs a personality to be recurring)
5. Mongul (ejecting Darkseid from the Rogues)
6. Mr. Mxyzptlk (dude can be so much fun)
7. Bizarro (actually, still far too destructive to go full hero)
8. Metallo (only if you can show he is a threat w/o Green K)
9. Parasite (could be great, but requires a deft touch)
10. Blaze (hands down the best female villain Supes ever had, got stolen by Shazam and then shamefully bested by her useless brother Satanus, bring her back into the fold now!)

[Kuwagaton]

For females I think Faora is top and makes for the best fights.

I think it's become so commonplace for comics to feature slugfests and it's not really a place they feel like going with Siobhan, Syrene, or Blaze. Superman will hit a woman in his ballpark of power, but then those enemies weren't really designed for slugfests. There is Maxima, too, but her true power is still psychic. I really like Peri, Cythonna, and Obsession, but they've all been written out so long ago.

Thanks Jon Clark for working in Dominus. He's a real favorite and a year long story should make him significant but I know he's still obscure. I wouldn't have considered Future but I like him too. I think my favorite Bronze age villain is Karb Brak.

[Armor of God]

Lex Luthor
General Zod
Brainiac
Cyborg Superman/Henshaw
Lord Vyndktvx
Superdoom
Faora
Manchester Black
Bizarro
Parasite

Honorable mention to
Dominus
Maxima
Mxy

[Mistah K88]

Lex is obviously the top dog, as he should be... but you have to admit that he is a tab bit overused

I would say that Brainiac is a FIRM #2, no one disputes that

After that it starts to get rather muddled

I like characters like Toyman, Parasite, Zod, Metallo, and the like but its hard to rank a lot of them on a scale of being a great baddies for Supes aside from personal preferences... Heck if it were up to me, the plot device known as Doomsday would NEVER get on a list of top Supeman villains, but he often does... I would like to see Intergang thrown in there more...Metropolis has its own mafia, and being in a technologically advanced city as Metropolis, as well as having someone like Superman to contend with, they would have some pretty nasty weapons that would make some of Gotham's supervillains cringe.

Supes has too many “evil clone” villains: Guys who have his powers or who are as strong as he is but are evil. To count the classics there’s Zod, Bizarro (sometimes), Doomsday, Cyborg Superman, and Mongul.

Yet, for some reason, writers always continue to explore "what if Superman was evil" rather than use one of these guys in a creative way.

[Celgress]

For females I think Faora is top and makes for the best fights....

I couldn't agree with you more.

[Jim Kelly]

Hard to think of many female villains that have lasted in the Superman rogues gallery, other than the Kryptonians like Faora and Ursa. In the past there was Circe--but she's a Wonder Woman villain now. There's also Silver Banshee, the Superwoman of Earth-3, Saturn Queen, the Bizarro Lois Lane. And Satan Girl was an interesting opponent, but only one time.

The Blonde Tigress was a cool villain--part of the League to Destroy Superman in the daily comic strips--but she's all but forgotten. And then there's Delores Winters, the best version of the Ultra-Humanite (sorry albino gorilla).

Maxima doesn't really count because she was also a hero or anti-hero.

Likewise Miss Gzptlsnz--who is the ex-girlfriend/fiancée/wife of Mr. Mxyzptlk--is a pest and sometimes a villain. But I have a hard time declaring pests like Mxy, Bizarro or Susie Thompkins as outright villains. They are more like misguided foes.

"Mix-Yez-Spittle-Lick".

The way I pronounce it (from an old Superman letter column) is Mix-yez-pit-el-ik. Because it helps me to remember the spelling--if you just leave out all the vowels, that's exactly how it's spellt. To remember the old spelling, you just reverse the middle syllable--Mix-yez-tip-el-ik.

[stargazer01]

I liked that Maxima had a big crush on Superman and wanted to have him no matter what. I'd watch a live action story arc of that. Make her very strong and able to control Clark's mind a bit. It'd be really fun with the right actress. Make Lois jealous haha.

I also loved how both Ursa and Faora were written and portrayed in the movies.

