Everyone knows that Superman's rogues, barring Luthor or Brainiac or maybe Darkseid (?), tend to get a lot of flak for being outclassed or non-compelling or dumb or whatever. At least, in comparison to other superheroes like THE BATMAN and Spider-Man and what have you.
And since Superman has arguably more cultural clout and influence and HISTORY . . . this is a pretty lame thing.
So, have at it Sup Forums. Brainiac, Lobo, Metallo, Parasite, The Atomic Skull, the Elite, Doomsday, the freaking Toyman-
What would YOU do to elevate any of these dudes to even further god-tier villain status?
Chase Smith
Doomsday doesn't need to be elevated. His whole point is just that he can kill anyone if you aren't careful.
Lobo is more of an annoying neighbor than a villain.
Brainiac doesn't need elevating, he just needs to do more shit with green lanterns.
Metallo and atomic skull are pretty much thugs. Not much to do there. Their whole point is being thugs superman has to slightly worry about.
Parasite could easily be made awesome, if you just make him more calculating.
Parker Turner
>Metallo and atomic skull are pretty much thugs. Not much to do there.
That's precisely my point. How do you make a kryptonite cyborg soldier and a walking nuclear meltdown into more compelling and dangerous villains/characters?
Jayden Perry
Not every villain has to be totally compelling and all- dangerous. There's no hero whose villains are all like that.
You also have to understand the dynamics of metropolis and the villains. You have masterminds, and you have general villains. Luthor is a mastermind. Set up such that everyone else, even other plotters and masterminds, have to operate essentially under him. He wouldn't stand for it if there were other villains who were of equal stature to superman as himself, so you'd have that villain being at odds with lex ALL the time, who you also have to remember sees himself as a hero.
It's a complicated issue.
Joshua Peterson
Lex doesn't peg me as the type to be TOO particular about villains who can go toe to toe with Superman, provided they don't cross the line and steal his kill. Because even though they're powerful, they're still villains, and won't steal Lex's thunder.
Eli Rivera
>Lobo >Superman's villain
Isaiah Morales
It's either him or THIS cockbrain.
Ryan Moore
If you had an honestly prolific villain in metropolis besides lex, he'd absolutely have a problem with it. He sees metropolis as his city. He built it, it belongs to him. That's why he's totally fine with dips like atomic skull and metallo because they are known controllable variables.
Anyone else manipulating and pulling shit in the city at his level would be like another dog pissing on his territory.
Luis Ramirez
I think Sup Forums's creativity tanked. It's not very hard to elevate them, being as most of his villains could wipe the floor with most The League. Maybe the sheer intensity of their threat should be brought up more, or made more apparent.
William Myers
Not a great character, but they certainly killed him off to great effect.
Luke Miller
Metallo, toyman, and atomic skull could not mop the floor with most of the league.
Asking for more dangerous villains is not what superman needs. Superman always does better with stories based around complex situations. If you just put a dangerous villain in his way, the solution is to punch him.
You need situations beyond that.
Jason Reed
That just seems oddly . . . potentially very lame.
Christopher Sullivan
>Lowballing Metallo and Skull that hard Skull could fuck the league sideways with no effort, the fuck are you talking about.
Colton Stewart
I don't care stop saying that Lobo is a Superman villain. You are like the Batfags that say that Solomon Grundy is a Batman villain
Nathan James
A story of lex having a feud with another mastermind villain could be great.
Definitely better than just making all his base villains stronger.
Skulls power varies too much from writer to writer and his record of not getting blown the fuck out is awful.
Jaxon Peterson
Lobo's main recurring combatant is superman, and the super senpai at large. What are you smoking?
Chase Clark
Super f a m Superman Family kek
Chase Fisher
Not him, but calling lobo a superman villain is like calling daffy duck a bugs bunny villain.
Lobo isn't a villain, he's just a loud dick and he and superman butt heads. He's not out to get superman or anything in particular.
Benjamin Smith
And how exactly would such a feud affect, you know, anybody?
Carson Roberts
That's pretty anal, user.
Samuel Moore
You don't see any story potential in one mastermind villain enacting his plans against another with the hero and city caught in the middle?
