Top ten DC female villains?

[Jim Kelly]

The Spirit had a lot of femmes fatale. They were too well developed as characters to be called villains. Latter day creators are always borrowing from Eisner for Batman, so that might be one reason his rogues gallery has added so many women to the ranks.

[John Venus]

The Spirit had a lot of femmes fatale. They were too well developed as characters to be called villains. Latter day creators are always borrowing from Eisner for Batman, so that might be one reason his rogues gallery has added so many women to the ranks.

I think there is two reasons for prominent lady villains in the Batman franchise:

1. Seduction of the Innocent. The desire to ward off any claims of homosexuality in the Bat books lead to the creation of Batwoman, Bette Kane Batgirl, Julia Pennyworth and any other female characters in the Bat franchise.

2. Adaptations. Catwoman got a huge boost thanks to '66 Batman and played by Eartha Kitt, Lee Meriwether and Julie Newmar. Then in Batman Returns where she was Michelle Pfieffer which set the mold for the modern take on Batman/Catwoman dynamic including the skin tight cat suit. The expansion on Batman books during the 90's lead to a Catwoman ongoing which is now a staple of the Bat books. Then you had Timm/Dini creating Harley Quinn and using Poison Ivy in B:TAS which lead to the latter being in the same 'staple' rogues gallery as Joker, Penguin and Two-Face (the show also did the same for Ventriloquist who was also a very recent villainess). Back to the comic side which incorporated Harley and started using Ivy more, you also had Denny O'Neil pushing his OC Talia Al Ghul and making her more prominent in the Bat Books and later utilizing Lady Shiva and tying her to the Batbooks even further by making her the mother of the Cass Cain Batgirl.

[Jim Kelly]

The fears about Batman and Robin being gay--and maybe Alfred, too--did lead Julie Schwartz to introduce Aunt Harriet (previously there had been an Aunt Agatha). There was also Vicki Vale, Pat Powell, Barbara Gordon, Kaye Daye and others--but in all cases these women were "good girls."

Catwoman was forced to leave after the Comics Code came into effect. So it seems like bad women were viewed as even more dangerous than same sex love. In fact, the way that Bruce/Batman and Dick/Robin behaved toward the opposite sex--a combination of embarrassment and dread--didn't do much to quell the suspicions they would rather have nothing to do with women.

Kathy Kane did get to dress up as Cat-Woman in a few stories, but she was never an actual villain. Even though the T.V. show brought back Catwoman, Julius Schwartz was very slow to bring her back into his Batman comics--and only after most of the classic male villains had been revived. Which suggests that the Feline Felon was too hot to handle.

This moralistic fear of women villains might be one reason they were loathe to introduce them in the comics. The people at the Comics Code must have clutched their pearls every time they saw a bad girl give the hero a wink.

[Thor-Ul]

Well, we are living in newer times. Lets make Batman gay. Maybe he always has been.

But to not go out of topic, return to the top ten female villians...

But based on what?: Popularity? Fame? Appearances? media apperances? Power level? Character development? Personal taste?

Based on different parameters, you can have different lists.

[Dr. Skeleton]

Cheetah
Giganta
Poison Ivy
Killer Frost
Granny Goodness
Lady Shiva
Talia Al Ghul
Livewire

And.....that's about it.

[SiegePerilous02]

The fears about Batman and Robin being gay--and maybe Alfred, too--did lead Julie Schwartz to introduce Aunt Harriet (previously there had been an Aunt Agatha). There was also Vicki Vale, Pat Powell, Barbara Gordon, Kaye Daye and others--but in all cases these women were "good girls."

Never understood the mentality that introducing an aunt who was blood related to Bruce or Dick would somehow makes things less gay.

[Jim Kelly]

Never understood the mentality that introducing an aunt who was blood related to Bruce or Dick would somehow makes things less gay.

From what Julius Schwartz said about it, he seems to have thought having a female care giver in the house made it less likely that Bruce was getting up to no good.

To me, this fear-mongering is not really about orientation, it's about pedophilia and incest. Fredric Wertham never clarified his thoughts but the most damning thing his conspiracy theory suggests is that a father-figure to an underage boy was raping him.

Which really says more about Fred--if he could look at all those homes where single fathers were raising their children on their own and all he could see was sin and vice--maybe the psychiatrist needed to examine his own paranoia.

