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!)

20. Doomsday

Real Name: Doomsday
First Appearance: Superman: The Man of Steel #18 (1992)
Enemies: Superman

“Rrrrraaargh!”

Doomsday is a very one-note character, in that he doesn’t really have one. He’s basically just a giant rampaging murder machine, and that’s why we love to hate him and hate to love him. Armed with less vocabulary than Solomon Grundy, all Doomsday does is break things and people, and he does it at a level that very, very few- in any- can even dream of. While his greatest impact on Superman, the Justice League, popular culture and comic books in general all comes from his first story, it’s one hell of a story- he kills freaking Superman!

Not only does Doomsday kill the world’s greatest super hero (granted he dies in the process, himself, but still…), but he beat the holy bejeezus out of an entire Justice League squad, and he did it with one hand literally tied behind his back for half of the fight! Granted, this wasn’t the League at its strongest or best, but it’s still the freaking Justice League, and Doomsday beat them like they were the Great Lakes Avengers! He beat them so badly that they had to replace nearly the entire roster because the rest of them were hospitalized or otherwise out of commission.

Now you may be saying, “how can be not even be in the top 10? He freaking killed Superman!” and to that I would say that the fact that he’s stuck around, showing up occasionally when DC either wants to capitalize on the Death of Superman story or when a writer needs a moment to feel epic he’s dug out of the mothballs, and it’s a very strong case of diminishing returns. Had they left him dead after his original fight with Superman I think he would be very fondly remembered as an all-time great (monster) villain, but since he has been relegated to Just Another Big Monster more often than not in stories since, the only thing that gets him within sniffing distance of the top 10 is the shine left over from 30+ years ago.

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19. Ra’s Al Ghul

Real Name: Ra’s Al Ghul
First Appearance: Batman #232 (1971)
Enemies: Batman

“Do you think this matters? You are but seconds in my life! Only I know humanity for what it truly is! Only I can see the grand movements of generations! Only I, undying, can live within this world and protect it from itself!” 

Of all of the ‘main’ Batman rogues, Ra’s is probably the one that shouldn’t work as a recurring villain for the caped crusader; on the surface he seems like a one-off silver age villain. Let’s see, he’s functionally immortal, has nearly unlimited resources, is the leader of a huge network of assassins that are loyal to only him, is a genius megalomaniac, and also happens to be an expert in hand-to-hand combat. He’s ancient, has died many times (using his network of life restoring Lazarus Pits to retain/regain vitality) and is as deadly a man that has ever walked the earth.

In a rogue’s gallery full of guys with ice guns and giant clay monsters he stands out as one of the least ‘grounded’. Not exactly the kind of opponent one would imagine for a human vigilante obsessed with a few square miles’ worth of infrastructure. He’s like Shelock Holmes’ Moriarity if he was kind of a zombie and was in charge of the Hand from Daredevil.

That said, he totally freaking works, and is easily one of Batman’s, and DC’s, best villains, for all the reasons he maybe shouldn’t work as listed above, and for the weird respectful relationship he has with the dark knight. He has long been cemented as one a mainstay of the Bat-titles, but it was Grant Morrison’s work that really tied him to Batman in a permanent, irreversible way when it was revealed that Batman had fathered a son with Ra’s daughter, Talia. Giving Batman a son and making him the new Robin made it so that Talia, and by extension Ra’s, are part of Bruce Wayne’s family tree now!

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18. Annihilus

Real Name: Annihilus
First Appearance: Fantastic Four Annual #6 (1968)
Enemies: Fantastic Four, Nova, all life outside of the Negative Zone

“I am Annihilus… Lord of the Negative Zone! Annihilus, the Living Death that walks!”

If you’ve ever needed proof that the Fantastic Four are complete and total badasses, read Annihilus’ appearances in the Annihilation event story, and then remember that for decades the only thing keeping this guy from doing whatever he wanted to us where the four of them!

Annihilus lives in the Negative Zone, a dimension that exists parallel to ours that is created from negative energy. Immensely powerful beings and creatures reside there, and all kneel to Annihilus, keeper of the legendary Cosmic Control Rod, a weapon that makes its wielder nearly invincible. His size, power, speed and ability to fly make him an insanely dangerous foe even without the control rod; with it he also controls a nearly endless army of insectoid monsters that is… dangerous. How dangerous, you ask? Well, the last time they attacked our universe they wiped out trillions of lives, crippled the Kree and Skrull empires, and enslaved both the Silver Surfer and freaking Galactus! Even Thanos was working for them!

The only thing that stopped Annihilus from romping all the way to Earth and taking out years’ worth of boiling frustration on us to get back at old smarty pants Reed Richards was Nova Prime (Richard Rider) reaching down his throat and pulling his guts out through his mouth (and even then he was reborn moments later as a baby; you can’t keep this monster down)!!