Camden Powell
You're not wrong, but the point was he SHOULD be able to fuck them sideways. That's the thing, he should be on the upper echelon.
Hunter Wright
I mean, if you do, could you give me an example? No, seriously, I'm not trying to fuck with you, I'm legitimately curious.
And I never meant making all of his villains magically STRONGER specifically-
James Morales
Why does he have to be on the upper echelon?
Not every villain needs to be a walking apocalypse.
James Green
He's a walking nuke that can go toe to toe with Superman. I think that speaks volumes about his threat level.
Dominic Morgan
They do when that's their literal superpower, being a guy named the Atomic Skull and fighting Superman and all- Sort of comes with the territory?
Gabriel Clark
>toe to toe with superman
He doesn't come close to beating superman, like, ever.
Grayson Robinson
Spider-man's villains are literally a meme. Other than Venom they have no real cultural relevance or influence, and most of them are just animal-themed knockoffs of Flash villains.
Matthew Evans
Even if that were true, why shouldn't he be? DC has, like, five HIGH ECHELON WORLD ENDER supervillains, while most of its heroes are, by no exaggeration, gods who walk among us. Having a human nuclear reactor be a high echelon villain should not really bug anybody.
Dominic Watson
>Even if that were true, why shouldn't he be? He doesn't have to be and I'm not sure where I'm supposed to explain why he should be for you when I don't care if he is. Also >DC has, like, five HIGH ECHELON WORLD ENDER supervillains
That's not even close to true, and I think you know this.
Hunter Fisher
Having trouble following the conversation but if this is about Atomic Skull, there was a time when he could really tear into Supes. They were experimenting with toning Supes down in the late-70s and early 80s, it seemed that radiation in general could effectively bypass his invulnerability.
Lincoln Watson
Part of atomic skulls character is that he's kind of an idiot. It's used well to balance out that he could be more dangerous than he is, but at the same time he's also worked with heroes before.
He's like a regular guy who got a publicly bad super power and doesn't know what to do.
Colton Watson
I'm exaggerating the number for effect, naturally.
But you cannot tell me it's the teensiest bit odd that most Earth villains should get viciously stomped by the almost ubiquitous-level abundance of superheroes who can lift ocean liners and shoot lasers and shrug off nukes and outrun time and such-
Lincoln Foster
That's sorta the problem, though. This is a character who once created his own Hydra-style super-villain organization, but in another telling is basically Rhino with a glowing green skull.
Like Metallo, there's never really been a design, powerset, or personality for Atomic Skull that actually stuck, which is surprising considering how easy the concept should make things.
Levi Peterson
that's not him
Samuel Morris
That's not even good hyperbole. Like, more world ending villains can appear in single green lantern stories than that.
Also, if every villain on DC earth could end life as we know it, it would be a fucking awful place.
Smarter villains are always better than powerful ones, anyway.
Ian Hughes
who's the guy with what I'm assuming are pieces of kryptonite in him?
Luke Powell
Dumbass, you post the wrong picture
Sebastian Cruz
that's Holocaust from X-Men noob
Logan Jones
Metallo
Owen Gonzalez
>Also, if every villain on DC earth could end life as we know it, it would be a fucking awful place.
I'm not saying the Riddler should have psychic powers potent enough to kill every human on the planet, man. Besides, Central City seems to get along fine with its villains that can literally ignore the laws of physics.
I'm saying it wouldn't hurt if it was evened out a bit. Maybe scale the heroes back a bit? I dunno.
>Smarter villains are always better than powerful ones, anyway.
It depends on their role in the story. Or, rather, all the roles in the story. Next issue, Lex Luthor THINKS! That's dumb. There's more nuance to it than just being 'smarter'. Anyway, it doesn't matter if a villain is smarter. If you had to pick two out of three traits for a villain to have, those traits being "Are powerful", "Are smart", and "Are interesting", as long as you pick to make them /interesting/ and actually have some level of depth, power and supreme intellect can slide in a pinch.
Thomas Lewis
>Next issue, Lex Luthor THINKS! >That's dumb.
I'm not sure you understand how lex works as a villain, let alone that one of the best superman stories was a miniseries that essentially just looked at how lex saw things with superman.
