Off My Mind: Should Villains Get Their Own Series?

The answer to your question is no, AND your premise is flawed. Not everyone wants to read about the bad guys.

Thanos has had his own Comic, more than once!

 ignore comment, fixing threads

Galactus would be a perfect one, (1) He is a villain who has probably killed in the high trillions with all the planets that he has consumed that have life on it. (2) He has a reason to do what he does what he does unlike the some crazy lunatic that kills for thrill; Galactus kills for the same reason we kill cows lol....to FEED OUR HUNGER!!!!! And (3) he'd be a good character to do a origin story one since most people only know him from the sliver surfer.

Well, me & about 80 other girls would read a comic with Joker in the lead & Batman, Lex Luthor, & the Gotham City Sirens as regular antagonists. It would end up being like "A Series of Unfortunate Events" rewritten in Count Olaf's perspective, but a lot more violent & neuroticaly poetic.

I like villain comics.  
  
It's a great way to flesh out their character.  
 
I'd be all for a comic that showcases a different villain every month.

   
The Joker has many mini series and in the 70's (check me on that) they attempted to do a on-going series with him but it just didn't work. 
See I am see everyone's points in making the character stale if we seem to often like the Joker. But i think it would be interesting to see a relaunch of series with him in it just to see what destroyed the one from the 70's (like bad writing, not enough complexity for his character, bad timing of realease ect...) 
Plus i am really sick of constantly looking up Harley Quinn stuff and seeing how her series did so much better then the Joker's. 
For some reason that just sickens me.

Any one remember the Eclipso comic series? I used to love that. Esp the story arc that lead to the massive showdown with all the DC heroes on the moon.

" Usually the problem with putting the spotlight on a villain is that the reader begins to empathise with them.  Once you start to feel that you have common ground & associate with someone, they go from being a villain & become a misunderstood good guy.  Just look at Venom.  It's a little different with someone like Osborn or the Joker.  Their psychological mania is difficult to associate with.  But they have been key characters in so many big stories.  Does it make someone blood thirsty to see more stories that focus on these guys?  After all, there's nothing but murder & mayhem that follows in their wake.  But in the hands of a good writer, it could lead to a gritty psychological thriller.  But personally... I prefer to read about the heroes defeating the villains :)    "

yep. i wanna a deathstroke or luthor new series now.

" Does it make someone blood thirsty to see more stories that focus on these guys?  After all, there's nothing but murder & mayhem that follows in their wake.  But in the hands of a good writer, it could lead to a gritty psychological thriller.  But personally... I prefer to read about the heroes defeating the villains :)    "

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I think this would be a great idea, it could be like the joker's, the killing joke, for any villain, just stretched out over a series of comics with the first few delving into why and how they became who and what they are, either with the start of the story being them normal and turning or with flashbacks into how they turned from 'normal' to evil.  
 
If a known villain was used though, you would not be able to make a series to span through the ages, unless there was something completely unknown about them revealed in the series which made us pity them or be able to relate with them, like say a childhood friend being murdered by a police officer or superhero using excessive force for a minor crime, leaving them believing the justice system is unreliable, and should be punished, or something along those lines

Not that awful awful Gwen/Osborn sequence! Aaaah!! My eyes! It burns!!
 
I don't know if in the long run, villains could keep up an on-going alive for too long.
Just look at Venom, he simply ended up an antihero!
 
Though miniseries can work a lot easier for them!
"Lex Luthor: Man of Steel" was amazing!~

I'd love it for villains to get their own ongoings. I think it'd be a real cool thing. There are plenty of bad guys out there that're interesting, and a lot of them would make for some great stories. Taskmaster, Constrictor, the Wrecking Crew, Hood, Venom, Green Goblin, etc, but for some reason, I don't think they'd last long at all. I always figured that most comic book readers only care about villains when they're fighting against the heroes, and while some find some villains to be cooler than others, but I doubt many would really stick with a villain's ongoing series. I think that's why whenever a villain does get the spotlight, it's usually for a mini-series or a story arc in the hero's book.

