Recognizable Rogues Gallery Contest

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 6:52 pm

Spiderman has a really good selection of recognisable villains. What do you think- best in comics?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 7:29 pm

I would say Batman & Superman have a more recognizable rogue's gallery; not that Spiderman isn't doing pretty well, all things considered.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 4:18 am

Superman is certainly far more recognizable himself, but his rogue's gallery is barely recognizable outside of Luthor, Zod, and maybe Bizarro (and even then I wouldn't actually recognize Zod if I saw him, I just know his name). There's probably two or three I'm forgetting, but still, he doesn't stand up to the two dozen-odd that Spider-Man has. Batman can compete, though.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 4:53 am

Batman can definitely compete. He has the Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Catwoman...I'd say Batman wins that one.

Spider-Man is #2, with Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Venom...

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 5:16 am

Batman has the most recognizable villains, but Spiderman has more villains which are recognizable. Superman is not in this competition at all. His whole list is pretty much Luthor. Bizarro and Zodd are solidly in "oh yeah" or "ehh, sure, why not" territory, and I don't think there is anyone else people really recognize. Grundy, maybe, but even he's more reocgnizable as a Batman villain.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 5:58 am

Also that one imp dude who's name I can't pronounce.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:44 am

Mix-yiz-piddle-ick.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:52 am

Maxus wrote:Spider-Man is #2, with Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Venom...

The Lizard, and Sandman also made it into movies.

Electro and Mysterio have really recognizable costumes.

And then there are like a billion also-rans, like Kingpin, The Shocker, Hydro-Man, Scorpion, Rhino, Ka-Zar, Vulture, Hobgoblin and Black Cat (just from pony image) And then we start getting into the "left in the 60s/70s/90s for a reason villains like Rocket Racer, Whirlwind, Paste-Pot-Pete, Humbug, the Mad Thinker and The Punisher.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:16 am

Maxus wrote:Batman can definitely compete. He has the Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Catwoman...I'd say Batman wins that one.

Spider-Man is #2, with Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Venom...

If those are meant to be complete lists, you're falling short. Batman has Riddler, Scarecrow, Mister Freeze, Bane, and Harley Quinn off the top of my head. Kablack has done a pretty good job listing the big Spider-Man ones.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:35 am

No, I was listing the most iconic ones, recognizeable to people outside comics/nerd-dom, that I could think of off the top of my head. The big ones, if you will.

It's a rare person who hasn't heard of the Joker (probably THE most iconic villain in western comics), Catwoman, or the Riddler.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:16 pm

I'm not a nerd or part of the comic-dom, and I know (in addition those already listed) about Clayface, Ras al Gul (?), and Croc.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:19 pm

Mr.Freeze is my personal Favourite of the Batman Enemies.
And the Mad Hatter is . . no . . forget about him and scarface . .

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 4:40 pm

About all I know about is what I saw in The Animated Series in the 90s.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 4:47 pm

I pretty much don't read comics and only watch a couple movies. I could recognize more Batman villains than Spiderman villains, I'm pretty sure.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Oct 10, 2013 11:44 pm

Much as I hate Batman and don't enjoy DC in general, it probably has more villains that people recognise just from watching a handful of the movies - Joker, Riddler, Freeze, Penguin, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Twoface. Oh and Bane (this one I only know "there's a baddie called Bane"). Most are probably aware of Harley Quinn.

If you only saw the movies, Spiderman only gives you Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, Doc Ock (I think?), Sandman and Venom. I think. People probably also know of Carnage and Kingpin. All of the others I only know because I watched the cartoon, played the video games, collected the cards and so on.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 11, 2013 2:29 pm

Batman has the most recognizable rogues' gallery of any hero. It's seriously not even close. The most entertaining rogue's gallery is The flash, whose rogues actually have a club and rules and stuff.

But seriously, Spiderman will never be better than #2 on that list. Because when you search for "rogue's gallery" on google, you seriously get Batman's Rogue's Gallery at #3, right after shit like the wikipedia definition of the term.

Superman's gallery has Luthor, Brainiac, Zod, Mxyztplk, Parasite, Toyman, and Metallo. And... you don't actually care about Doomsday and no one else does either. Livewire is kind of fun, but you probably don't remember her. There is some iconic stuff in there, but most people start struggling to even name five villains.

The Fantastic Four have some pretty awesome villains. Dr. Doom may actually be the most iconic villain. But after Dr. Doom and Galactus, can you name any of their villains?

X-Men have possibly the longest villain list anywhere. I don't even know how many X-titles are currently being published and neither do you. Every so often they do a mass culling of evil mutants, and I have honestly no idea who is left right now, but i'd be surprised if they didn't have several hundred villains they could call in. Really, except for Magneto and the Sentinels, it's a big but pretty thin soup. Even dudes like Sabertooth are mostly "that guy who works for Magneto."

