Everyone knows nothing makes a good hero like a great villain. Sherlock Holmes needed Moriarty, G.I. Joe needed Cobra, the rebels needed Darth Vader, etc. Nothing makes a story better quite like an interesting, intriguing, and yet hated adversary. Readers tend to flock to the villains they love to hate. The best villains bring something out of the hero that nobody else does, or force the hero to push themselves further than before to find a way to win.

We wanted to make a top 10 list, but that’s impossible. There are just too many good choices, and we couldn’t agree on any of it. So we increased the list, and increased it, and increased it (honestly we probably could have kept going, too). So, before it gets too out of hand, here are our choices for the 100 best villains in comics.

(Click here for our Top 100 Heroes List!)

40. Captain Cold

Real Name: Leonard Snart
First Appearance: Showcase #8 (1957)
Enemies: The Flash

“You’re not dead? Too bad.”

For a guy in a parka with a freeze ray, Captain Cold has done more than all right for himself. The leader of the Rogues, one of the best villain groups ever, Cold has proven himself more than capable of even going toe-to-toe with the Flash all by himself. Toss in his ability keep a group of lunatics in line and following his command and it becomes more and more clear that this goofy looking guy is actually a really formidable opponent, despite the fact that, at his core, he really is just a guy in a goof parka suit with a freeze ray.

He’s not all bad, though; Mr. Freeze this guy ain’t. He has his own (somewhat warped) code of ethics and ensures the rest of the Rogues follow suit. The Wally West Flash recognized that Cold isn’t straight up evil, despite all the thievery, and even had a truce of sorts for a little while. During the Forever Evil story Cold even became a member of the Justice League!

But, like all the best villains, his hero turn didn’t last very long. Some guys can stop using a freeze ray to rob banks or whatever, some guys can’t.

******

39. Bane

Real Name: Bane
First Appearance: Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 (1993)
Enemies: Batman, Azrael

“I am Bane- and I could kill you, but death would only end your agony- and silence your shame. Instead, I will simply… BREAK YOU!”

While old Mr. “Born in the Dark” has appeared in a lot of places around the DC universe, like Suicide Squad, Secret Six, etc, but at heart he is something he would never sink to admitting: just another Batman villain. When he first came on the scene he was Batman’s Doomsday; he orchestrated a series of events to overwhelm and exhaust Batman and his allies, and then, having deduced Batman’s true identity, ambushed the exhausted dark knight in his own cave, beat the crap out of him, broke his back, then drove him into Gotham, took him up on a roof, and threw him off.

Now, had he kept on that path he would be an all-time great DC villain. But instead, he quickly had his ass kicked by the (best) replacement Batman: Jean Paul “don’t call me Azrael” Valley. In subsequent confrontations with Bruce Wayne Bane has certainly gotten some good shots in (the guy’s no pushover) but he hasn’t come near the dominance he exhibited when they first fought.

In early appearances Bane was dependent on a series of tubes and injectors containing the steroid drug Venom, which would grant him increased strength, durability and stamina but came with a nearly crippling addiction. Bane has since shed himself of the crutch of Venom and has approached things more cerebrally as he did in his earliest appearances. He may never be able to beat the Batman again, but credit where credit is due, he’s the only one that can claim even doing it once.

******

38. Mr. Sinister

Real Name: Nathaniel Essex
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #221 (1987)
Enemies: Apocalypse, the X-Men

“You can’t kill me. There is no ‘me’. Sinister is a system. Sinister is a species. Everything is Sinister. And you’re not Sinister, your time is over.”

While he is a monster- a total, complete scumbag- there is something about Sinister that is so compelling and entertaining, especially in the last decade or so. Originally the mastermind from the shadows that had long been meddling with the lives of characters like Professor X, the Juggernaut, Cyclops, Havok, and Gambit, he has grown quite a lot since then. No longer the mystery villain with very, very loosely defined powers, backstory, and motivations, Sinister has been not only fleshed out, but greatly expanded upon (mostly by the great Kieron Gillen). This (human) geneticist became so obsessed with (and good at) genetic manipulation and cloning that he is essentially immortal. He can certainly be killed but will immediately be replaced by one of his clones with downloaded memories. In the Krakoa era, with access to the genetics of every mutant alive, he really pushed the boundaries of what being a piece of crap entails. Interestingly, it was revealed that Sinister is but one of four clones of Nathaniel Essex, the original Sinister. There is our guy with the red diamond on his head, Dr. Statis (member of Orchis) with a black club on his, Mother Righteous (a clone of Essex’s wife) with the red heart, and Orbis Stellaris with the black spade, and each of them have the same end goal and are constantly working against each other. Really interesting stuff.

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37. The Scarecrow

Real Name: Jonathan Crane
First Appearance: World’s Finest Comics #3 (1941)
Enemies: Batman, Robin

“Though it is simple to bring on, you cannot escape from fear. For fear is not a delusion. You are a sentient mortal condemned to die, and time is against you.”

