I'm super pumped to be bringing this list to you today, nerd squad.
Today we get to look at the some of the scariest time the super villains actually won.
As much as we all love watching our heroes save the day, isn't it nice sometimes to take
a journey off the beaten path and explore the consequences of a world where our beloved
super villains got away with it?
With supervillains as well being more complex sometimes than we give them credit for, are
there any specific stories where you have been secretly or not so secretly rooting for
them?
If there is a story we missed, be sure to let us know in the comments below.
I love super villains and I love storytelling so without further ado, let's get counting.
10 Dark Reign
After the events of secret invasion, Norman Osborn is given control over the world's defenses
after being declared a hero.
So what does he decide to do?
Create his own organization to replace SHIELD and his own team to replace the Avengers,
hence we see the creation of HAMMER, an acronym which stands for nothing but which Osborn
just liked and the Dark Avengers, a superhero team comprised of former villains.
What ensues?
A brutal attempt at heroism, one that results in a more crude and violent attempt to take
out the world's enemies.
And sometimes results in the world actually being placed in more danger.
If you want to read more of this heroic yet villainous tale check out Siege and the Dark
Avengers series as well as the Dark Reign Marvel-wide event.
9 Zombieverse
Yup.
It's too horrifyingly icky for me to not include on the list.
There isn't really a supervillain in this universe per se save for the infection itself,
though I guess Sentry is sort of a villain for bringing it to earth in the first place.
Despite being a hero, he can be pretty villainous sometimes, especially if you are dealing with
his alter-ego and supervillain, the Void.
This reality exists on earth 2149 and is a nasty world where pretty much the villain
in this story, the zombie virus, converts almost all of our beloved heroes into nasty,
flesh-eating obsessed zombies.
Which in turn kind of makes them all villains.
It turns out the most successful and grossest way to corrupt heroes is by making them crave
the flesh of those they are protecting.
8 The Killing Joke
Granted there are many stories where the Joker appear to win but none are quite so chilling
as the Killing Joke.
This controversial one-shot from DC when never meant to be canon and yet some of the events
of this comic were considered so traumatic that DC decided to incorporate them into into
the DC universe continuity.
Namely that Barbara Gordon was paralyzed.
The way they dealt with the portrayal of her being paralyzed is another story.
The comic created a lot of controversy in regards to the graphic violence, pervert nature
and objectification that the panels involving the event embodied.
Beyond that the ending of this story was left for interpretation.
The short-form is that Joker threatens to drive Commissioner Gordon insane by crippling
Barbara, kidnapping him and terrorizing him on some carnival grounds.
Batman manages to save the Commissioner but Barbara remained paralyzed past the non-canon
one-shot.
Beyond that the Joker was successful in making Batman laugh, which is somewhat terrifying
in and of itself.
7 Doom Patrol in the Silver Age
An oldie but a goody.
Issue 121 of volume 1 saw the Doom Patrol meet their end at the hands of Madame Rouge
and Captain Zahl.
The two were able to use a submarine and travel to the island where the Doom Patrol were located
and after a scuffle we see Captain Zahl blow them up, wiping out the entire team.
The cover of this issue, warned you what you were in for when it came to purchasing and
reading this tale of the world's mosr bizarre heroes.
And if you had been reading along with this series in the 60s, this issue would have been
a devastating one.
Barring you weren't reading to cheer on the villains.
6 Watchmen
Unsuspecting villain Adrian Veidt also known as Ozymandias, the smartest man on earth,
ends winning at the end of Watchman series.
If you found the series dark and realistic, the ending only highlights those overarching
feels.
Veidt confesses to the team after the death of three million people in New York that he
was the mastermind behind it all and even faked his own assasination attempt.
The crazy thing is that heroic team have the option to stop him but seeing that exposing
him would only cancel what his dastardly plan set out to do which was actually a fairly
noble goal, stop wars on a global scale, they choose not to stop him.
They actually decide to work with him.
Except for Rorschach who demands better and vows that he will put an end to Veidt even
if he must do it alone by exposing him for what he really is to the world, a supervillain.
However Rorschach is taken out by Doctor Manhattan before he can do so.
Leaving us in a dark place at the end of this series.
5 Kraven's Last Hunt
Haunted by his one greatest failure, Kraven craves to kill that which has always managed
to escape him, his greatest foe, Spider-Man.
