Who Is The Most Tragic Supervillain?

[Iron Maiden]

Okay, not a bad definition. Doom still qualifies. As do the Batman villains you mention I will add.



If we go by Batman the Animated Series, Dent's problem was that he had mental illness issues before the accident and he repressed and hid it because he felt his career was important/valuable and that he can't appear looking weak because it would compromise his electability. If we go by The Long Halloween and The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent's belief in law and supporting it is compromised because he supports a vigilante to clean up crime, and is again so caught up in his work that he ignores important things in his personal life (like in TLH, his own wife Gilda's issues, or in TDK, his resentment towards Gordon and the fact that at least once he tried to torture a gangster until Batman stopped him).

So I don't think it's a case that Harvey was entirely guiltless or blameless for his downfall. He had some agency in his actions. It's tragic because you understand why Harvey makes those choices he does, and that he's fighting for something good and positive.



Well even there, Victor Fries's issues at least stem in part from his inability to let go. Nora was the love of his life and we imagine that she was the most important person in his life and yet when she gets a disease that would kill her, the fact is Victor doesn't have a cure and all he can do is delay her death by cryostasis. Is it understandable, would we given the chance and our belief in our intelligence not go far in our love for others? Sure. But at the same time, there's a kind of denial of death, a belief in one's intelligence that they can conquer and defeat death, which admittedly many scientists and researchers working in medicine do need to have since it motivates the creation of new diseases, but at the same time you have to accept that some thing is beyond your control. And in the case of Victor, you see an inability for him to accept humanity outside Nora which is obvious in stories which show what happens when Nora Fries is cured but Victor is still Mr. Freeze either because of his accident or because he can't grow or change or accept humanity.

Your idea of tragedy is that of victimhood. I am not debating or arguing that here, but even in that conception, both Harvey and Victor Fries did have and exercise agency that led to their fate. In the case of one, a conviction that their public service will compensate and make up for their personal flaws, and in the case of another, an inability to truly let go and accept that they can't save everyone.



A poor Romani child persecuted by an evil monarchy, whose parents were sacrificed and damned for their attempts to resist that oppression, doesn't meet that criteria? Doom's descent into darkness is triggered by circumstances beyond his control, and I don't think a person trying to save his mother's soul deserves his fate of being scarred for life and deported from America. Doom isn't a victim of oppression and persecution? One who ultimately becomes an oppressor and persecutor himself, which can happen.



He was a happy child, raised by loving parents in a supportive community who was friendly and helpful to his fellow Romani. I don't see how you can argue that Victor wasn't born a good person unless you think poor people and Romani (neither of whom are Victor and Harvey Dent I might add) are inherently evil.



Reed Richards and Victor were never friends. Doom disliked Reed instinctively on meeting him at university. Class obviously being a factor, he's poor brilliant and struggling and then he meets someone who was pampered and middle-class and as smart as he, so there's the resentment that someone got this knowledge without having to suffer or undergo oppression. Which happens all the time.

I have to say, I don't think you have read Doctor Doom stories, or enough Doctor Doom stories to qualify having an opinion. It sounds like you skimmed wikipedia articles or based it on seeing some cartoon adaptations of him.

After reading foxley's posts it has become increasingly obvious that is the case. It would be like me, who has never read many DC comics, having an opinion on the DC characters mentioned here and I have made no posts about them. I only know of Harvey Dent from the Batman movies and he his fate is certainly tragic there.

Very early on Marvel started to add more facets to Doom's character in the early 1960s. As mentioned earlier, we have the Fantastic Four annual #2 which was practically an all Doctor Doom issue. A few years later Doom would get his own solo issue in the Marvel Superheroes title, which after a run of reprints turned into solo issues that were like a trial run for Marvel characters. The Black Knight, Medusa, the original Guardians of the Galaxy and Ka-Zar were among those along with Doctor Doom getting his first solo shot. This would lead to the solo series in Astonishing Tales.

from MSH #20




The point of this being that there is a long history of Marvel playing up the tragic aspects of Doom and a few other "villains". Even the Mole Man, who debuted before Doom in the MU in FF #2 is given sympathetic and tragic elements. But Doom is a more grandiose character who caught on whereas Mole Man never achieved that level.