[Vordan]

Lex is obviously the top dog, as he should be... but you have to admit that he is a tab bit overused

I would say that Brainiac is a FIRM #2, no one disputes that

After that it starts to get rather muddled

I like characters like Toyman, Parasite, Zod, Metallo, and the like but its hard to rank a lot of them on a scale of being a great baddies for Supes aside from personal preferences... Heck if it were up to me, the plot device known as Doomsday would NEVER get on a list of top Supeman villains, but he often does... I would like to see Intergang thrown in there more...Metropolis has its own mafia, and being in a technologically advanced city as Metropolis, as well as having someone like Superman to contend with, they would have some pretty nasty weapons that would make some of Gotham's supervillains cringe.



Yet, for some reason, writers always continue to explore "what if Superman was evil" rather than use one of these guys in a creative way.

Irritates me as well. I’d love an Elseworld story where Zod kills Kal and takes over the Earth. Preferably after blowing Batman’s head off so it doesn’t degrade into another Batgod saves the world story.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Luthor
Mxyzptlk
Xa-Du
Superboy Prime
Bizarro
Vyndktvx
Superdoomsday
Subjekt 17
C.W. Saturn
Solaris

With an honorable mention I suppose to Livewire, the one other consistently good Superman villain; I kinda want to give one to Darkseid as well, but the times Darkseid's one of the best villains of all time are never the times he's a regular straight-up Superman villain.

That's grading on average quality of execution rather than concept. Your Brainiacs, Metallos, Parasites, Toymen, Zods, even Doomsdays all have great ideas at their heart, but in practice they're essentially never anything but Tough Mean Fellas for Superman to punch a lot until they stop being bad for awhile.

[Myskin]

Years ago I had a quick exchange with Kurt Busiek on comicbloc forum (or was it a letter I sent to busiek.com? I can't remember). One thing which emerged was that the main problem with Superman villains (and yes, Superman's rogue gallery is very thin no matter how much you like them, that's pretty indisputable and basically everyone agrees on that including Grant Morrison) is that they are too repetitive and they are generally pushing the same concepts.

As Geoff Johns has understood (and that's pretty clear in his run), the Superman rogue gallery consists of just 8 characters. They can be summarized as it follows: you have three masterminds (Luthor, Brainiac, the "evil kryptonian" trope - Jax-Ur, Zod...), three thugs (Bizarro, Parasite, Metallo), two "outsiders"/surreal/magic characters (Toyman, Mxyzptlk). I'll add one more trope (the evil Superman double, who is a mastermind and a thug at the same time - a role which can be played by Bizarro in some situations) and that's 9. And that's it (I really don't think that Darkseid should belong to this category - he's not a Superman villain strictly speaking). All of the other characters are a repetition of these concepts with some variations - a very interesting repetition in some cases but a repetition nonetheless. Kryptonite men (ALL of them), Conduit, are basically riffs on Metallo. Subjekt 17, Doomsday, and now Rogol Zaar (well, so far at least) are basically super-thugs - in a way, Doomsday is a more lethal and dumber version of Bizarro, or a variation on the evil Superman double, especially in consideration of his origin. And has anyone noticed that Solaris in All Star Superman plays the classic role of Brainiac, that is a sentient machine who is allied with Luthor (in the same way the Superman Squad from the future in the same story is the Legion of Super-heroes)?

The aforementioned villains basically occupy all the "slots" in Superman criminal lore. I think that someone more patient than me could also find more connections among them (and maybe even create a visual pattern). One thing that I noticed is that there are some strict links between the "thug" group and the "mastermind" group. Zod is a mastermind and an "evil Superman double"; and Bizarro is a thug and an "evil Superman double" as well. Well, does anyone remember that in Kelly and Loeb's run Bizarro was used by Zod (the Russian Zod, yes, but a Zod nonetheless) as a living punching ball? Both Brainiac and Metallo are cybernetic horrors, and who is responsible for the creation of Metallo in Morrison's run? That leaves Luthor and Parasite. Well, even if you don't take into account that they are both greedy character at heart, there is a longtime rivalry in Superman comic books between these two characters. And it's not a case that Morrison made them fight each other in All Star Superman IMHO.

