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!)

30. Juggernaut

Real Name: Cain Marko
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #12 (1965)
Enemies: Charles Xavier, X-Men

“I am going to #@$% things up…”

Another in the “they work better as villains” group, in recent years our boy Juggernaut has been more or less on the side of the angels and has even been a member of the X-Men! The stepbrother of none other than Professor Charles Xavier himself, Marko grew up resenting Charles as his father (Charles’ stepfather) showed favoritism to the young boy, leading Cain to grow up resentful and bitter. While serving in a foreign war Cain finds a rare artifact: the ruby gem of Cyttorak. When he grabbed the gem, Cain was transformed into Cyttorak’s avatar of destruction: The unstoppable Juggernaut! Incredibly strong and nearly invincible, Juggernaut literally cannot be stopped once he gets moving; even the Hulk himself has failed to stop him!

Early on in his career Cain befriended Black Tom Cassidy, a mutant with control over plant life, and the two became a rather unlikely villain team for years. The Juggernaut was a consistent nightmare for his stepbrother’s X-Men teams, the Hulk, one very memorable confrontation with Spider-Man, and even went toe-to-toe, and held his own, against the mighty Thor!

Juggernaut has been straddling the line between hero and villain for the better part of 20 years now, and it would be nice to see him really get a shot as a full-time hero (and member of the X-Men, please!) for a short while, before it inevitably falls apart. Whether that happens or not, just remember, nothing can stop the Juggernaut.

 

******

29. Sentinels

Real Name: N/A
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #14 (1965)
Enemies: Mutants

“TARGETS IDENTIFIED. MUTANTS. SURRENDER OR DIE.”

Maybe the most terrifying adversaries the X-Men face (which is really saying something), the Sentinels are built only for murder, and are a walking, talking, blasting sign of humanity’s fear and prejudice come to homicidal life. Whether you are dealing with the standard models, which are taller than a building, incredibly durable, and capable of mass destruction, or one of the more advanced models, which we will get into in just a second, the bottom line is that you are absolutely going to be fighting for your life, and that running is by far your best option. 

There are a number of advanced sentinel models, some more commonly encountered than others. There’s the Master Molds, which are highly advanced Sentinels capable of the design and manufacture of other Sentinels. Thankfully these all seem to have been destroyed. However, recently it was revealed that the villainous organization Orchis had created a Mother Mold, which is capable of producing Master Molds! There is also the Nimrod, which is the deadliest of the Sentinels and is capable of nearly immediate adaptation to attacks, incredible strength and durability, multiple bodies and nearly instantaneous processing power between the bodies. If you run into a Nimrod and you’re a mutant it’s almost certain that you’re dead. There are also Omega Sentinels, which are cyborg Sentinels created from human bodies!

There’s something about the unstoppable nature of these things, combined with their cold, staring, unfeeling faces and emotionless voices, that just turns my spine to glass.

 

******

28. Two-Face

Real Name: Harvey Dent
First Appearance: Detective Comics #66 (1942)
Enemies: Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Commissioner Gordon

“Two heads are better than one.”

Poor old Harvey Dent. The once handsome, dashing, leading-man type was Gotham’s new, young hotshot district attorney, the first in years that had shown no fear of the organized crime families running the city. Gotham believed in Harvey Dent. 

Then came the pact with Jim Gordon and the Batman to take down the mob. In what became known as the Long Halloween, Harvey lost everything in their war against organized crime. Well, half of everything, at least. 

The now facially- challenged bag of crazy was scarred by a faceful of acid, and the damage was much deeper than just Hamburger Helper face. Dent’s psyche cracked in half to match his appearance, and now there’s Harvey… and there’s Two-Face.

Gone is the crusader for justice for the people. In his place is a monster; calculating, intelligent, ruthless and weirdly obsessed with the number two, twins, and duality (the obsession makes sense, but he’s REALLY into it at times). Carrying a coin that is scarred on one side, he leaves all of his big decisions (you live or die, etc) to a flip of the coin, to random chance. Two-Face will bring Harvey Dent’s justice to Gotham, but instead of fighting for the people he’s fighting to destroy them.

Two-Face is the most ‘Dick Tracy’-is of the main O.G. Batman villains, but he might be my favorite. He easily fades into the background when in a group of crazy villains, but as the star of a story it’s hard to top Harvey Dent.

 

****

27. Mystique

Real Name: Raven Darkholme
First Appearance: Ms. Marvel #17 (1978)
Enemies: Wolverine, Gambit, X-Men

“Who am I? That, my dear, is an excellent question. Though not one easily answered.”

