I know lots of people are opposed to it but I would totally pick up a monthly Joker run where he plots out insane ways of stealing stuff and killing people (without batman in the picture)... Sounds morbid but it they got a good writer im sure they could pull it off
Off THEIR Minds: Should Villains Have Their Own Ongoing Series?
Think about this - instead of an ongoing with a single villain, why not an ongoing of The Masters of Evil or The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants? I'd prefer Masters of Evil, because then you have the rotating cast option like The Avengers that could include mutants like Magneto, Toad et. al.
If memory serves, The Thunderbolts did really well for a while. Only this would be about villains being villains, and not something like the 'bolts or Suicide Squad.
DC's problem (one of many) is that with characters like Riddler, Luthor or Captain Cold, readers and writers are limited to one city and one hero to fight. I suppose they could create a new villain to follow from city to city who fights different heroes...
marvel and Dc should have one title called Marvel/Dc presents the Villian (fill in the blank) and the have a (?) many issue storyline feature that villian. oviously some villians are more popular than others.
Yes, any character with strong enough . . character and a writer with interesting ideas could have an ongoing or multiple limited run series. What does the good, bad or ugly sticker really have to do with quality of content. Now what is hard is a one dimensional character/portrayal, as it gets old and repetitive.
I suppose it would be interesting but its also an enormous hazard. If you take a villain from an ongoing series like Joker as he suggested you also run the opportunity to lose one of the most important thing about them. Their mystery. If you spend too much time with them you grow accustomed to them, allowing to be lulled into that security you get with your heroes that you know and understand them. It makes for less terror, less horror, and all together less villainy. Now there are writers that could pull off a villain based comic, however I find that the villain would never be as revered.
@Skaddix said:
Depends on the villian. Deathstroke and Loki have them though.
Magneto with a team of mutants would be pretty awesome.
Yes. In fact, it can be argued that villains carry the story more than the heroes, and reading about them can raise the stakes. A good villain is irreplaceable and it's always funny to see how normal some of them are. Molecule Man and Volcana, for example, are funny in that they are a mismatched couple physically but they make sense on paper and they both clearly love each other.
Villain in the sense of "this guy is just arbitrarily bad for no reason"? No, that would be shit. But these kinds of characters are shit in secondary roles too. People who are truly insane aren't interesting.
Villain in the sense of 'this guy has values that are opposed to what most people consider correct'? Yes, that would be great.
I definitely think that villains should have their own ongoing series, especially if we want to learn more about them. I think that Magneto is the best candidate for an ongoing villain series since there is a deep back story on why he believed that mutants are superior to humans (when he was a true villain and didn't join the X-Men). However, it would probably be a little more difficult to write a villain ongoing series because they would not have certain layers like the heroes do to make them extremely compelling to read about and having the villains just constantly do bad things in their series in every issue would get tiresome really fast.
It would all come down to the creative, like there are certain writers out there that could do great things with any villain.. well most villains anyway.. Im not sure if down right crazy villains could hold their own book, the joker for example. But the majority.. sure why not
Well deadpool has had his own series for a long time, many series in fact. thunderbolts is basically the same thing, Venom (brock) had his own book ect. Its gets done a lot, and its always good to see things from a different perspective. We have shows like Sons of Anarky, Dexter, Sopranos, Boardwalk empire, all tv shows that focus on the bad guys and they are some of the best tv ever, so i say bring them on! would love to see more
I would read more Dr.Doom stories instead of another Avengers vs ..... zzzzzzzzzzz
I drool to see a monthly title of Magneto and the Brotherhood.
I definitely think they should, at least some of the major villains in the comics. It would be an interesting new read away from the same old teams of heroes and whatnot.
I think with certain characters it could work, depending on what kind of audience you're trying to reach. What demographic would you seek? Not age or geographical demographic. Doesn't matter how old you are or where you're from to want to know the villain. It's been done but not so successfully. Maybe if a villain character was having a change of heart or if you wanted to see the villain's point of view as one of your favourite heroes was about to hand their arse to them, fair enough. But not as a long running feature of antagonists running around killing off your favourites and trying to make it look justifiable!
Villains could definitely handle their own series and a lot of them definitely deserve their own series. Magneto could have his own series, the Rogues could have their own series, a Joker and Luthor team up book could be great. The potential is out their, they just need to find the right pitch.