[Iron Maiden]

I used this in another thread on the Marvel Comics forum and it is also appropriate to post here. Instead of Doom's own narration, we see Alicia's intuitiveness pick up on another layer beneath. Christopher Cantwell's recent Doom solo presents lot of the complicated look at the character if foxley wants to try it out.

[DrNewGod]

...I never said they were revolutionaries but they were obviously Romani as an ethnic minority persecuted by the state struggling against a corrupt racist government...

...A poor Romani child persecuted by an evil monarchy, whose parents were sacrificed and damned for their attempts to resist that oppression...

I think you can see how I interpreted you as saying that..

[Surf]

I never said they were revolutionaries but they were obviously Romani as an ethnic minority persecuted by the state struggling against a corrupt racist government.


That's why comics readers relate to Doom far more than Reed. Doom reflects, despite the fantasy the armor and mask, a more universal experience, a more
tragic shared reality than Reed does.

Not going to get into the ethnic minority persecution podium placement but look, ones mileage will vary right? Doom has always had a few more persacutory traits than I guess his fans would often consider.


'That's why SOME comics readers relate to Doom'. Universally speaking, Reed is a fundamentally good dude also. Sure he's dry but I like constantly in the lab solving a problem no one else has ever seen Reed. Not flashy by any means but he leads and gets the job done. Not for nuthin, speaking of the armor and mask I feel Victor's aesthetic has always been a larger part of his appeal even moreso than the things one's 9,000+ nerd level might attribute too (which is appreciated btw). Look at Molecule Man, if everything else were the same and that guys look is who we knew as Dr. Doom, I don't think it would have ever hit the same as it has the last 50+ years. Mole Man, Molecule Man, Reed and Victor have similarities in their character and they don't all have the same stans as it were.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think you can see how I interpreted you as saying that..

You're right. I should have phrased that better.

Not going to get into the ethnic minority persecution podium placement but look, ones mileage will vary right?

But of course.

'That's why SOME comics readers relate to Doom'. Universally speaking, Reed is a fundamentally good dude also. Sure he's dry but I like constantly in the lab solving a problem no one else has ever seen Reed.

Well except for the problem he created, namely turning his best friend into a rock golem for a rocket joyride that said friend thought was a bad idea to start with, but Reed arrogantly assumed his calculations were correct. He, his wife, and Johnny get to be white telegenic and have powers that enrich their lives and add to the privilege of being white and successful, but not Ben Grimm. As I said the irony of the Doom/Reed dynamic is that Reed ultimately didn't learn from Doom's tragedy. He warned him about his calculations but that blew in Victor's face, but then when it was his calculations, Reed blithely assumed the rocket flight to space would go smoothly and instead it's his best friend who pays the price. When immigrants learn a lesson in America, it blows up in their face and they get told it was their fault (Dr. Doom), but when white Americans learn a lesson, it's someone else who pays the price and suffers for their action (Reed).

I think what ultimately redeems Richards (as a character...obviously in plot terms he's a hero and Doom's a villain owing to various schemes and comic book melodrama), especially in Jonathan Hickman's run (which is the only run that succeeded in making the character likable to me, warts and all) is that he knows that he can't "solve everything" and that there's a limit to what he can do with intelligence, and that he's able to let go of his alpha male ego, whereas Doom absolutely has that bravado that he and he alone can solve and fix everything and do better what nobody else can do. That's true to some extent (Doom did save the multiverse by defeating the Beyonders) but he's never gonna be satisfied even with success (which is the heroes ultimately have to save the Multiverse from Doom).

