6 Supervillains Who Were Actually OK Guys
Every Saturday, Cracked lets someone from another website do the update for us. They get to show off their stuff to our fans, and we get to be lazy while someone else does our job for us.
In the latest example of our convenient selflessness, former Cracked writer Matt Wilson of the International Society of Supervillains pleads his case for some of the more sympathetic supervillains.
#6.
Doctor Octopus
Origin and M.O.
Otto Octavius uses the four mechanical arms that were accidentally fused to his body in an experiment gone wrong to commit crimes and generally make life difficult for Spider-Man. He also, oddly enough, almost married Spider-Man's Aunt May. Awkward.
Spider-Man was invited. This is just how he likes to attend weddings.
Why He's Not So Bad
In two words: brain damage. See, Otto was just a regular old misanthropic mama's boy who didn't really want to hurt anybody prior to his accident. But as fans of every comic book ever know, radiation has a tendency to angry up the blood, and he went into full-on supervillain mode afterward, unmasking Spider-Man and waddling into various banks to rob them. So, really, to blame him for his crimes is sort of like blaming a blind kid for walking into shit.
In the movie, it's not even Otto that's the problem, it's his four mechanical arms leading him around by the torso, randomly killing doctors and taking over abandoned clock towers (presumably out of envy for the width and girth of tower clock's mechanical arms).
But Then Again
Even radiation-induced mental illness cannot explain those glasses or that haircut.
#5.
Mr. Freeze
Origin and M.O.
Victor Fries was a scientist working on cryogenics research when his wife, Nora, fell ill. He found a way to preserve her body, but his boss didn't like him using company resources for personal use, so he tried to put a stop to all this "keeping my wife alive" bullshit. When Fries tried to fight back, the boss kicked him into a vat of chemicals, greatly lowering his body temperature. Rather than taking a hot shower and suing his dickhead boss, Fries decided to go with this whole cold thing, living out the rest of his days in a cumbersome refrigerator suit and freezing shit with a ray gun.
Why He's Not So Bad
Because his motive is love. Everything Mr. Freeze does, he does it for Nora. And like Bryan Adams says, it's OK to fight, lie, die or even walk the wire for someone, as long as it's for love.
"Shoot people with freeze rays" sounds at least as excusable as walking the wire.
But Then Again
#4.
Magneto
Origin and M.O.
Erik Lensherr's family was shot and killed by Nazis and buried in a mass grave (who says comics aren't for kids?) before he was taken to a concentration camp. After his escape, he discovered his power to control all types of metal while trying and failing to save his daughter from dying in a fire. Now, he uses those powers to prove that mutants are superior to humans in every way except in fashion.
So much purple.
Why He's Not So Bad
You can justify a lot with the sentence, "My parents were killed by Nazis and I was in a concentration camp."
But even if you overlook that, the simple fact is Magneto thinks he's doing the right thing by promoting the mutant cause. He's often called the Malcolm X to Professor Charles Xavier's Martin Luther King, Jr. Calling Malcolm X evil would be a stretch for even his harshest critics.
But Then Again
Malcolm X never used his powers of magnetism (Ed. Note: Hey, we couldn't find a source that said he didn'thave them) to remove the iron from someone's blood, or pick up the Golden Gate Bridge and turn it toward Alcatraz. Also, he never called his group of compatriots anything like "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants." So, you know, it's not a perfect comparison.
#3.
Sandman
Origin and M.O.
Upon his escape from prison, Flint Marko fled to probably the worst possible place he could go: A nuclear testing site in Georgia. While there, he stumbled into irradiated sand that... made him into sand, too. I don't know, just go with it. Anyway, he uses his sand powers to fight Spider-Man and get sand all in his hair! Try to get that out, bitch!
"Haha, you're fisting me."
Why He's Not So Bad
He changed his name from his birth name, William Baker, to the more made-up-sounding Flint Marko, because he didn't want his mom to know he was a thief. Nobody who's genuinely evil would be so worried about what his mom thinks.
And according to Spider-Man 3, Flint only stole stuff to help his terminally ill daughter get medical treatment. Unless they left out the part where he wanted to cure her in order to kill her in a more creative way, that's downright heroic.
