Welcome back, nerd squad.
All stories are about perspective.
You have to consider that whoever is telling the story shapes the way in which it is told
and gets to decide what the point is of the story.
History is a perfect example of the fact that what we know of our nation, our planet is
based off what the victors would have us think.
How different would the oppinion of Nazi’s be if Germany had won World War 2?
Nazi’s wouldn’t be painted as villains but heros.
The same can be said about our comic book literature.
The heroes are often the ones we follow with in the stories, we get those little text boxes
that give us insight into their thoughts and feelings.
But what about the villains?
We don’t get their insight as often.
And one can only surmise that while the story is being used to paint them as villain, to
them they are the hero with the best intentions.
That is what we’ll be examining again today as we count down the top 10 supervillains
with the best of intentions part 2.
We saw how much you enjoyed part 1 and so yes, we are back, with the villains who are
trying to achieve something good by generally doing something bad.
Alright, let’s get counting.
10 Kingpin
I know what you’re thinking.
Woah!
You’re starting this list off with Kingpin?
Yeah, it’s a little shocking.
In the comics, this crime-lord is known for simply wanting to become the ultimate King
of crime for little to no reason, really, except perhaps that he had a pretty rough
childhood, growing up in poverty and turning to crime at a young age.
One thing I will say for Kingpin in the comics, his goal to make the crime world as efficient
and profitable as possible could be seen as a noble one, if you were a criminal and were
also on Fisk’s good side.
But I’m more looking to Into the Spider-Verse’s interpretation of this character which paints
Fisk as a devoted family man who is simply looking to bring back his family after they
died in a car crash, shocked in their final moments at the fact that they had witnessed
Wilson fighting Spider-Man.
Really quite tragic.
The whole cause for his villainous plot in the movie is to try and bring his family back.
Which is only made sadder when Fisk almost succeeds but discovers that even his alternate
wife and son are appalled by Fisk’s criminal side.
9 Harley Quinn
While this fearsome villainess has definitely done her fair share of bad deeds and vile
things.
Remember when she blew up a bunch of Gotham kids after baiting them with free videos games
that were really bombs?
She has also been reformed over the years.
Her intentions now are often far from bad since teaming up with her pals on the Suicide
Squad and beyond that Poison Ivy and the Gotham City Sirens.
She even worked with her pal, Poison Ivy to save a bunch of animals from being euthanized
at the local adoption center by freeing them.
Even discounting the change in her behaviour lately as she comes into her own as an anti-hero
slash noble villain, Harley’s motivation for all of her evil deeds usually revolved
around her love of the Joker.
Sure, loving someone doesn’t necessarily you mean have good intentions, especially
if the person you love is psychotic killer but still, doing something for love is a much
better intention than doing something to create chaos or prove a point, like the Joker.
8 Vulture
In the MCU we see another side of Adrian Toomes.
In the comics he is painted as a genius, thief and criminal who continues a life of crime
because he thoroughly enjoys it after resorting to crime to get back at a former business
partner.
In cinematic universe, Marvel made his character even more relatable.
Toomes is presented in Spiderman: Homecoming as a man who lost his job and business after
Tony Stark and federal government relieved him of a massive salvaging and clean up contract
in the aftermath of the attack on New York.
As a result, he decides to keep the alien tech he and his crew had already managed to
salvage and sell it on the black market.
Not because he particularly enjoys a life of crime, but because he has a family.
The group also keep some tech for themselves and use it to rob ATMs while wearing masks,
another source of income for him and his crew.
Vulture is presented here as a desperate man, one that would do anything to protect his
family unit.
7 Mole Man
Originally Mole Man was one of those whiney villains.
Harvey Rupert Elder was a nuclear engineer and explorer who believed that the world had
scorned and rejected him because of his appearance.
As such he originally sought revenge for himself and those who were also excluded by society.
His plan was to do this using the creatures of Subterranea and Monster Isle until the
Fantastic Four put a stop to it.
While this may not seem like a good intention for global destruction, just how noble Mole
Man is, has been revealed over time.
He gave home to a group of people who also felt shunned from the world, called the Outcasts,
even granting them superpowers and giving them a home in exchange for their support
and assistance.
His good intentions were actually so powerful that they would later cause Mole Man to reform
and instead work to build a sanctuary for those who felt like they had been rejected
by the surface world.
6 Morbius
Similar to the last list where I talked about Lizard, we have Morbius.
Who has also been presented as Spiderman villain.
Man, I do love my Spidey villains, don’t I?
Morbius was a brilliant hematologist who was suffering from debilitating blood disease
and like Doctor Connors, looked to find a cure for his own medical issue.
He used an experimental treatment on himself that ended up transforming him into a vampire.
But this Michael Morbius did not enjoy being a monster, in fact he even tried to kill himself
after slaughtering a bunch of people and feeling remorse, but he was unable to manage the task.
He often wanders around working to cure himself and others from various diseases and plights.
All of the fights he usually gets in with superheroes are simply due to his lack of
control over his bloodlust but ultimately Morbius is a doctor and he wants to help people.
He’s even been shown curing She-Hulk when she was also suffering from a blood disease.
5 Destiny
Destiny is one of the founders of the Brotherhood of Mutants.
She and her former and sort of lifetime lover, Mystique founded the group in order to protect
mutants.
