Who has the worst rogues-gallery?

[The Overlord]

The thing with Doctor Doom is that he is mired in Silver Age comicbookiness without any hint of relevance to dilute it.

Ras is a middle eastern (relevant) mogul/warlord(relevant) with an environmentalist obsession (more relevancy).

You could make the case that with a little attention the FF rogues couldbecome at least as compelling as Doom if not more

Wizard is brilliant scientist who hates Reed because he stole his place in the spotlight(I can see hating somebody because of jealous.Doom's motivation isn't as direct). The Mad Thinker is an utterly amoral weapons maker. Diablo is a centuries old Spanish nobleman who has mastered Alchemy. The Red Ghost is a Communist idealogue with a grudge.

Other than Diablo who is pure fantasy, there are elements of relevancy to be mined from these guys. Fame obsession, Scientific irresponsibity, Imperialism and that is off the top of my head.

Doom has got the rivalry with Reed and the haughty nobleman bit and that is pretty much it.

But those all are all note characters, you are kinda proving my point, that these characters have one dimension. Red Ghost is a commie, Wizard is jealous, etc, that just one dimension.

Here is what Dr. Doom has over other FF villains, an actual back story, while the FF villains just seem show up and be evil. Doom had a character arc in his back story, if he didn't grow up in an oppressive dictatorship and saw his parents die, he may have not became the man he is today. Dr. Doom has one more dimension to him, he is very petty and jealous, but he does have a certain amount of nobility and style that other FF villains, he is petty, but he has his own bizarre sense of morality, different stories will play up different aspects to him, while with other FF villains, they will hit the same note, over and over again.

Maybe we can give some these non Doom FF rogues some more dimensions, give them a better back story or develop their characters a bit. Red Ghost could easily be more relevant, with a little character development, traditional Marxism has lost its luster, anarchism is the new major left wing ideology. You could have Red Ghost became anarchist, having him attack corporations instead of the FF, he would be far more ruthless or you take him the opposite direction, he could become a Russian ultra nationalist, who supports the type of Pan Slavic ideology championed by Putin, anything is better then keeping him as a Cold War relic.

Same deal with Wizard, why is his ego so fragile? Ever since his break down, he has been ranting about God, where did that come from? Where his parents really religious, while Wizard quickly became an atheist and now after several defeats by the FF, he has turned to his parents beliefs for guidance, but in a warped way? Frankly Wizard seems like far more of a threat to the general threat to the general public then ever could be to the FF, Reed is completely out of his league when it comes intelligence, but it seems like he could cause a lot of problems in general, if dropped the pissing contest with Reed and started setting sights on different things. He could sell weapons to dictators and terrorists and criminals, which would be far more dangerous then what he is doing now, just. Heck, why not have try to get revenge on the public from choosing Reed over him? He is public criminal, he will never get back the admiration he once had, even if he did manage to ruin Reed's reputation.

Look at how Mad Thinker is written in New Warriors and he seems like a far better character then he is the FF. I think Mad Thinker is better as a morally ambiguous character, rather then an evil one. Its cooler that instead of being just some evil villain, his motives are mysterious, he sometimes helps heroes and sometimes harms them, whatever fits in with his ultimate plans. Also Thinker shouldn't want to kill the FF, he would lose access to the ideas and inventions Reed comes up with. We saw hints of this characterization in his first appearance, where his goals different then what we thought in the end, but that aspect often gets lost and he is just some generic mad scientist.

I think fans should demand and writers should attempt to do new things with these B-list FF villains, rather then hitting the same old notes with these villains that we have seen for past 50 years. Like I said the FF's rogues gallery is better then the ones mentioned here, but that is because they are carried by one or two super stars, without them, the FF's rogues gallery would be as bad these other ones, unless the writers do some new and interesting things with this rogues gallery.

Iron Man's probably the weakest of those mentioned, far too many of his rogues are just commie/nazi/whatever knock-offs in less-good armour than his own. He's really his own worst enemy, which doesn't really make for fun action scenes. Weakest overall is either Ms/Captain Marvel (Danvers), who has mayyyybe Mystique and Moonstone, or Daredevil - outside of Kingpin (who was a Spidey villain first), Bullseye (kind of one-note) and Elektra (anti-heroic by now), he's got no-one really impressive.

