Who has the worst rogues-gallery?

[shades of eternity]

yeah

in many ways, Iron Man outgrew his rogues gallery, either from a tech perspective or cultural (Mandarin is such a hot potato, that he scares a lot of people whom would repackage him beyond his original "yellow peril role").

I still stand by adding both Gideon and Circuit Breaker to his rogues gallery would really help with storytelling.

hell, call Gideon an inhuman if you have to.

edit: and also, for goodness sake, start stealing the repackaging that was done in armored adventures.

Ghost, Living Laser, Rhona Burchill (and her amazing android), madame masque, Scientist Supreme, Technovore, Ivan Vanko (although I would mix a bit of the movie version's whiplash as well), and the heavy cribbing of alien tech to represent stuff like grim reaper and grey garogoyles.

Hell

Make khan the new Mandarin. They did the impossible, found an angle that makes him awesome.

the only reason Techno didn't make the cut, is he's pretty damn awesome in the thunderbolts and needs to be back alive again. .

[The Overlord]

I think both Doom and Ra's Al Ghul are both stylish, just in different ways. Sure Doom is a very over the top villain and I do think sometimes his stylishness can be undercut by his petty attitude, but the pettiness is part of his character. Ra's Al Ghul can seem more stylish at times, because Ra's is polite towards Batman, while Doom is just rude towards to Reed, but when Doom is not directly dealing with Reed, he seems to a get a chance to be really stylish.

I think a bigger problem is with Doom, is he gets the lion share's of attention from the writers, to the point that most of the rest of the FF's rogues gallery seems got left behind. The FF's rogues gallery is actually as mediocre, it has a couple of super stars like Doom and Galactus, but the rest are either only well used in other titles and quickly demoted back to the C-list when they get back to the main FF title or are characters who never grew beyond their initial Silver Age introduction, so they seem kinda pathetic, their characters have progressed beyond a certain point (Red Ghost is either a generic mad scientist or a Cold War commie bad guy that doesn't work after the Berlin Wall fell and Wizard still seems mad that Reed is more famous then him, but by becoming a public criminal, Wizard has ensured he will be a hated figure especially compared to Reed.) Factor in Reed's power creep and most of the FF villains seem ill suited to pose a challenge to him. The FF may have a better rogues gallery then the ones named here, but that is only because of a few super stars, take them away and the FF's rogues gallery is rather weak.

[shades of eternity]

the thing is, the ff helped flesh out the universe.

the negative zone
the microverse
the underworld
the aliens mythos

stuff like the moleman, the skrull, anhillius really give the ff cred as far as their rogues gallery is concerned.

[Mutant God]

Captain: HYDRA, Serpent Society, and the new one Dr Mindbubble

Iron Man: Corporations/Spies, Maggia, Mandarin (which I don't see the problem with, he is a man who lost his family money then stole alien technology then proclaims himself to be a god and also wears old chinese clothing)

Hulk: Leader, Army, Abomination

Thor: Malekith, Surtur, Amora, Loki

I say Carol Danvers has the worst, sincer I can name rogues for Punisher (The Russian, Jigsaw, Ma Gnucci) and Deadpool (Hit-Monkey, T-Ray, Dr Bong, Squirrel Girl lol)

[Optimus]

I think Iron Man has the worst villains. Not a lot of really good ones that come to mind. A lot of filler. A LOT. His rogue's gallery is so bad that Whiplash got to be in the second movie. WHIPLASH. I guess we can pencil in the Brothers Grimm for Iron Man 4. Or maybe Stiltman can be adapted as an Iron Man villain.

[The Overlord]

the thing is, the ff helped flesh out the universe.

the negative zone
the microverse
the underworld
the aliens mythos

stuff like the moleman, the skrull, anhillius really give the ff cred as far as their rogues gallery is concerned.

Those are interesting settings, not necessarily interesting villains. A title can have interesting settings, but not necessarily have interesting villains that go with settings.

Annihilus was really cool during annihilation, but Hickman wrote him as a joke, Human Torch defeats him easily and has him on a leash for several issues. Annihilus comes off better written in another title then he does in the FF title.

Same deal with Mole Man, Mole Man's world is interesting, but the character himself is just dull. He is mad because some random women who were out of his league didn't go out with and that his boss fired him for being ugly. Why didn't sue his boss, why didn't he lower his standards with the women he was asking out? The boss and the women are not developed in any way, so there reason to care about them. They make for a rather bland window dressing for Mole Man's back story. Also the writers seem to go back and forth, sometimes the writers seem to say society unfairly shunned Mole Man and other times they say Mole Man was always just a jerk and people were right to shun him. Which one is it? The only really interesting story about Mole Man is one written by Mark Waid in Daredevil, but I'm not sure if it will ever be referenced again and he will go to just another generic super villain.

Even Mad Thinker came off as a better character in New Warriors, in the FF titles he was often written as cliched bad guy who wants to destroy the FF, for some reason (which doesn't make sense, Thinker can only adapt other people's ideas, if he killed Reed he would lose a major source of new ideas), while in New Warriors he was written as enigmatic mentor character. Gimmicks are fine, but personality often makes or breaks a villain.

The FF has some good settings, but have a really good rogues, they should develop the non Doom rogues, write in an consistently interesting manner, resist the temptation to just recycle old stories with them and find ways make them threatening despite Reed's power creep over the years.