They most definitely should and kind of already have G. For example my absolute comic bread and butter 
 The THUNDERBOLTS!!! (amen)
 It use to be sick and demented back when Osborne first helmed the team before Dark Reign, now its more about the heroism because of Luke Cage and the Heroic age (it rhymed hehe). 
I remember they where all psychopaths and pandemonium ran wild but I nearly peed my pants when Norman crucified his own teammate for no damn reason. 
 
Villains do some sick stuff and thats probably why they should have their own book really. Because deep down people want to see them do it.  
 
Every actor who played the villainous role in a movie says the same thing. "You have more fun being the villian" 
 
ps 
the sad part is none one will probably read this but jimmy crack and i don't care :P

It seems pretty tough to come up with something that can actually be entertaining while still being about a 'villain' for a good while. Good guys/gals are already good and are faced with all sorts of bad folks which make for plenty of interesting stories. Besides, villains are always the ones with the schemes and heroes are the ones that stop em. So for a series from the other perspective is it just going to be hatching and plotting and then getting it all ruined?
 
It'd be better then if the series wasn't focused on events akin to a regular hero series.
 
Also, with villains, who's their adversary going to be? Just their respective good guy/gal rival? If you add in other villains in adversarial roles is the books main character suddenly an anti-hero? Anti-heroes work because they still ultimately do the right thing, but run the risk of looking as if they're trying to be too dark or edgy which often comes off cheesy. Characters like Deadpool that are loco and just do whatever they want are niche enough that newcomers are just like 'oh it's another Deadpool'.
So then what sort of villain could work? One that wasn't just a one-dimensional serieal killer. One that's interesting enough that even if you can't sympathize with him/her you can understand them and still be able to see character development, which would have to be the focus of the series. 
 
Personality, personality, personality.

Sinestro could probably carry his own book.

As long as the character has some weight and the reader can empathize with them, look at Lex Luthor: Man of Steel. Best part about that story was you could see things from the villain's perspective.

Well there is Johnny the Homicidal Maniac you read that?

NO! and they arent supposed to.  It takes away from the mystery and the intensity of the villan once we really start to take them apart.  Probing into his life or reason of being is one thing, but no matter how they are handled, we end up somehow turning them into good guys.   Tony had a perfect example of Venom, they ruined him.  And now look at what the so far end result is...Anti-venom.  The picked away at him and they ruined the character.  Norman i different in his own, so I wont touch that one.  Carnage should not get his own series, cause  you would ruin what is Carnage.   Same idea for the Flash, you could never make Zoom a good guy and nor would you give him his own mini or on going.  Its just chemistry that you dont mix.  Ultimately in another way, villans are quite boring, they say so themselves, cause without their heroes to badger and fight, who are they?  
 
Please do not play with this formula, cause the chemistry is way too valuable.

Yes villains should get their own series.  Personally I think they are better most heroes. 

 Essentially a villain cannot often carry a regular monthly series, although in this modern age many 'heroes' have actually more or less become villains themselves. There has to be some interesting feature, some redeeming quality, or some way for the reader to identify with or to put himself or herself into the proceedings and care about them. It's not involving if you read about a character you don't care about, and it's difficult to care when the protagonist of a tale is a serial-killing sociopath.
 
The oft-cited Tomb of Dracula was an excellent series indeed, but something that many forget is that Dracula, while regarded by some as a villain, was instead presented as something of an antihero, a force that was the antithesis of mainstream society from the very inception of the character. He was honourable, and he had a system of values and morals that, while completely removed from that of the 'heroes', made him a character who was interesting and who could carry a book himself. He was not controllable by the forces that pushed conformist doctrine onto everyone else, and thus in his age he was also admirable.

