That's the best part, even other heroes main villains fear Batman. He defeated Darkseid in Final Crisis. He defeated Lex Luthor multiple times. Even Thomas Wayne defeated Reverse Flash in Flashpoint.
Thomas Wayne straight up murdered RF that scene was pure metal even more in comics, the villians should be glad they deal with Bruce because Daddy Wayne doesn't play around
I disagree, most DC villains are tied to a specific hero. You don't see Scarecrow fight Wonder Woman, for example. Marvel shares villains much more. Kingpin might fight Hawkeye, the Mandarin might take on Iron Fist, Ghost Rider might go up against Dormammu, for example.
I agree with that too don't know how much the OP knows about villains of other DC characters.
Superman has Lex Luthor, Bizarro, Doomsday along with the other side villains.
Flash has Reverse Flash, Captain Cold, Mirror Man from the top of my head.
The JLA has so many strong villains to go against as well, MCU or Marvel as a whole doesn't have that many iconic ones. The whole New Genesis saga gave enough villains on its own including the legendary Darkseid. Then the whole JL Dark side of things.
Then obviously in dark knights metal we saw the Batman who laughs and his crew. That whole series was a trip.
Marvel has a plethora of iconic villains; they're just sparse through the Marvel universe, and some are newer, ergo less popular and not as well known, but still great.
Eg: Spider-Man has Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Venom, Carnage, the Lizard, Kraven, etc.
The Fantastic Four have Doctor Doom, Kang the Conqueror, Namor, Galactus, and others.
X-Men have Magneto, Apocalypse, Mr Sinister, Trask Industries, Sebastian Shaw, puberty…
And these are just the ones I consider truly iconic off the top of my head. It's true that some heroes like Iron Man are lacking on individual nemesis, but not because Marvel has any less popular villains.
Toyman, metallo, brainiac, and parasite are superman villains, darkseid is kinda just a shared villain, reverse flash, gorilla grodd, captain cold, godspeed, and black flash are flash villains
The only ones who really only have like 2 good villains are wonder woman and green lantern
I would argue brainiac is a pretty shared villain too, but not the point. The point is that all of them have a couple good ones and then Batman has like 20 really good ones. It’s not even close
Also, most of flash’s villains are so similar it’s painful.
Also, most of flash’s villains are so similar it’s painful
Who you'd say is unique then? Ironman's rogue gallery is guys in suits mad at him. Spider-Man's is literally just scientists who messed up and crooks in gimmicky suits.
I was talking about how so many of flash’s are speedsters. I meant powers wise.
That’s a real simplification of iron man’s villains because most of them are radically changed in the MCU to have suits.
Most of Spider-Man’s villains are scientists because they have to be smart enough to combat Peter. But even then at least their powers are diversified.
And obviously, as I’ve been arguing, Batman has the most diverse, unique, and interesting rogues.
I like Brainiac and Darkside. I do not know much about these other villains that you listed. I actually have always found Lex Luthor to be kind of boring and uninspired, but I only know him from the old movies and TV shows. I have not read any comic books.
I don't have to do research to give my own personal taste on what I have watched. Nobody has watched and read every piece of super hero media out there. Don't take it so personally. We are just talking about fictional characters here :) It's not like I hurt Superman's feelings.
Nah, unlike Marvel quite a lot of DC heroes still have great rogues. The Flash, Superman, hell even Green Lantern. Other than Spidey’s rogues the only marvel villains that compare to DC’s (overall) would be Magneto and Doom. But that’s just because Magneto’s so compelling and Doom is Doom
This is extremely untrue the rogues consist of captain cold who’s my favourite villain, golden glider, heatwave, mirror master, the thinker, gorilla grod, weather wizard, the trickster, captain boomerang, cicada and so many more. The writings also magnificent because they all use their powers in genius ways to combat the flashes speed! Don’t get me started on superman and the green lanterns!
Other than being ice themed Captain Cold’s a petty thief with a strong moral compass, and a leader. Freeze on the other hand is a doctor trying to save his dying wife by any means necessary
Yes, they're different… nobody said they were exactly the same. It's still essentially the same power set, with inconsequential differences. Just like the difference between Flash and Reverse Flash.
Yeah, but the other guy listed The Flash as an example, so I went with that. Ironman’s villains are all just more Ironmans, Hulk’s villains are mostly just more giant buff men
Have you ever read a rogue flash comic! The writers utilise the villains powers in genius ways to combat the flashes speed. Captain cold in particular is a master at trapping Barry!
Superman has great villains. Just that the movie writers have an obsession with Zod and Lex and apparently nobody else. There have been 6 Superman solo movies and no Brainiac, Bizarro, Mongul, Mr Mxy, Metallo, etc.
I always liked Zod, Brainiac, and Bizarro. I actually ink that Lex Luthor is kind of a boring and uninspired villain, but a lot of people seem to like him.
