Who’s your favorite comic book villain

[K7P5V]

Thanos, because he is a brilliant schemer, a massive threat, and usually handled well by writers. It helps that most of his appearances were written by Jim Starlin, and his worst appearances have been retconned away. And his Hostess ad is hilariously awful and features the Thanoscopter.

LOL! Thanos-copter is an undeniable classic (IMHO):

EDIT: Most villains will never get a story as great as The Thanos Quest, the two-part setup for Infinity Gauntlet.

OMG! Glad someone here on CBR likes Thanos Quest (T^T):

But yeah, Spidey-books Osborn is not even the best Spidey villain. That’s probably any of the original Sinister Six except Vulture or Sandman. Plus an honourable mention to Mac Gargan.

Personally, my favorite will always be Venom (Todd McFarlane version, of course):

[K7P5V]

If we add manga to the "comics" pool, Frieza is hard to beat. Plus, well, Vegeta started as a villain.

This guy;


He can go from delightfully evil, to dark humor, to outright terrifying. No tragic background that's become so common place, no abuse (in fact, it seems he was rather spoiled), and despite his tiny frame (form 1, final form, and Golden Form), he packs a mean punch.

Awesome! Since manga/anime villains can be added, these would then be my choices...

Seto Kaiba
(Yu-Gi-Oh!)





Ashram, the Black Knight
(Record of Lodoss War)

[Sharpandpointies]

Should be no surprises, here.

Marvel: Without question, The Dorm. Furnace Face is such a hot mess of ego, power, wild plans, and fun personality when written properly. Sometimes a classy dresser, sometimes not.

DC: Shiva. She's a villain, no question. But she combines all kinds of stuff together I like in a villain - ridiculous competence, martial arts ability, ego that is actually only slightly above her own confidence (and not to ridiculous levels, like Furnace Face's), a certain amount of polish and dry wit, and the capacity to occasionally (if not often) enter uneasy alliances with the heroes. Also, oftentimes a classy dresser.

Overall: Ancestor. If you took Shiva and Dormammu - personality, power, competence, class, weird code of 'honor', the whole bit - smashed them together into a character made for a crazy martial arts comic, and then wrote them so that they often beat the unholy hell out of the Gary Stu main character of the comic and only ever lost on technicalities, you'd have Ancestor. ^_^ Also, a guy who occasionally murders the crap out of other villains because they mess up his plans or he finds them offensive. Sadly, never a classy dresser, but we won't hold that against him.

As an aside, I'm loving reading other people's preferences. Fun stuff!

[greatmetropolitan]

A well-written Lex Luthor is a joy. Super-intelligence, super pettyness, an ego the size of a planet that drives him to be a villain just because he's sure he could do the hero's job better than anyone else if they'd just get out of his way...and of course, no one is in his way but his own secret inferiority complex, that he'll never measure up.

I loved the origin and motivations of the Hunter Zolomon Zoom, who was a genuinely frightening villain when he was first introduced.

Although he wasn't a "villain" as such, Byakuya Kuchiki from the Soul Society arc was a perfect antagonist for Ichigo, a flawed, cold big brother compared Ichigo's hot blooded, heart-on-his-sleeve brotherhood. Ichigo proving to him what being family means - and it ain't blood or tradition.

I'm actually gonna pour one out for Hal Jordan here. I think he could have been DC's Macbeth if they'd stayed the course with his villainy. The JLA being challenged from time to time by a former silver age great who fell from grace would have been a gut punch every time.

[Blackid]

Favorite God Tiers: Dormammu, Loki
Favorite Hi Tiers: Despero, Black Adam, Magneto
Favorite Mid Tiers: Juggernaut, Venom
Favorite Low Tiers: Deathstroke, Bullseye

And yes, i know some jump between tiers but you know what i mean.

[Shellhead]

Favorite God Tiers: Dormammu, Loki

You might enjoy the Avengers-Defenders War, which featured both Dormammu and Loki.

[Sharpandpointies]

Favorite God Tiers: Dormammu

Excellent. ^_^

[big_adventure]

I cannot believe that I spaced on the Dorm.

[DanMad1977]

As a kid I always feared Joker, Hobgoblin, Venom and Green Goblin, because I thought in every fight, they are a real threat to the hero and was afraid that its Spideys or Batman last fight ever, lol. Same with Megatron vs Optimus Prime. Every time they clashed I thought oh god its the end of prime.

