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Bring on the bad guys!
Ben, Steve, and Dr. Jayce talk about their favorite villains in TV, books, movies, and comics! They talk about what makes a good villain and whta makes a bad villain and why these villains are their favorites.
Please, contact us with YOUR favorite villains! Why do you like them? We’d love to hear from you!
Godspeed!
~ Ben
Villains eh?
Well, in comics I’d have to lean towards Magneto as well, for all the reasons stated. Of course I was an X Men fan. I was also intrigued with Galactus as he was so alien in his villainy.
For movies, It would have to be Darth Vader. After the end of Empire Strikes Back, I initially thought he was lying. But during Return of the Jedi, I found myself hoping he’d turn for good. Count Rugin from Princess Bride is also a favorite. He was charming enough to like him, but oh so ruthless and cold.
On to books, I am compelled by Long John Silver from Treasure Island. He’s certainly not a nice guy, but again… charm and enough humanity that he’s a little hard not to like. Smeagol is also excellent. The movie’s don’t fully portray his villainy I feel, but the book gives a full picture. Much like Bilbo, I do have pity for him, but still understand his evil. The more I’ve read that book over the years, the more I’ve come to regard it as the best work of fiction. So carefully crafted… but I digress. Also worthy of note is Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’ve never found a villain so detestable. Interesting in that case is JK Rowling wrote a character that would have people keep reading just to learn of her grisly end… but well; not the ending you’d think.
As for TV villains, by their very nature they don’t make the best villains, needing to reoccur numerous times. The most villainous to me would probably be Niska and Saffron from Firefly. Saffron was well wrote I though. But I watched firefly as a set and doesn’t really have the TV experience for me. So, the ones that stand out most in my head for actual TV viewership are Venger from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. Yeah, he’s a pretty straight cut villain, but he always stuck in my mind. I suppose are more elaborate villain might be Raquel Ochmonek from ALF. Relatable but irritating. Perhaps not a true villain, but near enough.
I also thought Darth Vader was lying!
Why wouldn’t he lie? He WAS a bad guy, right? Bad guys DO lie, don’t they? That’s what I argued when I fought about it with my cousin, anyway!
Oo, the Ochmoneks! Yeah, that counts.
The Joker is my favorite villain running – and that’s partly due to his malleable nature. The Joker represents pure chaos – which is why, I think, they’ve never really fleshed out his back story that much even in a world that always wants to know where people come from and how they got that way. He isn’t even so much a villain as he is a force of nature.
With such an iconic character, he ended up being written by so many different people in the books – each giving him a different spin ranging from the ludicrous and almost campy to the truly demented. This became so much of his character that at one point an author (I forget which book this happens in, so sorry I can’t site the source) had Batman say that the Joker becomes bored with himself, bored with humanity in general, that he re-writes his personality just for a change of pace. Thus, he is, and always will be, completely unpredictable even for the world’s greatest detective.
If that doesn’t get you – in the current run of the Batman comics, Joker had his face ripped off. When he got it back, he literally tacked it back on, giving his smile even more of a terrible visage. I think he likes it that way.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Joker can be messed up, especially when he’s not just chaos and menace, but a mystery!
Oh, and regarding twins, my wife and I are the parents of twin boys (just a little over a year old). While there is some synergy, all effort exerted seems to be doubled. Of course, now they are playing and while the do play together, most often it seems to be collaborations in mayhem. Like two months ago when they overturned our LCD TV while my wife was out of the room for a few moments. That’s when we discovered just how well they could climb… and that they were pushing objects over to use as steps. We replaced the entertainment center with an old office desk of mine that’s taller, heavier, deeper and with fewer hand holds. Of course we are thankful they weren’t injured. On the upside, I’ve been losing weight.
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