The frightening this is in this comic he actually manages to achieve his goal.
He digs a grave, sets out to hunt Spider-Man, finds him and shoots him and buries him.
To prove he is better than his greatest nemesis ever was he adopts Spider-Man's mantle and
through Kraven we get a version of Spider-Man who is even more violent and ruthless than
Doc Ock's Superior Spider-Man.
What's even more chilling in this saga is that we later discover that Spider-Man was
never dead.
Simply shot and put in a death like state for a few weeks.
He returns only to have Kraven gloat and confess.
Darkly the saga ends with Kraven, after accomplishing his goals, taking his own life.
4 War Games
Batman is a brilliant detective and brilliant hero.
Sometimes to a fault.
He has a slew of contingency plans in place to protect Gotham in the event that everything
goes haywire.
Great idea, right?
But not such a great idea when other people get their hands on them.
The 2005 series, titled Batman: War Games explores such an instance.
In this story, his Robin at the time, Stephanie Brown--who has probably one of the shortest
runs in the role as his sidekick--finds and enacts ones such plan intended for what the
city of Gotham is up against, an insane outbreak of gang violence.
The plan is to call a meeting of all the gang leaders, wherein they would be aligned under
a single mob boss, Matches Malone.
What Stephanie doesn't know is that Malone is an alias of Batman's.
When he doesn't show up to the meeting, it results in her death and creation of crime
syndicate wherein the gangs all unite under the rule of Black Mask.
3 Knightfall
Shortly after his first appearance in DC comics in Batman: Vengeance of Bane in 1993, we get
to see this villain reappear in Knightfall, wherein he is met with almost immediate success
in regards to his super villain history.
Bane escapes prison and wreaks havoc on Gotham by heading over to Arkham Asylum and setting
all the maximum security prisoners there free.
Batman is then forced to run around Gotham, fighting them all and rounding them back up.
Then comes the big boss fight.
Once Batman is sufficiently exhausted, powerhouse Bane steps him in to knock him down a peg,
or more specifically, break his back.
This leaves Batman out of commission for awhile and he is forced to pass the Bat-mantle on
to someone else for a time.
This would make an excellent dungeon crawl board game, by the way.
Think of the minis!
2 Infinity War
I couldn't have a list without including one of the most breathtaking villain stories probably
of our lifetime, the MCU's Infinity War.
That's right as awesome as the comic book saga also was, I'm sticking to the cinematic
version for this one.
A story that was expertly woven in which after years of plotting, Thanos is fully revealed
as the big bad of Marvel.
We see him round up infinity stones, left right and centre.
Struggling to get them but always prevailing.
And right when he is about to snap everyone out of existence, we all sit poised on the
edge of our seats waiting for someone to put a stop to him: Star Lord?
Wracked with emotion.
Iron Man?
Stabbed.
Doctor Strange?
Wow opposite of helpful.
Gives him the stone.
Cap?
Shout vs fist, fist beats the shout.
Scarlet Witch?
Without her full chaos magic powers, the time stone stops her easy.
Thor?
Say it with, should have gone for the head.
And then snap.
And just like that 50% of your favourite superheroes are dead.
Ouch.
1 Emperor Joker
What happens when you combine Mr Mixy and Joker?
Why Emperor Joker, of course.
In this storyline we explore a reality where the Joker ends up with 99.99% of, okay here
we go, Mr Mixy-pittle-ick's power.
Mr Mixy only intended to donate 1% of his power to the Joker but after being tricked
into revealing his true name is forced to give him almost all of it.
That tricksy Joker.
As a result of this, Joker is able to do all sort of insane things.
And, I really do mean insane things.
Not only is the Joker now able to warp reality and is omniscient as well as virtually omnipotent
but the powers he received also amplify his madness.
So if you thought he was crazy before.
Well think again.
Thanks so much for watching, nerds.
I hope you found a story or two to draw you in and that might inspire you to cheer or
fear some of the greatest supervillains.
I know I both cheer and fear the Joker, that's for sure.
Now I toss it back to you, feel free to share in the comments below any supervillain stories
that are your favourite and that we may have missed on this list.
And while you're heading towards the comments, please remember to click that thumbs up, give
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it comes to our nerd content.
This is top 10 nerd and I'm your host Amanda McKnight, reminding you to keep nerdy and
read-on.