What villain was written the best and what arch was it?

[johnnyjam2233]

I've been leaving threads about the best archs and runs, and I mentioned how Remenders Uncanny X-force and Uncanny Avengers run might be my favorite runs, but I never brought up one important fact. Kang The Conqueror. A character I knew very little about, except for his portrayal on Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I wasn't a fan of the show at first, but it grew on me. I loved that show. Well written, and more mature then I gave it credit for and that's why I enjoyed after giving it a 2nd chance. Kang impressed me on the show. Regardless tho. My first real story I read with him in it was Uncanny Avengers. The twist to the story was that you thought Kang was the villain, and then the reader was made to think that he wasn't and was actually beaten, to be turned around and shown that he was NOT beaten. It was his own choice and move. Kang as we all know is the master time, but this particular story show that Kang played the puppet master thousands of years ago. He was the serpent in Apocalypse ear, as well as Thor's. He knew the outcome from that, and waited thousands of years for his next move. The axe of Jarnbjorn. The reader thinks Kang has lost and needs to team up with the heroes to fix everything. In the process the story starts in modern time, then 10 years later the story continues. A time travel story to fix everything, but it's not the case. It's a set up. We see parts of thousands of years ago, but most of the story is in modern time, and then a jump 10 years and back again and Kang IS the actual bad guy. It's really written very well, but it show cases Kang being so smart and methodical as he should be. It's impressive to see all his moves come together.

Another story is of course Hickmans run of Avengers and New Avengers with Doctor Doom saving the planet and being God in Secret Wars. Also mind blowing that thought out process of these characters.

[your_name_here]

Doom - Either Secret Wars or Books of Doom
Annihilus - Annihilation
Kraven - Kravens Last Hunt
Thanos - The Infinity Gauntlet

[Batman Begins 2005]

Doom, Secret Wars 2015.
Green Goblin, The Night Gwen Stacy Died.
Kraven, Kraven's Last Hunt.
Kingpin, Daredevil: Born Again.

[your_name_here]

Agree with Kingpin and Born Again.

The Skrulls - Secret Invasion

[phonogram12]

Kingpin's arc from the beginning of Bendis' run to the end of Brubaker's felt pretty epic, imho.

[Snoop Dogg]

The best Kang story is Kang Dynasty. Busiek in general saved the character.

[K7P5V]

Doom - Triumph & Torment
Thanos - The Thanos Quest
Baron Zemo (Helmut) - Justice... Like Lightning!
Ultron - The Bride of Ultron
Maelstrom - Cosmos in Collision
Purple Man - Bendis' five-part Purple

[DrNewGod]

Zemo: Under Siege

[Michael Watkins]

I enjoyed the Hood's original run by Brian K Vaughan. it's rare that you see an ordinary criminal's evolution into a costumed super-villain. it was handled very organically. a shame that Bendis got ahold of him.

and

Cullen Bunn's Magneto book (I consider it one long arc) was friggin sweet.

[Michael Watkins]

Zemo: Under Siege

that's a good one. but I've enjoyed most Zemo stories post-Phoenix period.

[marshal88]

doom has plenty of highlights , stand alone - Triumph & Torment n emperor doom, the old secret wars maxi series was good for doom as well...

[H-E-D]

The Maker, in issues #1-9 of Ultimate Comics: Ultimates.

[johnnyjam2233]

I keep pushing off Kang Dynasty. Since I read Uncanny Avengers I've read 2 GREAT Kang stories. The Inhumans had an arch where Kang took and raised Black Bolts son. Great Story. And Mark Waid had a good Kang Story also, where they got more into his Origin. The art was great, the story was great, and the Avengers went to different places in time, and another planet also where Kang enslaved some race to make his weapons and tech. The origin part was interesting. I'm still waiting for someone to write a story about a war between Kang and Apocalypse. With Kang being Rama Tut and screwing with Apocalypse, but then he manipulates Apocalypse in the Uncanny Avengers run. Having him fight Thor to set in motion the whole Jarnbjorn Axe plot line. The Apocalypse Twins being taken and raised by Kang etc. Both being thousands of years old. Sooner or later they have to clash again. There's a story there somewhere.