The Brotherhood is basically a terrorist group that works to protect mutants through eliminating
threats.
While their tactics are definitely evil, Destiny and the Brotherhood work for a just cause
to protect fellow mutant-kind.
It was recently revealed in House of X that she put a stop to Moira Mactaggart creating
a cure for the mutant gene.
Destiny’s powers allow her to see the future, the higher the probability of said future
and the nearer the outcome the clearer Destiny can see it.
Moira herself is such a great risk that Destiny is able to see her very clearly.
She threatens Moira against the choice to create this cure.
Moira argues that it is only for mutants who want it, she won’t force it anyone but Destiny
warns that the cure will be forced on all mutants when it falls into the wrong hands
and the odds of that happening are great.
She calls Moira childish for thinking that the cure would be a safe thing to create and
that it threatens all mutants.
As such Destiny and Mystique decide to teach Moira a lesson that they hope will stick but
having Pyro burn her alive.
4 Ultron
Our greatest achievement becomes our own undoing.
Whether you look at Ultron in the comics or in the MCU, the fact remains that this is
a villain which represents our fear of advancement and technology as a civilization.
The fear that such progress will actually be our undoing and the very real fear of Artificial
Intelligence as taking our place as the dominant species, so to speak.
In the comics Ultron was originally created by Hank Pym.
The Avenger who was often considered to be one of the lowest on the totem, just a guy
who could change size, not the strongest, and definitely brilliant but not the smartest
hero.
When he created the AI, Ultron it was one of his best inventions but also his worst
as the AI quickly became resentful of it’s lackluster father, Hank.
In the MCU, Ultron is built by Tony Stark.
The goal of the AI is to be a peacekeeping program so that heroes and humans don’t
have to put themselves at risk.
Stark’s plan for Ultron backfires though when the AI goes full Skynet on the world
and decides the best way to protect the planet and keep peace is by killing all of humanity.
3 Ra’s Al Ghul
Or Ra’s Al Ghul depending on how you prefer to pronounce it.
This villain has similar vibes to that of Destiny or Poison Ivy or even Ultron.
He’s a villain because he is radical.
Despite being the leader of the League of Assassins, Ra’s really works to establish
balance in the world.
He believes that in order to change the world, you must make drastic actions.
He feels that humanity in a state of despair and needs help in order to be redeemed, reshaped
and in order for the world to be a better place for those who are respectable to live
in.
He basically sees himself as a gardener removing weeds so that more flowers can bloom.
2 Black Adam
Black Adam’s story, no matter which one you look at, generally follows the same path.
In all of them, Black Adam is a character who both longs and aims to be a hero for his
people but ends up corrupted and turns down a more violent path.
He was originally presented as the enemy of Captain Marvel and son of an Egyptian Pharaoh
who was corrupted by a woman and a desire for power, much like Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
His ancestor, Theo Adam ended up inheriting his power after he stole an ancient scarab
connected to the power of Black Adam and Egyptian god Set.
Later it is revealed that Theo is only half of this character and that while Theo’s
intentions are evil, the spirit of Teth-Adam, the original Black Adam, is not.
Later his backstory was retconned to reveal that Black Adam was actually originally from
Khandaq and it was the conquering of his nation and the death of his family that made him
so ruthless and violent.
So really he is just looking to protect his people and avenge his family.
Which is a pretty fair reason to be kind of evil.
Though at this point Black Adam has been so far redeemed that many look on him as an anti-hero.
He will never be friends with Captain Marvel but they will no longer ever be enemies.
1 Catwoman
I know a lot of people don’t really see Catwoman as a villain but let’s not forget
that in the 70s she was shown happily murdering anyone that got in the way of her crime fighting
spree.
Of course this version of Catwoman was later retconned to earth B, sure.
So it wasn’t really our Selina.
Our version of Catwoman, is good pure.
She doesn’t kill.
Well except for when she does.
Even if you want to write off the original way Catwoman was written and presented as
a sexy criminal and murderer, she still has killed Black Mask and it was later revealed
over 200 other people.
Of course once again, she had her reasons.
And that is my favourite thing about Catwoman.
She’s a criminal.
She’s killed but her intentions are what allow us to almost see her as a full on superhero.
I would argue she’s just the ultimate villain that you can get behind.
In terms of her motives.
She’s not one of the good guys.
She not a superhero.
But she could be.
She fights for the innocent.
She is often presented as only turned to crime due to a life of abuse and poverty.
She may as well be Robin Hood!
And those hundreds of people she killed, that was revenge.
The people she killed were considered members of the terrorist group, Dogs of War, the group
that blew up the orphanage where she was raised.
So yeah, she’s not a good kitty but her intentions are so good that they really make
us want her to be.
Well that’s is that for today, nerd squad.
What did you think of this part 2 of our top 10 supervillains with best intentions list?
Were you satisfied?
Do you feel like there are still many more villains who have wrongfully gone unmentioned?
Do you agree or disagree that people can do bad things in the name of good?
You know what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Let me know your thoughts and feels in the comments below.
And while you are on your way down there remember to share, like, subscribe and ring our bell.
This has been top 10 nerd, and I’m your host Amanda McKnight, thanking you for watching
and reminding you as always to stay nerdy, YouTube.