Are the Marvel villians better than the DC villians?

[Frank White]

I honestly believe so. The DC villians are you standard, evil for the heck of evil old school villains. And are slightly gimicy It wasn't until the late 80s before their orgins were even thouroghly explained. And sorry to say but it seems like Batman has the only interesting Rouge's Galary. Superman never had a strong one because he was too powerfull. Green Laterns arch enemy is just basically an evil version of himself. Wonder Woman, just who IS her arch enemy. I'm not knocking the villians because DC does have some gems like Joker, Lex, Darkseid, etc... But I think Marvel got em. I mean more often than not the big league villians actually have a story. Magneto is one of the most interesting anti-heros/villians. It seems like he could be a real person. The Red Skull's history stretch's back to WW2 and beyond. Thanos, basically Marvels spin on Darkseid, a megalomaniac type with a twist, he will do anything to please Death. The Green Goblin is sort of like Lex Luthor and Joker put together. An insane genius thats rich and can affect things from affar. Of course Marvel ain't perfect, they do have their generic villians( Dr. Doom, facinating, but whats his motivation; Galactus, wow he eats planets; tons of lame Spider-villians, Shocker, Dr. Octopus, Lizard, Rhino, etc...; etc....) Once again I'm not knocking these villians but I need more than just, I'm robbing/ taking over the world for the heck of it.

[Web Head]

Hey, I'll have you know that Spidey's rogues gallery is second only to the Bat himself. Sinister Six anyone?

Honestly I think the two best villians are Lex and Joker, for the simple fact that they are the polar opposite of their rivals. For a grim, dark avenger we have the grinning, laughing homicidal clown. For the most powerful comic hero ever created, we have a normal human who, cunning and intelligence aside, has no powers at all.

That being said, I've always preferred Marvel comics so I generally prefer their villians. Magneto is a great example of a bad guy that you dislike but at the same time relate too. Doctor Doom was driven by pride to best Reed Richards and his face was eventually disfigured because of it. Venom, Green Goblin, Kingpin, and Dark Phoenix were all carefully crafted villians with deep backstories.

So I would say that Marvel tends to have better villians across the board. I decided this by trying to name Hulk baddies. I got three or four off the top of my head. Then I tried for Wonder Woman and only got Cheetah. That's said for DC's 3rd biggest hero.

[BLACKHEART]

The Goblin's are just Joker wannabe's
The Kingpin is just a weak attempt at being Lex Luthor
Scarecrow? That's an orginal one Marvel

I read most of this argument and I have to say villians are villians. They are all motivated by the same things. Money, power, etc etc

What makes Owl Man better than Penguin?

[The Guard]

I can't believe you called Dr. Doom generic.

[CadaverousEyes]

I can't either. Any person who consistently refers to himself in the 3rd person (using his villain codename no less) can't be labelled "generic".

I also agree that Spidey's villains are only 2nd to Batman's.

The Kingpin was around back when Lex Luthor was a mad scientist who spent more time in jail than out. If anything, Byrne copied Kingpin for the modern Luthor. The Goblins definitely aren't Joker wannabes, especially the 2nd one.

Magneto was just a generic "wants to take over the world" bad guy until Claremont gave him a past and had Moria mess with his genes.

Overall, I'd say no one is better.

[D-Mono]

While I'm not really a comic-book person, I presume that each animated series has some basis on the respective comics and, going by that, I prefer the DC villains. For one, the majority of Batman's adversaries are insane. From what I saw of the Spider-Man animated series, bar the Green Goblin, most just seem to like spandex and getting sent to jail a lot.
Also, as far as atmosphere goes (and this is exclusively with regard to the animated series), I definately prefer DC, overall, especially Batman. While it's fairly obvious that Spidey is set in modern day New York, with Batman we can never be totally sure of a specific time frame, as it's a far more eclectic world, taking various elements of culture from the past 100 years and putting them all into one moment in time.
At the end of the day, it's a matter of differences and preferences, not better or worse.
D-Mono.

[Dark Knight]

This question is as unfair as DC vs. Marvel in my opinion. Both universes have thier fair share of the good, the bad, and the ugly (and yes of course the excellent.)

My all time two favorite villains are Dr. Doom (who, yes I agree is far from generic :) ) and Joker. Both are excellent. Lex is excellent. Magneto is excellent. Darkseid is excellent. Green Goblin is excellent (and dont take it personally whoever said this but if you think he's a joker wannabe you obviously dont read much spiderman... go see the movie it looks more than promising ;) ).

Then anyone familiar with the two universes knows that each has thier share of villains that should be(and sometimes have been) locked in some deep dark dungeon of no return: Stilt-Man, Toy man, the mad thinker, Clock King, Mr. Clean, the Weather Wizard(and again I apologize to those who like these characters these are just the ones I roll my eyes at from time to time)

It all depends on who's writing the story. Bad villains can be done well and good villains could be under done. I dont think its as clear cut as DC or Marvel.

