So, in our last poll we asked the question as to who you guys thought Marvel's Greatest Superhero is/ was. So this week let's ask the alternative, who is Marvel's Greatest Supervillain.
As per usual, I've given you 10 to start with and you can enter your own answers. If a psuedonym has been used by more than one character (e.g. Adrian Toomes Vulture vs. Blackie Drago's Vulture) can you leave the civilian identity along with the villains name the character takes. You can vote for as many characters as you like, but can only add an answer once a day. The poll will be open until the 16th, so a week on Friday.
Now, a quick note on Venom, because I know he will probably be added to the poll and I would like to give my reasons as to why I feel he probably shouldn't. As with Hulk last week, I won't prevent him from making the list should he be nominated and recieve enough votes, but I haven't put him as part of my starting 10 for a reason. He's just too heroic. Sure he started out as an out and out villain and has gone back to that well now and again, but as the character's popularity grew, he became more of an anti-hero (it didn't even take him 10 years before he was fighting the good fight alongside Spider-Man, as uneasy as that alliance was). Even as the Eddie Brock version, who would be the version most likely to be nominated, Venom had his own series where he was fighting for good (well as good as it gets when you're an alien symbiote with an unhealth zombie-esque obssession with brains) against other, decidedly more villainous symbiotes. Now, after a brief sojourn back to the dark side courtesy of Mac Gargan and the Dark Avengers, the Flash Thompson version is just a flat out hero and , whilst that's great for character development, it isn't all that great for great villainy. Even in the movies he's appeared in Venom has gone half and half, being the villain in Spider-Man 3 and the hero (all-be-it an unorthadox one) in his own movie. So, yeah, that's why I don't think Venom should be in consideration, but I'll leave that one up to you guys.
Key to voting is the villains’ motivations. Some want world domination; other universal domination. I think that the MCU Ultron has the best motive. He spent 15 seconds on the internet then determined that humanity needed to be extinguished.
What’s your take on adding characters who are portrayed as heroic, but can be argued as villainous, or heroes who’ve gone evil from time to time? Would it be cool, for example, to list Charles Francis Xavier as my favorite villain, even though he’s typically portrayed as a hero? Would it be better to have a separate list on this topic?
It’d be a much harder list to categorize, because you could justify putting pretty much anyone on the list. Captain America for example. He’s only gone evil once, but that was Secret Empire which, whilst a truely terrible storyline, made Cap THE biggest bad in all of Marvel. But would you honestly say that he’d deserve to be on that list when there was also another Cap fighting the good fight against him the entire time? Or how about Deadpool or Punisher? It’s hard to argue those guys have ever done a good thing in their lives, but they’re counted primarily as “heroic”. And as we’re talking about villains this week, is Magneto a hero or a villain? He’s a civil rights leader who is trying to protect his people (who are historically a minority and discriminated against) from violence and further discrimination and he has helped save the world numerous times. But his methodology puts him in the camp of villain.
You could maybe get away with doing a poll for the best times superheroes went bad and have each individual instance ranked rather than each character, but I can see that getting low responses (the last time I tried to do a storyline specific poll I didn’t get any additional suggestions added to the poll on top of the ones I had as default) and, judging by how well people usually do with making their additional answers easy for me to follow up on with the list, it would be difficult at best to actually finalise the results and make them presentable.
Good points all. I think a list ranking “Heroes gone Bad” could benefit from having a minimum count of incidents. For example, I’m pretty sure Xavier and Reed Richards each have at least 2 or 3 incidents a piece. Another metric could be “Who would be the most dangerous hero to go totally evil?”
And yet again I am responsible for nominating a character you made a note about without realizing I was doing it. This time, however, I stand by my decision.
Venom has had a few heroic/anti-heroic incarnations in the past. For the most part, the Venom symbiote responds at least somewhat to the morality of its host. However, this is shown to be a struggle for many of the heroic hosts of the Venom symbiote, as they are trying to force their heroic morality onto a creature whose motivations are for destruction. That is why Peter Parker had to ditch the symbiote: while the host can influence the symbiote, the symbiote also influences the host. That is the reason that I chose to nominate the symbiote itself rather than one of the hosts. While some of the hosts may be allies to the heroes, Venom itself is a more or less constant adversary.
Thank you to whomever added Kraven. I chose not to because I was waiting for someone else to acknowledge one of the greatest stories and art in all of comic book history.
We are not alone because we have also been the spider. Creepy, ain’t it? Few other stories evoke such raw and revealing emotion in four-panel.
Not a problem dude. I haven’t read Kraven’s last hunt in over a decade or two, but I still recall it sending shivers down my spine. Even without that, he’s still one of the most iconic villains from Spidey’s rogues gallery, along with being impressive for a Marvel villain.
In a professional field where most of his contemporaries want to take over the world or a country or destroy something big, Kraven is hyper focused on a very narrow niche of the field. Unlike a lot of villains who get “one-itis” over a specific hero, Kraven tends to keep his cool in most cases.
Best part though, Jon Watts, the director of the Spider-man Far From Homecoming set of movies, has stated that a big item on his wish-list has been to put Kraven into a movie, but he needs to find the right story for it. With Keanu Reeves having such a good surge in popularity, I think he’d be perfect. The role would require him to beef up, grow a mustache, maybe even a beard and play against type, which would be freakin’ awesome.
I look at this way; The Symbiote is an amoral non-ethical creature that has no point of contextual reference for what we mere humans consider to be “good” or “evil”. It followed it’s natural inclinations during it’s early years of association with an Earthen host (Peter Parker) without having any understanding of what it’s host was.
That said, it’s behavior towards Peter was selfish and abusive. Taking Peter’s body out for night adventures without his consent, adding aggression into his crime fighting behavior, imitating a classic red/blue spidey suit to get back into Peter’s life and only leaving him when Peter used a church bell to force it away… all of these things add up to Symbiote being a selfish arse.
When Symbiote found Eddie Brock, who was on the verge of suicide and took over him as a new host, it gave over sensitive information for the purposes of gaining vengeance against Peter.
Thus, in my view, being exposed to Earthen culture turned Symbiote into a villain. It’s natural inclinations, coming up against a moral framework that precluded excessive violence and violation of consent, resulted in Symbiote deciding that the path of selfish vengeance was preferable to altruistic cohabitation.
Therego, Symbiote has never stopped being a villain. No matter what moral framework it’s hosts have had, it’s always been geared towards violent and selfish ends. It’s also worth noting that Symbiote’s child is even worse. Carnage’s Symbiote has even less of a problem with harming humans than it’s parent.
Being able to imitate a benevolent being, makes Symbiote even more dangerous a villain.