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17. Reverse Flash

Real Name: Eboard Thawne
First Appearance: The Flash #139 (1963)
Enemies: The Flash

“What if every bad thing that ever happened to you was orchestrated by one person?”

There are plenty of arch-villains that have done awful things to our heroes over the years. Black Manta killed Aquaman’s son, the Green Goblin has a laundry list of atrocities against Spider-Man, Sabretooth has killed a ton of people close to Wolverine, etc. But there might not be any that have made their entire lives’ purpose to be to torture the main hero as much as possible, no matter the cost, like the Reverse Flash.

Thawne has gone so far as to have his appearance altered to look like Barry Allen so that he could do even more damage to Barry’s personal life and legacy by acting as him! It’s really kind of sad, when you consider he started off loving Barry Allen and worshipping the Flash so badly he did everything he could to become him.

He has tried to destroy Barry’s life in so many ways. He vibrated a young boy out of existence to ensure Barry grew up without friends (he was originally going to be Barry’s lifelong BFF), he has tried to murder Barry at numerous times, he killed Iris West (pre-Crisis), he turned Barry’s future son and daughter evil, he caused Barry to be forced to have to kill his ally Johnny Quick, manipulated things so Barry caused the Flashpoint reality, and of course, murdered Barry’s mother when he was young and framed Barry’s father for it.

What a huge, huge asshole this guy is. He’s just as fast as the Flashes, if not faster, due to his connection to the Negative Speed Force, is able to travel through time with just his abilities and can even remove a speedster’s natural protective aura that saves them from the insane friction the speeds they travel at creates. He’s remorseless, twisted, and obsessed; a diseased mind with the powers of a god.

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16. Apocalypse

Real Name: En Sabah Nur
First Appearance: X-Factor #6 (1986)
Enemies: The X-Men, Mr. Sinister, Stryfe

“If the strong survive’…then the measure of strength is survival. But understand: survival has no moral component. Heroes die. Brave hearts break. Paradise is lost. The numinous is denied by small souls or betrayed by despots. The alchemist’s gold is pulled from heaven…to make currency. Consider a rock battered by the ocean for a million years. It is worn– but whole. Is the rock noble? Can a rock be moral? A rock is there. As I was there. And this is the revelation as it was revealed to me. It is not enough only to be there. It is not enough only to be strong.”

Man, this guy sure has changed in the nearly 40 years since his debut.

Originally, he was to the original X-Factor what Magneto was to them when they were the original X-Men; he was their series big bad, turning Angel into the murderous Archangel and infecting Cyclops’ baby son with the Techno-Organic virus (fatal in our time, Cyclops was forced to allow his son to be taken to the future where he would never see him again, until he returned as a borderline old man as Cable!). He had his Horsemen, four mutants he endowed with extra power to represent Pestilence, Famine, War and Death, and was obsessed with the mantra Survial of the Fittest. He wanted to cause calamity, mayhem and devastation and force the strong to rise to the occassion.

At first, it seemed that was about all there was to him, but he had this ship that was created by the technology of the Celestials and claimed to be from ancient Egypt, and then the Clan Akkaba was revealed; an organization/cult that originated in Egypt and is dedicated to Apocalypse, and it was revealed that Apocalypse’s drive to winnow the weak and encourage strength was to prepare Earth for a Celestial test.

Then, the Age of Apocalypse happened. I’ve spoken about it a few times, so I won’t go into it here, suffice to say that it cemented the big A as an all-time great Marvel villain.

Then, for a while, he was Generic Villain Guy, and really, outside of a few appearances in some Thor stories that took place in the God of Thunder’s youth, he was kind of nothing for a while. He had kind of hit his ceiling as a villain with the AoA, and nobody was sure what to do with him. Then Jonathan Hickman’s House of X/Powers of X began to look at Apocalypse in a different light, which was greatly expended upon in Tini Howard’s excellent Excalibur series, where Apocalypse truly embraced his role on the Krakoan Council and as a sage of sorts, culminating with him leading a team of X-Men into Otherworld for a war/contest against his own family, exiled from our plane of existence thousands of years prior! Nobody is a bigger defender of a united mutant people, it turns out, than one of the biggest threats a splintered mutantkind ever saw. We will see if that continues, especially with what appears to be the true, final end of the Krakoa era upon us (noooooooooooo).

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15. Ozymandias

Real Name: Adrian Viedt
First Appearance: Watchmen #1 (1986)
Enemies: Rorschach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan

“I did it 35 minutes ago.”

The villain behind the mystery in The Watchmen, Adrian Viedt, aka Ozymandias, needs no introduction. You all know who he is and why he’s on the list.