Aside from that (maybe I am just playing apophenia), the main problem for these characters is their purpose. Yes, you can find similar connections between Joker and the Riddler and Professor Pyg and so on. But what makes the Batman villains so interesting is that their psychology is so complex and interesting and compelling to read, they have so many facets that they can act as main characters of single stories on their account, even without Batman. I mean, how many stories have we seen about Arkham Asylum? On the other hand, most Superman villains have to be a physical challenge rather than a psychological one and in most stories they are just brawlers. Of course, there are exceptions and I'd say that the 3 "masterminds" above are very strong characters, among the strongest in the entire DCU, and it's interesting that Luthor, who is of course Superman's worst enemy, has no powers nor costume (personally speaking, I hate Luthor's armor: it misses the entire point of the character, and has that friggin' tank ever been useful in any story?). It's not that there aren't interesting villains here and there (personally speaking I have a soft spot for Amalak), but they just appear in a couple of stories and then disappear forever. Is it enough to consider them Superman's recurring villains?

One very good idea Morrison had in his Action Comics run was taking one Phantom Zone prisoner and giving him his own personal set of powers. In general, there is no real difference between the Zoners (even if Gerber wrote an extraordinarily good mini-series in which he gave a very distinct voice to each prisoner) and they are just variations on the "evil Kryptonian" route. But when Morrison introduced the Phantom King, he created a unique character - a Zoner who is ALSO a ghost and whose technology is entirely based on ghostlike things (Steve Orlando very skillfully followed the same path in his Supergirl run). I'd say that this is the main reason the Phantom King is probably the one thing of Morrison's run which hasn't been entirely forgotten or put aside, and more writers should take a similar route in their works (and I'd say Bendis' Red Cloud is promising).

[Killerbee911]

Lex is obviously the top dog, as he should be... but you have to admit that he is a tab bit overused

I would say that Brainiac is a FIRM #2, .

Why is Lex the top dog? I mean other than willingness of creators to use him because of history ,Imo Most Lex stuff is anticlimactic. The set up are great the final showdown are most meh.

Here is my list antagonists

1. Darkseid- I don't care where he started as a villain. He has all the elements, You know Superman is going to smack around by him and be clearly the weaker person in the match up. Darkseid has enough intelligence to scheme as well make it physical fight to conflicts are interesting as well. Most importantly Darkseid wins fights even when "he loses" he often still manages to come out ahead. The most important part of great antagonists is how much they are allowed to win.

2. Lex Luthor/Batman- Evil/Good side of the same type of coin imo(We would be better off they were each others main antagonists). Both represent a human should not have a shot against Superman and somehow through planning they are allowed to beat Superman.Fights can be a little anticlimactic or feel like Superman is getting jobbed. The fun part is mostly a battle of ideology that happens during the story. The actually physical fight in good story involving these characters isn't really the good part.Both are big enough names that they are allowed victories against Superman.

3. Zod. Probably the best what if superman was evil concept. He shown be pretty good tactical planner as well,So you get a little brains as well as a even match physical match up. Like the people mention before Zod manages to give Superman some Ls on occasion.

4. Brainiac/Doomsday- They are different as can be in their approaches but here is the thing, You tend to get the same exact style of story when these guys are used. Brainiac is clearly the better villain but his stories are telegraphed as hell just like Doomsday.

5. Wonder Woman/Shazam/Black Adam - They don't clash often but outcome is always interesting

6. Metallo, Mongul, Parasite, Cyborg Superman, Mr. Mxyzptlk- Interesting change of pace basically the B-Squad.

My fun list of characters who I think are interesting antagonists for Superman

1. Captain Atom- I like the idea of the government having a top cop superhero who at times gets called in to keep heroes in check, Captain Atom has the powerset to have interesting clash with Superman. Captain Atom is great way have stories where Superman does the right thing but world might not see it as the right thing

2. Helspont- I just like him being a Wildstorm fan. A upper level telepath who can physically handle Superman is great thing for stories

3. Magog- I think they should have hero around who clearly stylewise would be clash to Superman but respected enough that he is allowed to be free as Superhero. Basically the guy who will kill Lex in "self defense" or use excessive force in fights against henchmen but will sacrifice himself to save innocent people. Magog could be molded into that

4.Damage- DC has a legit Hulk, So you can do the Doomsday style stories with a character that isn't necessary evil

[Kuwagaton]

I actually dislike anything related to Public Enemies because of that. Captain Atom is really the exact opposite of a government stooge, even less of one than Superman however much that's possible.