[Jabare]

people don't have Catwoman or Harley Quinn on their lists?

How are you all ranking these feme Fatales?

[Mai Zen]

people don't have Catwoman or Harley Quinn on their lists?

How are you all ranking these feme Fatales?

Yeah I would like to add them and also Lady Shiva, but tbh I don't read much about them yet and so far classified them as anti-hero (?)

[Dr. Poison]

people don't have Catwoman or Harley Quinn on their lists?

How are you all ranking these feme Fatales?

I like them both but not as much as the ladies on my list plus I feel that they're both overused.

[John Venus]

people don't have Catwoman or Harley Quinn on their lists?

How are you all ranking these feme Fatales?

I didn't list them or Poison Ivy since they lean more towards anti-hero these days.

I chose them based on a combination of personality, what kind of relationship they have with their heroes, what kind of threat they pose and how engaging I found the stories they were featured in. I also factored in franchises and ones who are interesting but don't get the spotlight much otherwise the list would be dominated by either Wonder Woman villains of the Female Furies.

[Gaius]

Harley Quinn sits at a unique position in that she's not really a convincing threat by herself but is far too proudly unrepentant to believe as a sympathetic anti-hero. Whatever cache Poison Ivy had as a villain has been largely sapped away by pretty much making her conjoined at the hip with Quinn, so she's non-starter also.

Anyways.

Circe
Cheetah (Barbara Minerva)
Catwoman
Alkyone
Veronica Cale
Star Sapphire
Dr. Poison
Silver Swan
Giganta
Granny Goodness

[Jim Kelly]

Like I said before, Catwoman and Harley Quinn clearly started out as villains. And they are clearly two of the top characters from the publisher. If someone stops me on the street and asks, "Who are the top female villains?" I'm going to answer, "Catwoman and Harley Quinn," and then move on, 'cause I got stuff to do.

Now, if I'm sitting in a bar with friends and someone asks me the same question, I'm not going to answer immediately and I'll get into the history of the characters. If we're sitting around a table and someone asks who is Superman's arch nemesis, I might say that it depends, since Luthor has been played as an anti-hero you could argue he's not really a villain, nor is General Zod. They're just misunderstood, because of the vicissitude of their upbringing. Maybe it's Brainiac--but it depends on which Brainiac you're talking about, yaddah, yaddah. Twenty minutes later, I'm still talking and everyone else has left the table, because they have stuff to do.

[Captain Nostalgia]

I will go with...

1) Poison Ivy
2) Golden Glider
3) Emerald Empress
4) Lady Shiva
5) Cheshire
6) Circe
7) Granny Goodness
8) Star Sappire
9) Silver Slasher
10) Titania

[OBrianTallent]

From what Julius Schwartz said about it, he seems to have thought having a female care giver in the house made it less likely that Bruce was getting up to no good.

To me, this fear-mongering is not really about orientation, it's about pedophilia and incest. Fredric Wertham never clarified his thoughts but the most damning thing his conspiracy theory suggests is that a father-figure to an underage boy was raping him.

Which really says more about Fred--if he could look at all those homes where single fathers were raising their children on their own and all he could see was sin and vice--maybe the psychiatrist needed to examine his own paranoia.

In...and I can't believe I am saying this, but in defense of Wertham, his thought processes were of an entirely different time. Wertham was around when Seduction of the Innocent was published in 1954. While he was considered to be quite progressive in his field, he was practically from a different world than we see things today. Single fathers were such a rarity and were not encouraged by even common society. If a mother/wife died, the father was expected to find a new wife as quickly as possible. Wertham was also fairly highly esteemed in the field. The other side of that was Wertham's occupation was working along with the New York courts to perform clinical psych exams on all convicted felons. So it seems that he becaWeme trained to see the evil in everything as it would be. Likewise and who knows how much this affected his thinking, but he grew up in Germany and later was influenced by Sigmund Freud. And we all know how that one thought.

Back on topic...Women villains are becoming more and more rare (with the exception of in Wonder Woman's books.) Catwoman, Ivy, Harley, Talia, Killer Frost, Maxima...they have all become more heroic than villainous. We need more or some of the older villainous females to make a return to prominence. We need Phobia, Jinx and Shimmer back in prominance. Where is Plastique, Tigress, Lady Vic, Gemini, Blaze, Cheshire...so many others. We need some really good bad gals again!