To avert World War 3 he faked an alien invasion with a creature created from the brains of psychics and used it to kill millions of people to unite the world’s survivors. He committed the largest mass murder the world has ever seen, and because to reveal what he did would be to undo world peace and threaten world war 3, the only people who know what he had done found themselves unable (or unwilling) to do anything about it (other than Rorschach, but we don’t know if his journal, which got to a news publication, was ever deemed credible by the denizens of that world).

His big moment is when the heroes travel to his Arctic base to stop him from triggering the attack. He regrets to inform them that they are, sadly, too late.

Truly, one of the most villainous, coldest moments in comics history. Even if this is the only story he ever appeared in (it’s not), he’s a legend in villainy for this.

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14. Black Adam

Real Name: Teth Adam
First Appearance: The Marvel Family #1 (1945)
Enemies: Shazam/Captain Marvel, Felix Faust, JSA, Intergang

“If you come back here again… you will leave in a body bag.”

As a straight up super villain, Adam might not make this list. It’s in the ‘hero/anti-hero/screw this guy he’s a villain’ role that he most shines.

Really, if you want to see peak Black Adam you should check out the Geoff Johns written Hawkman and JSA, or the amazing weekly series ’52’.  It is here that we really get the relationship Adam has with his nation of Kahndaq, his time as a member of the JSA. the development of his friendship with Atom Smasher, and the escalation of his antagonistic relationship with many of the JSA members (particularly Hawkman). In 52 we see him truly ruling his nation, finding happiness and even a new family, before it is wiped out by extremists and he takes his rage out on the whole world.

In a post new-52 world he seemed to be drifting close to full-time anti-hero, which was cemented by the super average Black Adam movie starring Dwayne Johnson.

While Adam dates back to nearly World War 2 in his battles with Billy Batson, he really started to become the character we recognize today in the early 00’s in the titles mentioned above. In a relatively short time he went from being just an old Captain Marvel villain to being one of the biggest, baddest dudes in the entire DCU. This is a guy that will not blink if he’s staring down Superman, Captain Marvel (or ‘Shazam’ or ‘the Captain’ or whatever they’re calling him now) or freaking Darkseid, he is not to be taken lightly.

Like Billy Batson, Teth Adam gets his powers from shouting out the name of the wizard Shazam. Everything he does from there is pretty much the exact opposite of what Billy Batson would do. Adam has no problems tearing off limbs, crushing skulls, tearing planes from the sky, or just a good, old fashioned ‘beating to death’. Considering he’s basically a magically-powered Superman, it really sucks for anyone he decides to do this stuff to. Ignore the stupid movie and go read some awesome early aughts comics that show Black Adam tearing the DC universe a new one every few weeks for a few years. It was awesome.

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13. Dr. Octopus

Real Name: Otto Octavius
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #3 (1963)
Enemies: Spider-Man

“Farewell, Peter Parker. Know this, I will carry on in your name. You may be leaving this world, but you are not leaving it to a villain. I swear. I will be Spider-Man. Better yet, with my unparalleled genius– –and my boundless ambition– –I’ll be a better Spider-Man than you ever were. From this day forth, I shall become…the Superior Spider-Man!”

Old Otto here is indisputably one of Marvel’s greatest villains. Since his first appearance waaaaay back in Amazing Spider-Man issue 3 (!!) he has been a nightmare for your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and even on occasion tormenting the shit out of the likes of Daredevil, Captain America, Reed Richards or Iron Man (but mostly Spidey).

When an accident during an experiment caused his mechanical arms to be fused to his body Otto decided to use these nearly indestructible arms to become public enemy number one, as one does. Not one to screw around, Otto’s schemes are a bit… grander… than a Kingpin or a Green Goblin. Otto doesn’t give a crap about a criminal empire, or even money, really. He wants his genius- his greatness!- to be recognized; he wants everyone to bow to him as the foremost expert on everything ever. Or he just wants everyone to die- it depends on what day you catch him on.

One time he held the entire city of New York hostage with a nuclear device, and even when it was clear he was going to get the obscene amount of money he requested, he didn’t care. He had already armed the device and started the countdown! Old four-eyes here is a real piece of crap, is my point.

Ock’s most recent claim to fame- and it’s a hall of fame villain move, no doubt- was one of the great long games a villain has played in a very long time (there’s a reason he was once referred to as the Master Planner, after all). When Ock learned years of getting hit in the head by super powered heroes had left him with a limited time to live, he tried to take over every device in NYC with his mind but was defeated when Spider-Man uploaded his brain waves into Ock’s device and overrode his commands. Unbeknownst to Spidey, this was a HUGE mistake, as Ock used this to create a device that would insert his consciousness into Spidey’s body, and Spidey’s consciousness into Ock’s body, which had only hours to live! After Peter, in Ock’s body, ‘died’, Ock was the one and only (and superior) Spider-Man!

