Oct 22 2008
Three qualities of interesting villains
One of the signs that your villain doesn’t suck is that he’s interesting enough to handle a scene on his own. No, we don’t need to hear about his pathetically traumatic family history or the byzantine machinations of his evil organization. Readers just need some sign that your villain has the competence, style and/or ambition that mark a good villain.
Competence
Your villain should not be out of the hero’s league. In fact, for most of the story, the villain should probably be winning against the hero. One common misconception is that the hero will seem less impressive or likable if the villain beats him a few times. No! A hero that defeats a crazy-competent villain will resonate more. For example, the only reason anyone remembers Luke Skywalker is because he defeated Darth Vader.
Fortunately, you can make your villain competent fairly easily. When your hero attempts some course of action, take 15 minutes to list anything that could go wrong. Then list anything that your villain could do to make the hero fail even more spectacularly. Your villain only has to exploit one glaring weakness in the hero’s plan to look competent. Does the hero’s plan require logistical support from his Batcave? Whoops. Even if your villain can’t take down the Batcave, he could try something like an EMP or sunspots to interfere with communications signals. Is the hero unable to teleport around town? Throwing him off with a decoy could buy the villain enough time to carry out his real plan.
Style
Style is harder to pin down than competence, but there are still a few discernable signs of style. A stylish villain tends to dominate his scenes, even if he doesn’t have many lines. For example, there were a few scenes in the first season of Heroes that Sylar dominated even though he wasn’t actually present.
One scene that particularly sticks out is when Parkman and his FBI partner were fumbling around one of Sylar’s icy murder-scenes. First, there’s the horror factor. Sylar is obviously an extremely depraved killer. But more importantly, the gruesomeness of the murder is contrasted with the incompetence of the cops. They have no idea what’s going on. Sylar was more of a presence because he was obviously playing out of their league.
Ambition
I recommend giving your villain an overarching and genuinely sinister plan. If your villain’s plan is only to get revenge against a few people, the stakes of your hero failing will be very low. For example, the first Spiderman movie dropped the ball on this one. What would the stakes of Spiderman not fighting the Green Goblin have been? Pretty much nothing, unless you were on the board of directors of OsCorp.
This doesn’t mean that the villain’s plan has to endanger the world or universe. That gets cheesy very fast. But this goes to competence: a villain that’s only playing for small stakes (like trying to kill a few OsCorp businessmen) probably won’t seem very competent or frightening. In contrast, Dr. Octopus’ plan was more ambitious and interesting even though it wasn’t particularly evil. He wanted to perfect a crazy-ass scientific theory to redeem himself for killing his wife the first time. Octopus’ plan had significantly higher stakes for Spiderman because he endangered many more innocent victims. (Sorry, ruthless businessmen, but readers just don’t care about you).
Nothing says “competence” like mowing down redshirts. This also sets your villain up for comeuppance.
Big deal, the Decepticons can transform into police cars. Oh, and they can also *obliterate Army bases at will*. Big deal, Nightcrawler can teleport. Oh yeah, and he can *hand the entire Secret Service their hindquarters without breaking a sweat*. Big deal, Hans Gruber can hold a bunch of investment bankers hostage. Oh yeah, and he can also take on the entire Chicago PD at once. etc, etc
(Hans Gruber: one of the best movie villains of all time.)
Nightcrawler is an ideal example of two of the three qualities of villainy. His one-man rumble through the White House was a perfect example of competence and style. However, it was wholly disappointing when it was revealed that he was just a mind-controlled puppet. Ahem… he lacked ambition!
These guidelines are really helpful! There is only one villain who I find an amusing exception to these rules. Doctor Evil. He’s just so incredibly stupid, clumsy and is played strongly by stereotypes all at the same time.
Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy’s nemesis, Austin Powers
Scott: What, are you feeding him? Why don’t you just kill him?
Dr. Evil: No Scott, I have a better idea. I’m going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
Haha! What an idiot.
Yeah, I would say that Dr. Evil is definitely an exception to regular guidelines for villain-creation. Parodists have leeway to play with the conventions of their genre. Also, as a comedy, the Austin Powers movie was able to pretty much just skip past the fight scenes. “Judo chop!”
What about the Joker? (The 2nd greatest villain of all time).
He was all competence. His ambition was that he hated humanity. As for his style, well… he was completely psychotic, he knew it and he loved it.
If you like TDK’s Joker, you might like this article about Batman, American culture and Joker.
Very good article. I was surprised I knew what alot of those big words met. I love the references to the “war on terror.”
See, I figured that the Joker’s ambition was that no one got the joke. Therefore, Joker wants everyone to get the joke.
Except in The Dark Knight. There, I think the Joker just wants chaos.
Also, these three reasons are why Dr. Doom is my favorite supervillain.
1. Competent. He’s easily on par with Reed Richards as one of the world’s smartest men; he’s an expert in physics, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering, civics, and perfected the synthesis between magic and science. Few could take Doom on, and even then it usually requires a team (four or more).
2. Stylish. Just look at him, first of all. He’s in a suit of powered armor. Not to mention he has a code of honor. He doesn’t kill women or children, or innocent civilians if it can be helped. He easily could. Again, most heroes are out of their league when dealing with Doom (one-on-one).
3. Ambition. Yeah, he wants to rule the world, but mostly because he feels he can do a better job, and he wants to rid the world of circumstances like those that took his parents (this seems to be an anti-genocide stance; Doom is from Gypsy stock). Hell, he even succeeds in global domination, then gives it up because it turns out that ruling the world is boring. “I came, I saw, I conquered, but only for the weekend.”
Anyway, enough geeking out on my part.
I’m a fan of Doom. In fact, sometimes I feel like he’s the only thing in the Fantastic Four series that’s worth keeping.
You don’t always need a team to defeat Doom. Sometimes all you need is the ability to get dozens of small furry rodents to come to your aid (ala Squirrel Girl).
I love Squirrel Girl! She’s trashed so many major-league villains (Dr. Doom, Modok, Terrax) that Deadpool says his loss to her is proof that he’s reached the big time. Haha.
You can see more of SG here.
Do you think any of the following are good villians?
Brainiac
Freiza
Lex Luthor
Of of those, Lex Luthor is my favorite. First, he has no powers. Second, he takes on one of the strongest heroes. Third, he has a unique style of doing things.
Oh yes, definitely Lex Luthor.
I loved Freiza when I was eight years old, but hindsight has shown me how ridiculous s/he was. (Seriously, I know he was a guy, but he was rather effeminate). He could blow up an entire planet with his finger but he didn’t have many dimensions.
Of the three, I also like Lex Luthor best. He’s the easiest to relate to and strikes me as the only one with much depth. His motive (greed/megalomania) isn’t particularly inspired, but it’s marginally more interesting than trying to destroy everything. (Yeah, I know Brainiac has a deeper agenda, but it usually entails the destruction of everything).
Lex Luthor is definetly a great villian and Freiza was an excellent villian in my opinion. He wanted immortality and he would even murder his own henchmen. He would do anything to get the job done. He was very manipulate as well. My list goes like this.
Frieza
Brainiac- He’s seriously one of my favorite villians in the DC universe.
Lex Luthor
What kind of impression are you going for, David? Bori sounds kind of cute and not very threatening to me.
Well, I kind of want a frightening name, but I always thought Bori was good. Oh well.
Any suggestions?
Simply something a mother would name their child but could still be threatening because then you’d have Cara calling him Uncle Bori or whatever.
Hmm. I think you’d have more leeway to do scary/threatening with a last name than a first name. However, as far as first names that can be sinister sounding, I’d recommend something like Uriah, Lon, Orson, Paltiel, Xavion, Pedavel, Jasper, Omer, etc. (I drew those from US Census information on some names that were among the 500 most popular in 1910).
My favourite villains are in no particular order:
The Joker
Ra’s al Ghul
Bane
Two-Face
All have grounded, realistic motivations as villains. I like Ra’s that he sees the world as corrupt and decayed so he wants to wipe out 95% of the population and then re-start the world – a new eden. Sure, he wants to rule the world but first he wants to kill most of it and then re-start it in his own vision, very twisted indeed. And you can understand his viewpoint, very similiar to Magneto.
I notice you have a very Batman-centric cast. Not surprising… Batman’s villains strike me as powerful enough to be interesting but weak enough to feel believable. Also, they’re unusually stylish.
Most other DC villains are mediocre. In particular, Superman has a load of suck. Brainiac? Toyman? Metallo? Lex Luthor? I think the main problem is that they’re too weak and/or unambitious (Lex Luthor, particularly in the movies, and Toyman) or just totally removed from anything that helps them connect to readers on a human level (Brainiac).