Also, powerful doesn't have to mean physical power.
Joshua Gomez
When you boil it down to 'smarter' vs 'stronger', that's the sort of vibe you end up giving off, friend.
>Also, powerful doesn't have to mean physical power.
Then by this definition, Lex is still extremely powerful anyway due to his vast goddamned resources and devices and cat's paws at his disposal. So what was your point?
Levi Walker
I didn't bolt it down to an either or choice, you did that.
I've spent most of this thread trying to explain that simply being powerful doesn't make a villain good for a story.
A dumb villain hits things. A smart villain hits something for a reason.
One of those is much more interesting for a story than the other.
Hudson Hill
>A dumb villain hits things. A smart villain hits something for a reason.
That is what I am s a y i n g, user
That's probably the whole point of this dumbass's thread, anyhow, if they even realize it
If Metallo just hit Superman because he's evil and then gets stomped on and arrested, then that's stupid. If Metallo can actually HURT Superman, and has legitimate reasons for doing so beyond just being the villain of whatever issue or arc he's part of, then that's some beauteous fuckin sheit, you dig?
I'm just saying you don't necessarily need to lowball a character who has posed a threat to Superman before, unless you're actively prepared to have them be dumb muscle and explain why. And maybe not even then.
Daniel Murphy
Have they not explained that metallo and skull are not the smartest people?
Not everyone bat villain is ra's al ghul. You gotta have some killer crocs in there.
Andrew Morgan
Obviously not everyone can be some dumb mastermind, but guys like Killer Croc or Captain Cold or even the fucking Shocker have some level of depth to them besides "i gotta punch this supernigga and then fail", you know?
Lincoln Young
So do atomic skull and metallo.
Luis Foster
Is that right? You're telling me Metallo isn't just some bland sociopath right now, or that Atomic Skull doesn't just cycle through a variety of tacked on personalities?
What is their depth, then, user?
Jace Kelly
There's a DC wiki you have full access to. I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with characters and their current status before making general sweeping declarations about them.
They JUST even had a story with atomic skull that adds some good characterization.
Ryder Rivera
Yeah, with him literally starting to redeem himself. That's not being an antagonist, that's him becoming an ally. Or at least not being a villain anymore.
Aaron Hall
>Why don't they have characterization? >They do >But it's not the characterization I want
This is what this conversation is feeling like.
William Morgan
>"How do we make these villains great?" >"This one became a good guy" >"So, he's- not a villain anymore." >"it sTILL COUNTS
This is what this conversation is feeling like.
Christian Reyes
I want The Elite to be serial villains that show up causing trouble regularly and for the stories to be solved with more tact than Superman turning edgy.
Daniel Gonzalez
Just be be pedantic here, Lobo in relation to Superman is usually an antagonist, but not a villain, (sometimes an antihero). Villains are villainous, where antagonists merely present a problem to the protagonist. There's a difference there.
Pretty much the same as Mr. Mytzlplk. He's just a dick, he doesn't want to murder Superman because he hates his guts or anything.
Ryder Mitchell
It did seem kinda lame that The Elite, being such a strong counter to Superman both ideologically and physically, got sorta wholly shafted a lot. Except for Black. And then he didn't pan out all that much, either-
Jonathan Kelly
Johns and Donner did a lot of work from that very arc you're posting from. The problem is comic book writers don't read each other's shit anymore and no one ran with it. I think most of the concepts are actually pretty strong, its just the "Superman has shitty villains." meme is stronger-and the other guys need to be used, and used well instead of every other plot being Luthor or the New Gods.
Anyway here's what I'd do. Brainiac: If anything needs toning done, they keep trying to make him a League/setting wide villain. All he really needs to make a splash with the public is, I seriously think, for some crazy exec to have enough faith in the Superman brand to put that floating skull ship on the big screen.
Lobo: Here's your 'antagonist that sometimes teams up with the hero" right here. He's everything Superman isn't, but there's an understanding between them. Great for lighter stories or for "Superman in space where he can cut loose" stories-Lobo can even tempt Superman with an easier way of doing things that Superman ultimately rises above.