The weird thing was, Ock had all of Peter’s memories, and some of Peter’s consciousness still lingered, so Ock slowly started to act a bit altruistically, and (in the end), even heroically! Doc Ock is so awesome that he can even make being the dickhead version of Spider-Man ‘must read’. These days he’s back to the normal, chubby, bowl-cutted body we all know and love.

Oh, and he also created the greatest villain team ever in the Sinister Six. Just throwing that out there.

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12. Dark Phoenix

Real Name: “Jean Grey” (was the Phoenix force in her form, thanks to retcons)
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #135 (1980)
Enemies: X-Men

“Ask not for pity from Dark Phoenix, my love. There is none in her.”

What happens when a literal force of life and death bonds itself to a mutant superhero to save her life, then while she heals that force copies her body and tries to live as her, experiencing the highs of being a hero, experiencing comradery with the rest of the X-Men and even love only to be corrupted by a telepathic master of manipulation and lose her marbles? One hell of a mess of a run-on sentence, and one terrifying opponent, that’s what.

Fighting a cosmic scale threat is pretty much impossible on its own but throw in the fact that she’s your friend/teammate/loved one, and that she has no compunctions (seemingly) about killing you until you die from it, the situation goes from “I need new pants”- level of bad to “I can no longer wear pants. I’m ruined for pants forever”- level of bad.

The Phoenix can seemingly do pretty much anything it wants, but when bonded to an omega level telepath/telekinetic like Jean Grey, it can destroy your mind (see: Mastermind, Emma Frost) as easily as it can crush and contort the strongest of bodies just by making a fist (see: Colossus) or create costumes from anything or turn a tree into solid gold by rearranging things on a molecular level. In the case of the Jean Grey Phoenix, the only (and I mean only) reason the X-Men, the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard, and probably Earth’s moon (which means humanity is pretty boned) were not all completely destroyed (and with little effort, honestly) was that the ‘Jean’ side of the equation wouldn’t let her hurt her friends and she took her own life.

In the case of the Scott Summers Phoenix it took him surrendering plus the Scarlet Witch’s powers and Hope Summers’ willingness to accept the Phoenix to ‘beat’ him, as he was completely and totally dominating pretty much every major superhero Marvel has. God help the entire Marvel Universe if the Phoenix is ever bonded to a villain. Can you imagine if some piece of shit like Kang or Dr. Doom got it? Or even worse, what if some utter maniac got a hold of it? Someone with a history of extreme violence and mental illness? Someone like..

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11. Green Goblin

Real Name: Norman Osborn
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #14 (1964)
Enemies: Spider-Man

“But now, I’ve made you look at your reflection, and you don’t like what you see in the shadows. One of these days, one of us is going to inevitably kill the other. It’s coming, Parker… Sooner than you think. And when it does, you’re going to have to choose.”

Oooooh, this piece of shit right here.

It’s hard to come up with a bigger a-hole than Dr. Octopus that poor old Spider-Man has to regularly deal with, because Ock sucks so hard, but if there’s anyone that can claim the title it’s ol’ Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin, aka the Red Goblin, aka the Gold Goblin, aka the Goblin King, aka the Iron Patriot.

Let’s run down the list of horrible things this laughing shit bag has done to Spider-Man alone:

-He terrorized Peter Parker as a teenager
-He murdered Peter’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, in front of him
-He abducted Peter and Mary Jane’s baby and made everyone think she had been stillborn (Marvel wants you to forget this, but it happened!)
-He (literally) forced the alcoholic Flash Thompson to get blackout drunk and drive through the school Peter was teaching at, putting Flash in a coma
-He orchestrated the 90’s clone saga
-He murdered Spider-Man’s clone, Ben Reilly
-He kidnapped and tortured Peter
-He kidnapped Aunt May and buried her alive then forced Peter to break him out of prison to save her
-During the Nick Spencer run of Amazing Spider-Man it was revealed that in one of his lowest moments he sold Harry’s soul to Mephisto!

See? Asshole of the century material, right here. And that’s just what he did to Spider-Man (and not even close to everything, just the ‘highlights’)! When he was in charge of the SHIELD replacement HAMMER and had control of the Avengers, he messed with pretty much every hero (Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Luke Cage in particular all really hate this guy now) while parading his team of villains around as Avengers and wearing repainted Stark suits as the Iron Patriot. Of course, his legitimacy didn’t last too long, and his goblin-crazy eventually came out and cost him his position.

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Thanks for reading! Before we get to our top 10, featuring such swell fellows as the Red Skull and Loki, be sure to check out our previous entries if you haven’t already. Links below! Also be sure to check out our Top 100 Heroes List!

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
Part 8: 30-21