Whilst the others I’m in agreement in, I think Brainiac deserves more credit. Not much more, but he is a good villain.
As for my favourite villains, if we’re just looking at comic books I’d say The Joker, Doctor Octopus (if for no other reason than his name is awesome), Doctor Doom (again, awesome name) and Ozymandias (if for no other reason than he actually wins). I’m sure I’m forgetting loads of my favourite comic book villains but for now that’s who I’m sticking with.
As for non-comic book villains, Darth Vader and The Emperor, Megatron (again, the name is awesome), Princess Azula and Fire Lord Ozai from Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Master from Doctor Who and again, a lot more I’m probably forgetting.
Venom and the Joker are the only two that come to mind for me, actually, as far as supervillains go. I like Smallville’s Lex Luthor, but mostly before he’s evil. Like, season one.
I’m probably in odd territory, but I enjoyed the Smallville version of Doomsday. I also like Sylar (pre-parent issues and emotional imbalance), Frenzy from Transformers, and the Spider-Man 3 type of Venom.
I was thinking about how Arkham Asylum seems to have a revolving door for its criminals and came up with this idea for my resident asylum for criminally insane super-villains.
The doctor who runs the facility uses his psychic abilities to sell the “services” of his patients to the rich and powerful. If someone wants their enemies attacked, they can pay the doctor to insert a desired target into the mind of one of his patients. After that the doctor arranges for the criminal to escape and attack their target. Once captured they’re returned to his care for the process to repeat.
I feel this will explain why criminals are always escaping, and why they never seem to receive the appropriate mental health care. Thoughts?
I like the Joker out of all comic book villains (especially Heath Ledger’s performance in the latest movie)
For Western animation I like Azula and Ozai.
For live action the Master is my favourite (partially because he was played by John Simm, one of the best actors I’ve ever seen, and because the part where he danced to “I Can’t Decide” was pure, utter win)
For anime/manga it is definitely Light Yagami/Kira. Very few people can commit genocide while avoiding the world’s best detective and looking like a male model. Light must make a lot of money from his police work, because most of his clothes look like they’re tailored. (I think Light probably spends more time getting his hair and outfits just right than he does writing in the Death Note, haha. Please don’t kill me, Kira, I was just kidding!)
That’s an interesting idea, Chevalier. DC will probably steal it. Haha. They could add another layer onto an already convoluted history of comics. That’s the main reason I don’t read many, because I’ve missed heaps and will never catch up.
I don’t know if this happened anywhere else in the Batman mythology but in the TV show The Batman Dr. Hugo Strange was doing… dubious activities with the Arkham inmates. As we all know, Strange is a villain, but in The Batman he starts off seemingly as a good person who is in charge of Arkham. Really he is obsessed with studying the psyche of Batman, and goes as far as creating the perfect villain and releasing him on the city, just to study what Batman does. Of course later he gets incarcerated in Arkham (talk about getting hoist by his own petard), but whilst he was the head of Arkham he provided a plausible reason for the ‘revolving door’ they’ve got going there.
I’m surprised they called him Dr. Strange. Doesn’t DC already have a fairly prominent character named Dr. Strange?
I think he’s distinct from Marvel’s Strange in quite a few ways. Firstly, he’s not supernatural, secondly, he’s evil, thirdly, he usually goes by Dr Hugo Strange. I don’t even know what Marvel’s Dr Strange’s first name is.
But then again there’s loads of cases of both companies sharing names, Captain Marvel springs to mind, and don’t forget, he’s not Shazam!
Ugh, the comparison between Marvel Strange and DC Strange made me notice that despite how vehement they are about their copyright stuff, both DC and Marvel create vaguely similar characters.
I don’t think there’s any similarity between the two Stranges other than the name. Neither are particularly strange either, well, compared to some of the other characters in the two universes anyway…
I think Marvel Strange’s name is Stephen, last I remember. One thing I do remember is in Ultimatum, Dormammu constricted him like a boa and caused his head to blow off. Gross.
I’m once again late in the comments but I have two things to add:
1) I think Magneto is the greatest supervillain in Marvel (the Joker rules DC) because he’s not necessarily evil. He has a good cause and what not.
2: In my novel (which will probably never see the light of day) the main villain(s) are a group known as the Zodiac that want to keep humanity “pure” by killing off homo superiors/people with powers. So they plan to kidnap the main character and using her power in a machine to send out a death pulse. Is this at any rate cliche, not a good idea, or something along those lines? Thanks.
“…using her power in a machine to drain her and then send out a death pulse…” It sounds a lot like a plot from the X-Men movies.
Also, I think that it’d be more interesting if there were a weaker connection between the protagonist and the villains. It sounds less like the hero will be an adventurer making her own breaks and more like she’ll be acting in self-defense to save her own ass. I’d recommend making her proactive rather than responding to a group kidnapping her (or targeting her for kidnap). For example, perhaps she’s investigating a bizarre crime and discovers that it’s only the start of something much bigger and more sinister.
At the very least, I’d have the group target her for kidnapping rather than someone else because of something she does in the story.
PS: I like Magneto, too. I’m not surprised that the X-Men movies come back to him again and again… they don’t have anybody else that fills the Primary Villain role with nearly as much style and flavor. That said, I find it tiresome that he keeps comparing efforts to cure mutants to the Holocaust and annoying that no one else challenges him when he does so.
How about a bratty villain who just wants the whole world to himself and be their ruler? not origanal but Im a work in progress. any advice?
@The ReTARDISed Whovianon
‘For anime/manga it is definitely Light Yagami/Kira. Very few people can commit genocide while avoiding the world’s best detective and looking like a male model.’
You can add to that Johan Liebert from Monster. He was pure evil.
I didn’t agree with Goblin not being ambitious enough – the guy was nuts and he obviously had no qualms about killing civilians. After he got rid of the board of directors of OsCorp, who can tell what he would have done? I have no doubts his body count would be much higher after he achieved his original goal.
Other than that, this article has helped tremendously. Thanks!
@ Mrs. Marvel
Yes, the bratty villain has been done in various incarnations, however, the idea is still able to be reinvented well. I’d have to know a little bit more about the villain’s overall character to make a decent judgement, but the concept seems workable.
Personally, what I’d like to see is a literal child villain – a villain with the mind of a child and the powers of a god. The world needs a few genocidal four year olds to keep things interesting, y’know? XD
As to villains in general, villain superpowers for me have always been hard to create. I’ve seen pyrokinetics, umbrakinetics, guys who can kill people by looking at them, and the odd evil genius, merely because these powers are easily associated with the typical villain archetype. One of my favorite villains, power-wise, is the movie version of Mystique. Why? Merely because she took a power that I’d never thought of as anything special – human/humanoid limited shapeshifting – and yet did so much with it. She’s the primary reason I made one of my major villains a shapeshifter.
Of course, the sheer asskickery factor helps. It always does.
- Wings
“I didn’t agree with Goblin not being ambitious enough – the guy was nuts and he obviously had no qualms about killing civilians. After he got rid of the board of directors of OsCorp, who can tell what he would have done? I have no doubts his body count would be much higher after he achieved his original goal.”
He was keen to act exactly like Darth Vader from A New Hope (“Come, spidey! Join me and we can rule together!” “You’re not my father!” “Neither was Ben, so you’re probably going to kill me now.”) but he was crazy and reacting to the negative stimulus supplied by the board of directors, if he had wiped them out, he most likely would have self-destructed, much like he did, before he presented any real threat. It wasn’t like he was capable of achieving anything beyond the brute force that the suit allowed him to. He wasn’t ambitious, he wasn’t smart or conniving, just a monkey with a pumpkin grenade. You’re right that he might have killed more, but he never would’ve accomplished anything and that’s where his flaw lied.
One advantage of relatively unambitious villains is that they may actually be able to attain their goal. The vast majority of villains that try to destroy or conquer a city will fail to do so. However, if the villain is content merely to become the city’s most powerful crime lord, he may actually succeed. Alternately, Magneto successfully turned one Senator into a mutant (in the first X-Men movie), but unsurprisingly failed when he tried to turn all the world’s leaders into mutants.
Yes, I love all these villains… if ‘love’ it the right word. I agree with everyone but, someone had to bring up Disney villains.
Yeah, I’m weird like that– inspiration for a baddie? Go to Disney, of course!
