On our latest podcast episode (Issue #26) we gave some recommendations for the FF!
Erik’s Pick: “FANTASTIC FOUR: 1234” by Grant Morrison and Jae Lee (Marvel Knights)
Chris’s Pick(s): “Fantastic Four: Unthinkable” by Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo, and Casey Jones *AND* “Fantastic Four: Authoritative Action” by Mark Waid, Howard Porter, and Mike Wieringo!
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!)
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The Fantastic Four are well-renowned for being the first family of Marvel Comics; it was the title that started the Marvel universe as we know it, and the first to show some major aspects of the Marvel U, such as Subteranea (home of the Mole Man and his Atlas/Timely-era monsters), Atlantis, the Negative Zone, Latveria, Wakanda, the blue area of the moon (where the Watcher lives), and Attilan (home of the Inhumans). The book has always gotten credit, especially from the Lee/Kirby era, for exploring new areas of the universe. But what it doesn’t often get credit for is the great villains it has introduced. Sure, everyone knows Dr. Doom, but there are a ton of great FF villains that don’t normally get their due. It was actually difficult to reduce the list to ten, but here are my votes for the ten greatest FF adversaries.
Both Marvel and DC (and really most publishers) from time to time will throw a lot of their characters (sometimes nearly all) together for a really big story. These have been dubbed ‘event’ titles. Books like Final Crisis, Blackest Night, Metal, Civil War, Spider-Verse, and many, many others have their fans and detractors, but you can’t deny that they provide some of the coolest, most intense, most unforgettable moments in comics history.
Everyone has their favorites, but here are 50 of the best moments (in no particular order). If you have any favorites that we neglected to include, sound off in the comments.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Aunt May vs – GALACTUS!?
Let that sink in for a little bit while I go home and rethink my life…
There are a TON of villains in the Marvel universe. Some are jokes, some aren’t really villains at heart, some are pretty bad, and some are straight up evil. Then there are the ones that are just scary, because of what they’re capable of, or how far they’re willing to go to get what they want. There are some that didn’t make this list that might belong, like Magneto, or the Green Goblin, but in the end I think it depends on how you define scary. If you disagree with my choices feel free to leave your own top 10 in the comments. Here are my top 10 scariest villains of the Marvel universe.
Continued from Part 1: The Golden Age!
THE SILVER AGE (1956 – 1970)
— “With great power comes great responsibility!” – Ben Parker (Spider-man comics)
This period from around 1956 to 1970 was a huge shift in the world of comic books. Prior to this comics were in decline, mainly because of the Comics Code Authority banning all the awesome shit that was actually selling, because they were afraid it was going to create a generation of delinquents, you know like rap music and video games! Thanks to douchebag of the century, Fredric Wertham, many comic books and pulp magazines were burned in massive bonfires around the country.
So the Silver Age is considered the point at which comics were rejuvenated after a lame stint of pure camp in the Atomic Age of the 50’s. It was the beginning of many a Marvel hero and was marked by a much more sci-fi focus than ever before. This was also notably the introduction of some of the industry’s best talent to date, both artists and writers, including Neal Adams, Denny O Neal, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr., and of course Stan Lee. Comics of this era are seen as an extension of the Atomic Age, and are often heavily influenced by B-rated Science Fiction films of the time where flying saucers, and giant radioactive monsters ran amok across the silver screen. One of the earliest instances of this was with the devious BRAINIAC first invading Action Comics in issue 242 (1958). Much like the Children of the Atom (the X-Men), Comics began to evolve.
Comic Zombie 