[green_garnish]

Seriously?
The Leader? A Janitor that gets gammaed into Uber Genius, surfacing all the worst parts of himself?
The Lizard? A guy who just wants his arm back?
Two-Face? A relentless prosecutor whose mental illness overwhelmed him when he's disfigured?
Sinestro? The Greatest Green Lantern who decides Only He can do what's rightafter a lifetime of fighting evil?

I think you're confusing My Favorite with Greatest (even if your favorite is great).

Magus is not my favorite. Far from it. He's the most tragic though, without question.

[DrNewGod]

You're right. I should have phrased that better.



But of course.



Well except for the problem he created, namely turning his best friend into a rock golem for a rocket joyride that said friend thought was a bad idea to start with, but Reed arrogantly assumed his calculations were correct. He, his wife, and Johnny get to be white telegenic and have powers that enrich their lives and add to the privilege of being white and successful, but not Ben Grimm. As I said the irony of the Doom/Reed dynamic is that Reed ultimately didn't learn from Doom's tragedy. He warned him about his calculations but that blew in Victor's face, but then when it was his calculations, Reed blithely assumed the rocket flight to space would go smoothly and instead it's his best friend who pays the price. When immigrants learn a lesson in America, it blows up in their face and they get told it was their fault (Dr. Doom), but when white Americans learn a lesson, it's someone else who pays the price and suffers for their action (Reed).

I think what ultimately redeems Richards (as a character...obviously in plot terms he's a hero and Doom's a villain owing to various schemes and comic book melodrama), especially in Jonathan Hickman's run (which is the only run that succeeded in making the character likable to me, warts and all) is that he knows that he can't "solve everything" and that there's a limit to what he can do with intelligence, and that he's able to let go of his alpha male ego, whereas Doom absolutely has that bravado that he and he alone can solve and fix everything and do better what nobody else can do. That's true to some extent (Doom did save the multiverse by defeating the Beyonders) but he's never gonna be satisfied even with success (which is the heroes ultimately have to save the Multiverse from Doom).

This raises a really good point. Has anybody done a contrast between Doom's calculation error and Mr. Fantastic's?

[DrNewGod]

Magus is not my favorite. Far from it. He's the most tragic though, without question.

Eh. That's near impossible to measure. You are welcome to see the such. Which was kind of the point of this whole thread.

[green_garnish]

Eh. That's near impossible to measure. You are welcome to see the such. Which was kind of the point of this whole thread.

Every other villain wrestles with who (or what) they are. Magus is the only one that wrestles with what he is inevitably gated to become, and knowing he must personally do battle with his opposite self.

Doom, Lizard, Joker, Thanos, Two Face.... there's really no comparison.

[Iron Maiden]

This raises a really good point. Has anybody done a contrast between Doom's calculation error and Mr. Fantastic's?

Reed's error is always the vague cause of the shielding of the ship couldn't block the cosmic waves. The thing is many heroes have been in outer space with various vessels and didn't have any issues. But there some stories where some have deliberately courted being exposed to cosmic rays. When Ben was exposed to them a second time he turned into what some fans called "Pineapple Thing" His plates or whatever one calls his epidermis became spikey looking and he was much stronger. IIRC he beat the Hulk while in this form. Sharon Ventura became a female version of the Thing and remains in that form to this day, or at least in her last appearance where she was shown to be in prison. Now there's a hard luck character.

With Doom's experiment the irony is that it was successful. In Books of Doom we see that Victor contacted the Netherworld and saw his mother there being guarded by a demonic creature . This is not Mephisto but I suspect one of his minions. Of course Doom and Dr. Strange would later battle for her soul and succeed against Mephisto in the GN Triumph and Torment.

This was not the first time I saw this viewpoint of what happened to Doom when he turned on the device. Before the Four: Reed Richards by Peter David, Doom tells Reed exactly how long the device worked before it blew up.



