DC Villains in recent years

[The Overlord]

What do you think about what has done with DC villains in recent years? In the 2000s Geoff Johns revamped Flash's and Green Lantern's rogues gallery and I would argue it made them better. Gail Simone was able to revamp a D-list loser villain like Catman into an anti hero in Villains United and even kinda of lame villains like Black Hand became bigger players in the DC Universe. Batman's rogues gallery has always been great and I think various writers have tried to do things with Superman's rogues gallery, with various degrees of success.

Then the reboot happened and many villains were changed.

So my questions are, what villains do you think were made better or worse by the reboot? Did you like how some of the villains were revamped back in the 2000s before the reboot? Are there any villains that need a revamp or just some more focus?

[colonyofcells]

Villains also need updates to keep up with changing tastes same as with heroes. Lex started out as mad scientist but he is now better as a hero like Iron Man. When new 52 started, all the writers were told to use new villains, but afterwards, the old villains got revamped. I prefer all of the Flash villains as metas like on the tv show. Riddler is now like prof Moriarty. The Beware the Batman Anarky is also very formidable. The Beware the Batman cartoon did lots of interesting revamps on the batman villains. Lots of bronze age Batman villains can be revamped like the secret society Spectrum from Batman 300 The Last Batman Story.

[victorxd1999]

I like the new Green Arrow villains from Lemire's and Sorrentino's run. Count Vertigo, Killer Moth and Red Dart are all better then they were before and guys like Komodo and the Outsiders are just great

[nightrider]

Tons of villains from Johns' GL run is definitely a highlight. Atrocitus, Larfleeze, indigo tribe even the revamped ones like sinestro, black hand, first lantern have all been fantastic.
Batman villains from Morrison run and generally most of the villains have been given huge push in the new 52 from villains month.

[Starchild]

Red Dart, Killer Moth & Count Vertigo. They still have untapped potential, too bad we won't ever see that potential and I doubt it if they'll be used again. Maybe Count Vertigo.

[poroto678]

I agree that GA's villains totally rock.

The thing is, as long as the villains are not Super Evil Lords that destroy worlds because they like "darkness" and have the personality of a potato, I'm cool with it.

Writers usually dont do that anymore on the books I read (But they still do it in some places, like they did on Thor 2, for example). They try to build characters with motivations and personalities. I think that's what Johns did with the Rogues and Sinestro, and that's why we like them so much. Most of those characters were revamped BEFORE the New 52, tho.

Also, i think the mess Morrison did with Brainiac was totally unnecessary. Johns had fixed that mess.

I really disliked the new Reverse Flash too.

The rest all got a lot better, before or after the reboot.

[SiegePerilous02]

I think the GL, Flash and Aquaman villains are the real breakout stars in recent years. Johns and the writers that followed his lead have done some amazing work on those characters.

The Bat villains, my favorite collection of villains in fiction, are mostly terrible now. Especially the Joker, Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter. The popularity they've gained over the years from better written comics and other media appearances will ensure that the current depictions won't have too much of a negative impact in the long run (hopefully).