Years ago I had a quick exchange with Kurt Busiek on comicbloc forum (or was it a letter I sent to busiek.com? I can't remember). One thing which emerged was that the main problem with Superman villains (and yes, Superman's rogue gallery is very thin no matter how much you like them, that's pretty indisputable and basically everyone agrees on that including Grant Morrison) is that they are too repetitive and they are generally pushing the same concepts.

As Geoff Johns has understood (and that's pretty clear in his run), the Superman rogue gallery consists of just 8 characters. They can be summarized as it follows: you have three masterminds (Luthor, Brainiac, the "evil kryptonian" trope - Jax-Ur, Zod...), three thugs (Bizarro, Parasite, Metallo), two "outsiders"/surreal/magic characters (Toyman, Mxyzptlk). I'll add one more trope (the evil Superman double, who is a mastermind and a thug at the same time - a role which can be played by Bizarro in some situations) and that's 9. And that's it (I really don't think that Darkseid should belong to this category - he's not a Superman villain strictly speaking). All of the other characters are a repetition of these concepts with some variations - a very interesting repetition in some cases but a repetition nonetheless. Kryptonite men (ALL of them), Conduit, are basically riffs on Metallo. Subjekt 17, Doomsday, and now Rogol Zaar (well, so far at least) are basically super-thugs - in a way, Doomsday is a more lethal and dumber version of Bizarro, or a variation on the evil Superman double, especially in consideration of his origin. And has anyone noticed that Solaris in All Star Superman plays the classic role of Brainiac, that is a sentient machine who is allied with Luthor (in the same way the Superman Squad from the future in the same story is the Legion of Super-heroes)?

The aforementioned villains basically occupy all the "slots" in Superman criminal lore. I think that someone more patient than me could also find more connections among them (and maybe even create a visual pattern). One thing that I noticed is that there are some strict links between the "thug" group and the "mastermind" group. Zod is a mastermind and an "evil Superman double"; and Bizarro is a thug and an "evil Superman double" as well. Well, does anyone remember that in Kelly and Loeb's run Bizarro was used by Zod (the Russian Zod, yes, but a Zod nonetheless) as a living punching ball? Both Brainiac and Metallo are cybernetic horrors, and who is responsible for the creation of Metallo in Morrison's run? That leaves Luthor and Parasite. Well, even if you don't take into account that they are both greedy character at heart, there is a longtime rivalry in Superman comic books between these two characters. And it's not a case that Morrison made them fight each other in All Star Superman IMHO.

Aside from that (maybe I am just playing apophenia), the main problem for these characters is their purpose. Yes, you can find similar connections between Joker and the Riddler and Professor Pyg and so on. But what makes the Batman villains so interesting is that their psychology is so complex and interesting and compelling to read, they have so many facets that they can act as main characters of single stories on their account, even without Batman. I mean, how many stories have we seen about Arkham Asylum? On the other hand, most Superman villains have to be a physical challenge rather than a psychological one and in most stories they are just brawlers. Of course, there are exceptions and I'd say that the 3 "masterminds" above are very strong characters, among the strongest in the entire DCU, and it's interesting that Luthor, who is of course Superman's worst enemy, has no powers nor costume (personally speaking, I hate Luthor's armor: it misses the entire point of the character, and has that friggin' tank ever been useful in any story?). It's not that there aren't interesting villains here and there (personally speaking I have a soft spot for Amalak), but they just appear in a couple of stories and then disappear forever. Is it enough to consider them Superman's recurring villains?