But Then Again
Sand in your hair really is a serious fucking problem.
#2.
Bizarro Superman
Origin and M.O.
There are about a dozen different origin stories for Bizarro (partially because there have been about a dozen different Bizarros), but all you really need to know is that he's a messed up, albino-looking Superman clone who talks in opposites. He was created by one of Superman's nemeses (let's just say Lex Luthor) to vex the big blue boy scout.
Why He's Not So Bad
He may have been created by Superman's arch-villain, but Bizarro himself is basically a simpleton. He talks funny, he's clumsy and he wears a ridiculously clunky sign around his neck that says he's number one.
He just wants a hug.
Evil is a lot like Oscar-baiting performances. You can be stupid and evil, but you can't go full retard. Once you go past a certain point, you're like a big, idiotic farmhand that accidentally strangles the ranch owner's daughter. People start feeling sorry for you.
Plus, Bizarro, at heart, just wants to be like Superman. He's like a dog following his owner everywhere he goes, only way dumber, and more prone attempted murder.
But Then Again
Bizarro and the residents of the entire planet of Bizarros (that exists for some reason) can sort of be a bunch dicks. Or not, considering that they say everything in opposites. It makes it really hard to work out the sarcasm.
Yes, there is a guy named Zibarro.
#1.
Galactus
Origin and M.O.
He's a big, immortal space guy who eats planets. He almost ate Earth once, but the Fantastic Four pointed a fancy gun at him, so he left.
Also, he was embarrassed when nobody liked his "gay Mayan God" look.
Why He's Not So Bad
Because he's just hungry. He's not driven by greed or desire for power or some kind of psychotic sexual attraction to mutilating innocents. He just wants to eat, and it just so happens that what he eats is planets.
If you found out that doughnuts contained entire civilizations, would you feel evil? Would you stop eating doughnuts?
But Then Again
He was in Fantastic Four 2, and just about everything in that movie was evil.
Keep in mind that Matt is only being paid for this piece in clicks to the-iss.com. That said, he'll probably just spend all those clicks at the dog track.
of all these i think flint marco was the one i felt bad for. he was just trying to save his sick daughter and ended up getting a super power that requires him not to bathe. you caint get any more sadder than that
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI am Grammar Nazi. You have used the double comparative "more sadder" thus invoking my wrath.
No, actually, you are A grammar Nazi. "I am grammar Nazi" makes no sense. Way to make an ass out of yourself, Einstein.
It makes sense if his actual name is Grammar Nazi.
Its arguable that there are no evil motives, but that doesn't mean the offender isn't incredibly dangerous. Even a hardline psychopath can be forgiven, its not as if they chose to be that way but they must not be allowed to hurt anyone.
ReplyPlus, you're using Bryan Adams to defend their motives? Guilty, death by dismemberment.
I agree with Mr. Freeze all he was trying to do was save his dying, wife and then his douche of a boss almost kills him I'm pretty sure he has every right to freeze people.
Replyas for Galactacus, I agree dude was just hungry and HUGE. the only thing that would fill that man-size appetite was a planet. he even sent someone ahead to TRY and get everyone to get the hell out of dodge before he got there
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesYeah, except for the part where we have all these planets he could have eaten... he has nine choices (in our solar system, and so many more choices in the galaxy) and he goes for the one that is supporting 6 billion lives? That's just a dick move.
Don't you use salt on your food? What if it turns out salt exists as a type of sentience we can't perceive, you going to stop eating it? Planets are bland without suffering innocents
If salt pointed a fancy gun at me, I would stop eating it, yes.
This here is the single best conversation in the comments.
I could swear this was explained somewhere, that like humans can't survive on a single type of food he needed variety in his diet. A calm blue ocean planet one day, a spicy and tumultuous gas giant another. That'd be like mexican for him.
growing up I always thought , if i had to choose, I would follow Magneto. It's not that he wanted to kill the entire human race (in the original comics), he just wanted to be separate from them and not have to deal with the hate and fear s**t daily. Prof X on the other hand was ALWAYS trying to 'get along', instead getting his Xmen and their loved ones killed
ReplyThe greater good must be served.