Ignore the terrible FoX-Men movies that made… choices with her character. Mystique is no hero, she’s not misunderstood, and she is NOBODY’s henchman. She’s not at the end of the string, she’s the one pulling them.

A mutant with the ability to shapeshift to an astonishingly accurate degree (complete with voice changes), Mystique is also an incredibly hand-to-hand fighter and weapons master. It’s impossible to imagine any better suited to subterfuge and espionage. True to form, she uses those abilities to generally be a real pain in the ass for pretty much everyone but her. After her wife died from the Legacy Virus in the early-to-mid-90’s she was a little rudderless for a while, but understandably seemed angrier and meaner in her appearances. Now that Destiny has been revived in the Krakoa era of X-Men it’s very interesting to see Mystique back on top with everything she ever wanted.

In addition to her pre-cog wife, Mystique has a very complicated family tree. She and Destiny are foster parents to X-Men and Avengers member Rogue, Mystique is the mother to the X-Man Nightcrawler (fathered by the mutant Azazel) and had a human child with Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth) who grew up to be an anti-mutant hate monger before he was killed by… Mystique. Of course. 

Mystique can always be counted on to be a step ahead, have an ulterior motive (or two), and be one of the most dangerous people in any room. When partnered with Destiny and her ability to see the future, Mystique is nearly unbeatable.

 

*****

26. Bullseye

Real Name: “Lester”
First Appearance: Daredevil #131 (1976)
Enemies: Daredevil

“You still don’t get it, do you? I’m Bullseye. In my hands, anything is a weapon…”

As we near the top 25 of our list pretty much every entry is going to be real shitbag, and old Lester here is no exception. In fact, it’s truthfully pretty difficult to justify putting almost anyone above him on the list; he’s almost the perfect villain. He’s got a mysterious, shadowy background that’s enough to be interesting but is never the point of the story when he shows up, so it stays shadowy and mysterious, which is cool (see 80-early 90’s Wolverine). He’s got an excellent costume that would look absurd in person but on the page just looks so great, especially in contrast to his primary foe, Daredevil. He functions as both the Big Boss of a story or the mini-boss to a Norman Osborn or Wilson Fisk. He’s got absolutely no compunctions about murder- in fact he quite enjoys it- and when you combine that with his ability of near perfect aim literally anything becomes a deadly weapon in his hands. The only person that can rival his precision is Hawkeye, which is ironic because when Norman Osborn was running HAMMER and the Dark Avengers, Bullseye was the stand-in for Hawkeye! 

While he’s got a body count in the triple digits- easy- there are 2 kills that stand out above all of the others and put Bullseye on Daredevil’s eternal IT’S ON SIGHT list: the murders of Elektra and Karen Page. Both of them women Daredevil loved, and this fact brings Bullseye tremendous joy, and makes their rivalry as personal and intense as any in all of comics!

*****

25. Deathstroke

Real Name: Slade Wilson
First Appearance: The New Teen Titans #2 (1980)
Enemies: Teen Titans, Green Arrow, Nightwing

“Tell me, Robin — is that mask bulletproof?”

Speaking of absolute scumbags, how about this one-eyed asshole? 

If there’s a move that would get someone labeled ‘scumbag’ forever, Slade here would check every box.

He’s killed children, slept with one, psychologically tortured and manipulated his own kids, and declared war on a group of teenagers.

Yeah, he’s got a great look, a great name, awesome power set, and can genuinely be one of the coolest, scariest dudes in the DC universe this side of the Batman, but it’s hard for me to overlook his actions with Terra during the Teen Titans: The Judas Contract era. It will always cement him as an absolute villain in my eyes, and not DC’s version of the Punisher as he’s often portrayed. But man, what a villain!

 This guy is not only capable of fighting an entire team of heroes, Teen Titans or JLA doesn’t matter, and have a legit chance of winning (assuming no Kryptonians are present, but then that’s the case for pretty much everybody). Don’t believe me? Check out his dismantling of a group of Leaguers in the Identity Crisis story, or pretty much any time he’s beaten down an entire team of Teen Titans (admittedly he’s beating up kids, mostly, but see above. It’s far from the worst thing he’s done with kids).

*****

24. Kingpin



Real Name: Wilson Fisk
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #50 (1967)
Enemies: Daredevil, Spider-Man, Punisher

“I could kill you right here, Murdock. Murder you in your bed, in your sleep. And nothing would happen to me.”