[MichaelC]

Mandarin (which I don't see the problem with, he is a man who lost his family money

He didn't so much lose it as squander it turning himself into a science and martial arts ubermesche. Kinda like Black Mask from Batman fused with Khan from Star Trek.

[shades of eternity]

Those are interesting settings, not necessarily interesting villains. A title can have interesting settings, but not necessarily have interesting villains that go with settings.


Same deal with Mole Man, Mole Man's world is interesting, but the character himself is just dull. He is mad because some random women who were out of his league didn't go out with and that his boss fired him for being ugly. Why didn't sue his boss, why didn't he lower his standards with the women he was asking out? The boss and the women are not developed in any way, so there reason to care about them. They make for a rather bland window dressing for Mole Man's back story. Also the writers seem to go back and forth, sometimes the writers seem to say society unfairly shunned Mole Man and other times they say Mole Man was always just a jerk and people were right to shun him. Which one is it? The only really interesting story about Mole Man is one written by Mark Waid in Daredevil, but I'm not sure if it will ever be referenced again and he will go to just another generic super villain.

Even Mad Thinker came off as a better character in New Warriors, in the FF titles he was often written as cliched bad guy who wants to destroy the FF, for some reason (which doesn't make sense, Thinker can only adapt other people's ideas, if he killed Reed he would lose a major source of new ideas), while in New Warriors he was written as enigmatic mentor character. Gimmicks are fine, but personality often makes or breaks a villain.

I have to admit, I kind of prefer the blue yak men that the underworlders were presented as in the 60's spiderman cartoon over the lumpy short guy in the traditional comics.

*****************************************

but honestly, Hulk, more then any other character, needs more of a rogues gallery.

I wouldn't say it's the worst, but it needs more fleshing out to reduce the # of one shot wonders.

and honestly, I'm not sure what you can do.

unlike Iron Man, his problem is based on his iconic response: Hulk Smash.

he either smashes the enemy, or gets humbled and then smashes an enemy.

usually Hulk's biggest rogues are other heroes, with Thor and Thing being the two biggest ones and it's hard to keep that going without annoying fans.

the cold war ending also nerfed hulk, although not to the same degree as iron man. when I was watching the 60's comic, it was interesting to see all the cold war symbology and villains, some of which are no longer being used. with tensions between russian and the us acting up again, it might be time to dust it off and see what can be used again.

I did like the storyarc that brought the hulk to the avengers in earth's mightest heroes, but it also showed how one note many of his villains are. The u-foes definately need to be used more though. that scene felt right out of aliens.

I think it's why I like a smarter hulk, or even a merged hulk. It allows more storytelling to be done with banner and hulk bickering the entire time inside his head.

[Ned Leeds]

Outside of the Asgardians, I would say Thor has the weakest. Or rather, the least interesting IMHO.

[weezer17]

Thor hands down has the best rogues gallery of the four

Totally agree, you spelled out my thoughts quite nicely. What's fun is that he has all of the obvious mythical villains from the realms and everything, but writers have also done a great job tying him into the MU and giving other more cosmic or more down-to-earth threats. Heck, both Galactus and Roxxon were villains just recently in the same arc.

[Vic Vega]

I think both Doom and Ra's Al Ghul are both stylish, just in different ways. Sure Doom is a very over the top villain and I do think sometimes his stylishness can be undercut by his petty attitude, but the pettiness is part of his character. Ra's Al Ghul can seem more stylish at times, because Ra's is polite towards Batman, while Doom is just rude towards to Reed, but when Doom is not directly dealing with Reed, he seems to a get a chance to be really stylish.

I think a bigger problem is with Doom, is he gets the lion share's of attention from the writers, to the point that most of the rest of the FF's rogues gallery seems got left behind. The FF's rogues gallery is actually as mediocre, it has a couple of super stars like Doom and Galactus, but the rest are either only well used in other titles and quickly demoted back to the C-list when they get back to the main FF title or are characters who never grew beyond their initial Silver Age introduction, so they seem kinda pathetic, their characters have progressed beyond a certain point (Red Ghost is either a generic mad scientist or a Cold War commie bad guy that doesn't work after the Berlin Wall fell and Wizard still seems mad that Reed is more famous then him, but by becoming a public criminal, Wizard has ensured he will be a hated figure especially compared to Reed.) Factor in Reed's power creep and most of the FF villains seem ill suited to pose a challenge to him. The FF may have a better rogues gallery then the ones named here, but that is only because of a few super stars, take them away and the FF's rogues gallery is rather weak.

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.

[El Sombrero]

I think they're all pretty bad, and a big reason why I've never really gotten into these characters that much. I'd say Hulk or Iron Man is the worst. At least with Thor you have Loki, and with Cap you have Red Skull.

[neonrideraryeh]

Thor has a pretty good rogue's gallery. Cap has a pretty decent one. Hulk's one is ok and has some cool stuff but definitely not as big as it should be. Iron-Man's rogues gallery is pretty terrible for what it should be.

[Captain Haddock]

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.

[Corey W]

None of the four listed are great, but the Hulk suffers from lack of a great Arch-villain. Loki, Skull, and Mandarin have it all over Thunderbolt Ross.