Y’know though Judge Claude Frollo fills all three of these, competence; he follows Phoebus to find Esmeralda, and follows Quasimodo to find the Court of Miracles, etc. style; oh, man, does he have style, ambition; he believed hat he was doing was right, killing all the Gypsies and his lust for Esmeralda (the song ‘Hellfire’ pretty much lays all three of the traits down, right?)
Most villains know they’re evil but, this man was so fueled by what he believed was evil he didn’t realize he was the evil one.
I really got to stop fangirlin’ this movie. It’s controlling my mind.
I think Disney has a lot of classic villains. I find Pixar’s storytelling superior in most every other way, but Pixar villains sometimes strike me as a bit lackluster. My only complaint about The Incredibles was the weak antagonist. Cars’ villain was an utterly formulaic Stuck-Up Rival. I loved the Captain Ahab-like villain of Up, though. Captain Ahab + an airship named the Spirit of Adventure – peg leg = awesome.
How would you create a plant-based villain without her being a total Poison Ivy ripoff?
She could have the ability to create clones through plants? I don’t think that’s been done before.
“How would you create a plant-based villain without her being a total Poison Ivy ripoff?”
–Different personality?
–Different background/backstory? (IE: instead of being a scientist, maybe she’s a businesswoman or a rogue cop or something).
–Different goal? (What she’s trying to do).
–Different motivation? (Why she’s trying to do it).
–Different limitations on her abilities and/or resources?
–Maybe a different relationship between her and the protagonist(s)?
I think you’ve got your work cut out for you. When I hear “plant-based villainess,” “Poison Ivy ripoff” is the first thing that comes to mind. In particular, how are you going to differentiate the fight scenes?
I think another avenue that could be explored is a different relationship between her and the plants. Poison Ivy in most of her “mature” (by which I mean, well-written, non-pinup girl appearances) is a eco-terrorist at heart, she is fighting for the freedom and protection of plants. She can literally talk to them and hear them talk back. She often reacts to incidents in which they are hurt, such as experiments or logging camps.
She could admire plants just as Ivy does, but feel ostracized and left out or even hated by the plants because of her human side, however large or small that might be. The plants, if you want to go pretty far with it, might even make attempts on her life when she is not actively controlling them. This doesn’t require plants to be aware within your universe, however, as she could be doing it without knowing it. This would lead her crimes a much higher level of desperation and allow you to focus on her attempting to terra-form large areas for the propagation of plants.
Another direction would be the reversal of the above relationship, she could be highly allergic to plant allergens, had a bad experience with a plant (a car accident?) or any other such thing that might cause hatred and just have a completely negative relationship with the things at her command. This could lead to her committing crimes in which she targets plants, and subsequently human life is caught in the balance.
Although both of the above examples, I offered suggestions about how they might influence her motivations, there are quite a few ways you could drastically alter her relationship with plants, perceived or real, and use that to differentiate from Poison Ivy, while leaving her motivations wide open.
Good stuff, LM! I like your thinking, particularly the concept of her holding plants in contempt and/or the plants hating their would-be slavemaster. In a garden, plants are hard enough to manage. Let alone the weeds!
I have a plant manipulating hero myself. When I hear “plant manipulator”, I think “down to earth vegetarian hippie”. Therefore, I worked to create the polar opposite of that, and I came up with Synth as he is today: a lover of slasher films and meat who talks to a Venus flytrap. To go by TV Tropes, he is also a Chivalrous Pervert. As the story developed, he also became very laid back and gained a slacker mentality. At the same time, he is arguably one of the most honestly heroic members of the Six, outstripping even Hikari. Not bad, considering his original concept was just a bit part character created to fill out the Six.
I am in full agreement with Lighting Man’s concepts here, although I’m guessing that creating a villainess who hates her power would have to be well written in order to avoid Wangst and annoying-ness.
- Wings
I agree that writing a character that hates her powers is tricky, but I didn’t quite get that LM’s proposed character would hate her powers. I think there’s a subtle difference between hating one’s powers (like plant control) and hating the subject of one’s powers (the plants). I suspect that the first is more likely to cause excessive angst (“why meeeee?”) than the second (“dammit, plants, when I want your opinion I will give it to you!”)
An example that seems sort of similar to me would be the difference between an athlete that is disgusted by the fans and/or the game and an athlete that hates his athletic talent. (Maybe he’s one of those freakishly tall basketball stars that will probably die of heart failure before the age of 30).
The original idea I had was that she’s a doctor, and quite friendly actually. For instance, in the middle of a fight, when someone agonizes out loud (“My hand!”) she’d interject instinctively with advice (“I’d recommend diluting the acid with running water”), because the only reason she’s even out being evil is because she’s under another villain’s influence.
But, I did like a lot of those ideas.
I’ve had a couple of ideas for villains in my head for at least two weeks, so i figured I’d post ‘em here and see if they’re workable.
The first one is Mary-Anne. She’s seven years old, and is equipped with almost every psychic superpower I know of (except astral projection). Her primary motivation is finding someone to play with her (tea-party and the like), and whenever she’s unable to find a playmate, she throws temper tantrums strong enough to level a city.
The second is Omni. His primary power is power absorption, meaning that by the time the heroes face him, he’s about as powerful as the modern Superman. (My opinion is that if Superman turned evil, nothing in the known universe could stop him. Which is another reason I hate him.) His motivation is kinda cliche, I guess – he wants to completely purge baseline humans (called Normals) from Earth. (I’m not really sure about this villain… I like his powers, though)
That’s all I have right now. What do ya think?
I think Omni sounds mostly interesting. Not feeling Mary Anne. I think it’s really hard for a child villain to have the emotional and/or logical depth to drive a plot. Unless maybe the kid is prodigally mature? (However, if her main goal is putting together a tea party or something similar, I’m pretty sure that she’s not).
One slightly more mature goal that comes to mind is that she wants to make the world better and decides that adults are the problem. (Maybe she’s been abandoned by her parents, or they did something that made her run away, or she was really upset that they lied to her or failed her in some way, or is sick of being patronized, etc). Her plan might be to just kill off everybody above a certain age, or to make adults into kids somehow, or whatever. (One advantage of the second plan would be that she might actually pull it off, whereas killing everybody is almost certainly not going to happen).
i thought up Mary-Anne in a moment of sarcastic abandon. (For some reason, a villain that happens to be a little girl in a pink dress and a pink hair bow really cracked me up.) but i hadn’t been able to come up with a real scheme for her, so i just grabbed the first thing that came to mind.
Which is better: A team of supervillians or a lone villian, possibly with one or two lackeys?
“Which is better: A team of supervillains or a lone villain, possibly with one or two lackeys?” I think this is personal preference, but personally I prefer single villains because they’re easier to develop. Also, villains usually do not get much face-time, so wasting what little they have to introduce a sprawling team of villains is probably not terribly effective.
I think it might make sense to have a team of supervillains if one of the villains is a point-of-view character. Then having more supervillains would add more room for villain vs. villain conflict.
Depending on your preferences, you could give the lieutenants and/or henchmen some individual characterization without making them villains in their own right. For example, the villain’s lieutenants are particularly important in the story I’m working on now because the villain starts the story completely inexperienced and unwilling/unable to get his hands dirty.
Shardreaper- There was an episode of Batman when Poison Ivy ~did~ make clones of people. Sorry!
I ran the major villain for my novel through this test, just to check.
Competence:
He’s very competent. When his henchmen fail to do the job and take down the heroes, he does it himself.
The heroes, with a little cloud cover and luck, can take down the equivalent of a small space-age army, although not all at once.
Datecrom takes down all the heroes, in less than 20 seconds, without even scratching his armour. He’s only beaten in the end by the trap that was set for him, and even then, it was close.
Style:
I’m not too sure about this one. But he’s definitely not an average evil overlord. Some of his lines, for example:
Sir? You said you had nothing against free will …” the guard ventured.
“Yes, I did say something like that, didn’t I?” Datecrom said wearily.
“Well … why is she still alive? I thought you sentenced her to death twelve years ago.”
“I didn’t sentence her to an easy death.”
“What’s the worst they can do?” The Captain asked.
“Congratulations” Datecrom said cheerily. “You’ve just volunteered to go down and find out.”
I tried to make it so that his choices are what’s efficient, as opposed to just being evil for evils sake.
Ambition:
You can’t get more ambitious than world domination. Except possibly universal domination, or chronological domination. Or multi-dimensional domination. He’ll probably get to those later.
Can a villain be an anti-hero?
Hey I like that stella, thats an interesting thing.When is an anti hero merely a misunderstood and where is the line that one crosses to becoming a true villain.