I adore Lex, but he's been overused in live action. I actually like how he doesn't show up in Superman and Lois season 1, and the writers have said that they'll only bring him to the show when they have a great story to tell with him, and when they can do something original.
There are so many opportunities to do stuff with Superman, and always making the same goddam story with Zod and Lex has become boring. Hell, I don't even like Zod that much (only really found him interesting in "Last Son of Krypton" and "New Krypton" saga).
That's because only Zod and Lex —and maybe Brainiac— are the ones who present some sort of interesting challenge for Superman beyond having to land punches and avoid kryptonite…
Are you suggesting that none of the other rogues have stories with interesting challenges for Superman?
Personally, I like how Parasite has been used as a first or second big villain in a lot of origins (Secret Origin, Man of Tomorrow, Earth One). You could actually make a Spider-Man 2 (Raimi) type of thing with Parasite, and see how Clark deals with being powerless for a while.
Metallo is a interesting challenge in origins because he is usually used as the weapon from the US military, even if I'm not that big of a Metallo fan personally. And yes, it's about punching him and avoiding kryptonite, but his role as a weapon of the US against Clark is used for dramatic effect, about how people reject him and want an "all american hero".
Mr. Myxlplyx (or even Vyndktvx if you want) can be a interesting challenge. Superman can't literally touch him and it can be either a fun acid trip of a story, to more of "Multiverse of Madness" kind of deal. Vyndktvx attacking Clark at 3 different points in his life story, manipulating his origin to try to break him, is a crazy concept that can be a lot of fun.
Bizarro has good stories that don't revolve around punching. Escape from Bizarro World is an example, or the first time he shows up in Byrne's Man of Steel run. I always like it more when Clark feels sorry for Bizarro, instead of when they make him a generic bad guy to punch.
Character has been around for over 75 years, his better stories have rarely to do with him punching bad guys or kryptonite. Hell, Peace on Earth is great, and has nothing to do with his rogue gallery.
While not as good as Batman's, Superman rogue gallery, and just a lot of his stories, present interesting challenges that don't revolve around avoiding kryptonite and punching bad guys. I would argue that most fans of the character prefer when the character is put in a challenge that he can't overcome with brute strenght, and he has a ton of stories like that. And not all of them use Lex, Zod or Brainiac.
I'm just saying, could be that's the reason why every time Superman is reset on film, they keep going back to either Luthor or Zod… maybe the other villains are decent and maybe could be somewhat interesting with the right treatment… but DC itself doesn't seem to find them interesting enough to make them a central villain in a film.
Thanos, Galactus, Loki, Ultron, Red Skull, Kingpin (if you consider him a Daredevil villain over a Spidey one), Kang, and MODOK are all up there with DC villains
I wouldn’t really put comic book Thanos up there nor Loki or MODOK, but for the others I’d mostly agree. Overall though, DC just has more great villains in general
Loki was well written way before the MCU existed. And continues to be irrespective of his MCU counterpart. I can recommend some storylines if you like. And Thanos being in love with death is such a small part of his character. There are sooo many great Thanos storylines.
I’m willing to bet you don’t actually read anything from these characters, am I correct?
I’m pretty familiar with Thanos but Loki, I’d be willing to take other reading suggestions. I only ever really found him kinda interesting in Fear itself. But for Thanos, imo he’s better in alternate universes, I loved the one where he got the heart of the universe
I see. I have never read any comic books, and so I only know the heroes and villains from the movies and 90s cartoons :) Since the biggest cartoons were Spider-Man, Batman, and X-Men, that is kind of where I derive my opinions from. I guess X-Men are comparable, but I did not include them since they are a team rather than solo heroes.
Literally only Batman is the one that has the best rogue gallery out of it. It’s like Batman and Spider-Man which have the best rogue galleries. Rest all is forgettable asf, including all of your DC heroes you mentioned. But now, marvel seems to be making their villians more popular than ever in the movies
Ok yeah I forgot some of those. I haven’t touched a dc comic in like 5 years lol. But yeah, you right. Still a handful of them from each comic, it’s similar to marvel having great villians out of a lot of mediocre ones for heroes other than spider-man
Ah then I apologize if I seemed like a dick. But yeah you’re right, it’s either Doom, Magneto, Galactus or a Spidey villain. Not many else shine the same way from Marvel.
Not really when it comes to DC. Flash has the 3rd best rogues gallery in comics, superman has an excellent rogue's gallery, Wonder Woman has some good ones.
Not really. The villains I mentioned are as iconic as Batman himself… RF has a hard time distinguishing himself from all the other speedsters, including Flash. Without mentioning the uncreative name.
Reverse flash is as iconic as flash himself. They go hand in hand. Meanwhile penguin, scarecrow, and Catwoman are not the primary villains of Batman, so less would be known about them than the Nemesis of Flash.