Dorothy’s pal from Oz, this guy’s not.

Obsessed with fear and phobias, Dr. Jonathan Crane created a toxin that creates extremely vivid hallucinations of the greatest fears of any exposed to it. He then found a way to convert the toxin to gas and has never looked back. The Scarecrow spends most of his time in Arkham Asylum (rightfully so; this guy’s freaking nuts), but when he gets out, he just loves, loves, loves to continue his experimentation using the people of Gotham City (and particularly Batman) as his guinea pigs. This guy loves him some fear, mostly because he can’t really feel it any more. Years of testing his toxin on himself have left him unable to experience the endorphin rushes that generate the sensation of fear. The closest he can come is being hunted by the freaking Batman. What a psycho. This aspect of his character came to a head in the (excellent) event “Blackest Night”, when he was actually deputised into the Sinestro Corps!

Scarecrow has been around a long time and has never really left the ‘bigs’ of the Caped Crusader’s rogues gallery. He was prominently featured in the outstanding Batman: The Animated Series but was not adapted to the big screen until Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins”, where he was played expertly by Cillian Murphy. He’s also a big part of the excellent “Arkham Asylum” game series. While his look fluctuates over the years, like the Joker and Two-Face he has remained incredibly close to his original design, with the straw mask and brimmed hat almost always a part of his look.

******

36. Brainiac

Real Name: Brainiac
First Appearance: Action Comics #242 (1958)
Enemies: Superman, Supergirl, Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League

“I will be everything there has ever been, Kryptonian. I will be evolved into perfection.”

Brainiac is a weird one. He’s easily one of Superman’s (and, by extension, DC’s) most terrifying villains, no matter which version we are talking about.

That’s the issue, though. Like so many of DC’s characters, there have been a number of different iterations of Brainiac over the decades, often quite different from one another. With a little more consistency (see: Zod, Bizzaro, etc) he could really be something, returning from each defeat improved and more terrifying than before. Instead, pretty much every time he shows up it’s the first time (not true, but it feels like it).

Driven by a desire to catalog biological life, he captures and miniaturizes cities to add to his collection, then destroys the planet they are from. Depending on which version of Superman’s origin you use (SIGH… DC) he is even credited with the destruction of Krypton! Technologically superior, Brainiac shows up like Galactus that’s got ships full of Ultrons. Just a truly terrifying piece of garbage.

******

35. Omni Man

Real Name: Nolan Grayson
First Appearance: Invincible #1 (2003)
Enemies: Invincible, Guardians of the Globe, Viltrumite Empire

“It is time, son. You are needed. The time for war is upon us.”

It’s a bit of a stretch to put Omni Man on a villains list, considering he has a massive change of heart about 1/3 of the way through “Invincible” and even rejoins his family on Earth, but for a brief period of time from when he reveals his plans of conquest of Earth to his son Mark to after he kills the Guardians of the Globe and nearly beats his own son to death, Omni Man is straight up terrifying.

Imagine if Superman was Superman like we knew him, but unbeknownst to us Clark was always working with Kryptonians, who had not in fact been destroyed, but had figured out their exposure to yellow sun made them god-like and created an empire, and now he was calling them to come kill us all. That’s what this was like. Because you really only see Nolan through the eyes of his son, who idolizes him, it’s insanely shocking to see him turn out to be a bastard.

Mix the Kryptonians from DC with the Saiyans from Dragon Ball Z, and that’s the Viltrumites. They fucking suck, and for a time, so does Omni Man.

******

34. Herr Starr

Real Name: Full Name Never Revealed
First Appearance: Preacher #4 (1995)
Enemies: Jesse Custer, Tulip O’Hare, Cassidy, Allfather D’Aronique

“Oh, well, let me see:  we had an angel, a whore, a eunuch, several dozen idiots, an unkillable mick, a one-man holocaust in a duster coat, the occasional twenty-course banquet for the mother of all fat fuckers, inbreeding, family feuds, bulimia, a retarded child- always good for a laugh- and the utter destruction of our most sacred shrine and secret retreat in the detonation of a fifty-ton bomb.”

Has there ever been a character that went through more shit, and yet deserved every single second of it than Herr Starr? My vote is no.

The first of a string of amazing Garth Ennis-created villains, Herr Starr joins the Grail, a secret society that pre-dates modern civilization and is the REAL head of the Church. They even have the direct (inbred) descendent of Jesus Christ in their custody! Starr, running afoul of the titular Preacher, Jesse Custer, learns that the Grail is inadequate when it comes to completing the task of dealing with Custer and Genesis, the omnipotent force that resides in Custer’s body and gives him the Word of God (you have to do what he says if you hear him, you can’t stop yourself). So, he stages a coup, kills all of the Grail leadership and the descendant of Christ, tortures an actual angel, and just never stops doing horrible stuff to get what he wants (power).