I think many (maybe most) villains-as-main-characters are anti-heroes. Another situation where the villain might be an anti-hero is if (unbeknownst to the protagonist) the villain is actually doing something extremely necessary and stopping him would only make the situation worse.
For example, if a villain is assembling a doomsday weapon, a hero would probably try to stop him because the villain looks like a maniac bent on destroying the Earth. However, if the “villain” is actually a time-traveler that escaped from a future in which aliens have conquered the Earth, that doomsday device might have been our best chance of deterring the alien invasion.
Another example would be The Punisher, his initial appearance was in Spider-Man, after the death of Gwen Stacey, allied with a minor Spider-Man villain named The Jackal, a creepy child molester in love with the teenage Gwen, that blamed Spider-Man for her death (appropriately, if you consider that she died as a result of his attempt to save her resulting in a broken neck) and convinced The Punisher that Spider-Man was a threat that needed killing.
The Punisher was acting on good faith, using only the information available to him, and who’s only real fault was not judging creepy green books by their pointy green ears.
PS: I like Magneto, too. I’m not surprised that the X-Men movies come back to him again and again… they don’t have anybody else that fills the Primary Villain role with nearly as much style and flavor. That said, I find it tiresome that he keeps comparing efforts to cure mutants to the Holocaust and annoying that no one else challenges him when he does so.
Hey don’t you think mr. Sinister would’ve made a good villain. He exhibits all of the traits above with flair. Also I’ve been watching alot of the 90′s early 2000 superhero cartoons. Is it just me or is the writting phenomenally better back then(for animated shows such as batman tas, superman tas, jl, jlu, and x-men tas.) I’ve only recently began to watch them again on youtube, but I love how the writting is so simular to the comic works but dimmed down for a younger audience. Even dimmed down, it still manages to be extreamely entertaining for comic book fans. This is something that I rarily see in todays television the shows aren’t only dimmed down there also dumbed down for the mainstream audience. Either that or they’re written with a new context that makes the comic influence seem, at least to me, non existant. As a kid I admit not truely understanding every aspect of the 90′s cartoons, but rewatching them I find that I not only enjoy them more but I appriciate the likeness to the written material even more.
I think Sinister is missing the human/relatability angle. Magneto’s distrust of humans and reliance on power stem from his traumatic childhood in a German concentration camp, which makes him easier to empathize with.
In contrast, Sinister seems more one-dimensionally evil. What sort of person calls himself Mr. Sinister? What’s his end-goal? Etc.
Sinister is a genius geneticist, who more than anything wants to see what the x-gene is truely capable of. He was around since Darwin, but believed that current scientists were to bound by ethics to achieve anything truely grand. His desire to create the most powerful mutant stems from a level of god complex to create, new complex life. I mean look at the power behind that, and his methods are ruthless. With no qualms about ruining peoples lives to achieve his goals. He resignates with me more because im into science most notably, genetics. And yeah there may not be a human relatability to his character, but that’s what makes him so great. He’s what science is without bounds and without ethics. Don’t get me wrong I love magneto he’s one of the best villains out there with dr.doom and lex luthor and a few more that are really good. But i’d easily put sinister on that list his ambitions are more originally than most others.
I wouldn’t really say that his ambitions are original at all…That’s the Master Race, the Aryan ideal, the whole Nazi schtick, characters in pursuit of a master race are a dime a dozen, whereas you actually have a likable goal and motivation in Magneto, in that he experienced the horrors of the pursuit of that ideal alongside the persecution of those that are different, and now he’s spent his entire life since fighting against the persecution of others, and by mere happenstance, has inadvertently, began to pursue that same goal of a master race as he became more and more alienated from humanity, giving him a generic goal, but with enough likability and uniqueness, not to mention that twinge of irony, to make it worth it.
Mr. Sinister is a creepy blue man underling that wants to make a single perfect being to act as the start of a new race, because he thinks power is kinda neat.
Magneto is a power-crazed man with a horrific past that due to his experiences in pursuit of a life without the fear of his past repeating itself, has become the very thing that he hates the most, and has only ever try to do what he feels is best.
Mr. Sinister has a measure of style, and certain appealing qualities, but he has never been written with sufficient depth or motivation to excuse the fact that he’s an oddly colored weirdo that wants to steal Cyclops’s sperm.
Yeah, but who calls himself sinister? That feels cartoonish to me. Even the Nazis thought they were the good guys.
Normally, I wouldn’t recommend working a word like sinister or evil into a name unless you’re making fun of 1950s names, which did that often. (For example, Dr. Horrible wanted to join the Evil League of Evil). I think it would be stronger writing to use a name that implies evilness without indicating that the character or group thinks of himself/itself as evil.
Like I said I think magneto is a great Villain(im currently watching astroid M) but to simplify sinisters motivation to the master race theme.. Is not really the point of his character. He embodies ruthless and unethical science. The nazi’s may have been trying to achieve this goal, but even they themselves where bound by shaky ethics. Sinister is the evil scientist unafraid of consquence of his experiments. He dehumanization is a key element to see what science can become when a scientist has no morals. As for get scott’s “seed” yeah thats kinda creepy, but it plays to the characters willingness to create the ultimate mutant, the truest expression of the x-genome. Becoming and underling of apocalyspe also serves his goals so its not entirely one way. All I’m saying is he’s a different type of villain and evil, esspecially when you look deeper than the surface of his villainy.
Lol i do agree that sinister name is rather over the top, however his name like most comic book characters has meaning beyond just that surface level. There is a story behind it and it plays to the nature of the character. There are several villains with cartoon-like names such as, green goblin, spiderman, lizardman, etc (sorry didn’t mean to only list spiderman characters) plus these comic characters where created when names like these weren’t as goofy to kids. Now as comic books and their audiences start to mature, names like these are a bit silly. But the underlining character’s may not be. Take green goblin for instance didn’t even care about gwen as he dropped her.
I don’t think Green Goblin or Lizard are nearly as cartoonish. As for Spiderman, I’m not fond of the dated [animal]-man convention, but it’s not as out there as a character naming himself based on his own evilness.
Hey I need help coming up for a plot for my story after the origin. I’m unsure on how to make the character a hero, anti hero or what ever. At this stage, to put it plainly, I need help
Okay, let’s start with what you do know about the character so far. Do any personality traits stick out to you so far? What are a few possible main goals for him/her? What do you know about the villain and his/her plot?
Sorry for the time had to log off earlier.let’s see, I want him to be a teenager but like peter parker- a young genius. But I truely want to avoid the nerdy kid thing maybe he’s a young college student like 16 or so. Then I want him to have an accident that awakens his latent psychic powers. At first they’d be uncontrolable and wouldn’t work on command. He’d be suseptible to his own illusions and read the minds of those around him. Levitating objects from afar etc. At first believing himself haunted he’d oventually learn to control his powers and become a super hero.
The other idea was that, michael lawson was a young science tech, he worked under a renown nuclear physicist dr.harlen. Dr.harlen created an experimental particle generator that he believed was a step in completing his life’s work. By harnessing a newly discovered form of cosmic radiation, he could provide a renewable and virtually limitless energy source for the world. Due to the machine accidentally being activated, michael was bombarded with this unque,mutagenic cosmic radiation mutating michael on a genetic level. After spending several weeks in the hospital,as his new psychic powers began regenerating the injuries via molecular manipulation, michael awoke to discover he had these God-like psionic power at a cost, however. The migranes where nearly unbearable and although he had an intuitive understanding of his powers and abilities he was still inexperianced. At tbis early stage he proved dangerous to himself as well as others (unintensionally) his “awakening” led to mental instability as secretes and mysteries of the universe reveil themselves to him on the astral plane. A place he had discovered while recovering. His self identity begins to be consumed as his powers begin to ravage both mind and body. Since his corpreal form poses limitations on his power(tiring, suffering mental an physical fatigue, and all the weaknesses of a normal human being) his powers if unchecked would destroy his body turning him into an incorpreal being. Subconsciously,michael is unable to let go of his form.
From here im stuck-not sure how he learns to control or deal with his new found powers, or why he would become a hero-still trying to flesh out the basic origin. But this is kinda the direction im going in. Keep in mind that although he’s powerful he is balance by several facters and weaknesses. But I don’t intend on doing a dr.manhattan story at all. Its more vaguely related to jean grey/phoenix.
I feel a bit more enthused about the initial explanation–the accident–than the Dr. Harlen setup. So far, it seems like the Harlen setup does not have much distinguishing it from any other scientific accident as a source of superpowers. “Newly discovered form of cosmic radiation… virtually limitless energy source for the world… machine accidentally being activated… bombarded with cosmic radiation…” In particular, aspects of it sounded very similar to Dr. Manhattan or Dr. Octopus.