-Username17

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Oct 11, 2013 3:01 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Superman's gallery has Luthor, Brainiac, Zod, Mxyztplk, Parasite, Toyman, and Metallo. And... you don't actually care about Doomsday and no one else does either.

I think you're being generous when talking about good Superman villains, though you did miss Bizarro, who has had some very good material.

I mean, nobody cares about the Toyman either, he's like a guy who applied to be a Batman villain and the Joker gave him bad directions for his first gig. And the Prankster is like that, only more so.

Brainiac has some interesting thematic resonance with Superman, but there's like seven very different versions of him; they all look different and have different schticks, and the odds are that if you described one of them, at least a third of the people you were talking to wouldn't recognize what you described as Brainiac.

Metallo is a robot with some kryptonite; Luthor builds things that are basically interchangeable with him like every other scheme. He doesn't have any interestingly distinct motivation or MO to set him apart.

Mongul has had like one good story ever. Terra-Man has had like zero, and I wouldn't think that was possible given the hilariawesomeness of his concept.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 2:36 am

I think iconic in this sense is more about recognizable rather than interesting.

Superman along with his villains and heroes are completely boring. I'd probably find only Jimmy Olsen interesting.

Spiderman's villains are more colorful but because of the wider exposure of Batman's villains in the movies, I"m voting for Batman's gallery to be more recognizable.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:17 am

If the criteria is likelihood of recognition outside comic book circles Batman takes it by a mile, no contest. For one thing, you can't sleep on Adam West. 1966 is a long ass time ago, but it still means that Uncle Baby Boomer is capable of busting out a Burgess Meredith Penguin impression after you get a few drinks in him. And obviously, there's a lot of baby boomers.

Also, if you go by the metric of halloween costumes, then Batman wins, forever, because Catwoman. It's a severe enough ass beating that if you dress up as Black Cat a huge number of partygoers will just think you are Catwoman.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 7:28 am

Also note that having an iconic arch enemy isn't the same as having an iconic rogue's gallery. Luthor is an extremely iconic arch enemy for Superman, but not a lot of people can name more than a handful of his other villains. Dr. Doom is an extremely iconic arch enemy for the Fantastic Four, but not a lot of people can name more than a handful of their other enemies. Magneto is an extremely iconic arch enemy for the X-Men, but few people can actually name any of their hundreds if not thousands of enemies.

Batman is virtually alone in having an arch enemy everyone recognizes and also having a deep rogue's gallery that people also recognize. Even Spiderman basically just has two well known arch enemies (Doc Ock and Green Goblin).

-Username17

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 8:49 am

In a goofy way, Marvel's (relative) commitment to handling crossovers without immediately resorting to a Clusterfuck on Infinite Earths scenario almost seems like a bit of a handicap in a simple game of matching black hats with white hats. A lot of Marvel goons feud with so many people that one can be forgiven for strugglign to remember whether Villain X fought the Avengers first or if they just really hate Cap in particular. By contrast it hardly even makes sense to have Killer Croc fight Supes--the bookies in Vegas seriously won't even put down a money line on that shit. So Batman villains tend to stay Batman villains while throwing down with the Four means you have the bad ass credentials to mess with just about anyone else in the larger Marvel continuity (and probably will).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 9:12 am

Both DC and Marvel have what are essentially two continuities going. DC has the Gotham Bubble (where things are basically human sized), and the Metropolis World (where things can and do fight Superman). Marvel has the X-Continuity (where superpowers are common, but hated and secret), and the Spiderman Universe (where superheroes might get bad press, but the man on the street thinks they are cool).

Both companies make abortive attempts to cross over (Marvel has the Avengers, where X-characters and Spiderman characters get traded back and forth, DC has Justice League where they try to tell stories relevant to both Batman and Superman). But of course, the crossover in either case doesn't make a lot of sense.

-Username17

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 4:59 pm

I don't see how you can have a rogue's gallery. They all have the same class features anyways.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:33 pm

Fair enough. I'm probably just biased by the way Batman's Gotham allies tend to have done time as his flunkies and so never really quite escape Bruce's shadow, whereas the second tier Marvel NYC characters like the Punisher and Daredevil can beef with Kingpin without necessarily having to write Peter Parker out of the picture.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:57 pm

Whipstitch wrote:Fair enough. I'm probably just biased by the way Batman's Gotham allies tend to have done time as his flunkies and so never really quite escape Bruce's shadow, whereas the second tier Marvel NYC characters like the Punisher and Daredevil can beef with Kingpin without necessarily having to write Peter Parker out of the picture.

Well sure, but all that pretty much requires that there aren't giant robots prowling the world hunting for mutants is all.

-Username17