Most writers these days would focus too much on the bleak qualities and less on the more interesting aspects of the characters, making it difficult to endure a long run with villains. Even the Harley Quinn series, which should have been more colourful, wallowed in pathos and angst until it consumed itself in some of the worst writing of this type after losing all vestiges of even dark humour. With the way things are in comics...they're bleak enough. Villain-centred tales are best relegated to special occasions. It's unlikely that any villain is going to be able to carry a title himself or herself, unless it's simply a villainess who exists purely for the purpose of titillation.

I dunno, I think that having villains getting their own comic is a bit of an over-indulgence.  Think of it like cake; a lot of people's favorite part of cake is the frosting or icing, much like some people's favorite part about a comic is the villain featured in it (like how my 2nd favorite comic character ever is Venom, yet I'm not much of a fan of the rest of the Spider-man universe in general), but the thought of just eating that frosting right out of the container by the spoonful is just way too much sweetness and fattening for the majority of people.
 
A villain for the most part needs to have the context and chemical connection to the hero of a series in order for either of them to feel as dynamic or compelling, like having a thin layer of frosting creating a greater depth of taste when eaten with the completely different texture and taste of the actual cake. 
 

it would be sweet to see the villians' side of things, but only at certain times. otherwise there could be too many stories to follow and get a little confusing and pricey.

They can be interesting, but I think they are best left to big one offs or a small mini series. If not they can start to over shadow the heroes and when they meet up again it will just seem silly to have the hero win.

Honestly, I don't want to see the world through the Joker's eyes, but I wouldn't mind reading a Deathstroke or maybe Lex Luthor series.

Yeah, but the fight is against villains or heroes and its different, this is about a team, if it is about one villain it would be so difficult, the same thing happened with marvel with the Thunderbolts and the Dark Avengers, it’s easy to use a team, because the story is not focused on the villains goals, it is focused about the villains as a team, their abilities, about their morality and their back-story...

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I think so, yeah. It gives us a different kind of story to read. I think Lex Luthor COULD run in Action Comics for a while. Whether or not he will is another matter, but I think it can be done. Lots of villains do more than we see on screen. Villains fight other villains, different heroes, etc. 
 
On another note, CSA. I want THEM to have ongoings. All 5 of them plus a CSA. Add the fact that their universe is twisted around so evil triumphs over good? You've got a recipe for some awesome ongoings right there.

it depends on how interesting the character is. a joker series could work, magneto could work. lex luthor  could work. the only minus would be that villains often have a lot of mystery to them and a on going series may reveal too  much

I think mini-series fit villains perfectly, but there should be more of them. I really like Brian Azarello's Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, and Joker. The problem with monthly series is, you can't sympathize with a bad guy long enough unless the writer makes him have a good side too (like Deadpool's funny style, the Punisher's or Wolverine's sad path). And this  makes him more like an antihero, not a villain.

I know Joker did have a series back in the 70's for a bit but it didn't do to well...but then again he never really got to win so that might be why...I'd certainly read it...though I could understand why some people wouldn't...Might aswell plug something I did based off of my favorite fan series since it is somewhat revelant
 http://rancidrainbow.com/thesite/?p=1750
 http://rancidrainbow.com/thesite/?p=2345

The thing that makes villains interesting is that they are not like humans, they are all dark and evil, and have some other characteristics that show a lack of humanity, they got popularity so fast when they just cross the line and do something chaotic, or extraordinary for his physical characteristics. For example: The Joker, that dude killed a lot of people in his first appearence, and he is just a human, but on the other side of the coin, he became the person that Batman have to overcome as hero.
The villains are popular, just because they have heroes, if they get their own series it should be temporal, because it could be about the villain plaining how to kill the hero, or something about the Villain himself (Or the villain becoming an antihero).

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lex luthor can

It has to do with the writer.

Villians United was a good series.

A series can work!
Take Dark Avengers! A lot of people really enjoyed that book (Myself included) and the book was just about killers!
I guess it all depends on the character and their intentions.
 
I would read a Joker ongoing series!