The main advantage I can think of to inserting Dr. Harlen is that Dr. Harlen is himself a useful and/or interesting character. If his only role is as an origin story for the boy, I think you could remove him without much loss. If you keep him, I’d recommend giving him a more distinct personality and a more distinct role than the scientists we’ve seen before. For example, maybe there’s an antagonist involved somehow, but Lawson doesn’t know it. (IE: maybe Dr. Harlen turned to a criminal group for funding after his original backers pulled out, citing safety concerns or a lack of progress or whatever–I think it’d put a bit of edge on him that otherwise seems to be missing).
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I think it would be very hard to do a sixteen year old in college and also working for a renowned physicist without making the kid a nerd. Especially given that, so far, it doesn’t seem like he has much going on in his life besides college and labwork. (Friends? Romance? Scandal and intrigue? Any recreational interests?) One possibility that might soften the edges on his nerdiness is if he’s really into something where mental firepower rubs shoulders with something exciting and sexy, like gambling or vehicle design/mechanics or something else that gets hearts pumping.
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The character’s powers might present some obstacles to your writing. I don’t know if a god-like character would work as a main character. Could you do me a favor and write a brief (1-2 page) fight scene featuring this character at about halfway through the novel? I’d like to see what challenges he would face in a fight and how you would depict them.
I’m reasonably confident that an author could pull it off in a sort of bizarre fashion with an extremely lively imagination. One possibility that comes to mind might be using mentally-imagined battlefields and other mental metaphors. For example, the protagonist might win a fight with a telepath by surviving his way through a mentally-generated maze.
To be honest, I don’t think even 1% of authors have the requisite conceptual skills and imagination to pull it off…
Hey I realized that I made a serious mistake. I started with the powers and tried to build everything else around it (plot/character/themes etc). I went back and am now trying to list traits for the character that have nothing to do with his powers at all. My initial mistake was I listed powers I liked and tried to build the story around it. But realizing that in doing so my plots all seem flat and unimagined, simply because there is not much to my character besides the powers i’ve given him. That is why all my synopsis’s have only revolved around how he recieves his powers. I’m trying to train myself out of this way of thinking so bare with me
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Out of the traits available i’ve picked these: confident,intellegent,rebellious,adventurous,reserved,impulsive,analytical,and spiritual.
I wanted enough traits to have him evolve over the course of the story.
To be honest, I don’t think even 1% of authors have the requisite conceptual skills and imagination to pull it off…
I know what you mean,at times its a bit difficult and honestly, overwhelming to think up fight scenes, but after doing some research watching how fight scenes are conducted in the 90′s cartoons im sure I can pull it off
The only thing im truely having difficulty with is how my character would come to have his powers.
Your assessment about the powers so far coming first strikes me as astute. Usually, I’d recommend using powers as only the means to an end (an interesting story), but the powers themselves are rarely interesting, I feel. However, I think that having incredibly powerful powers may open up some plot options that wouldn’t be available to a character with powers more on the level of Wolverine or Batman, so if you wanted to do a story where the character is mainly coming to grips with the limits of his own power, it could work. (*crosses fingers*). More on that later.
…
–Generally, I’d recommend focusing on 3 or maybe 4 key traits for a main character. Ideally, 1 flaw that presents major obstacles that he struggles to overcome, and 2-3 assets and/or personality traits that interact in interesting ways. If the traits have a lot of overlap, like intelligent/analytical, I think you could consider them jointly as one trait.
–Intelligent/analytical sounds a bit staid for a character of this type. In particular, I’m not sure you could tell a story there that feels really distinct from, say, Dr. Manhattan.
–I think that the superhero angle in this story would probably be most effective if there were some element of conflict between the protagonist and other superheroes. For example, perhaps he gets rejected by or kicked off the local superhero team because his powers end up being too destructive.
–Rebellious and adventurous sound like an interesting combination, particularly because heroes with incredible powers (like Dr. Manhattan, The Sentry, and Amazo the android after he becomes a hero in Justice League, etc) tend to be rather unadventurous and uneager to use their powers to solve the problems at hand–because if they did, the plot would get finished far too easily. One possible solution is that he’s eager to help even though other characters urge him not to get involved because his powers are too imprecise and potentially destructive. (Another superhero might point out that he’s figuratively armed with only bazookas and atomic bombs in a world where problems are best solved with knives and sometimes pistols). Depending on how you’d you like to use the superheroes, they might even be gunning for the protagonist by the end, thinking that he is at least as liable to destroy the city/world as any of the villains are.
–One potential conflict: he’s got superpowers and he’s living the dream (celebrity, respect, the sense that he’s doing the right thing) and the plot is about whether he can bring himself to give that up even though it means that villains may go farther than they would have otherwise. If you wanted to, I think you could come up with a novel worth of material (or certainly a short story) about a central plot focused on whether he chooses to actually stay a superhero or give it up for the common good. I hate using this phrase because I think it belittles characters and plots, but it might be a “coming of age story” that’s actually interesting.
–I’m not sure how analytical-and-impulsive or impulsive-and-reserved or rebellious-and-reserved would be compatible, but I think you could explain the apparent discrepancies if you were inclined to. I could sort of see rebellious-and-reserved as a passive-aggressive guy who chafes at the commands of others but sort of bottles up his discontent. In particular, I think this character would have trouble expressing his disagreements in a healthy way because his position in society is lower than his skills and powers would indicate. (First, he’s a college student much younger than his peers, working for a scientist that could probably replace him pretty easily, and he’s probably the “new guy” among the superheroes of his world and has powers that might get a bit messy, especially before he has had a lot of time to practice them–it seems like he’d get less respect from his peers than he might think he was entitled to). Impulsive and reserved… maybe’s he’s reserved socially but impulsive (i.e. not reserved) in terms of how he makes decisions.
–One possible solution for the origin story would be figuring out what you want him to do when he has powers and then coming up with an appropriate origin to advance that story. For example, if you were leaning towards the central plot mainly about whether he stays as a superhero or gives it up, I think it could be thematically useful if he got his powers in the same experiment as another would-be superhero. If the person were a rival competing for a spot on a superhero team, you could use the rival to help establish how the superheroes of the city are wary/unreceptive to the protagonist. If the person were a potential villain, you might be able to use that to help establish that the hero wasn’t just an innocent bystander to them getting superpowers. (Perhaps the villain blames the hero for the accident, which might even be accurate).
Thanks, I was really havig trouble here. I want to do a different plot, one that isn’t so center on how he gets his powers and what he does with them. I really want to focus on the person the character is and how his powers affect his day to day life. (you know like a job, relationships,personality,etc). I’m unsure how to do a plausible origin story where the character gets his powers. Oh and for the traits he wouldn’t exhibit all of them:) I just wanted to pick enough for character advancement ( maybe he’d be intellegent,reserved, and confident in his work. Then he’d get his powers and over the course of the story become more adventurous and impulsive. Finally once he comes to understand and control his powers he’d be more analytical and perhaps spiritual.
The other huge reason I can’t start was that I had wrote a comic book before,which I wrote in class, I liked it but ultimately it had no plot. It was kinda like one large free write where the plot of it wasn’t leading anywhere. Thats why i’m so bent on plot the story out so when I write it leads some where. But this has also made my stories very liniar and flat very A-b-c without much developement of the world,characters,etc. For the longest time i’ve built the story around the powers my character has intend of the character itself. So im gonna try and build the story around the character and see where I get.
Ok, having a bit of trouble looking at my villain. Need a bit of advice.
Stagecast is a magician supervillain. He uses magic tricks and illusions to confound the police and superheroes alike. Where these fail, he uses his loyal and acrobatic henchgirl Miss Direction to bash anyone who could be a problem. He does things in a flashy manner, trying to make as many people notice him as possible, but calling him ‘cliche’ is likely to get your head blown off.
I’m finding it a bit tricky with the ambition side. I can’t come up with a suitably interesting goal for him to achieve. ‘Get great headlines’ would be more of a side bonus, he needs a primary goal to achieve. Any tips?
“‘Get great headlines’ would be more of a side bonus, he needs a primary goal to achieve.” Getting headlines is nice, but maybe his goal is to become a legend. Also, he may feel that he was never particularly respected as a magician (even if he were the best magician), but people fear/respect criminals.