But my real favorites are: Skeletor, Starscream, Shredder, Herr Starr from Preacher , Juggernaut and Dr. Doom.

honorable mentions goes to: Mad Cap, Magneto, Mer Man, Trap Jaw, The saint of killers. And I liked the mystery of Stryfe in the X-cutinors song. When it was over I didnt care for him anymore.

[Sharpandpointies]

I cannot believe that I spaced on the Dorm.

Furnace Face would be highly offended.

[Beadle]

Furnace Face would be highly offended.

To be honest, he’d probably just assume you were too stupid to realise he was your favourite.

[Sharpandpointies]

To be honest, he’d probably just assume you were too stupid to realise he was your favourite.

Ooo, yeah. That's even better.

[The Dorm] Pathetic mendicant! Your idiocy knows no limit, if you do not realize that Dormammu is your most cherished villain!

[big_adventure]

Ooo, yeah. That's even better.

[The Dorm] Pathetic mendicant! Your idiocy knows no limit, if you do not realize that Dormammu is your most cherished villain!

Yup, that's about how I see Ol' Finger Guns taking the news. He will then contrive to trap me and force me to admit that I am, indeed, among his greatest fans. However, he will accept to fight me on my terms, without actually understanding those terms.

He's going to hate, hate, HATE losing an unpowered game of HORSE on the mini-hoop in my living room that my son and I shoot on all the time.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Marvel: Thanos has always been a favourite of mine. I like how he started off as a rip-off of Darkseid and with time kinda evolved into a more "grounded" (relatively since he is a purple despot from space) character who outgrew his conquest days and just did whatever suited him. Some times that meant helping the good guys and some times that meant pushing the universe to the brink just to see how much it could take. That unpredictability made him rather fascinating for me. I actually don't care for the more modern takes on the character since they ignore all the character development he underwent after Infinity Gauntlet and up to The Thanos Imperative to the point where he's much more of a generic doomsday conquerer from space. But yeah, a well-written Thanos is a personal favourite of mine.

Manga (solo act): I've always had a fondness for Medusa Gorgon from Soul Eater. A mad scientist villainess who absolutely can throw down with the main cast if need be, but prefers to either work from the shadows or manipulate her way to victory, all with a saddistic and smug smirk on her face from beginning to end. And you've got to admire her ingenuity. She gets a prophecy fortelling that she'll be killed by her own kid, so she makes sure that her death is the trigger point for her grandest experiment ever, that was just clever (and the chapter where she dies is one of my all time favorite manga chapters just for how unnerving it is). She is cruel with no redeeming qualities, extremely compotent and clever, and just rolls with any set back that comes her way. Really love Medusa, the only disappointing thing is that she neve got a proper showdown with the heroes of the story. But maybe that was for the best.

Manga (team): I love the League of Villains from My Hero Academia. I love that we get to see and follow their growth alongside the heroes, that they're not just a fully fledged team with a long history. Not just with them going from nobody's to the biggest threat in the series, which is neat. But also because we get to see them start out as a mishmashed group of dangerous societal outcast teaming up just because nobody else will have them. From there they grow into a twisted take on the found family trope as they begin to care for one another and just feel at home together because they don't judge each other for their flaws and damages. Even Dabi, who's clearly just using the others as tools, is openly welcomed by the rest because they give each other the freedom to deal with their issues in their own way. They absolutely need to get thrown into jail since they're a bunch of dangerous murderers, but I can't help but love this twisted found family they have and how we got to see it come to be.

Web comic: Xykon from The Order of the Stick is about as cliché a fantasy RPG villain can be. He's an evil, saddistic lich who wants to rule the world. But the thing that makes him stand out to me is how much he just revels in his own depravity and the power he weilds. He takes absolute joy from being as horrible as he possibly can, both in small and big matters, and if he can do it in a over-the-top theatrical way all the better. His self-aware nature (because the comic has a ton of meta jokes) makes him seem all the more awful as he just knows what a wretched monster he is and has zero issues with it. He just woke up one day, decided to be a monster and is having the time of his life with it. There are few villains as delightfully depraved as Xykon. Or as the author puts it

I mean, he's completely and wholly unapologetically Evil, but more to the point, he's kind of a dick

[K7P5V]

Helmut Zemo

In agreement with you about Helmut. I mean, I always liked him. But his big reveal at the end of T-Bolts #1 (1997) made him A-list (IMHO):