With that, I give you Shaner's Top Twenty Super-Villains!
20) THE KEY! -Leave it to Grant Morrison to reinvent one the lamest bad guys in the DCU. In the beginning The Key was nothing more then just a safe-cracking villain with a pack of henchmen in stupid helmets. But after giving himself a dose of psycho-chemicals and spending years in a coma, The Key emerged as a super-genius with access to 99 per cent of his brain who has begun to unlock the bolts of reality itself.
19) JOHNNY SORROW! -A Justice Society villain and leader of the Injustice Society, Johnny Sorrow was a small time hood who, through an ill-fated attempt to access occult powers, was banished to a lower segment of hell known as the Subtle Realms. Upon his return, Johnny Sorrow was a supernatural presence driven to vengeance against the Society. The best thing about Johnny Sorrow? To gaze upon his real face, without his mask, will KILL YOU! He can KILL YOU, JUST IF YOU LOOK AT HIM!!!
18) THE LIZARD! -Prof. Kurt Conners is one of those classic tragic villains. After losing an arm in a car accident, Prof. Conners injects himself with lizard DNA to regrow his lost arm. The result? He grows his arm back, along with fangs, claws, scales, and a tail. Spending most of his time running around the sewers and fighting Spiderman, The Lizard's mind continues to devolve into a more and more monstrous state!
17) MYSTIQUE! -Marvel's Malicious Machiavellian Mutant Master of Disguise is everything you want in a villain: sexy, sinister, and willing to smile in your face as she slides the knife in your back. Her shape-shifting abilities make her one of the X-Men's slipperiest enemies, and her willingness to abandon her fellow mutant teammates means not even her fellow vilains can trust her.
16) HENRY BENDIX A.K.A. THE WEATHERMAN! -Wildstorm Comic's superhero team StormWatch was led by a cyborg leader known as the Weatherman, who watched over the planet and directed his team to intervene in global crisis. Writer Warren Ellis took this concept and ran with it by turning the Weatherman into a power-crazed master of manipulation who blackmailed StormWatch and later went toe-to-toe with the Authority. He met a grisly end at the hands of the Midnighter, but you can never count Bendix down for the count......
15) ROSE TATTOO! -Speaking of Bendix, we would be amiss if we didn't mention his lover/chief assassin. Rose Tattoo is literally the Spirit of Murder, incarnate since the dawn of man. Her saliva is toxic, her sweat is acidic, she can benchpress a bus and can kill you with her bare hands fifteen different ways before you hit the ground. It doesn't matter how "invincible" a hero thinks he or she is: Rose Tattoo will find a way to kill them.
14) THE BROTHERHOOD OF DADA! -One of the greatest things to ever happen to comic books in my own humble opinion was Grant Morrison's amazing run on Doom Patrol. And that, in large part, had to do with the creation of the Brotherhood of Dada. Mr. Nobody! The Fog! Frenzy! Sleepwalk! The Quiz! Agent ! ! Alias the Blur! From unleashing a city-eating painting to running for President as the only Abstract candidates, the Brotherhood of Dada were the most bizarre villains to ever grace the pages of any comic.
13) TWO-FACE! -Imagine if your greatest failure turned into one of your worst enemies? That's what happenned to Batman when his friend and partner District Attorney Harvey Dent was disfigured by a mob boss. Unleashing a terrible case of multiple-personality disorder, Two-Face has become obsessed with a crooked sence of justice and vengeance against the Dark Knight.
12) THE SCARLET WITCH! -When one of your teammates has the ability to alter reality, the last thing you want her to do is go absolutely nuts. But that's what the Scarlet Witch did! After single handedly wiping out her team mates the Avengers, she re-wrote reality to create the House of M, then robbed 99 per cent of all the mutants on the planet of their powers. Now in seclusion, Wanda Maximoff's deranged mind and nearly bottomless power still presents a great threat to the Marvel Universe.
11) CARNAGE! -Being a serial killer is bad enough. Being a serial killer wrapped in a alien symbiote with superhuman powers is that much worse. Some will argue with me that Venom probably deserves to be on this list more then Carnage, but Venom's status as something of an anti-hero doesn't quite put him in the 'villain category. And Carnage's is a MASS MURDERER. Do you have any idea what kind of a body count is needed to get that label?
10) BRANIAC! He's the collector of worlds, an artificial intelligence of nearly god-like knowledge who has time and time again tried to add the Earth to his collection. He's thrown down again and again with Superman and the rest of the Justice League and with his program residing in every scrap of his body, you can keep blowing him up, but he'll just keep coming back for more.
9) RED SKULL! -What's worse than an evil Nazi scientist? How about a disfigured evil Nazi scientist. What's worse than an evil disfigured Nazi scientist? How about a disfigured Nazi scientist who has no problem working with the Soviet Union, HYDRA, and basically anyone else who wants to see democracy fall? The Red Skull finally got his victory when he engineered the assisination of his arch-enemy, Captain America!