He may also be settling a series of personal scores. For example, if you wanted to do assassination plots, maybe he starts killing a series of people that he feels have wronged him in the past. (For example, an ex-partner that screwed him, a reviewer that hated the act, a professional skeptic like the Amazing Randi, a girlfriend that left him for a professional athlete or another highly respected type of entertainer, etc). Each kill ratchets up the tension and puts pressure on the heroes (and maybe the police) to figure out who the next target is, identify the villain, and save any remaining victims.
…
On a minor side-note, I would recommend renaming Miss Direction unless the work is supposed to sound retro. I like Stagecast, though.
Okay, please reply. This is when Haden discusses his true intentions with his younger brother. Is it good?
Chapter 11: The Talk
“Brethren, I need to talk to you.” Haden said when his brother passed by his office. The door creaked open, the fireplace flickered from the gentle breeze.
“Yes brother-I mean sir.” Pheonos shivered.
“Sit down, let’s talk.” Haden said kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Pheonos crept towards the table in turmoil. He sat down in the comfy leather chair; Haden could feel how nervous he was.
“Lately you’ve been acting strange, so we should talk.” Haden said. He wished he could take that back. He knew as soon as he said that his brother would probably have a heart attack. When Haden said those words, it meant, “Time for you to die.”
“I-I-I did-dn’t mean t-to do anyt-thing wrong.” He stammered.
“Please brother, tell me what’s wrong.” Haden insisted.
“I…I think that it’s wrong that you took over the world for publicity.” He admitted. He twiddled his thumbs and closed his eyes expecting to be killed.
“It wasn’t for publicity…I wanted to start fresh. I wanted there to be a real world peace.” Haden revealed.
“World peace? How can you have world peace if you do it un-peacefully?” Pheonos wanted to know.
“What am I supposed to do? Gather all the world leaders and convince them to let me rule the world? Mankind is so selfish-wars over oil, water, land. It would be much simpler to share the resources rather than fighting and killing for it. The main people who start these wars don’t even fight. They stay behind closed doors and wait for a report.” Haden said. He took his feet from the coffee table and looked intently at Pheonos.
“But you killed an entire continent over this ‘world peace’.” Pheonos pointed out.
“Like I said, Mankind is selfish. It takes the shed of blood before they even think about beginning to consider an idea.” Haden countered. Haden waited for him to part his lips and say something but he was too excited. “Why do you think police officers carry weapons? Without pain, there is no respect. Could you get a child to do what you say if you didn’t give them any form of punishment? No you couldn’t.” Haden said. He decided to wait for Pheonos’s reply.
“You do make a point, but was destroying Eurasia necessary?” Pheonos said.
“If you think about it, the word weapon can be roughly summarized to weep upon. There has to be sorrow, mourning, pain, suffering, and anguish-anything negative to get a point across. Besides, with all these wars, mankind would’ve destroyed the world anyways. Plus, about 5% of people from every nationality on Eurasia was sent to the second moon.” Haden pointed out.
“But what about those people that ‘disappeared’ from North America-were they sent too?” Pheonos said.
“Yes they were.” Haden replied.
“Well, why would you ask Dunimas to take the girl that you are 100% sure will keep your rule?” He insisted.
“Seven years of my reign and threatening to kill them all-I think my best weapon now is my reputation.” Haden pointed out.
“But, you seem so different. You act like your pure evil around others.” Pheonos said.
“My reputation is more than words now, it’s a different me. When people play poker, do you think they are all happy and perky? No. They look like they will kill you right then and there. It’s more than a face, it’s the attitude.”
“One last thing, aren’t you afraid that Dunimas might train Arre if he does learn how to fight? She could destroy us in seconds and doesn’t even know it.” Pheonos pointed out. Haden figured he’d ask that.
“Arre wouldn’t do it. She’s pure of heart-born of one pure evil. Dunimas won’t have to guts to force her to do it, and my son is to prideful to make a little girl do his bidding.” He pointed out.
“Sir! There are slaves escaping! What is your course of action?” said Haden’s assistant.
“We’ll finish this later.” Haden said to Pheonos as he left to go tend to the situation at hand.
Nicholas,
Interesting dialogue. I really like Haden’s take on evil world domination. He gives some compelling reasons for mass murder and tyranny. That being said, there are some editorial and mechanical issues with the passage. First, “brethren” is a plural noun, so when Haden calls to Pheonos he should say “brother.” Second, most people consider eurasia to be a supercontinent rather then a continent, but I figured I might point it out. Haden, says “I need to talk to you” and then says “sit down, lets talk.” Those two statements are kind of redunant. As such, you might want to drop one of them. Finally, I think with a little polish this passage could be very good.
I see what you mean by the redundancy. Also Haden really isn’t evil-just has one crazy idea and exploits it upon the world. About Eurasia, I didn’t put Europe and Asia because it was too wordy and Eurasia means the same thing. Would you rather use “I do not understand how to execute the requested task, could you please repeat it?” or “Say what?”? Most likely (unless you’re *ahem*Bella*ahem*.) you would choose the latter one. I don’t know if you ever read it, but Haden told Dunimas himself that he didn’t like killing people if he didn’t accomplish a task other than killing the person. It’s like this, behind closed doors there’s a good Haden and when not, the pure evil one takes the throne.
Oops! Anonymous was me. Sorry! ^
I would just pick either europe or asia. This is the first peice of your work that I have had a chance to read so all of my comments are limited to just what I gathered from this piece.
Anyways, my writing’s not too good-generally around dialogue. I think I should work on giving the readers more actions when they talk (Like when I said Haden kicked his feet upon the table.).
Actually, I would say that for the most part your dialogue is good. I think you should work on the tags ( the “he said”s and the information about what the characters are doing while talking). The only thing I would recommend that you work on with your dialogue is the syntax of your characters. Sometimes the way you order the words seems strange to me. Of course, thats not a bad thing. I mean, Yoda had a funny syntax but he is probably the most memorable character from Star wars.
What do you mean the way I order them?
Well, I can see why. But Haden talks like that. Dunimas talks more casual along with most of the other protags. Well- Haden’s an antagonist.
Sometimes your word choice or the way you order your words seems strange to me. For example, Haden says “It takes the shed of blood before they even think about beginning to consider an idea.” Now it may just be me, but I think that sentence should be reworded either one of two way:
“It takes blood shed before they even begin to consider an idea”
or
“It takes the shedding of blood before they even begin to consider an idea.”
I am not in any way a master of english grammer, so I cannot really tell you the technical reasons for why you original sentence sounds strange to me. Maybe someone else on the site could explain it better than I could.
Hey Nick, do you have a forum? Because if you dont, then you should ask B. Mac to set you up one.
Yeah. The first sentence was like that because it’s like people won’t even think about even beginning to consider an idea. I don’t know if there is a technical term, but it’s were you add another cutting word into a phrase that already cuts. For example,
“I think I may sort of began to somewhat feel a little better…maybe?”
oh, here’s my forum.
http://www.superheronation.com/2011/01/04/nicholas-cases-review-forum/
This question is open to anyone with an opinion. Ok so I’m currently developing an entire comic book universe by myself. And it’s coming along nicely. But I’ve recently run into a bit of a hitch. So I’m developing a human vigilante hero and I’ve got a few ideas for villains but not enough. So, finally, here’s my question. What’s the easiest way to get inspiration for human supervillains. I mean coming up with superpowered supervillains is way easier for me because I’ve got a power to build a character around. So does anyone have any suggestions on how to gather inspiration on creating human supervillains?
Hey,
What do you guys think of a villain who wants to “purify” society while having minimum human casualties? My story is set in a midieval-type area, and my idea is that he would start revolutions from the common people. His rationale is that destroying the top person doesn’t really mean anything if the people don’t accept you, so he tries to do the opposite. He also plans to put someone else in charge but he would have the power to remove them if he felt they were abusing their authority ( as he feels the current leaders are doing). In his mind, he thinks he is uncorrubtable.
Thanks for the help!!
Echo
“My story is set in a medieval-type area, and my idea is that he would start revolutions from the common people. ” That’s a bit interesting, particularly compared to the evil monarchs that are so common for medieval fantasy villains.
“He also plans to put someone else in charge but he would have the power to remove them if he felt they were abusing their authority… in his mind, he thinks he is incorruptible.” For a real world analogue, that sounds like like the relationship of the Ayatollah of Iran to his President.
Ok, I’d like to know if the villainess that I’m considering using in my sequel is any good. Just remember, this came into my head about half an hour ago, and was written down about three minutes ago.
Jet Witch shook her head in disbelief as she watched Zach get back up to his feet.
“Just how many walls did you hit?” she asked.
Zach straightened out his back. “Judging from my bruises? All of them.”