I think villain comics would work. You could just make it cross over with whatever hero series they are dueling at the time. the series could show the other side of the story before the conflict. I love the thunderbolts and they until now were still just villains working both sides of the line.
I have been thinking about this over the past day or two and I have changed my stance slightly. I think that a villain book would be great if it was done like DC universe presents or brave and the bold where you would get different villain every arc, or a villain could stay for a few. If DC did this it would be boss you would not have to worry about the guy getting stale and sense they would only be around for an arc or two there would be no need to humanize villains like the Joker or Captain Cold they could let them be the evil dirt bags that they are. Now would that be sick or what?
Well I loved MODOK's 11 back in 09'(?) and currently I'm loving Carnage USA!! But these are just limited series' so maybe as an on-going it would lose its effect.
Still I'd like to see someone at least try one.
Yes in groups it makes us know the characters more. Harley and ivy are two characters that we see a lot of complications. They are funny tragic and have chance to be redeemed. We wanted them to grow. We even saw the return of Gaggy. That is another thing it can give a chance to return old characters. It also leaves chance to figure out the characters when they are not doing their evil deeds or working on their evil deeds for a big special.
from the stand point of good or bad I agree villians shouldn't have an on going series.
also I respect all the big time villians. Luthor, Joker, Kingpin, etc, etc, but some of my fav villians aren't extremely popular. I like The Rhino (spidey's dimest villian) Gemini from the Zodiac, I really like the Red Lanterns and Larfleez. So only the most popular villians would have a long running series and I don't think it fair to those of us who like the Lesser evils more. I would be however open to the idea of mini-series pretaining to most poplular of the villians. I would like to see more villians for hire and villian tema ups.
thank you
I think a villain with a series inevitably drifts towards "antihero" status. The only way to make them identifiable to readers is to show that they have human motivations similar to our own, or to show that they aren't as bad as they seem. It too often ruins a villain. Catwoman before the fallout of Identity Crisis is a good example. She carried some great series, but outside of being a little selfish, was more of a bad girl heroine.
Mark Waid seems to be proving an awesome exception to this with Irredeemable. The only way to keep that book interesting is to keep the world's most powerful superhuman a hardcore villain., and let the heroes rise to the challenge of trying to stop him. Part of his success though is that he is not hampered by the corporation telling him what the character can or cannot do. Too often, Marvel or DC see a villain become popular, and make them a hero, so they sell series, not realizing it was the villainy that sold the character.
I think that's often because the popular villains (with series) are really characters with similar powers to their archenemies, and we like them, because we get to see them do things with their awesome powers that the heroes will not. Good examples are Catwoman, Venom and especially Black Adam. Like Captain Marvel? Yep, but gee whiz, all he ever does is juggle cars and bonk badguys' heads together. Black Adam rips them off, and tosses them into orbit. It's the more extreme use of the power that I think attracts us to liking the villains.
I'd really really love a Captain Cold series, i loved his flashpoint mini-series. I doubt a monthly series would last though.
I've always wondered what a movie about the bio of Luthor would be like, especially if given the realistic treatment.
yes definitely i've been saying that for some time. why should we only get the point of view of the heroes. in the beginning of comic book history it seems like there wasn't much back story for the villains and they only seemed to be committing petty crimes with their powers like rob banks. i would love to see the evolution of the villain be more detailed and rich with creative narrative. i want to be inside the head of bullseye or joker or sabertooth or lady deathstrike or mr freeze or lex luthor or vulture or countless others.
I like some of the few there already are and wouldn't mind there being more. I ready Gotham City Sirens, and love it, but it's about more than the characters being... villain-y. lol. I wouldn't mind reading a Joker series. He's already had some interesting one-shots and he's one of the more interesting villains. Or I think a series featuring the villains in Fables would be really good too. Maybe one featuring Gepetto or The Dark Man? And Magneto! Or Mystique - that'd be cool.
@BoyWander: True, but who says it has to be cannon? Why can't it be a different earth it is on. I've been thinking it would be cool to do a specifically earth three (i believe that is the one with the roles reversed as Supes is Ultraman, Bats is owlman, Wonderwoman is superwoman) comics highlighting how they first came around came into power and all of that
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