Favourite Villains?

[Crowing]

Came across this idea in another thread from a long time ago, except with games villains, but how about villains in general? I love villains. Had a list somewhere from a while ago, though I can't find it right now, with some of my favourites.

Pinhead is definitely one of my favourites, and it's an archetype I've always loved - strong and silent types. Usually not the main villain of their work, either, I've always loved to cool-looking kinds of villains who rarely show up and don't say much, especially when they're crazily powerful enough to rival the heroes one-on-one. General Grievous (Star Wars) and Berserker (Fate/Zero) are good examples of villains I love.

Like with Pinhead, I love villains who are amoral, as well. Not driven by anything other than obligation of some sort. Maybe a guardian the hero has to face to overcome a certain task, like the Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth, although he's actually malicious unlike Pinhead.

So Pinhead, General Grievous, Berserker, and Pale Man are some of the ones I love most. Others include Darth Maul (also Star Wars), Kazuo Kiriyama (Battle Royale), and Neo Politan (RWBY). A fair amount of these remain mute for most of their appearances and all pose a legitimate threat to the heroes with their skill in combat.

How about you? What villains do you like, and what defines a good villain for you?

 

[Artisan]

To me the only difference I see between heroes and villains is the villain loses. Then I come to think of the social structure in the canon universe that is taking place. Most of the time it's to prevent something from happening that basically means one or more people dying or a crime of some sort. I then think of the creative motives each villain has and the one that is the most unique I tend to be interested in. The Joker in Batman sticks out to me. He just seems to mirror Batman except Batman tries to hide his identity so he can fight more crime or prevent himself from persecution. The Joker always finds a way to kill important people or turn them insane. He reoccurs a lot all over the series and each take brings something different. The one that I know of best is The Dark Knight. He's all about torture and he doesn't even do it for money. He wants to pester Batman knowing he can't save everyone.

And if I want anime in here I can say there is some creativity in Death Note. You basically follow the main character killing people with a notebook and asking if killing is bad if people that he killed are bad. The main thing is he can hide as well as the Joker and goes through all this trouble just to keep the notebook to himself only to be fooled by someone duplicating it not even thinking of it as an option. I guess it went on far enough.

Shoutouts to Loki for having a smug personality and his own universe where he gets the Tesseract. Other than being great at illusions and his godly powers seeing him die after getting used to him being in the MCU just makes this series breathtaking and miserable at the same time. My question is did Loki get brought back after Tony Stark's snap?

 

[Duffy]

Thanos! He was like the first marvel villain that I really thought had a decent motive.
I didn't agree with it, but I like the character.

 

[phofufury]

Thanos! He was like the first marvel villain that I really thought had a decent motive.
I didn't agree with it, but I like the character.

side note: In the movies, Infinity War and Endgame, his motives are very different than the comic books. In the comic books, he's actually in love with Lady Death (the physical manifestation of Death) and tries to impress her with his power of the infinity stones. In the movie, he is driven more by reshaping the Universe. He wants it to be equal, by equal I mean only the strongest. His mindset was flawed, however, I do not believe him to be a villain in the movies (although when he time traveled to the future in Endgame, he seemed more of a villain). He is more of a villain in the comic series.

Anyways, My favorite villains are the Joker, Thanos, and Killmonger from Black Panther. They are my favorites because of how they became villains. My favorite version of Thanos would have to be in the movies Infinity War and Endgame. He became a villain because of society. His mindset was not to rule the universe, but to bring balance. The joker as well, was a villain because of society, both in the comics and the movie. In the comics, he was a husband, with his pregnant wife. They needed money, and needed it bad to have a fighting chance at surviving the harsh world. What did he do? He decided to take part in a heist, one that he thought would pay him good. After he took the job, his wife died along with the unborn baby, in a factory explosion. He was forced to continue in the heist, and when he did, Batman came. He got incredibly scared, and fell into a chemical basin. Then he became twisted and was the Joker. In the movie, society treated him very rough. He wanted revenge on the unfairness. In Black Panther, there was so much racial injustice, and that is how Killmonger became a "badguy". Technically in that movie, I did not see him as the badguy. In the movie, it was actually Black Panther's dad that started it all, he killed his brother, which was Killmonger's dad. After that, a whole civil war broke out in Wakanda.

What makes a good badguy, is someone who rises up from the world's injustice to come back and bring the same injustice that they faced.