Bullseye is a pure evil character, but so are guys like Red skull and no one really complains about him. You are also forgetting Typhoid Mary and the Hand. Not to mention characters like Bushwhacker and Bullet have had some interesting premises and some fairly good stories, they just don't get used enough. Purple Man started as DD villain and even Mr. Fear had a really good showing a couple of years. I think you can easily give DD a good rogues gallery, if some of these guys get used more often.

[Kingsw00d]

I voted Iron Man.

Vegeta nailed it.

[Captain Haddock]

Bullseye is a pure evil character, but so are guys like Red skull and no one really complains about him. You are also forgetting Typhoid Mary and the Hand. Not to mention characters like Bushwhacker and Bullet have had some interesting premises and some fairly good stories, they just don't get used enough. Purple Man started as DD villain and even Mr. Fear had a really good showing a couple of years. I think you can easily give DD a good rogues gallery, if some of these guys get used more often.

I'm not forgetting them, I am fully aware of them and I just don't rate them. Bullseye is fun but just can't be used too often as he literally only exists to kill things - Red Skull is pure evil but can operate on a large scale or a personal one, but you'd never buy Bullseye disguising himself as senator calling himself Lee Sylbu, a la Dell Rusk. Typhoid Mary'sd best stories and showings really came against Deadpool a while ago, and the Hand are just ninja, the whole undead zombie thing doesn't actually change anything really. Mr Fear's recent showing was a good one but pretty much finished him as a character - he's scored a big win against DD, and prison is literally a second, better home to him... where can he realistically go next without treading on bigger toes than Daredevil?

[Toxin45]

Well iron man does have a weak set of rogues since they are barely used nowadays mandarin is gonna be the villain of Shang chi.

[Toxin45]

Thor hands down has the best rogues gallery of the four

EARTH: Red Hulk, Wrecking crew, Absorbing Man

9 REALMS: Loki, Enchantress, Skurge, Surtur, Malekith, Ulik, Frost giants, Hela, the midguard serpent.

UNIVERSE/COSMIC: Galactus, Heralds, Kree, Skrulls, Celestials, Ego, Gorr

hell, his rivalry with Hercules could be consider something similar.



more importantly, you can draw heavily from nordic mythology and your dnd campaign for new material.

and often thor's villains become avengers villains so it's a gift that keeps on giving.

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Cap has some descent villains, but they are more uniform in nature

Red Skull is easily the most loathsome of his villains.

Armin Zola I also put as an awesome villain, as well as the most improved villain in the mcu. He's also a "monster factory" as needed.

Hydra is his nemesis as an organization and it really is a great way to develop a "goon squad".

Cap's ties to Shield really do open up the character. More then any other character in this list, he cannot be an island.

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I've said my piece on Iron Man a long time ago.

http://community.comicbookresources....A-Chance/page9

there has been some improvement though on the rogues gallery since then (through both animated shows and the mcu), but it's slow to diseminate to the comic proper.

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Hulk in many ways is his own #1 rogue. the misunderstood monster really does play well to his themes.

but yeah by watching hulk and agents of smash, it really shows how much they have to draw on the the marvel universe and less of his own own rogues gallery.

Thunderbolt Ross is his #1 antagonist. He's the Hulk's Captain Nemo. Tomato Hulk I have real issues with, but thematically, it makes sense.

The Leader is descent, but often is treated as a joke.

the Abomination is decent as a Hulk that has given into what Ross assumes the Hulk is.

He had to borrow Absorbing Man, which is a good choice, but honestly, it's Thor's villain.

However, the best new addition has to be the stuff from planet hulk.

Well Ross is now more anti hero these days and now dead.

[KC]

Iron Man. I think up to this point, Alcoholism has been Tony's greatest villain.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Incredible Hulk #127 May 1970
"Mogol"
Tyrannus tricks Hulk into helping him wage all out war against the Mole Man.



Script by Roy Thomas, art by Herb Trimpe