“Well, it serves you right. Shouldn’t have grappled my glider.”
“In all honesty, I didn’t even know I could do that. I was trying to shoot you down.”
“Is that so, huh?” She tilted her head, considering this new revelation.
“Ok, forget that you were trying kill me, and I just smeared you across half the city, I think we can help each other out here.”
Zach folded his arms sceptically.
“See, I made this hover glider myself. I can help you understand your powers. And I’ll bet I’m easier to get along with than those other freaks back there.”
“What do you get out of it?” Zach asked.
“Well, I learn how your powers work. I may be able to use that to come up with some new inventions, or even upgrade this gear. I’ll find something to get from this, I’m very resourceful. So what do you say?” she asked, holding out her hand.
Zach turned away, honestly considering it. She seemed much easier to get along with than most of the others, and she was quite nice to look at. But …
He turned back to Jet Witch, shaking his head.
“Heroic conscious troubling you?” She guessed.
“Well, yeah,” Zach agreed. “But mostly I don’t work with Goths. Or at least the psycho ones.”
“You know something?” She asked, flying back a few metres, letting dark energy gather in her hands. “I’m glad you refused. I don’t know how long I could stand someone like you.” And with that, she blasted him off the rooftop.
Zach smashed into the side of a nearby building, leaving a noticeable dent in the concrete. He fell three stories worth before getting tangled in some power lines, and electrocuted. After that, he fell another story and smashed into the front of a limousine. He turned his head over, glancing at Winston, who looked surprised to say the least.
“Believe it or not, that isn’t the worst thing a girl’s done to me after I’ve turned her down.” Zach said, before blacking out.
I did consider having Zach say the Pangaean equivalent of a cluster F bomb after landing, (That creeking termite-ridden slunk of a witch!), but I like this better.
“I’d like to know if the villainess that I’m considering using in my sequel is any good.” It’s hard to tell from this scene, but their unusual relationship sounds sort of promising.
One aspect that jarred me a bit was how cordial they seemed from the very beginning, even though they’ve been fighting. (Admittedly, the most serious hit appears to have been caused by him grabbing her glider rather than either beating the other up).
“…forget that you were trying kill me, and I just smeared you across half the city, I think we can help each other out here.” I could sort of see this transformation conceivably being believable, but it happens really quickly here.
“heroic conscious” should be “heroic conscience.”
–I like the sort of ambivalent relationship between them. His refusal and her response were pretty fresh, as was his final line.
I’ll give a bit of context on the scene.
Jet Witch was testing her new glider tech by robbing a bank. Zach (and some of the others, I’m thinking the ones he can’t stand) arrive to stop her, but pretty much fail. When she tries to escape, he attempts to shoot her down… only to find his powers work differently on electronics. She thinks that he intended to grab on, and so takes advantage of physics to smash him around. They hold this conversation after he breaks away. She’s polite about it because she knows he can’t fight. He’s polite back because he’s trying to come up with a witty insult (He’s like that with everyone).
About the only problem I see is lack of ambition. All Jet Witch wants is to test her inventions, which isn’t exactly wide-scale panic worthy. Any suggestions?
Hey does havoc sound like a good villain name? And rubix as a hero name?
I like Havoc better than Rubix.
New writer here.
I am starting a story/novel that parodies your stereotypical superhero storyline, that centers around the life of two friends beginning a career as Henchmen.
Since the henchmen are the main protagonists, and actual heroes of the story, I am trying to make the Superhero (a cookie-cutter superman), although a just do-gooder, unlikeable. He has no regard/trust for our Justice system and gets overly physical with “bad guys”.
On the counter side, I need the reader to disagree, but sympathize with the Super-villain (a cookie-cutter “mad” scientist). Originally a chemist working on top secret formulas, stole materials to bring home and work on a side project. After a small explosion, his workshop is mistaken for a meth-lab, and the super hero lays waste to the shop, leaving the villain on the brink of death and full of hatred for the hero.
Granted the story mainly revolves around the two Henchmen, it is completely relies on the actions of the Superhero and Super-villain, so i need to get them right, before i continue on with my story.
Any feedback is appreciated!
“On the counter side, I need the reader to disagree, but sympathize with the Super-villain (a cookie-cutter “mad” scientist). Originally a chemist working on top secret formulas, stole materials to bring home and work on a side project. After a small explosion, his workshop is mistaken for a meth-lab, and the super hero lays waste to the shop, leaving the villain on the brink of death and full of hatred for the hero.”
If it’s important that the reader sympathizes with the supervillain, it might help if the misunderstanding on the hero’s part were greater. Right now, the hero mistakes one illegal operation (a lab working with stolen materials) for another (a meth lab). It might be funnier if you made the hero’s mistake larger. For example, if Dr. Professor were brewing something like an experimental treatment for childhood leukemia and the superhero somehow mistook that for a meth lab, it could be a very entertaining origin story for the villain.
What would be a good name for a planet that is several eons more advanced than earth and trains new people with powers?
Ty for the input so quick! Love this site btw. Perfect.
I originally wanted him to be doing it for someone close to him with some sort of disease that could benefit from his work. I nixed that idea, because i don’t want to complicate his life as he is not the main character, and a mere force to drive plot and development. Also, i don’t know much about medicine and diseases that might benefit from something like this.
I figured making him work on something just to get rich and famous, or powerful, would make him more sinister. As well as make the superhero Just in thwarting him. In order to make the story work, i need the superhero to be loved by the city people, but make the reader feel disdain. He has to be evil at heart, but feel the superhero is doing good the wrong way and needs to be held accountable.
The serum he was working on, has a short term effect of healing bad wounds. Allows for multiple beatings from the superhero. It has a permanent side effect of an incredibly mundane yet extremely fun superpower. i.e. i really want the main character to have the ability to generate and throw coconuts. The reason the power is so mundane, is because he doesnt believe anyone should be all powerful after witnessing it first hand from the superhero, and doesnt want to be responsible if someone he creates gets out of control.
(btw just being able to project ideas out to someone else is helping tremendously already! keeps the brain juice rolling!)
Whenever I write a superhero story, my friends tell me that I’ve ‘humanised’ the villain too much, and he isn’t dislikeable enough. Could anyone help me with this?
Two possibilities come to mind, Gaelic Girl. One, the villain’s goal might not be threatening enough. If so, the stakes aren’t high enough and it wouldn’t really matter whether the hero beats the villain or not. Utter death and destruction doesn’t have to be on the line, but something that really matters to the main character(s) should be threatened. For example, antagonist Captain Hammer won’t blow up protagonist Dr. Horrible’s world, but he IS a douche dating the only woman Horrible cares about and he’s one of the main obstacles to Horrible’s bid to join an elite bid of supervillains.*
Two, the story bends over backwards to tell readers that he’s nice but nobody is buying it. If the character’s niceness/humanity is inconsistent with what we’ve seen of him/her elsewhere, the niceness may feel artificial. (Warning sign: the villain is markedly nicer to the hero than anybody else for no good reason–if so, the writer may be pulling the villain’s punches).
*You know you’ve made the big time when David Bowie and a nontalking horse with a chorus are your teammates.
One of my villains, Syphon, has the ability to absorb other people’s powers. He has a black discoloration that appears on his body when his power first manifests. When using his ability, the black mark travels through his hand and briefly into his target, stealing their ability. The effect is only temporary and the powers transfer back to their original owner after a while. After gaining this ability, he is driven mad by the power, as it has has an effect on his psyche. Is this a good basis for a villain?
–Going mad could be interesting. What sort of effect did it have on his psyche? (For example, Green Goblin became a paranoid schizophrenic, but there are other ways people can snap).
–What are you planning on doing with the black mark? I think the black mark traveling into the target sounds like it could be cheesy.
-I was thinking schizophrenia or possibly just having him go mad.
-As for the black mark, I was planning for him to touch his target and have the “blackness” flow into the target and turning a small area around where he is touching to turn black. The victim’s skin returns to normal and Syphon gains their ability for a brief amount of time. I am also thinking of having the mark having a different location on his skin depending on the power, such as on his arms for enhanced strenth or around his eyes for optic blasts.
I agree with B. Mac. Cheesy.
(Besides that, he sounds very similar to the captain of the stealth force from Bleach. The girl with the poison claw. Soy-Phone. You know, black butterflies on victim…yah..)
So I have this idea for a villain who wants something cliche, power. Just for the sake of having power. Very weak, I know. Any ideas for making his thirst for power original and believable?
