Top 10 Villains You Didnít Realize Actually Won
Sometimes, the long game is more important.
Not all villains exist solely to antagonize our favourite heroes because of selfish or
flat out evil motives ñ sometimes, their motivations go beyond the physical, and their
defeat still triggers the kind of impact in their world that they were trying to illicit.
Either that, or theyíre playing a long game, and end up coming out on top despite seemingly
being defeated.
10 Thanos During The
Infinity Gauntlet story arc, Thanos has collected all of the infinity gems and has complete
mastery over the universe and he defeats pretty much every foe he encounters, including cosmic
beings, imprisoning most.
And after he defeats Eternity, he leaves his body to become the living embodiment of the
universe.
His body and the gauntlet are left vulnerable to Nebula, his granddaughter, who then puts
on the gauntlet and undoes all of the damage.
Another battle goes down, and Thanos fights Adam Warlock, who defeats him, with Thanos
seemingly committing suicide.
But, we find out after the fact that Thanos let that happen ñ he felt that he did not
deserve to win.
So by doing that, guess he actually succeeded?
9 Arcade This villain is someone who was never really
seen as a threat, but due to having advanced powers in one of his own speciality murderous
fun houses, along with the gift of technology, heís able to inflict more trauma on his victims
long after the actual incident.
During Avengers Arena, 16 high powered teenage superheroes are held captive by Arcade in
his funhouse Murder World.
After they escaped but before he was imprisoned, Arcade uploaded the footage of what happened
in order to immortalize himself as a true villain, while furthering the trauma of the
survivors who had escaped.
8 Mister Fear Mister Fearís is a villain who is more brains
than brawn, even though heís trained in hand to hand combat; he uses fear pheromones and
other tech.
Featured in two arcs from Daredevil, ëTo the Devilí and ëWithout Fearí, Mister Fear
was presumed dead after falling off a building when first facing Daredevil.
He returned, and avidly worked towards discrediting Daredevil as a superhero.
In addition to that, before he goes to prison, one of his henchmen gives him a new chemical
compound he had created; one that makes everyone around him worship him, which made his life
in prison a dream; itís practically a paradise for him, and theoretically he could leave
at his leisure whenever heíd like.
7 Wesley Gibson While Wesley Gibbons is the protagonist of
Mark Millarís Wanted and overcomes all of the awful things in his life to realize his
super powered potential, he, Fox and the Fraternity are all still committing crimes, generally
doing the kinds of things heroes would be locking them up for, if it wasnít for the
fact that the Fraternity had eliminated all of the heroes by erasing the worldís memories
of them.
6 Doctor Doom Sometimes itís the little personal victories
that go a long way.
As is the case with Doctor Doom when it comes to what occurred with Valeria Richards, Reed
and Sueís second child.
Long story short, Valeria appeared from the future, informing the fantasic four that she
was the daughter of Doom and Sue.
A bunch of stuff happened, Valeria regressed into a fetus inside of Sue, and Doom had to
deliver the baby while Mister Fantastic was dealing with a world threatening crisis, and
in return, Doom got to name the child ñ Valeria, who was the name of his first love.
So how is this winning?
Aside from Valeria becoming his biological child after Secret Wars?
Well, think of how youíd feel if you were Reed.
Yep.
5 Sinestro During the Sinestro Corps War that appears
in the Green Lantern series, Sinestro was defeated, but not without revealing after
the fact that his motivation in the first place was to get the Green Lantern Corps to
use lethal force.
To which he succeeded.
The Green Lantern Corps now had a more forceful role in the universe, with new laws that approved
of lethal force, therefore inspiring fear, and following suit with the Sinestro Corps
methodology ñ order through fear.
4 Magneto Magneto has had many victories over the years
ñ from killing Apocalypse to ripping out Wolverineís adamantium from his body.
His philosophy has always revolved around mutantsí rights, but with mutants being superior
to humans; the latterís unfair oppression of the former fuelling his fire.
He is determined to save mutants from suffering at the hands of humans.
During Chris Claremontís run on the UnCanny X-Men, Magneto ends up joining Xavier after
he and the X-Men defeated Beyonder.
Magneto reforms, ends up leading the X-Men when Xavier canít, and eventually uses this
trust to harm them after he joins the Hellfire Club, claiming his reformation was all a pretence
in order to use the X-Men and new mutants as pawns for a scheme to take over the world.
In addition to this, one could also argue that most of Magnetoís extremist actions
have led to the pushing of boundaries when it comes to humans and mutantsí progress
living alongside one another in certain stories and films, so hey, at least thereís that.
3 Doctor Octopus Played the long game and won when he took
over Peter Parkerís body in Superior Spider-Man, and then erased Peterís brain waves in issue
9 of the series.
Of course, this doesnít last overly long ñ Otto realizes that heís caused more trouble
than good, and ends up resurrecting Peter, ultimately erasing himself from existence
in a story arc that, despite receiving a lot of hate from fans, was actually pretty tragic.
2 Ozymandias Ozymandias had become excessively wealthy
after revealing his identity and retiring from his career as a superhero.
During the events of Watchmen, its revealed that he is the one killing off his vigilante
accomplices of the past, and that he is behind a scheme to create world peace and prevent
nuclear war from occurring ñ by creating a catastrophe event and psychologically deteriorating
Doctor Manhattan, to frame him for the destruction as a threat against humanity.
And it works.
Having failed to stop him, the heroes agree to go along with it.
While some argue that he may not have won after all because of Rorschachís diary being
left at a journalistís office, thatís sort of the beauty of it all.
And no, weíre not taking into account the events of the Doomsday Clock, because ask
yourself friends, what would Alan Moore do.
Exactly.
1 The Joker The Joker is one of the only villains to have
succeeded in winning the long game multiple times, and on a much deeper level than just
whooping ass.
The Joker is a villain whose philosophy is King ñ most of his victories are metaphorical
ones, where heís played on Bruceís moralities, and tormenting the dark knight, constantly
trying to push him to the edge in which he breaks his resolve.
And it goes beyond the comics ñ this is depicted cinematically in Christopher Nolanís the
Dark Knight.
Other instances in the comics where the Joker has in fact won in a different sense include
Frank Millerís the Dark Knight Returns, where The Joker succeeds in framing Batman for his
murder, despite committing suicide, leaving Batman with a clear conscious; he destroys
the idea that people have of Batman.
Then, in the Death of the Family arc, the Joker succeeds in the metaphorical death of
the Bat Family, destroying most of Bruceís allies trust in him.
There we have it!
Are there other villains you think truly won that we didnít mention on this list?
Let us know in those comments below.
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