Many iconic super villians have been with us since the Golden Age.
The first super villain to appear in comics is considered to be Ultra-Humanite, created
by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel in 1939 as an adversary for Superman, who was then proceeded
by Dr Death.
a Bob Kane and Bill Finger creation for Detective Comics.
Batman’s first reoccurring foe, who appeared only a month after Ultra-Humanite did.
Since then we’ve had over half a century’s worth of supervillians come to alive on the
pages of our favourite comic books.
And today, we’re going to take a look at some of the newer additions to the comic industry’s
rogue gallery, with our list of the top 10 newest villains.
10 Batzarro Modelled in the same vein as Superman’s
Bizzaro, it’s a bit of a surprise that it took this long for us to have a Bat version,
in the form of 2005’s Batzarro.
An evil doppelgänger of Batman, the character was hinted at in a panel in Superman 181 back
in 2002 in silhouette form. he self proclaimed worlds worst detective origin story is the
opposite of Batman’s, with him gunning down couples who are walking through Crime Alley.
9 Marvel Zombies From the five issue limited series written
by Robert Kirkman in 2005, the Marvel Zombies are, well marvel’s heroes as zombies.
Fitting for Kirkman, really.
Set in an alternate universe, the superhero population has been infected with a virus
that mutates them into flesh eating zombies.
They made a reappearance in 2015 with a tie in mini series with Secret Wars.
8 LiveWire While LiveWire first made her debut in 1997
on the Superman: The Animated Series television show, she wouldn’t appear in comics until
2006, in Action Comics 835, via Gail Simone and John Byrne.
Being a shock jock named Leslie, she based Superman on her show on a daily basis, and
when her show was cancelled, she used her natural born gifts of controlling electricity
to take revenge, amplified further when she’s struck with a bolt of lightning, and goes
after the man of steel.
LiveWire has also made appearance outside of comic books since and on the small screen
again, this time on both Smallville and Supergirl.
7 Talon Not to be confused with the Talons of the
new 52’s Court of Owls - that’s for a later number - Talon, from Earth 3, is the
second person to take on the alias in the DC universe.
He’s an alternate version of Robin, the former sidekick of Batman’s alternate Owlman,
and a former member of the Crime Society.
He battled against the teen titans and Black Adam during World War 3, and dated Duela Dent,
the daughter of the Jokester.
After her father denounced the relationship, the two of them ran off, never to be heard
from again.
6 Facade Created in 2006 by Paul Dini who normally
has a pretty solid track record, Facade is a villain that’s had two people take on
the alias, both of which were kind of forgettable.
The first Facade attracted Batman’s attention with a string of high profile robberies, and
wore a grey and red suit with a reflective mask.
The second was an assassin named Nava Medelssohn, who is more machine than man, and can survive
a bullet to the head and decapitation but has a weakness against Electromagnetism.
5 Menace Menace first hit the scene in 2008 in The
Amazing Spider-Man #550 as Menace - but as Lily Hollister a few issues prior to that.
Lily Hollister is a biracial character who dated Harry Osborn, and stumbles upon a hidden
door in his closet, revealing one of his old journals.
This journal leads her to one of the Green Goblin’s secret hideouts, and as she enters,
she accidentally shatters vials with a newer version of the Goblin Formula, mutating her.
She ends up using her new found powers to help her father, who is running for mayor
of New York, by winning him public sympathy and messing with other politicians in the
process.
4 Unit Alright, just gonna get this out of the way
- Unit kind of looks like a giant floating metallic penis.
Now that that’s been said, let’s get down to the real talk - created in 2010 as an antagonist
for the X-Men, Unit has done some pretty weird stuff.
Including dissecting a man who was out hunting with his son and attacks Unit in an attempt
to defend himself and his boy who he also kills.
His origins are mysterious - his creators used him as a means to speak with a planet’s
inhabitants, out living them when aliens revolted against them.
3 Ultimate Reed Richards aka The Maker From 2010, in the Ultimate enemy story arc,
Reed Richards turned evil.
In short, he called himself the Maker, with the aim of creating the perfect universe.
In Ultimate Doom, he’s become corrupt, a threat to society, and wishes that he could
find another world to improve since he no longer likes his home dimension.
After his defeat by the ultimate universes’ heroes, he was left in the Negative Zone,
and used the brains of his dead alien soldiers to create a computer system that repaired
a teleport.
2 The Court of Owls 2011 in Batman Vol 2, issue 3, created by
Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo While their agents, the Talons, made for an
effective foe against Batman, it was their psychological manipulation of Bruce - and
subsequently, how Synder and Capullo chose to depict that manipulation in their panels
- that had us really fearing for Batman’s life and his overall sanity.
They were a threat fitting of Gotham, with historical and terrifying roots in the city,
and capable of inspiring fear in Bruce, making them a worthy foe.
And of course, aesthetically, they were oh so creepy.
1 Captain America Secret Empire opened up a whole can of worms
for Captain America and Marvel.
It was revealed (also with hints leading up to Secret Empire) that Cap is and has always
been a secret agent for HYDRA.
He used an alien invasion and a mass super villain assault in order to neutralize the
superheroes that may oppose him, then seeks out the cosmic cube and alters the timeline,
changing it to one where Hydra won World War 2.
This eventually led Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes eventually using a fragment of the cube to
restore the memory of pre hydra Steve Rogers to then take on his Hydra self, which then
reverses much of the damage caused by Hydra Rogers.
Long story short, he was kind of a nazi but then wasn’t a nazi, and everyone had a lot
of conflicting feelings about the whole arc.
Any villains we missed?
Let us know in those comments below.
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And, just a quick shout out, we’ve got another channel called top 10 Gaming with lists similar
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So if that tickles your fancy, I’ll see you over there on that channel.
In the meantime, thanks for watching!
I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 nerd.
I’ll catch you all in the next one.