[LifeIsILL]

Kingpin - Punisher: Kingpin
Sandman - Spiderman Reborn
Green Goblin - Death in the Family
Abomination - Hulk : Always on My Mind

[johnnyjam2233]

Good one here. NICE CHOICE!!!!! The Maker was one of the best things that came out of Ultimate Comics. That Hickman run was on of the best things being written at the time. I didn't read the Hickman run he did on F.F. simply because I never read any 616 Fantastic Four because there's just so much history to know about first, but I kept reading on the comics sites "HICKMAN THIS" AND "HICKMAN THAT" I had only jumped into reading the 616 Avengers when Bendis was writing it, and I did so AFTER Avengers Disassembled when he put Spider-man and Wolverine on the teams. I made that jump because I was a Bendis fan after reading his Daredevil run, and I was reading Ult. Spider-man. But I fell in love with Ult. X-Men and the Utlimates by Mark Millar, and then the 2 of them did the first Ult. F.F. arch and loved that too. I stayed on the Ultimates after Geoff Loeb basically ruined what Millar did as if he didn't even read his run, and made the Ultimates almost exactly like the Avengers. Even making Thor talk like he was doing a Shakespear play. I don't like Thor comics, and one reason is because of his dialogue, so when Millar came back for a bit and changed it back by saying the Tony Stark paid Thor 5 million dollars if he started talking like Americans again was funny. Anyways. I think I might be one of the only 10 people that liked Millar's Ultimate Avengers run, but when Hickman came on board and did his run, which is split into a bunch of 3 issue story arch's, but is clearly a maxie-series, it was great. Bendis did his "Ultimate Enemy" trilogy, which was kind of awful, but the last 2 issues of the 3rd acty, we found out that Ult. Reed Richards was the villain the whole time, and working out of the Negative Zone, I hadn't read any more of the Ultimate Fantastic Four issues, only after Mark Millar did a yearly run on Ult. F.F. with Greg Land as the artist (beautiful art even tho Greg land gets a lot of hate). I understand why some people hate Greg Lands art, band it's always complaints about his faces saying everyone looks alike, but I don't care because I think his female faces look like real photographs sometimes when his art is inked they way there were in Ult. F.F. and the Ultimate Power Story. Anyway, before I rant any more. Hickmans story blew my mind. While I thought the idea of Loeb having Magneto turn the Earth upside down was stupid, I LOVED it when Reed The Maker Richards destroyed almost half of Europe, and then beat the whole worlds military in like an 15 minutes. Hickman did as good a job of revamping and modernizing some aspects of the Marvel 616 universe into his own tweaks for the Ultimate Universe. People don't even realize that the globe he was inside, where he lived for thousands of years evolving, and test tube people he made evolved generations was a Grant Morrison creation for his X-Men run. The World. Where time can be speeded up to the point of thousands of years in seconds, just like The Maker did. It took a lot of balls to make a Hero in the villain that good like Hickman did. DC was close with Hal Jordan becoming Parallax, but because it was the Ult. Fantastic Four, Reed stayed that way. Making him closer to the 616 Doc. Doom then the Ultimate Comics Doctor Doom could be compared to the 616 version. The only thing that I didn't like was that Hickman didn't actually write the last few issues of his fully planned arch and you could see it in the dialogue. Esad Ribic was taken off the art too. Issue 10.11.and 12. No Ribic, and Hickman and Humpries were joint writers halfway thru the final 6 issue arch of that run. I'm convinced it was so Hickman could focus on his Avengers and New Avengers story, because the final 3 issues came out the same year Hickman started his Avengers masterpiece. Reading it felt like Hickman told Humphries what he was going to write and had Humphries finish the story.