It’s hard to imagine, but one of the most powerful, most terrifying, most dangerous men on the planet in the Marvel universe is Wilson Fisk, a man completely without superpowers, who has built a veritable kingdom out of his criminal organization. Fisk is everywhere; he owns politicians, judges, district attorneys, most of the police, multiple super-powered killers, media empires… you name it. He built himself from less than nothing into the most feared man in the United States- a man whose name is whispered like the boogeyman’s. The only man who isn’t scared of him is called the Man Without Fear, and the war between these two men has defined them both for over 40 years.

Originally a Spider-Man villain, the Kingpin was almost co-opted over to Daredevil under the pen of the legendary Frank Miller. Fisk and Daredevil began a war that has pushed both men beyond the breaking point (as Fisk has done to multiple people, besides DD most famously he went after Peter Parker and the Punisher). Fisk masterfully and completely destroyed Daredevil’s life from every conceivable angle in the masterpiece that is Daredevil: Born Again. Daredevil destroyed Fisk’s empire and had his name dragged through the mud in Daredevil: Last Rites. Fisk has had Daredevil nearly killed multiple times, has had his loved ones attacked (and killed), sent Bullseye, Typhoid Mary, the Hand and a horde of others after Daredevil time and again. 

Outside of his private war and his dealings with the likes of the Hobgoblin, Bullseye, Tombstone, Black Maria, Diamondback, Madame Masque, Bushmaster, the Owl, the Black Cat, Norman Osborn, and despite him often getting his own hands dirty when it comes to killing off his competition or people in his way, Fisk always comes away clean in the end. He even recently served as the Mayor of New York City! Now THAT is power. Not the ability to walk on walls, or hear someone lying, but to be virtually untouchable, to have everyone in the room be people of power and influence and have them all know that your hands are beyond dirty and dripping with blood and not have it matter one bit. That’s the Kingpin.

*****

23. Negan

Real Name: Negan
First Appearance: The Walking Dead #100 (2012)
Enemies: Rick Grimes

“We’re the big swinging dick of this world- have been for a long fucking time… but it seems people are forgetting that. So now our big swinging dick is going to swing harder… and faster, until we take off like a motherfucking helicopter and blow all these motherfuckers away.”

The Walking Dead is a series with some great villains, such as the Governor, the Hunters, Alpha/Beta & the Whisperers, etc, but none of them can touch Negan and his Saviors. First appearing in the big 100th issue, Negan hit the group of survivors led by Rick Grimes like a proverbial bomb, and killing beloved character Glenn Rhee in front of his friends and family as they were forced to watch, helpless, all the while Negan was bashing Glenn’s head in and making jokes the entire time. Horrifying, yes, but also why, in spite of all odds, Negan became one of the most interesting characters in the Walking Dead universe.

Armed with his bat wrapped in barbed wire that he has named Lucille, Negan and his group, the Saviors, live in a concrete fortress surrounded by impaled and chained zombies used as defense, but also making it very dangerous to go outside. Inside things aren’t always so great. Negan’s people operate on a points system; those that produce goods or services get preferred treatment, and nobody is treated better than Negan’s ‘wives’. Any woman willing to be loyal only to him and to live with the others already pledged to him and to seemingly only ever wear lingerie and be available to him sexually 24/7 would become one of Negan’s ‘wives’ and would want for nothing. Unfortunately, a number of these women were in relationships before they decided they were tired of struggling all the time, and a few of them would make the mistake of being caught with their former boyfriends/husbands. As punishment, if the woman decided she wanted to stay a wife of Negan, he would hold a hot iron to the side of their man’s face. Most famously this was done to Dwight, which would end up being Negan’s undoing, in the end.

While Negan and his group are pretty despicable, and his war with Rick Grimes’ Alexandria and their allies was great, where it really gets interesting is after the war, when Negan is imprisoned by Rick for nearly a decade and truly comes around to Rick’s way of thinking but has crossed so many lines that nobody is willing to trust him. So, while at the end of his story he realizes the error of his ways and truly regrets the things he did, while he was running around thinking he was king of shit mountain and killing Rick’s friends he was so much fun to love to hate, and to hate to love, that he cemented himself as the best villain of the story, and one of the best in comics history.

 

*****

22. Venom

Real Name: Edward Brock
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #300 (1988)
Enemies: Spider-Man, Carnage, Knull

“WE… are… Venom!”

Venom was such an amazing villain from 1988-1993 in the Spider-Man books and beyond that he still makes this list at all, much less this high, is pretty crazy. Since 1993 Venom has gone from anti-hero to straight up hero these days, which has been fun to follow, and while I really enjoy “Eddie Brock Venom: Hero”, I will always miss “Spider-Man’s Scariest Villain, Venom”. 