How the hell did cyclops die in the movies??
James Marsden got a bit part in Superman Returns. And, counting his role in Superman Returns, was punished twice.
There are actually very few evil people capable of looking in the mirror and saying "you know what, I am an evil son of a bitch". They'd have to be on the extreme end of psychopathology to do that (the Joker). People simply cannot do bad things without giving themselves moral sanction, which usually comes after the fact when it is impulsive evil, and is more often preemptive when it comes to deliberate and systematic chaos perpetrated by your run of the mill supervillian. They invent wild ideological beliefs that justify their predispositions towards violent behavior, and always figure out ways to blame the victims. This is why terrorists can slice the heads off of totally innocent people and still believe they are doing God's work. Self reporting is not a valid means for evaluating the moral constitution of other people.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesSupport the troops in afghanistan, they're only trying to liberate... something...
Leave to a political nut to leap at the chance to use a strawman when he smells someone use the word 'terrorists' in an example to explain possible motives behind super-villains and their crimes.
This. Also not to cause a total godwin pile-up, but a lot of the time the most callous acts are committed by apathy. The average nazi only cared about betterment of Germany, and damn all who are getting in the way. Lesser still but still a large-ass group, are those who didn't care because it meant they could pillage the goods left behind, like Goering and his ill-gotten art collection. Hate might have started the engine rolling but it didn't sustain it, not at all.
"Okay guys" is really misleading
ReplyGalactus is the only one whose crimes against humanity are entirely justified
and as bad as "Rise" was, it was infinitely better than the first movie
Especially considering he needs to eat so much turns out to be he's protecting the universe from an ancient monster.
//"You can justify a lot with the sentence, "My parents were killed by Nazis and I was in a concentration camp.""//
ReplyDepends what you want to justify. If it's waking up at night screaming and covered in sweat, that's justified by a past like Magneto's.
If it's discriminatory violent murder or a callous disregard for human life, then it's not justified just because your past is particularly shitty.
This is a lesson that obviously hasn't been absorbed by many people.
Well, all the crimes Israelis have been committing against Palestinians since occupying their lands in 1948 so far have been justified by the Nazis and the concentration camps so I guess Magneto might just get a pass too
Magneto has hotter sidekicks (for either way you swing). That's his ultimate justification!
Aw! A "Of Mice and Men" reference! ^^
ReplyI thought so! According to Steinbeck, there was a real "Lennie", only he didn't strangle the ranchowner's daughter, he stabbed the ranchowner through the stomach with a bloody pitchfork. Ow.
Lame. Not only are all of the entries hedged and kind of a stretch in the first place (other than Magneto, who's especially sympathetic in the new movie), but the writer manages to be even more offensive than cracked's occasional adjective in their titles with this "going full retard" nonsense. It's offensive on levels that, ironically, the author probably doesn't have the capacity to understand. On top of that, it's both unoriginal and nonsensical.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesOh the irony. You whine about them using the phrase "going full retard", which, by the way, is a famous quote and not created by them, and yet you start your moronic review by saying "Lame", which is in essence equally offensive. You, sir, fail.
how is referring to the fact that you never want to go full retard for the oscars offensive, kkk, OMG!!! i just said kkk which is a racist group therefore i'm being really offensive and racist! and i just mentioned it again! i'm so going to hell!
In your language, "ur retarded"
Hannibal Lecter. He only ate people who were totally crappy in one way or another (usually they were just rude), and he drew awesome pictures, was a socialite and an avid historian/anthropologist/scholar, and just generally a really interesting guy. He was basically Stephen Fry, but he occasionally killed people for annoying him.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesHero.
I agree so much with you. Dr. Lecter even helped the police from time to time...
"Socialite" is a positive character trait now? I thought it just meant "can afford to be lazy".
A lot of the people he killed were nurses and paramedics trying to hep him. Were they 'totally crappy'?
Din't he kill a musician for hitting the wrong note?
Dude couldn't even pronounce chianti properly. Total "socialite and an avid historian/anthropologist/scholar" fail.