8) LADY SHIVA! -Head Sensei of the Cult of the Paper Monkey, Shiva Wu-San has spent her entire life becoming the deadliest martial artist on the face of the Earth. Her entire purpose is violence, motivated by a perverse death wish to only die at the hands of those who are truly worthy. Lady Shiva has torn a strip off of superheroes from Green Arrow to Black Canary to The Question to the Dark Knight himself.
7) DOCTOR DOOM! -When your name is Victor Von Doom, your a scientist, and your part of the royal family that rules a country called Latveria, your going to become a supervillain. You don't really have a choice in the matter. Dr. Doom has been the heavy-weight in the Marvel Universe since he first began his assault on the Fantastic Four. With a combination of mystical power and advanced technology at his disposal, Dr. Doom is more then just another guy in a metal mask.
6) SINESTRO! -Probably the greatest fallen hero of the DCU, Sinestro was once the greatest member of the Green Lantern Corp. He was stripped of his power ring when he began to take dictatorial measures against those in his sector, and was then granted a yellow anti-matter ring built by the Weaponeers of Qward. Sinestro has since assembled an entire team of vicious Yellow Lanterns, and has been playing a deadly role in the on-going Blackest Night saga.
5) KINGPIN! -The Kingpin in his first appearance was nothing but an obese bank robber who got his chubby ass handed to him by Spiderman and Daredevil over and over again. At the hands of Frank Miller, Wilson Fisk became the Japanese sumo trained Kingpin of Crime, one the most powerful figures on the entire East Coast. Despite temporarily losing his sight and his empire, the Kingpin has proven that he possesses the will to power that can crush any opposition.
4) NORMAN OSBORNE A.K.A. GREEN GOBLIN, A.K.A. IRON PATRIOT -He killed Spider-man's girlfriend Gwen Stacey, he's betrayed Peter Parker time and time again, and as the Green Goblin he was Spiderman's greatest enemy. Now Norman Osborne, after single handedly saving the world from the Secret Invasion, has taken over Tony Stark's Initiative and begun the Dark Reign in the Marvel Universe.
3) LEX LUTHOR -Come on, people. It's Lex freakin' Luthor! Find me a giant robot, a death ray, a squaron of super-villains, a kryptonite ring, or a presidential campaign that he wasnt' behind. He shot himself full of a kryptonite laced Venom to tangle with Superman, created the Society, and helped bring about the Final Crisis. If something big is moving in the DCU, 9 times out of 10, Luthor's behind it.
2) MAGNETO -One of the most dangerous things in the world is a misplaced sence of self-righteousness, and Erik Lehnsherr has that in spades. A mutant with the power to control metal and a survivor of the Holocaust, Magneto believes that a war between humans and mutants is inevitable, and he will go to any lengths to make sure his species wins. He believes so blindly that he is doing the right thing that no one, not even Prof. X, can convince him otherwise.
1) THE JOKER -Imagine a man who literally doesn't care about anything. Not personal gain, not money, not power, nothing. Imagine a man whose psychosis runs so deep that he has actually driven his psycho-therapists crazy. Imagine a man who would kill hundreds for no reason beyond entertaining himself with an elaborate practical joke. Imagine evil, lunacy, chaos incarnate. Imagine all that and you still haven't even come close to fully understanding the Joker. There isn't a single character in DCU who isn't terrified of him. Even Darksied, the Lord of Apocalypse, finds himself in awe of the depths of depravity lurking in this mere mortal. His past is a mystery, and his mania is indecipherable. It's the Joker's cackling face that haunts the nightmare of every member of the Justice League.......
5 VILLAINS WHO DIDN'T MAKE THE LIST AND WHY:
DOOMSDAY -He killed Superman (sort of). Great. Wonderful.....but you can't keep bringing him back again and again, and having Superman beat him again and again. If he becomes more and more powerful every time he is resurrected, and he's already killed Superman once, why doesn't he do it every time?
BANE -The guy broke Batman, but then he got all weepy, self-reflective, and even apologized for it. Hell, he's practically a good guy now!
DR. OCTOPUS A fat guy with a metal arms. That's all he is people.
SABRETOOTH I know all the Wolverine fans are going to get uppity because I didn't include Wolvie's number one villain, but the guy is little more than a bigger, eviler version of Scrappy. Unoriginal and to be honest, very uninteresting.
CATWOMAN Catwoman really stopped being a villain years ago. We all know it. Evil just isn't her thing anymore.
10) THE HAND!
9) THE GUILD OF CALAMITOUS INTENT!
8) O.S.I. (Office of Secret Intelligence)