Parasite: Play up the horror-not too much, but Parasite should be like fighting a slasher villain for Clark. He can't use ANY of his usual tactics because Rudy can just turn them against Superman, and the Parasite can impersonate nearly anyone for a brief amount of time. Fear's the key here.
Toyman: Johns gave him a great revamp no one did anything with. The man who can make machines that fool even Superman. Run with that. Avoid pedoshit, Toyman NOT wanting to hurt kids makes him more unique.
Ryder Jones
The problem is that they kind of learned their lesson, and if they kept showing up and murdering countries the League'd get involved and then it stops being a Superman story.
Like you could use the Elite but you have to be careful how. Them setting up their own crime free kingdom could be a cool Superman story, for example.
Luis Cooper
>he just needs to do more shit with green lanterns. Seriously, why don't the Green Lantern Corps ever get involved with Brainiac? He's destroyed multiple planets.
Adam Moore
I mean why don't the Corps do a lot of things.
"Space is big." is a solid answer, I think, and extremely populated in the DCU. Hal's sector apparently has a half dozen populated planets in his beat we never see.
Samuel Miller
>Bizarro >In need of elevation
Landon Jackson
Prankster: His revamp as the ultimate distraction is good and its stuck. Seriously remember when he made the traffic signs in metropolis into huge neon robots like the goddamn Wiz? Just use him once in a freaking while.
Metallo: Corbin's beef with Superman being utterly personal like the cartoon is solid, I think. I loved the whole "different colors of Kryptonite where his chakra points are." look he was sporting for a while. The trick here is he's walking around with Superman's ultimate weakness so fights with him are super one sided either way-maybe make using the K at full power real risky to Corbin? I dunno, but I think he works fine as a super mercenary that occasionally takes a job for free just to spite Superman.
All those weird guys Bryne thought up: There's gotta be SOME good in them.
Henry Mitchell
All of these are fantastic ideas, user. And I agree about the 'Superman has shitty villains' meme being too strong. It's not helped by some of the authors' decidedly bone-headed decisions (and general lack of interest in looking at each other's ideas).
Brandon Wilson
Make them Dragonball Androids levels of fucking powerful and it's all drawn from kryptonite.
Just add in something about how kryponite just pumps out dwarf star levels of energy and hooked up to a machine it makes them insanely powerful as a result.
So you have robots that can conjure up green and gold colored kryptonite radiation powered forcefields, shoot radiation blasts, fly, are in the same strength class as Superman etc. Just think Android 16 with a piece of kryptonite in his chest powering that infinite energy reactor.
Hudson Clark
>All those weird guys Bryne thought up: There's gotta be SOME good in them.
Any highlights or honorable mentions?
Aiden Mitchell
Quick! Think up a better name than SKULL for Atomic Skull's crime syndicate.
Cooper White
Metallo, Atomic Skull, Toyman, Parasite, and Ultra Humanite are not League level threats. Almost any of them can take them down in seconds. Even Lex is less of a threat to majority of them. No one else has a magic rock that stops them cold.
Aiden Edwards
Brainiac and Lobo are fine, though I'd argue that the insistence on keeping Lobo as the biker is somewhat detrimental.
>Metallo: Give him a consistent design and play up his cyborg nature. He should be able to stand up to Superman physically.
>Parasite: He's had some fairly consistent showings the past few years and is in a good place.
>Atomic Skull: Needs a good, menacing design and streamlined origin and powerset.
>The Elite: They really depend on whether or not you want to use them as ideological foils to Superman or something else. I'd break them from Superman and make them genuinely unsettling take on the concept of the superteam.
>Doomsday: Knock off the Kryptonian connections. He's now a barbarian hero from the time when Earth was still in the crucible of its creation cast forward in time to age where the planet is dead and the unnatural things that have arisen frolic in its corpse. The First Son of Earth versus the Last Son of Krypton.
>Toyman: Drop the constant attempts to make him a serial killer or child molester. He's a garishly dressed manchild who builds robots to steal shit, wreck up the place, and fight superheroes because robots stealing shit, wrecking up the place, and fighting superheroes is fun.
Kevin Morris
>Toyman NOT wanting to hurt kids makes him more unique. But he's a serial spree killer, sometimes little Jimmy will get caught in the explosions and falling rubble.
