Creators New Obsession W/Only God-like Villains

[Dr. Poison]

It seems in the last decade or so, comic, TV, & movie creators feel the need to focus mostly on god-like or world-ending threats like Perpetua, the Greek gods, the New Gods, the Great Darkness, or Kryptonians instead of villains like Dr. Polaris, Silver Banshee, Amazo, Mr. Mind, Weather Wizard, & others who used to be credible threats for heroes on their own. I think there's still room for these non-entity type villains in comics, TV shows, & movies. What do the rest of you think?

[Lightning Rider]

I think it's probably a byproduct of constantly cycling mass-scale cross-over events, that often promise shaking up the whole universe's continuity. It's not great.

[Dr. Poison]

I think it's probably a byproduct of constantly cycling mass-scale cross-over events, that often promise shaking up the whole universe's continuity. It's not great.

Even in the DC movies they do this often without any crossovers. Wonder Woman I featured Ares as the main villain, Shazam II featured demi-gods, Man of Steel had Zod, Justice League had Steppenwolf...

It's sad because most of the actual super-villains I listed above are now considered "jobbers" by some when in fact, they were credible solo threats for decades. I don't need existence-level threats to always be entertained.

[Frontier]

People trying to hard to make things seem impactful.

[MajorHoy]

Harder for them to write a five-or-six story arc when the main villain is somebody like Mind-Grabber Kid.

[JThree]

It seems in the last decade or so, comic, TV, & movie creators feel the need to focus mostly on god-like or world-ending threats like Perpetua, the Greek gods, the New Gods, the Great Darkness, or Kryptonians instead of villains like Dr. Polaris, Silver Banshee, Amazo, Mr. Mind, Weather Wizard, & others who used to be credible threats for heroes on their own. I think there's still room for these non-entity type villains in comics, TV shows, & movies. What do the rest of you think?

Remember Alan Brennert writing something about the old earth 2 Batman telling Catwoman, "it was refreshing to go after a villain who was only in it or the money." We don't need all this uber villains, and end of the world stuff. We need villains who are closer to home. Remember the old Sherlock Holmes mysteries, they were fun when Sherlock was trying to solve the crime. I miss that.

--jthree

[WonderScott]

I agree wholeheartedly. We don’t need endless cosmic undoings of reality. More personal stakes can be just as interesting and dynamic.

There are so many supervillains that don’t get an opportunity to get characterization or be great villains!

Let’s let Doctor Cyber plot and do something menacing. How long has it been since the Brotherhood of Evil got maniacal in their plans? What if the Masters of Disaster added to their ranks? Doctor Destiny, Queen of Fables, Doctor Polaris, etc.

Lots of great villains to think about and empower in creative ways.

[Kaijudo]

I totally agree with this. I don't mind the giant-scale cosmic earth-shattering thing every once in a while, but I miss the days where the main focus was more on the grounded/human villains. These days, with a few exceptions, you almost only exclusively see those characters as a "warm up" for the hero before getting to the main story, like the battle is just wrapping up before the giant, impossible threat is introduced.

It's not DC Comics but looking at the most recent Ant-Man movie, I can't help but think I'd have enjoyed a 90-minute movie about him stopping a bank-robbing spree by Whirlwind a lot more than cosmic quantumverse nonsense.

[j9ac9k]

I think it's just been an escalating "raising of stakes" to make the threat bigger and seemingly more impressive - and in terms of movies, an excuse to throw in a ton of CG world-ending FX to wow audiences. Y'know, in lieu of writing an interesting character or a good story. It's a lot easier to chain a hundred CG artists to their work stations than force good work out of a writer with that opening date looming.

[Cap808]

Not going to debate if it's a good thing or bad thing, but I feel as if the need to have a world-breaking threat weekly, started in Morrison's JLA. Reason being that when you have the pantheon of the world's strongest heroes, you need threats like these to keep them together. This also seemed to be the case for Millar's Ultimates and Authority. On second thought, maybe I do like the stakes being raised weekly.

[Dr. Poison]

Not going to debate if it's a good thing or bad thing, but I feel as if the need to have a world-breaking threat weekly, started in Morrison's JLA. Reason being that when you have the pantheon of the world's strongest heroes, you need threats like these to keep them together. This also seemed to be the case for Millar's Ultimates and Authority. On second thought, maybe I do like the stakes being raised weekly.

The satellite-era JLA had a roster that was on par power-wise as Morrison's JLA and they did just fine mixing up stories between gadget-powered super-villains and entity-like threats. The satellite-era JLA fought everyone from Brainstorm to Dr. Light to Solomon Grundy to Starro to Darkseid. I think some creators don't see the value in variety any more.

[Cap808]

The satellite-era JLA had a roster that was on par power-wise as Morrison's JLA and they did just fine mixing up stories between gadget-powered super-villains and entity-like threats. The satellite-era JLA fought everyone from Brainstorm to Dr. Light to Solomon Grundy to Starro to Darkseid. I think some creators don't see the value in variety any more.

Can't argue with that.

[MajorHoy]

The satellite-era JLA had a roster that was on par power-wise as Morrison's JLA and they did just fine mixing up stories between gadget-powered super-villains and entity-like threats. The satellite-era JLA fought everyone from Brainstorm to Dr. Light to Solomon Grundy to Starro to Darkseid. I think some creators don't see the value in variety any more.

Satellite-era also had several stories that were maybe only one, two, or three issues long.
They weren't having to stretch everything out to five-or-six issues for the collected editions.

[Dr. Poison]

Satellite-era also had several stories that were maybe only one, two, or three issues long.
They weren't having to stretch everything out to five-or-six issues for the collected editions.

That practice is equally annoying.

[Alan2099]

But how would the companies get people to make clickbait articles to support their books unless THIS VILLAIN HAS JUST KILLED MORE PEOPLE THAN ANYONE EVER! or THIS OBSCURE AQUAMAN BADGUY IS NOW AN EVIL GOD!

You can't get those kind of headlines from GUESS WHAT PENNY PLUNDERER JUST TRIED TO PLUNDER.