One very good idea Morrison had in his Action Comics run was taking one Phantom Zone prisoner and giving him his own personal set of powers. In general, there is no real difference between the Zoners (even if Gerber wrote an extraordinarily good mini-series in which he gave a very distinct voice to each prisoner) and they are just variations on the "evil Kryptonian" route. But when Morrison introduced the Phantom King, he created a unique character - a Zoner who is ALSO a ghost and whose technology is entirely based on ghostlike things (Steve Orlando very skillfully followed the same path in his Supergirl run). I'd say that this is the main reason the Phantom King is probably the one thing of Morrison's run which hasn't been entirely forgotten or put aside, and more writers should take a similar route in their works (and I'd say Bendis' Red Cloud is promising).

Maggin recently said that 40-50 years ago, there were less than a handful of writers who wanted to do Superman. I'm sure part of that gets into how uninteresting people find his regular villains, but it's also pretty telling to me how tricky it is to even make a villain and the character in general work. The three writers you mentioned are extremely well known... for bodies of work outside of the monthly Superman comics, which were brief runs. Of all the characters created between them, the only villain with legs has been the Morrison revamp of Xa-Du, basically a blank slate Zone villain. Nimrod, Superdoom, Comet, and the flavored K Men were obviously just as we'd seen in other characters. Vyn was just a malicious Mxy, maybe just coming from the same place as Moore on that. From Johns there was... Ulysses? Eh. Khyber from Busiek? Basically of mash of other well known villains. Many of these comics read well because they're solid writers regardless, but it's safe to call Superman villains outside of their forte. I mean, Brainiac ended up as a big guy who traded punches with Superman, if we're talking about Luthor's armor missing the point. I'll add a fourth writer, too, because Scott Snyder is by far one of the most popular and well received writers in years, but his Wraith idea isn't as popular as any of his creations even for just Batman. We know he's very creative but for his single Superman arc his villain hits every complaint for Superman villains.

The real thing that makes me think though is how Flash, Spider-Man, and Batman, all heavily villain focused, are seen as better in that department by what's rarely broken down as a standard. Flash and Spider-Man villains are lumped together because they're mostly the same things: Spider-Man has two bit thugs turned into zoological freaks and miscellaneous gimmicks, while Flash has wayward punks turned entirely into miscellaneous gimmicks. Then you have Grodd as an outlier along with evil versions of the Flash. Maybe the speed force is a cool idea, but the strength and sage forces sound like beating a dead horse. Spider-Man steps way outside of his element with the evil Spider-Man idea, as the symbiotes are costume-aliens by the dozen who vaguely fall into the shape of a spider just because he is.

Batman will probably always sit at the top for villains even though I think Dick Tracy deserves some of the credit. As does the animated series, because villains like Freeze would be pretty forgotten otherwise. I'm not sure why the titles now are so Joker heavy but it says something that Catwoman also has a well received title. Many in the Batman cast posess serious legs. Even if past his "top 8" or so you really have some labored stories to make them work and "deep" is an overstatement of the psychology involved. That's not meant to be a knock but it's not really a case where the Asylum characters get much outside of a one shot just like every other villain out there. And the big new thing is a Joker Batman.

[Myskin]

The three writers you mentioned are extremely well known... for bodies of work outside of the monthly Superman comics, which were brief runs.

You mean Morrison, Busiek and Johns? I'd agree that some of their runs (both Johns and Morrison had at least two different occasions to work with the character) are generally uninteresting (Ulysses is the Nth variation on the evil Superman theme), but other works (All Star and some episodes from Johns' first run, which seems to be a reference point for many readers no matter how laughable thug Brainiac is) are important and well-known. However, my point is that all three of them have a very good knowledge of comics, to the point that I could consider them comic historians.

Aside from that, yes, Spider-man villains and Flash villains are very similar to each other in terms of power, but the problem is always the same - they are compelling. I really don't know if that was the case before Johns' run on Wally West Flash, when he wrote very good one-shots on each villain, but guys like Captain Cold are interesting, generally more interesting than the typical Superman villain. And yes, films and tv series deserve some credit for the popularity of Batman villains, but that's true for Superman too. Modern Zod was basically introduced with Reeves and the version of Brainiac we all love and remember is the one from TAS, which Bruce Timm recreated from scratch without even taking into consideration the comic version (those were more or less his words), taking inspiration from Galactus and HAL 9000 from Kubrick's Space Odyssey.