Socialites aren't lazy, they're crazy hectic, it's just a shame the average socialite isn't Dr. Lecter, but puts their energy towards useless material gain and gossip.
And yeah, Lecter is basically Cannibal Dexter as viewed through the lens of Impassive Law. Unlike Dex he'll off normal people that get in his way, but he does give them some warning he's about to throw his hat off and lose his shit.
I concur... a HUNDRED percent, Hannibal Lecter wasn't a monster, monsters don't think and don't consider their actions a step toward death by electrocution. Hannibal was really a swell fellow (was able to get the book series for Christmas ALONG with The Godfather), heck any man who is well rounded and able to kill a man simply with [i]words[/i] (remember when he was able to make a man swallow his own tongue, was it Silence of the Lambs or Red Dragon?), is a man worth noting. Hey, he even helped Clarice and the police time to time (spoiler: in the books he and Clarice hooked up and left off to somewhere), he's not a real monster, he's just a helluva doctor.
We all know that Sandman, Magneto, and Mr. Freeze aren't really bad, you have to admit Galactus is kind of a dick though, there are a lot of uninhabited planets.
ReplyOnly planets with life have what he can eat. Everything else is like eating sand.
In one comic it was actually not the planet he was after. It was some horribly destructive being sing the planet egg.
SPOILER:
Earth X
In the limited series Earth X, Galactus is one of the three essential entities in the universe keeping the cosmic entities the Celestials in check. By destroying planets - actually "eggs" of the Celestials - Galactus prevents the Celestials from overpopulating the universe. Franklin Richards eventually adopts the identity of Galactus
Ya know, I came in here planning to b***h that Catwoman wasn't on the list, but then I realized she's not really a villain anymore. When Batman shows up to her crimes she doesn't even really try to keep stealing s**t. They just have a sexual-tension-driven conversation.
ReplyMagneto's wife (Magda) died in a fire, not his daughter.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI'm pretty sure his daughter, Anya, was the one who died. Magda just left him after. That's how we get Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver - she was pregnant with twins when she took off.
LEARN YOUR s**t LASELVABEACH! Also, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch really should have died in a fire before the whole incest thing started.
@Mrawesomo, learn ur s**t. The incest thing was only in the ultimate universe. In the Classic universe Quicksilver was married and Scarlet WItch had the hots for Vision for a looooong ass time.
I don't mean to be critical but Curley's wife wasn't the owner of the ranch's daughter. Again, don't mean to be a dick.
ReplyCurly was the owner's son. Right?
Wouldn't that make her the daughter-in-law? If so, you're sort of wrong.
lovely article. liked it
ReplyThe Bizarro, Magneto, Mr. Freeze, and Galactus arguments are things people have been saying since the characters came out; its the whole point of the character and what makes each of them a good villain. All that Doc Ock and Sandman stuff is made up for the movie and has zero place in actual comic canon. It would be like writing an article saying "Daredevil is a lame superhero" based on the Daredevil movie...
Reply Hide All See All 4 Repliesdoc oc is pretty much crazy and brain damaged by an accident in the original comic book origin. but yeah, i don't remember sandman caring about his mom very much or really being anything other than a compulsively gambling d-bag who threatens high schoolers alot.
but most of the original spiderman characters are pretty 2-d anyway.
daredevil is a lame superhero thanks to that craptastic movie...also stop analyzing the hell out of a joke article you douche.
Sandman...mrfrosty65 has it mostly right. Up until he got cancer, broke himself of his gambling habit and tried to go straight. All though he turned himself around he was still an a*****e at times.
Nice "Of Mice and Men" reference ;)
ReplyI agree
Bizarro only pawn in game of life.
ReplyBizzaro not am pawn in deathgame
Fantastic four wasn't all bad. It had some eye candy in it. No plot but it's a superhero movie.
ReplyWhen I was younger, I liked the Magneto character, now I'm older not so much.
See, that's why most of us nerds hate comic book movies. Comic books are f**king full of plot. Also, the good guy doesn't just f**king win, that's lame. (See Oracle and the pile of dead Robins)
Oracle and the Pile of Dead Robins is my new favourite punk band.