Jonathan Howard
I liked the idea posted in Superman: Secret Origins where he was a soldier who got into an accident involving a battle with Superman, and got cyborged into a kryptonite-powered killing machine. But to add to that, I'd make him less of a sociopath and more sympathetic. Have him be a genuinely halfway decent guy beforehand. I hated the idea of him being some random thug that got turned into a cyborg. A supercompetent soldier getting made into a cyborg powered by alien rocks is some Metal Gear level shit and I love it. Make the metal he's comprised of capable of absorbing shock. Give him back his Green K eye beams.
Josiah Clark
Marty And The Craniums.
Julian Lee
I think it is not really a matter of his villains not being powerful, it's just they are not Superman levels of powerful.
Most of them only match Superman in one area. Like Mongul is as strong as him, but he is not fast, cannot fly, and has none of the other shootey abilities. Atomic Skull does well with the shooting and controlling radiation, but also cannot fly is not durable etc. Not many have the same amount of powers together as Superman if they are not also a kryptonian. And evil kryptonians are boring most of the time. Even Doomsday is just equal in strength and durability.
Someone that matches Superman needs the strength, flight and speed.
That pretty much leaves energy manipulators, really powerful psychic types, and top magic types.
Mason Hughes
I generally agree, but I think they can get away without being able to fly, under certain circumstances.
Julian Ramirez
You can run with that. He doesn't hurt kids and abhors the thought of them getting caught in the crossfire, but will quickly rationalize and point blame when they do.
Tone down Metallo's Kryptonite powers. K blasts are his charge attacks that can't be spammed all the time. His real threat is being able to constantly emit K radiation, every moment in his general vicinity weakens Superman but dancing around him gives him time to charge a blast.
Gavin Campbell
Toyman and Prankster are just not Superman caliber threats.
Their best inventions are just tnifoil and tissue paper to Superman. And it is really hard to be tricky and sneaky against a guy that moves at light speed, has super hearing and x-ray vision.
Making them up to Superman levels is basically inventing two new characters that are not Prankster and Toyman anyway so why bother.
Livewire is just not powerful enough to hurt him, and half the time electricity does nothing to him anyway.
I don't like the idea of Bizarro, retarded Superman seems like less of a threat and more of an annoyance.
Brandon Ortiz
I think Lobo, Neutron, Kalibak, and Grundy are in the same boat too. They can match Superman in strength and durability and make a good fight as someone who is not instantly pasted by Superman. But the not flying and ordinary human speed means they should never actually be much of a thread because no punch should ever land at all. Plus being tossed into space is a serious problem for all of them.
Leo Diaz
Do the original villains from Superman The Animated Series have potential? What would you do to them to rise them up to god-tier villain status? Livewire showed up in the comics but hasn't had a single good story where she was a genuine threat. Luminus and Volcana haven't appeared at all.
Samuel Allen
Well, Superman can't CATCH electricity. Plus, writers don't seem to realize that electricity at that level, focused through Superman's head, could make him have legitimate seizures. Can you imagine?
Carson Lopez
=>
Brandon Cox
Proof that Superman is overpowered. Even Superman fans admit it.
Eli Allen
>> Reimagine Doomsday Doomsday needs to be fundamentally recharacterised. "Like a force of nature" doesn't cut it. Turn him into a reverse Superman (not Bizzaro-type reverse), like how Prometheus is Batman in reverse.
Make him a superpowered survivor of a lost civilisation who brings death, while Superman has an antagonistic relationship with death (as a concept, not the Sandman character).
Jack Barnes
I see Toyman working best as like a Riddler type antagonist, meaning the threat he poses is to Metropolis rather than Supes himself. Like he keeps creating these elaborate child like games that put numerous people in danger, forcing Clark to multitask
Parasite is a heavy hitter but perhaps giving him more of a drug addict personality might do more with his character.
Im sick of fake skin Metallo, go full skull faced terminator 24/7
Livewire needs more love
Just a few ideas
Henry Kelly
>> Reimagine Metallo Combine him with Cyborg Superman (Hank Henshaw). Similar nature and powers. Give John Corben portions of Henshaw's origin.
