Which villains should switch Rogues' galleries?

[DrNewGod]

Villains switching rogues gallery's should be rare because well made villains should be created with a particular hero in mind. If your villain can be easily swapped over to another hero then either the hero or the villain is generic and needs more work.

I can't agree on this one. Giving a villain reasons independent of the hero makes them less generic and more well-designed in my mind.

To be sure, there are villains that absolutely are - and should remain - tethered to their hero. Key motives behind everything Luthor, The Joker, Sinestro, and Professor Zoom do should include inflicting maximum humiliation and/or misery on (respectively) Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and The Flash.

However, there's no reason a Gorilla Grodd, or a Vandal Savage can't view themselves as beyond such feuds and launch schemes that aren't necessarily intended to include throwing down with a particular Spandexer. In fact, you'd expect a simple smash-and-grabber like Mirror Master or The Tattoo Man to go after schemes that let them avoid their usual hero. In a similar manner, you'd expect a mercenary like Deathstroke or Chesire to go where the money is, rather than continually seek paydays in a particular character's backyard.

Ultra Humanite, Grail, Dr.Cyber and Cobalt Blue should be Cyborg villains.

I always though Ultra-Humanite an ideal adversary for Mister Terrific.

[Ascended]

Because he hasn't been used in a while and Cyborg needs a speedster villain(or any villain that isn't a robot) for variety.

Good enough. I agree, limiting Vic to tech based villains is a huge mistake.

[king81992]

I can't agree on this one. Giving a villain reasons independent of the hero makes them less generic and more well-designed in my mind.

To be sure, there are villains that absolutely are - and should remain - tethered to their hero. Key motives behind everything Luthor, The Joker, Sinestro, and Professor Zoom do should include inflicting maximum humiliation and/or misery on (respectively) Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and The Flash.

However, there's no reason a Gorilla Grodd, or a Vandal Savage can't view themselves as beyond such feuds and launch schemes that aren't necessarily intended to include throwing down with a particular Spandexer. In fact, you'd expect a simple smash-and-grabber like Mirror Master or The Tattoo Man to go after schemes that let them avoid their usual hero. In a similar manner, you'd expect a mercenary like Deathstroke or Chesire to go where the money is, rather than continually seek paydays in a particular character's backyard.



I always though Ultra-Humanite an ideal adversary for Mister Terrific.

I think Ultra Humanite is a good adversary for Cyborg because both characters have transhuman themes: Ultra Humanite is the old fashioned way, extending life by switching between bodies and Cyborg is the new way, humans enhanced by technology.

Humanite is also elitist while Cyborg isn't.

[Electricmastro]

List of small examples of DC rogues galleries from what I could find:

Batman:

Joker
Riddler
Ra's al Ghul
Mister Freeze
Bane
Catwoman
Scarecrow
Two-Face
Harley Quinn
Penguin

Justice League:

Darkseid
Brainiac
Lex Luthor
Doomsday
Crime Syndicate of America
The Joker
Ra's al Ghul
White Martians
Vandal Savage
Solomon Grundy

Flash:

Professor Zoom
Gorilla Grodd
Mirror Master
Captain Cold
Heat Wave
Trickster
Captain Boomerang
Pied Piper
Abra Kadabra
Weather Wizard

Superman:

Darkseid
Doomsday
Brainiac
General Zod
Lex Luthor
Bizarro
Lobo
Metallo
Parasite
Ultraman

Green Lantern:

Sinestro
Atrocitus
Parallax
Larfleeze
Nekron
Anti-Monitor
Star Sapphire
Arkillo
Cyborg Superman
Black Hand

Teen Titans:

Deathstroke
Trigon
Blackfire
Brother Blood
Cheshire
Mammoth
Match
Gizmo
Psimon
The Joker

Green Arrow:

Merlyn
Deathstroke
Count Vertigo
Deadshot
Solomon Grundy
Komodo
League of Assassins
Lady Shiva
Clock King
Cheshire

Wonder Woman:

Ares
Maxwell Lord
Cheetah
Fury
Medusa
Hades
Circe
Deimos
Red Panzer
Giganta

[The no face guy]

Simple query really, which underused, or badly used or ill matched villains should switch rogues' galleries to someone more suitable? It happens that sometimes villains created for some heroes are found to be a better match for other ones, so they pretty much switch over. Or a writer creates a villain for one title and brings him over when he gets another title. Historically this has been done more often in the more connected Marvel Universe (Think Daredevil to Kingpin), but it's not unheard of in DC either. Green Lantern taking Cyborg Superman and Mongul from Superman (At the very least it's shared custody), Aquaman taking both King Shark and "the" Shark although the latter is not seen much nowadays. So, who would be good candidates for a switch?

I'll start of with some ideas:

1.) Captain Boomerang to Green Arrow: Always hopelessly over matched against the Flash, Boomer is mostly used in the Suicide Squad nowadays. I'll say, that when he isn't being used by the squad, he should menace Green Arrow instead of the Flash. It seems like a win-win scenario for me. Boomer now goes up against someone he has a fighting chance against, Green Arrow's thin Rogues' gallery gains a reliable staple and we didn't have to create a million contrivances to justify a guy who throws boomerangs being a credible threat to a guy who moves at lightspeed.

I think that is an awesome idea!

Captain Boomerang has gone from being one of the coolest villains from when I was young, to a bit of a running joke, in part because a guy wearing boomerang pajamas throwing boomerangs at a guy who run as fast as the speed of light is...well, how shall we say...horribly outmatched.

Green Arrow would give him a new lease on life, he could join Merlyn, Count Vertigo, Slingshot ect, as a perfect arrow rogue.