(He needs to have the appearance of being a very strong villain, but in reality he is being manipulated by a greater evil. Oh yeah, he’s also the one responsible for creating that evil. Cheesy?)
Oh, I don’t think it sounds that much like Soifon’s two-hit-kill claw. It sounds more like Rogue with ‘blackness’ instead of gross veins.
I had never heard of this Soy-Phone character before. Thanks for telling me. I guess my character needs to be edited a lot more. Thanks for the constrictive criticism. What if I remove the whole ‘blackness’ thing and give him the power to absorb a person’s powers but only about 50% percent of its strength. He can absorb two people’s powers at one time and combine them if needed.
Villains! My favorite part of… so much! I am a firm believer that a villain effectively makes the story. You can have the greatest superhero known to man, the greatest world and a head full of ideas… but if you don’t have a villain that can match that hero and even knock him down a couple of peg then you’re in trouble.
My suggestion: get inside your villains head. Become the villain. Understand their reasons, motives and deeper flaws and layers of perception. Why? Because every character is a reflection of the author and/or how the author perceives things and it will make for a better character. But that’s just my opinion.
I adore:
The Joker, Magneto, Dr. Doom, Venom, Riddler, Poison Ivy (and a whole bunch more of the Batman rouge’s gallery come to think of it).
Question is a villain who’s only out to abuse their powers, and kill others with powers that can potentially harm them a bad villain if they have a goal?
Wipe out people who can potentially wipe them out so they can continue enjoying their lives? If so what kind of goals can you give a villain like that?
“Question is a villain who’s only out to abuse their powers, and kill others with powers that can potentially harm them a bad villain if they have a goal?” If they’re ONLY out to abuse their powers (without any higher goal), I feel like they probably would be disappointing as major villains. I think they’d probably be more interesting and dangerous/threatening if they had some sort of goal driving them.
These characters didn’t wake up thinking “Hey, today I’m going to abuse my powers!” or “Hey, today I’m gonna be evil!”, right? Nobody thinks like that, even irredeemably evil people. So how do they think about it?
PS: Have I linked to 15 Interesting Motivations for Villains and Heroes already? My memory’s weakening.
Hey, it’s me again.
I’ve got a dilemma. I’m doing my story as an
on going one and I’m submitting it soon to metahumanpress.com.
I have already killed off the villain in the previous story but in the sequel to it I’m adding a villian who has connections to the other one, the father who has connections to the main villian in the previous story has died a few years previously, and the son is a playboy-ish type of businessman who owns the tabloid rag that is pretty popular in the town.
Now how does main villain #1 connect with this guy? It seems that his powers are derived from a meteor rock experimentation that went out of hand. Oh! And the heroine isn’t exactly a metahuman. She’s not even human. Turns out her dad is Ultimate Man not the reformed villain who turns out to be her step dad. Ultimate Man is a sort of Superman-like hero. (read: he’s an alien. A humanoid-looking alien.)
Now, her real dad’s powers are kicking in and her co-workers-more specifically- a private Eye on her Girlfriend’s squad is getting suspicious about her.
I want to make both of them a bit coy, suspicious about the heroine in different ways (the playboy guy plays it smarmy and the P.I. confrpnting the main character on her whereabputs without getting too personal) and of course, make the readers feel like the heroine should investigate them.
Sorry, re-editing… Found out there were typos. Oops!
Here’s the edited version:
# Estheron 30 Jun 2011 at 10:59 am
Hey, it’s me again.
I’ve got a dilemma. I’m doing my story as an
on going one and I’m submitting it soon to metahumanpress.com.
I have already killed off the villain in the previous story but in the sequel to it I’m adding a villian who has connections to the other one, the father who has connections to the main villian in the previous story has died a few years previously, and the son is a playboy-ish type of businessman who owns the tabloid rag that is pretty popular in the town.
Now how does main villain #1 connect with this guy? It seems that his powers are derived from a meteor rock experimentation that went out of hand via the playboy’s wealthy daddy.
Oh! And the heroine isn’t exactly a metahuman. She’s not even human. Turns out her dad is Ultimate Man not the reformed villain who turns out to be her step dad. Ultimate Man is a sort of Superman-like hero. (read: he’s an alien. A humanoid-looking alien.)
Now, her real dad’s powers are kicking in and her co-workers-more specifically- a private Investigator on her Girlfriend’s squad (hired by her GF’s father-mind you) is getting suspicious about her.
I want to make both of them a bit coy, suspicious about the heroine in different ways (the playboy guy plays it smarmy and the P.I. confronting the main character on her whereabouts without getting too personal) and of course, make the readers feel like the heroine should investigate them.
Uggggh!
Hold on a minute… Another typo… Dang it!
Sorry, about that.
Here it is-again:
Hey, it’s me again.
I’ve got a dilemma. I’m doing my story as an
on going one and I’m submitting it soon to metahumanpress.com.
I have already killed off the villain in the previous story but in the sequel to it I’m adding a villian who has connections to the other one, the father who has connections to the main villian in the previous story has died a few years previously, and the son is a playboy-ish type of businessman who owns the tabloid rag that is pretty popular in the town.
Now how does main villain #1 connect with this guy? It seems that his powers are derived from a meteor rock experimentation that went out of hand via the playboy’s wealthy daddy.
Oh! And the heroine isn’t exactly a metahuman. She’s not even human. Turns out her dad is Ultimate Man not the reformed villain who turns out to be her step dad. Ultimate Man is a sort of Superman-like hero. (read: he’s an alien. A humanoid-looking alien.)
Now, her real dad’s powers are kicking in and her co-workers-more specifically- a private Investigator on her Girlfriend’s squad (hired by her GF’s father-mind you) is getting suspicious about her.
I want to make both of them a bit coy, suspicious about the heroine in different ways (the playboy guy plays it smarmy and the P.I. confronting the main character on her whereabouts without getting too personal) and of course, make the readers feel like the heroine should investigate them.
Wow, now I want to dig that “plant-based villian that hates her powers” idea and put her in my general “light superhero” idea (as supposed to Precision, my grittier idea). Now, all I need is a hero and I can create an outline that I may use for my NaNoWriMo.
when i try to create a villain they are either too gimmicky or when i try to make them serious too gruesome i have to create at least fifty villains for the series i’m writing because its an anthology comic book like detective or action comics i have 10 heroes each one of my issues will have five of the heroes in it in five or ten page stories i need villains for each hero and villains that can fight many of my heroes because its all set in the same city
I don’t think you need one villain for each one of your heroes, you’d overload on characters. (I also don’t think you need ten heroes–that’s a ton, five will suit you much better. And it’ll be easier for readers to keep straight, but that’s up to you.) Most good villains are competent enough that they can take five heroes, ten heroes, they can take them down easily, and that’s why they’re such a threat–especially if one character will, at some point, have to go up against that kind of villain alone.
well some of the stories are connected but some are are just stories about everyday superhero stuff for each character i plain to rotate between the heroes for each issue about 45 to 50 pages and 5 to 10 stories per issue every 3 months
Would Mave be a good antagonist? I want him to be a psycho but I want him to be dangerously clever. For example in my story I want him to let Christian,Remy,and maybe Rue to escape from the junkyard even though he could have easily dispatched them all. In his eyes I want him to think it’ll make things even more exciting in the future.
If I may be honest. I never understand that mentality for a villain. If they can kill the heroes, than do it and be done with it. But to just let them go seems disappointing somehow. There are exceptions of course, such as honorable villains, a deal being struck or perhaps a foretold battle. But in a normal superhero/supervillain fight, it should take an aweful lot of convincing for that to happen. If it can happen at all. I don’t mean to offend and maybe I am speaking out of turn, being that I have no idea about the personality of Mave. Maybe he’s the kind of psychotic hunter that enjoys the chase more than the kill, you know? I’m just saying if this situation happens, there should be a worthwhile reason.
“In his eyes I want him to think it’ll make things even more exciting in the future.” As a reader/prospective editor, one major concern I’d have here is that this makes it obvious that he will NEVER actually stop the heroes because, if he ever had the chance, he’d think it was more interesting to keep the game going. This means that the heroes have essentially no chance of failing and makes the ending a foregone conclusion.
Some alternatives that come to mind:
–He inflicts some fate he sees as worse than death on the heroes. (For example, some supervillains might see stealing somebody’s superpowers as worse than death).
–The heroes escape through their own means. It’s more impressive and dramatic than having the villain let them go.
–The villain releases the heroes with some villainous and rational goal in mind.
If the villain just lets them go because it’s convenient to the plot or because the author wants/needs the heroes to win, I would personally lean towards declining the manuscript.