John Corben is an astronaut or some other kind of explorer who gets caught in an accident that wipes out his crew. Unexpectedly, his consciousness survives and he blames Superman for the disaster. His energy form is tracked down by Professor Emmet Vale, who Corben forces to build a cybernetic body to house his disembodied mind. Corben then kills Vale for his trouble and goes on a rampage against the Man of Tomorrow.
Levi Morris
Of all the mundane silver age characters that have been rewritten to be some weird mystic force or primal representation of something, this might work with Prankster and/or Toyman. Not enough people care about either to really get all that pissy if they were remade, and they have been remade about a dozen or so times in the past anyway.
So why not just make Prankster into something like the spirit of trickery or lies, make him int a modern incarnation of Puck or DC's Loki. Some powerful magical guy that loves to cause trouble but when backed into a corner can get scary and actually fight on a equal footing with Superman if he gets pissed off enough.
Bring her up to Iceman levels of omega level energy user. Make it so she does not have to steal electricity from outlets and power up. She is electricity and can't be killed. She moves at near light speed and can match Superman in speed. Then have her do things like play with electromagnetic forces and fuck up molecular bonds. She can break down matter or form up compounds. Give her FMA alchemist levels of bullshittery.
Logan Young
This is why Superman has only really fought other Kryptonians like Zod, H'ell, Cyborg etc lately. It is just getting really old.
Sort of like how Green Lantern has only fought other lanterns for the last 6-7 years now.
Charles Jackson
>Everyone knows that Superman's rogues, barring Luthor or Brainiac or maybe Darkseid (?), tend to get a lot of flak for being outclassed or non-compelling or dumb or whatever. At least, in comparison to other superheroes like THE BATMAN and Spider-Man and what have you. I would actually argue, that apart from Batman and Spider, he has the most popular and recognized rogue gallery.
Nolan Wright
I actually really like the JLU version, some alien that goes from planet to planet to challenge the toughest guy there and win, Then move onto the next and try again. He's not out to conquer, he just want to fight things and be the strongest in the universe.
Justin Rodriguez
oh yeah?
prove it
Noah Davis
>Lobo in relation to Superman is usually an antagonist, but not a villain, (sometimes an antihero).
Committing genocide on his whole damn race is pretty damn villainous
Nathan White
Livewire needs a lot more love
Ian Richardson
Maybe not exclusively a Batman villain. But Grundy HAS tangled with Batman a few times
Lincoln Mitchell
wasn't Prometheus a JL villain?
Xavier Baker
That he was.
Brody Wright
And he was deliberately created by Grant Morrison to mirror Batman. A genius gadgeteer and tactician who uses technology to close the gap between his own abilities and those of metahuman heroes.
Owen Carter
Congrats, you turned Livewire into a villainous Firestorm knockoff. Livewire is already insanely powerful, able to absorb and channel energy, invulnerable due to being an energy being, teleportation, and limited mechanical/electronic control. Unlike most Superman villains she can determine when and where they fight and escape into the power grid to remain out of his reach for as long as she wants.
Evan Wright
Is he still the sole result of a bizarre science experiment from a world that was never meant to support life in the first place? I honestly can't remember how they changed things for New 52. I have vague memories of Superdoomsday panels which alluded to it being some type of ancient virus or the collective Id of Kryptonians, instead of a lone psycho's creation. But nothing on wikipedia confirms that.
Eli Davis
I mean, which other character has more popular rogue gallery among normies?
Xmen with Magneto and Mystique?
I think that most people know Luthor, Lex, Brainiac, Darkside and Bizarro already.
Hunter Sanchez
If you've read any comics, they don't need to be elevated, all of them have had stories where they've reached brilliant characterization, but plebs think, just like with Superman that they're generic archetypes of Superhero antagonists.
How to spot a pleb: >they think Batman's rogues are interesting
Luis Long
Superman's rogues being bad meme.
His rogues are fines. Braniac the phrase comes from his villain who is fucking great. Collects and shrinks shit. Full logic. Is the exact opposite of the kind of alien that Kal is. Lex Luthor is a household name and is a worthy adversary despite not having any powers of his own.
Lobos not really a superman villain though he is cool. Don't you bad mouth toyman.