Media wouldn't care about some allegory. They want clicks and attention to sell few extra copies. It worked to some extent with Tim and Jon so they hope for the same here.
yeah it's extremely low end benefits that just won't be worth it at all lmao.
Anyone have a favorite character? Villain if we are talking capeshit. I like Ultron, both design wise and his actual character being a vengeful son (well when that gets addressed, but him being Misanthrope is entertaining too). Doom is fun, but they overplay him too much, I like when Doom and Namor interact, but he's better as someone with his own goals who has no moral issues with killing someone to get that goal. His pompous nature combined with the fact that he does get knocked down a peg every once in a while. I liked Marvel villains because they have better designs, DC really just doesn't have anything that really gets me going.
A lot of Capeshit kinda pushes the idea that only insane people kill, rather than people will kill if they can morally justify it or think they are in the right. It's why I get sick of Nazi villains, it's just the writers shirking any actual duty to explain why the villain is bad. The current writers and editors have that weird Racism=Power+Privilege thing so odds are they are terrible people who justify all their actions by claiming to be a minority group to say they don't have privilege and thus can't be bigots. Usually Villains have a flaw that makes them assholes or makes their noble intentions darker. You know humanizing elements, it's why people sympathize with villains a bit too much.
Ultron is fascinating to me because he kinda doesn't get enough credit for being one of the earlier A,I./Robot villains to really pull the stuff he does.
Doom works because he can be absolutely fucking threatening in a serious manner, but then be kinda comedically melodramatic like at the end of the last Doom series.
if we're talking Marvel, I do enjoy the majority of their A list villains outside of Norman Osborne.
Kingpin? Consistently great. Threatening, but stays in his lane.
Doc Ock? Usually good but I think he's been fully explored at this point.
Kang? Always a fun one. Needs good writers bc of his complicated shit.
Apocalypse is always a treat. I just think he's been explored to death at this point, so I'm fine with him being sort of sidelined right now. Same with Magneto to a lesser extent, and Mystique.
Maximus the Mad never had proper writing in the 2010s but I think that's just because he was the only Inhuman character that was a villain in lore. Maybe it'd have been interesting if they explored his relation with Boltagon in the hands of a good writer.
Loki's been kinda beaten to death. He's been historically fun though.
Red Skull is and always will be the ultimate Comic Book Nazi villain and I kinda love how campy he is, even if they tried to turn him into evil Jordan Peterson in a recent book.
Feels like a lot of the big name "classic" Marvel villains have been rather extensively explored. I think the one that comes to mind as a bit of a favorite has to be Kraven the Hunter. Spidey's got one of the most iconic rogues galleries of all superheroes and Kraven seems to consistently be someone that just doesn't pop up in discussions outside of that one famous story.
(Wish they'd let Sandman be a redeemed hero again ffs.)
If I had to pick a Marvel villain that I like, who isn't someone that's like an outright A-lister, it's harder to list because they keep the notable classics around forever. My vote's on the Ultimate Reed Richards, aka The Maker. Dude needs more recognition and proper use. I wish they used him against Doom when the dude was trying to be some kinda "Iron Man".
I think the most memorable "new" villain in my memory is probably Evil Rogers from the Secret Empires stuff. There's also Knull the King in Black and Gorr the God-Butcher, right?
honestly, I'm sort of disappointed that we've never had Modok or The Leader be the big mastermind behind a major modern event.
It's hard to pick just one, Taskmaster is fun. In terms of sheer terror generated, Carnage should be up there. Able to leap a 100' up from a standing start, punch through concrete, see in 360° and form super strong, razor sharp tendrils. Kills just to see things turn inanimate. Your best hope as a marvel civilian in that situation is luck and maybe staying unmoving under bodies. For DC, maybe Black Adam or Mxyzptlk? The titular Ubers from Avatar Press are WWII soldiers classed as tank men, cruisers and battleships in terms of personal destructive potential. The regular people of that fiction died in larger numbers and in more terrifying circumstances.
Carnage is up there solely because it's just pure murderous insanity. I don't think any other Marvel villain produces the sheer "shit your pants" levels of primal threat better than Carnage.
DC villains kinda got shafted in the 2010s and we kinda burned out on the big names. I'm so tired of Darkseid, Luthor, Joker, Sinestro, Reverse-Flash, and etc.
Yes they're cool and memorable, but we kinda got stuck with them for a long time and part of me thinks it's because they removed the JSA/Titans/LOSH which included stuff like Trigon or Vandal Savage or The Time Trapper. All major iconic villains.
DC's got plenty of good villains, but if you remove Batman/Flash/Superman Rogues Galleries, that's like over half of the really memorable ones.
Black Adam's a fun anti-hero. He's kind of DC's Namor, but tends to be on the darker side more often.
as for other stuff, I've always thought that Eclipso has always had potential since they buffed him in the '90s to be a literal fallen divine power. It's just that every time we've seen him get used since the '90s, it's never been that interesting.
Anyone remember Synnar or Synmar the Demiruge from DC? Starlin used him a bunch in the 2000s and late 90s with stuff like Hardline Station (I think that's where he started?)
In terms of absolutely fun DC villains, I love Vandal Savage. The DCAU used him well.
The JSA's always had villains that seemed just a step away from being capable of A-list in terms of stories if used right. Remember Robinson's Starman series? Both of The Mists from there were memorable. Ian Karkull and Psycho-Pirate too.
There was also that kid from the late 2000s JSA. I forget his name, but it was some moniker like "The All-American Boy" that he used to infiltrate the JSA and fucking nearly murked Mr. Terrific.
You know what sucks about DC? They just don't have a good Nazi or Commie villain for some reason.
As for other comics, Omniman from Invincible was a decent initial villain. I think Robot prooved to be a good one in later parts and kind of a good pastiche of taking Civil War era Tony Stark to a logical extreme.