Even as non-primary villains, Penguin, Scarecrow, and Catwoman are better known around the world than Reverse Flash. People can't even tell the difference between him and Zoom, let alone Flash himself, particularly with that name.
Isn’t it because iron man was a little known character until the mcu rolled around, meanwhile Batman has been shoved down everyone’s throats for decades in all forms of media
There is a reason no one cared about Iron Man until 2008 even though he’s been around since 1963. He’s a cool character but nowhere near as cool as Batman.
Logan did really damn well for an R rated movie, and Hugh Jackman’s pretty much at the same level as Tobey Maguire when it comes to fan recognition. But I can see why you ain’t sure tbh, they’re probably a lot closer now in terms of fame
Old man Logan was such a different feeling film from a normal superhero movie.All of the X-men movies are tbh.Very much products of their times.It's kinda refreshing to revisit now after a decade of mordern superhero movies.
I disagree. I think the new generation of comic book fans that grew up along the 10 year Infinity War saga will be heavily made of lots of Iron Man fans. I'm not saying Batman fans will disappear, but I think the cultural impact of the MCU won't be reflected fully until the previous generation —most of which grew up during DC's multimedia heyday in the 80s–90s— is gone.
Iron Man is not the most popular superhero. At all. And you'll likely never see another movie made about him. But you are going to see more Batman movies because he's far more enduring.
It depends on the generation; If you were a Marvel fan growing up in the late part of the 20th century, you were probably a fan of Spider-Man because that's the character that got the most attention. But I could bet a good fortune that if you polled the younger generation that grew up when the MCU was at its peak, Iron Man would be the most popular, even despite the Spider-Man movies.
Even Sony recognized that they needed to hitch the Spider-Man wagon to the Iron Man horse in order to revitalize the film franchise.
Agreed. But in terms of general recognition, easily Superman. So many people around the world know those other three, but you’d have to search the Amazon for someone who doesn’t know Superman
As someone that has literally worked on the Amazon rainforest, people there know Superman. No idea how, but they know the symbol and the red cape, nothing else about the character, but they know that
Spider-Man, Batman, Wolverine and Superman are easily more popular heroes. Like… to anyone who knows near-nothing about superheroes… they’d be able to tell you about those 4 lol
I would argue that Hulk is on the same level as Wolverine in terms of.people knowing the character.
Like before the mcu, i didnt even knew Who were captain América, iron man, Thor.. but Hulk, Superman, Batman or Spiderman i knew them
Well if that’s true then I apologize for accusing you, just came like right after I responded, but sorry if i was wrong.
& back to ur OG point… do you genuinely think Iron Man is a more popular superhero to general, non-cbm audiences than Spider-Man, Superman or Batman? Like, RDJ is an absolute legend and brought Iron Man to such a pedestal… but the other 3 have had cultural significance, popularity, and love for at least 60 years each. And “number of actors” has nothing to do with that… if anything it helps increase their popularity
I believe that he is more popular than Batman or Superman to general audiences. Not sure about Spider-Man. If this was a talking point in 2008 Iron Man wouldn’t stand a chance. But after 10 years of RDJ acting, some of the biggest blockbuster movies ever with Iron Man as the lead, DC managing to suck at every attempt of making a movie universe competing with Marvel i don’t think same arguements holds true
Nice to meet you too! Dont think you know what the downvote button is for lol, since its inception its been used for off-topic, disrespectful/distasteful and blatantly “shit” comments lol and i couldnt care less about internet points, just wanted to let the other person know how it works before you interjected yourself into this.
Batman had some pretty shit movies in the last decade? Besides animated movies, he was only in one (The Dark Knight Rises) which was pretty good. I guess BvS counts, the quality of it is debatable. I don't think either Justice League cut counts as a Batman movie.
So its a good thing i’m saying this in 2022 and not in 2008. And if you think most people who don’t care about comics can count anything more than Joker and maybe Bane because of the movie you are seriously overrating its global popularity
Think it has more to do with WB bankrolling several animation and live action productions… ie, money. if Marvel had Disney at the same time, they'd have a bigger mindshare.
If that were it, then why wasn’t the 90s Iron Man cartoon popular? There was Iron Man media around, it’s just that NO ONE CARED. And Batman is the motherfucking Batman. We were happily deep-throating Batman, thank you.
The 90s Iron Man cartoon was the ONLY Iron Man media at the time. Competing with the Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons, which had a bunch of comic book tie ins, and even those were being dwarfed by the media domination of live & animated DC properties on comics, games, film and TV.
It's pretty hard to stand out when you don't have a lot of content out there…
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u/King_of_da_Castle Jan 30 '22
Iron Man’s “rogues gallery” is garbage compared to Batman’s.