In return for his actions, he does get what he wants. BUT, he also gets the top of his head sliced so his (bald) head always looks like a dick, he loses an eye, he loses a leg, his dick is bitten off by a rottweiler, he’s sexually assaulted… you get the idea. Pretty much every time you see Starr he is worse off than the last time you saw him, but it’s never enough. Fuck this guy. Almost as badly as…

******

33. The Homelander

Real Name: The Homelander
First Appearance: The Boys #3
Enemies: Billy Butcher, the Boys

“I’m not fucking trying to fucking impress ANYBODY!”

Another Garth Ennis creation that at times is played for laughs, nobody is laughing when Homelander is angry (well, expect Butcher, but he’s crazy). Most will know him from Anthony Starr’s outstanding portrayal in the live-action The Boys on Amazon Prime, but those that read the comic book were treated to a different kind of unhinged. Tricked into believing he had already snapped and started killing innocent people for fun (it’s a whole thing), he just decided to go with it, and a nearly unstoppable being who was not used to being told ‘no’, much less outright confronted and challenged like the Boys were doing, started to lose any grip of control on himself. This led to him doing fucked up stuff like just picking up a random car driving down the highway (complete with nuclear family), flying them way above the cloud line, and just dropping them. Yikes.

What happens when Superman goes crazy and decides he’s not going to listen to anyone else? Well, the answer is the Homelander. Of all of the monstrous villains Garth Ennis has created (and there are TOOOOONS of them), there are very, very few that can even come close to matching the Homelander. In fact, there’s really only one…

******

32. Saint of Killers

Real Name: Unknown
First Appearance: Preacher #2 (1995)
Enemies: God, Jesse Custer

“Just how fast you reckon you can preach?”

Rounding out our Garth Ennis character trilogy is this ray of sunshine.

Once a nearly unbeatable killing machine in life, he was wronged very, very horribly by God’s plan. Unfortunately for the big G, this plan screwed our boy over so horribly and led to the death of his wife, the only good thing that ever happened to him. The pure, black, cold hatred this created followed the Saint when he was ambushed and his body killed. When his spirit went to hell, his hatred was so powerful that it put the fires of hell out. Confronted by the devil, the Saint actually killed the prince of lies! Dubbed the Saint of Killers, he was banished from Hell back to Earth, where he slept for years, until he was awakened by some angels that needed him to destroy Genesis before God found out about it.

Unkillable, armed with two six shooters that never run out of ammo, from which every hit is fatal, and can never miss, there is nothing more formidable in all of existence than the Saint, save perhaps Genesis (the being that joined with the titular Preacher, Jesse Custer). This is proven beyond any doubt at the end of the story, when (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS) the Saint goes up to Heaven, murders the entire Host, and waits for God on the throne. When he finally shows, the Saint even kills Him! SPOILERS OVER)

If you’ve ever read Preacher, you know about the Saint and the only thing you need to hear is his name. If you haven’t read Preacher, you are missing out on one of the greatest comics DC/Vertigo ever published.

******

31. Harley Quinn

Real Name: Harleen Quinzel
First Appearance: Batman Adventures #12 (1993)
Enemies: Batman, Joker

“I’m Harley Quinn. Twice the smarts of Batman and all the vitamins of a bowl of oranges.”

First created as a throwaway character for an episode of ‘Batman: The Animated Series’, she was such a hit that they brought her around again (and again), eventually bringing her into the comic books. At first, she was little more than the Joker’s sidekick, but over time she outgrew that role, and like most super popular villains, is now an anti-hero (SIGH. I can’t be the only one that prefers psycho-Joker girlfriend to the version now).

Anti-heroing aside, Harley was (is) a terrific villain. She’s got a jacked-up backstory, having been an Arkham Asylum doctor driven to madness by the Joker before either truly falling in love with him or being the most complete Stockholm syndrome case of all time. She’s got (had) a great look with the harlequin outfit and giant hammer. She’s got personality for days and is a terrific foil for not only the Joker and Batman, but especially for those that ally with Batman (I love seeing her fight Robin or Catwoman, for example). She also has very different relationships with the other Gotham rogues than the Joker does. She’s friendly with Catwoman, is in an off-and-on relationship with Poison Ivy, etc. She was quite the breath of fresh air into the Gotham crime scene back in the mid-90’s and has been a very welcome addition not only to the Bat books, but to DC in general. She’s been able to carry her own book (and often Suicide Squad, as well) for years now, and has been adapted all over the place, most famously by Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, and The Suicide Squad.

******

That’s it for this installment! Be sure to come back and check out the next installment, where we will cover entries 30-21, including the unstoppable Juggernaut, Deathstroke the Terminator, and the terrifying Two-Face!

To see the previous entries in our list click on the links below:

Part 1 (100-91)
Part 2 (90-81)
Part 3 (80-71)
Part 4 (70-61)
Part 5 (60-51)
Part 6 (50-41)