Worst Rogues Gallery?


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You could make a case for Batman being the best, but I honestly think that goes to the FF. Doom and Galactus alone pretty much make it, and that's without getting into the Mole Man, the Skrulls, the Wizard, Annihilus, and every crazy ass thing Kirby was coming up with in the late 60s.

As for worst, though? Iron Man. Seriously. At least (as was pointed out) before Fraction got a hold of him. His big bad was the Mandarin, and that guy is an embarrassment.

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I think the best characters don't just have a good gallery of their own, they attract some from others. Like Daredevil, he pretty much has his own roster with Elektra, Bullseye, gladiator, Mr Fear etc but he also takes on a lot of Captain America and Spider-man villains. He's just really versatile, and it keeps those villains fresh too.

The problem is when in solo books those bad guys are recycled ad nausea, or the book goes too far the other way constantly coming up with new bad guys who never stick around.

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I take it that intentionally funny villains don't count. I just started reading Steam Detectives and the series had the Machine Baron, who is the steampunk equivalent of Wylie E. Coyote. However his story came after a darker episode, so he was the comedy relief to give the reader and the author a break. Much like how Scott McCloud used the Devos after a dark issue of Zot.

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You could make a case for Batman being the best, but I honestly think that goes to the FF. Doom and Galactus alone pretty much make it,

To each his own. I'm not crazy about either of them, or half of the Four itself.

Has Deathstroke ever been used as a major foe for Dick outside of the Titans books? Wouldn't that do him a favor?

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A bad rogues gallery can be fixed by a writer who really cares about the characters, you can't really blame a bad rogues gallery on characters, as they can be very effectual, with the right writer, the right artist and the right editor, all coming together on the right day.

The reverse of this thread, I would like to say the best rogues gallery, right now in comics should go to The Walking Dead. As you can understand what has caused these people to do certain things to survive, such as the group from volume 13-15 I call "The mother bears theory" these people aren't doing anything to be evil, they are just doing what is needed to survive.

The worst rogues gallery in my opinion is the entire Bat-Familes. As in comics, you have several different heroes patrolling Gotham, and yet you have lots of high profile criminals causing havoc, on what seems to be a nightly basis. As fans we want to see recognisable villains, but if Gotham were real, it'd be a living hell, as you wouldn't be able to swing a cat without bumping into some deranged lunatic, and what with Snyder not revealing that a large part of the rich and powerful of Gotham are part of a secret club called the court of the owls, meaning they could be the ones allowing for easy escapes of inmates of Arkham, to take care of business they don't want to dirty their hands with.

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The worst rogues gallery in my opinion is the entire Bat-Familes. As in comics, you have several different heroes patrolling Gotham, and yet you have lots of high profile criminals causing havoc, on what seems to be a nightly basis. As fans we want to see recognisable villains, but if Gotham were real, it'd be a living hell, as you wouldn't be able to swing a cat without bumping into some deranged lunatic, and what with Snyder not revealing that a large part of the rich and powerful of Gotham are part of a secret club called the court of the owls, meaning they could be the ones allowing for easy escapes of inmates of Arkham, to take care of business they don't want to dirty their hands with.

Admittedly my comments will ring a little hollow as someone who doesn't really read comics, but that is a very strange rationale for Batman (and his extended family) having "the worst" rogues gallery. That's not to say I can't see what you're getting at in terms of Gotham being overrun/a hellhole, but I have a few rebuttals:

#1 - Batman/Bat-family have a wide-ranging rogues gallery of VERY recognisable villains, which automatically puts it near the top of the pecking order.

#2 - The concentration of that many supervillains in Gotham. Correct me if I'm wrong (which is very likely) but in that a fair number of Marvel heroes are based in New York, surely a fair number of rogues galleries are based there by extension as well?

#3 - I'm pretty sure Arkham's seemingly endless revolving door is addressed in the comics (I read Arkham Asylum Living Hell, or whatever it was that introduced The Great White Shark, in which Batman berated Arkham staff for their lax security) and that from a publication standpoint, it allows a a creative freedom for writers to use whichever villain they like.

#4 - I'm not sure you can hold supervillains causing certain crimes against the Bat family when, even if there's 4-5 out on patrol in the night, Gotham city is a large place and it's not like all villains, from muggers to the rogue's gallery, are Bat-tagged. In other words, they need to be at the right place at the right time.

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This really is a case of people's mileage varying, but for me, best/worst rogues gallery all comes down to how entertaining the bad guys are. The Punisher may be the most realistic in that his recurring villains are few and far between, what with the whole shooting them thing, but Jigsaw sucks. By the same token, it makes no sense for the Green Goblin to have Spider-Man's identity in his back pocket and never use or reveal that information, but godDAMN can he be a lot of fun when used properly.

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The worst rogues gallery in my opinion is the entire Bat-Familes. As in comics, you have several different heroes patrolling Gotham, and yet you have lots of high profile criminals causing havoc, on what seems to be a nightly basis. As fans we want to see recognisable villains, but if Gotham were real, it'd be a living hell, as you wouldn't be able to swing a cat without bumping into some deranged lunatic, and what with Snyder not revealing that a large part of the rich and powerful of Gotham are part of a secret club called the court of the owls, meaning they could be the ones allowing for easy escapes of inmates of Arkham, to take care of business they don't want to dirty their hands with.

What Ian said. Also, when I asked what the worst rogues gallery was, I meant the one that's the least entertaining and with the least thought put behind it, not the deadliest or hardest to stamp out.

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This really is a case of people's mileage varying, but for me, best/worst rogues gallery all comes down to how entertaining the bad guys are. The Punisher may be the most realistic in that his recurring villains are few and far between, what with the whole shooting them thing, but Jigsaw sucks. By the same token, it makes no sense for the Green Goblin to have Spider-Man's identity in his back pocket and never use or reveal that information, but godDAMN can he be a lot of fun when used properly.

This, a thousand times over.

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