I think that story might be why in Brubaker's Books of Doom he shows us Doom actually contact his mother in Hell.

[foxley]

I have to say, I don't think you have read Doctor Doom stories, or enough Doctor Doom stories to qualify having an opinion. It sounds like you skimmed wikipedia articles or based it on seeing some cartoon adaptations of him.

I have obviously not read all of the Doom stories, but I have read a number, as it is not possible to read any Marvel without coming across Doom on a regular basis. This includes much of the early FF. Whatever I read about his childhood obviously did not make much of an impression on me, as the only scene I can remember is him swearing undying vengeance upon someone (I assume the Baron mentioned above). Perhaps one of issues I am encountering is that what was established by one writer may have been undone by a later one, so my impressions are not necessarily up-to-date. But my knowledge is not just based on "skimming Wikipedia".

(And don't necessarily assume I am championing Reed over Doom either. Reading those early FF issues, I found Reed smug, condescending and sexist. The two deserve each other.)

What this discussion has made me realize is that for me to regard a character as truly tragic, I need to be able to sympathize with the character. I can do that with Two-Face or Mister Freeze (or if your prefer Marvel, say, the Lizard or Morbius). Having read the explanation here, I can now more clearly see the tragic elements of Doom's backstory. But his arrogance makes it impossible for me to feel sympathetic towards him. So, a tragic past but (IMO) not an ongoingly tragic character, and certainly not the the most tragic supervillain. To me that will always be Mister Freeze as his tragedy is so personal and sits so clearly at at the heart of who he is and what he does. (It is also the most outstanding example of why a retcon based upon a portrayal from another medium is not always a bad thing, as Freeze has only a very sketchy backstory and no real motivation until BTAS. The attempt to give him a suit powered by diamonds based on certain movie that shall not be named was no so successful. )

[nx01a]

Magik can't be a tragic villain since she was never a villain. At her darkest she was an anti-hero and the stories always had someone else as the villain.

I'd say she went full villain when manipulating her friends, the X-Men, and Legion to destroy the Elder Gods. I think she only came back from that since she then got her soul back in the process and felt remorse.

[sunofdarkchild]

I'd say she went full villain when manipulating her friends, the X-Men, and Legion to destroy the Elder Gods. I think she only came back from that since she then got her soul back in the process and felt remorse.

The story had actual villains in the form of Project Purgatory and the Elder Gods, and she wasn't on their side at all. If manipulation is all it takes to make someone a villain even when their goals include saving the world and they are in no way the antagonist of the story, then Xavier and Batman are villains because they manipulate people all the time. She also manipulated her friends during the Fat Karma story-arc and was the hero of that story. In 616 she's never been the antagonist of a story, and I would not classify anyone whose never had the role of antagonist as a villain. The closest she came to this was Quest for Magik, but Belasco was the antagonist and true villain and her goals - while not heroic in any sense - were focused on defeating him. Give me a story where she's the bad guy the good guys have to defeat instead of someone with darker methods for defeating the real villain and I'll say she's a villain there.

Edit: I guess you could say that she was a villain in the second half of Avengers vs X-Men when everyone on the Phoenix 5 were the 'villains' of the story, though I'd put them in the 'anti-villain' category there.

[shooshoomanjoe]

I'd say she went full villain when manipulating her friends, the X-Men, and Legion to destroy the Elder Gods. I think she only came back from that since she then got her soul back in the process and felt remorse.

Magik was the villain during the Inferno crossover.

[sunofdarkchild]

Magik was the villain during the Inferno crossover.

That's 100% false. The villains were Sinister, N'Astirh, S'ym, and Madelyn. Those were the people who were actually trying to do bad things. Magik spent the entire crossover trying to save her friends and was distraught that the Inferno was happening at all. Saying she's the villain of that story is akin to saying Superman's the villain of any story where another Kryptonian attacks the earth because he's also a Kryptonian.