Good vs bad villains

[Swindle]

So, I was listening to a retro video game podcast and the subject was brought up, what makes a good villain? And the standard talking point was brought up, misguided, can understand the villain's motivation. Which bothers me to some extent because that just one kind of trope a villain can play into. You'd rather Batman fighting Joker or Superman fighting Lex than the dark versions of those heroes who are misguided.

I'd say possible answers are:
* Design - Serpentor has credibility in his snake outfit, Raptor in a bird suit does not. First impressions matter/make or break characters from the start.
* Backstory - Past exploits and how they got to where they are now. Destro's family history is quite interesting, as is Cobra Commander's rise for example.
* Personality - Cobra Commander in the cartoon being completely chaotic and insane is a nice contrast to Destro, who is clearly sane.
* Their willingness to do villainous things - Without these actions, there'd be no conflict for our heroes to overcome.
* Skill set - In GIJoe's context, Zartan's skills are different than Tomax/Xamot. I quite like how creative minds gave Cobra's command always gave them roles that would matter.
* Motivation - Power, money, love, revenge, need for control, etc.

[Felix]

I like the villains in Daredevil the best.

Kingpin, you see his abuse as a child and what drove him to be who he is.

Bulls-eye becomes the dark version of Daredevil, again going back to childhood for his back story, but we see how his current choices drive him to evil, rather than rising above it.


Even the other good guys have conflicting beliefs with Daredevil.
Punisher, Elektra and Stick all believe in killing to achieve their goal.
And the friends he has that don't believe in killing, also typically don't agree with him putting himself in harms way to stop the bad guys, because he winds up getting hurt...a lot.

This ultimately leaves the hero alone on his path. Sometimes his choices not to kill wind up getting other people hurt, and he has to live with those choices.

[Swindle]

I was thinking about the Kingpin and how in terms of concept/design, you weren't going to make a better mob boss, so the Daredevil book basically asked the Spider-Man books, hey, he'd fit perfectly for Daredevil.

[Bravo]

Sometimes the worst and laziest villains are evil versions of a hero.

Design is a good example to use with GI JOE villains, because all those characters were new, not from other media. The succeeded by design types like Destro and Firefly, they were instantly cool when I first say them in catalogs, or were not so popular from that first impression, Raptor and Crystal Ball.

Motivation. Wanting power for power's sake villains can be a mixed bag. Darkseid can be interesting, while I've never found Apocalypse interesting as a character. Palpatine can be fun, until he's used poorly...thanks, Disney. There's no revenge motive with Palpatine. He wasn't alive when the Sith lost power millennia ago (or was he?).

[Swindle]

There's a thin line where any villain becomes self-parody. Definitely happened with Palpatine many times.

Destro fighting against society and order for the things done to his family. He wasn't actually their when it happened, but it still matters to him. Legacy matters to many people.

I do think Destro and Zartan stand out as the two most striking designed villains in early GIJoe. Before I knew about GIJoe media, I thought the Dreadknoks where civilian filler in the line. A kid wants heavy hitters, not guys who seem toothless.