A disgraced reporter who blamed Spider-Man when a story he was covering blew up in his face, and his source proved to be a liar after Spider-Man brought the truth to light, Eddie Brock was contemplating suicide when he met the alien symbiote that Peter Parker had worn as a black suit and had very recently, and somewhat violently, rejected and separated from. Both scared, alone, hurt, and full of hatred for the old web-slinger, the two bonded together to create Venom: a crazy, dark, twisted, evil version of Spider-Man! 

Venom terrorized Mary Jane, attacked and brutalized the Black Cat, could use the symbiote to camouflage himself like the Predator, had all of Spider-Man’s powers, and didn’t trigger Spider-Man’s greatest advantage: his spider sense! Also, more troubling, because the alien symbiote knew all of Spider-Man’s secrets, now Eddie knew them, too, and the newly bonded pair would use this knowledge to mess with Peter Parker on a level not seen since the original Green Goblin 20 years prior. He would show up at Aunt May’s house as a man from the gas company, would show up around Peter’s friends, Mary Jane, etc, just to let Spider-Man know that he knew who they were and that he could get to them at any time, which made their confrontations even more personal, and added some stakes that had been missing from Spidey’s rogue’s gallery.  

Venom was awesome, and it didn’t hurt that he had a great design from Todd McFarlane and was afterwards drawn by the great Erik Larsen, who exaggerated the mouth and tongue into what you see above and is pretty much the standard depiction of the character since. 

Unfortunately, Venom became really popular right when the speculator market was at its peak, and Marvel didn’t want him to be in Spider-Man every single month, but also wanted to cash in on his popularity. So, he was spun off into a series of mini-series with him as the titular hero, starting with Venom: Lethal Protector. They didn’t want to have a book starring a psycho murderer, so the scariest addition to Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery in nearly 20 years lasted as a Spider-Man villain for only 5 years. He was replaced in the rogue’s gallery by Carnage, for the most part, but he’s mostly a Venom villain now.

It’s hard to complain about this, as the Venom books have been outstanding for a number of years now, and we would never have had the awesome Flash Thompson as Agent Venom, or Anti-Venom, or even Carnage had Venom just stayed a villain. But a part of me will always pine for the days when Venom showed up every year to scare the crap out of Peter Parker in his quest to eat Spider-Man’s brains.

*****

21. Catwoman

Real Name: Selina Kyle
First Appearance: Batman #1 (1940)
Enemies: Carmine Falcone, Black Mask

“Next time, I’ll steal your heart!”

Another of the classic Batman foes (only 2 of them left on the countdown!), Catwoman has, like many classic DC characters, undergone a whole pile of changes over the years. This has stabilized in the last 20 years, as she has mostly stayed with the same look (above) for years and has served as the criminal with the heart of gold, the femme fatale, even a hero, but very rarely as a straight up villain, as she used to be. 

Selina Kyle is one of DC’s most famous characters and has been adapted to other forms of media as many times of anyone outside of Batman. She’s been adapted to the big screen 5 times (Batman: The Movie (’66), Batman Returns, The Dark Knight Rises, The Batman and… ugh… and Catwoman, starring Halle Berry), has been in every animated version of Batman, had her own animated movie, been in video games, etc. She’s very popular, is the point.

Catwoman is the definition of femme fatale in the film noir world of Batman’s Gotham. If it were a classic private eye story she would be the beautiful mystery woman that hires the PI but was secretly manipulating things the whole time. Plus, she can beat the living crap out of you, claw your throat out, whip you in the face, and can steal pretty much anything from pretty much anywhere (within reason, she’s not gonna steal the Green Lantern Power Battery from Oa, for instance). 

Whether she’s being portrayed as the cat stroking villain bank robber, the anti-hero, the villain seeking redemption, or the master thief going for the big score, one of the most interesting things about her in any version is how she relates to the Batman. Even when they were straight up enemies there was always something there, and now they know all of each other’s secrets and have even admitted their love for one another. But Selina knows that eventually a choice will have to be made, and she will make the choice she will make, and Batman will be forced to make the other choice for his code, and they will be at odds again. For most people this would be terrifying! The most dangerous man in the world coming after you would tend to make even the hardest of us wet ourselves and cry in the corner. For Catwoman? It’s just another Tuesday night.

*****

Thanks for reading! Before we get to our next list covering parts 20-11, including entries on Doomsday, The Reverse Flash, and Dr. Octopus, be sure to check out our previous entries if you haven’t already!

Part 1: 100-91
Part 2: 90-81
Part 3: 80-71
Part 4: 70-61
Part 5: 60-51
Part 6: 50-41
Part 7: 40-31