[phantom1592]

I don't know if that would work that well, since Lex Luthor is a narcissist who wants to be seen as better than Superman. He probably already views himself as better than Batman or Bruce Wayne and wouldn't have as compelling a rivalry with him. He probably doesn't feel he has much to prove there.

On the other side though.... Batman has a TON of rogues to deal with. It may be interesting to see BRUCE WAYNE have an enemy that he battles right in the public eye...

[phantom1592]

I can't agree on this one. Giving a villain reasons independent of the hero makes them less generic and more well-designed in my mind.

To be sure, there are villains that absolutely are - and should remain - tethered to their hero. Key motives behind everything Luthor, The Joker, Sinestro, and Professor Zoom do should include inflicting maximum humiliation and/or misery on (respectively) Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and The Flash.

However, there's no reason a Gorilla Grodd, or a Vandal Savage can't view themselves as beyond such feuds and launch schemes that aren't necessarily intended to include throwing down with a particular Spandexer. In fact, you'd expect a simple smash-and-grabber like Mirror Master or The Tattoo Man to go after schemes that let them avoid their usual hero. In a similar manner, you'd expect a mercenary like Deathstroke or Chesire to go where the money is, rather than continually seek paydays in a particular character's backyard.
.

Agreed.

Most villains are very self centered. They commit crimes for a reason... the hero is just an obstacle that gets in their way. The reason that Doc Ock, Rhino and Beetle were Spider-man villains... was because he happened to be closest to the bank they were robbing. Could have just as easily been anyone else.

If Mr. Freeze hears about some research facility in metropolis, Star City or anywhere else in the world working on tech he needs... there should be nothing tying him to Gotham and Batman specifically. He wants it, he goes gets it... and some other hero gets to stop him that day.

Riddler is a good one to skip town too. Part of wants him to keep trying to prove himself by outsmarting Batman... but on the other hand, it's VERY likely one of the others is going to murder him ala Hush Returns... and He'd be just happy trying to outsmart Green Arrow or Superman for a while. Someplace where the rogues aren't QUITE so insane.

[Psy-lock]

Wonder Woman:

Ares
Maxwell Lord
Cheetah
Fury
Medusa
Hades
Circe
Deimos
Red Panzer
Giganta

??? Max Lord is barely a WW villain, let alone a major part of her Rogues Gallery. Medusa, Hades and Red Panzer are also very minor characters in her comics. And since when is Fury a villain?

[Vakanai]

Kobra, Ra’s Al Ghul, and Trigon to Wonder Woman.

I don't see those last two - Ra's has a long and personal history with Batman, and doesn't provide much threat to someone as powerful as Wonder Woman. Trigon does have the power to be a threat, but is too tied into Raven,

[mathew101281]

Queen Clea seems more like an Aquaman villain then a Wonderwoman villain.

[Gaius]

A lot of Hal’s old Earth-based villains could probably be transferred over to other rogues gallery members and he probably wouldn’t miss much. Which I guess has already happened in some instances with Hector Hammond in Superman books back in the New 52 and Shark popping up in some Aquaman books.

Overall though, agree with other posters about not being a fan of villain poaching.

[Samm]

??? Max Lord is barely a WW villain, let alone a major part of her Rogues Gallery. Medusa, Hades and Red Panzer are also very minor characters in her comics. And since when is Fury a villain?

Wonder Woman fans may not like it but ever since the neck snap, he’s become an official WW rogue. The new WW movie is about to solidify that. Her list of iconic foes would look more like this:
Cheetah
Ares
Circe
Giganta
Dr Psycho
Maxwell Lord
Dr Poison
Silver Swan
Veronica Cale
Baroness Paula Von Gunther

[MadFacedKid]

Superman:
Cyborg Superman
Abra Kadabra
Ras al Ghul


Batman:
Deathstroke (I think at this point people like the interactions and fights between the two anyways) (I wouldn’t really consider Slade pinned down to any franchise but he’s iconically a Titans villain)
Black Manta

Wonder Woman:
Brother Blood
Hector Hammond

The Flash:
Parasite
Count Vertigo
Cheetah
Scarecrow

Green Lantern:
Lobo

Aquaman:
Weather Wizard
The Shark

[Vakanai]

Superman:
Cyborg Superman

Isn't he already? I know he's in GL a lot now, but he's still part of the Superman franchise right?

Batman:
Deathstroke (I think at this point people like the interactions and fights between the two anyways) (I wouldn’t really consider Slade pinned down to any franchise but he’s iconically a Titans villain)
Black Manta

The Flash:
Count Vertigo
Scarecrow

Green Lantern:
Lobo

I actually like these. Now I think Black Manta should always primarily go after Aquaman, and Scarecrow should always come back to Gotham, but as for guest villains and shared rogues these would be really neat match ups. Batman vs Black Manta would make some great fights, Vertigo and Scarecrow can mess up Flash's speed (unbalanced, running scared), and Logo vs space cops is a no brainer.

[married guy]

Nice idea. I really have no reasoning behind these, but I'd just like to see it.

1. Terminator to Wonder Woman - I think their fights would be epic
2. Blockbuster to Superman - again, epic fights
3. Killer Frost to Nightwing - you know she's gonna fall for him while trying to kill him
4. Mirror Master to Batman - don't know why but it sounds good
5. Professor Zoom to Green Lantern - the yellow costume and the speed
6. The Riddler to Flash
7. Giganta to Elongated Man

We've seen the Riddler vs Flash a couple of times - most recently in the 52 era Flash (#51 and #52) against Barry.
And going back a while, versus Wally in Robin #62-64 (1999)