[zmanjz]

Well, for sheer stupid villans, Superman has the most. IT is just hard to make a really cool villan that fits in the DC universe one that can legitimately threaten the super heroes. Batman's villans are unique because batman doesn't have god-like super powers whith wich he can just smash them down, so there is more opportunity for villans to engage him. In superman's case, only fools or the insane would attempt to engage him.

Marvel relies on more of the "weakened" super heroes. Their heroes tend to be more exposed and vulnerable which allows a greater range of villans to attack them.

Take the X-Men's Arch ENemies, Apocolypse is a heavy weight easily compared to Darkseid. But A villian like Magneto is not as easily compared.

Yes comparisons can be found But this is in part because the Marvel people read DC, and the DC people read Marvel. (Which in the end is partially the reason for the ultra crossovers like Zero Hour. (I would love to see a marvel/DC Crossover show.

The key difference I see is that DC has more of a focus on the story from the hero's perspective while Marvel's villans are as much lead characters as the Heroes.

But like all things there are exceptions.... I'm sure there are books written on the Psycosociological aspects characters in comic books and the differences between companies that produce them, but then again.... Hmmm How did this post turn into a rant?

Guess I just got carried away. :+]

Heh heh heh, I wonder if anyone will notice that superman's villan crack I made and dispute it?

[Joe Wagner]

Hmmm....I think I would have to give the edge to Marvel mainly for two reasons - 1) Marvel has always focused on making hugely developed characters and 2) I'm a child of Marveldom. This is only a slight edge though but an edge nonetheless, I always thought that a lot of the Marvel villains were very kewl and seemed to have a backstory to them - my favorites are Magneto and Dr. Doom but I have a deep respect for Darkseid and Lex Luther (seeing as how Supes is my favorite character). IMO Marvel just always seemed to be able to pull off the anti-hero/villain thing and made it possible for villains to whatever helped them the most, even if it forced them to team up with thier enemies. DC has gotten much better at this over the last decade or two but my Marvel loyalties seem to be kicking in and saying Make Mine Marvel!

-Joe!

(must....stop....brainwashing....)

[Web Head]

I agree with d-Mono about the cartoons, Marvel has unfortunately never made a series that compares with BTAS, though it has made some good ones.

Slipknot, try finding some Daredevil TPB's that detail his battle with Kingpin. It was epic, and had Matt Murdock at the absolute lowet he could get. Great story arc, really emphasizes how bad Kingpin is.

zmanjz is right about the weakened heroes. Let's face it, Spiderman or Wolverine ain't gonna be moving any moons anytime soon. I think the limited strength/powers of the Marvel heroes make the challenges seem greater and the adversaries more daunting. Batman proves this.

But ultimately it's gonna depend on preference. I am sure for many of us the universe we first started reading will always be the best. For me, I started with Spiderman, and though I like many DC heroes, they alway come in second place to me.

So untl Aunt May runs off and elopes with Bruce Banner, Make Mine Marvel :)

[Frank White]

I'm sorry Doom just doesn't so if for me. Sure the guy's storys/powers/ inventions/ are amoung the greatest in comics/cartoons, but still his motivation is kinda weak. Ok, he insanely jealous of Reed Richards. I'm not saying Doom is bad but as a character to me he is weak. Spideys got a good Rogue's Galary but most of em aren't very interesting to me.

[James]

I think I prefer DC's more human villians. The 'superhero' marvel villians are little too larger than life.

The potential nastiness in people is the more frightening concept. Warped people like the Joker seem far more frightening than Doc Oc or The Rhino...

[Joe Wagner]

Originally posted by Frank White
I'm sorry Doom just doesn't so if for me. Sure the guy's storys/powers/ inventions/ are amoung the greatest in comics/cartoons, but still his motivation is kinda weak. Ok, he insanely jealous of Reed Richards. I'm not saying Doom is bad but as a character to me he is weak. Spideys got a good Rogue's Galary but most of em aren't very interesting to me.

Actually I remember doing a communication model on Dr. Doom for one of my college classes and figured out that a lot of his problems stems from 1) a jealousy of Reed Richards and 2) the loss of his mother. It's kinda neat when you think about it but Doom almost has an inferiority complex that he hides by being a tyrant and feeding off of his countries love for him. In some FF issues a long time ago they basically said that Victor felt a lot of pain when his mother died and eventually he used his powers to go to Hell itself and try to save her from her fate.

Dr. Doom - the momma's boy himself.

-Joe!

[Frank White]

Didn't he get his mother back in a comic?