A hero is only as good as the villains he faces, and DC has some of the best heroes in the business. Baddies like Cheetah and Lex Luthor have been making superheroes like Wonder Woman and Superman look good for decades. But in order to keep its roster of no-goodniks fresh and interesting, DC has to change things up occasionally. This could be through retcons, reinterpretations, or even one of the company’s infamous company-wide reality reboots. Sometimes the changes are for the better, like when a lame joke character like Calendar Man is reimagined as a creepy play on Hannibal Lecter. Unfortunately, it also goes the other way.
Sometimes, when trying to make a goofy character darker or more complex, writers accidentally turn them into offensive-edge lords. Creators will often overcompensate when trying to bring a hero’s Silver Age foe into the modern era by making them ultraviolent killers. Occasionally, the opposite will happen, and a once deadly opponent will get nerfed. Whatever the reason, there’s no denying that several DC villains have only gotten worse over time. Here are seven of the most egregious examples:
1) Bane
When it comes to writing Bane, there are three main bullet points to hit. He has an intellect that rivals Batman’s, he’s strong, and he’s addicted to the drug Venom, which raises his strength to superhuman levels. Seems simple. And yet, you would be surprised how often creators ignore one or more essential components that make up Bane’s character.
Sometimes he’s a dumb, venom-addicted brute. Other times, he’s smart and strong, but without the venom addiction. Bottom line: Bane was created to be Batman’s equal, but you’d never know it from many of his appearances.
2) Lobo
Lobo began life as a scathing indictment of over-the-top violent comic book heroes like Wolverine and the Punisher. His antics were cartoonishly destructive and purposely offensive — he once took money from the Easter Bunny to assassinate Santa Claus. Naturally, comic book fans loved him. Then, DC rebooted its comic universe with the New 52 and ruined him.
The new Lobo was a slaver and much more serious than his tongue-in-cheek ’90s counterpart. Fan backlash caused DC to try two more times to revamp the character, but none of Lobo’s new incarnations were on par with the genocidal, dog-kicking, Santa murdering bastiche fans fell in love with in the Seinfeld decade.
3) Penguin
Of all the villains on this list, the Penguin has changed the most. Oswald Cobblepot started as an avian villain with an array of trick umbrellas and a penchant for stealing bird-themed artifacts. In his signature top hat and monocle, cigarette holder clenched between his teeth, the portly Penguin was once one of Batman’s more colorful rivals.
Over the years, however, the Penguin has been rewritten to be more grounded and less flamboyant. Gone are the umbrellas, his obsession with bird crimes, and even his monocle and top hat. In his current incarnation, the Penguin is usually depicted as a boring, regular organized crime boss, albeit with an animal-based nickname. Everything special about the character has been dropped in favor of making him the kind of mob-thug that’s a dime-a-dozen in Gotham. If you’re reading this DC, do us a favor and make the Penguin weird again.
4) Anti-Monitor
When DC decided to reboot their continuity in the ’80s, they needed a new Multiversal threat powerful enough to destroy every Earth in existence. Thus, the Anti-Monitor was born. The character was created specifically for the Crisis on Infinite Earths event and, as such, was defeated soundly at the story’s conclusion. Unfortunately, what should have been a one-and-done villain has reappeared several times since Crisis on Infinite Earths, in a severely reduced capacity.
The Anti-Monitor was created for one purpose: to destroy DC’s multiverse, an act which, for obvious reasons, he can’t do more than once. Instead, DC nerfed the Anti-Monitor and used him as a way to get other villains over. Much like what happened to Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Anti-Monitor became a foe for other villains to defeat in order to show how powerful they were. As a result, Anti-Monitor, who was once the biggest threat in DC history, is now a mere shadow of his former self.
5) Riddler
Many writers have attempted to redefine the Riddler over the years, making him everything from an occult priest to a cyber-criminal. There was even an attempt in the ’00s to have him turn over a new leaf and use his riddle-solving abilities as a detective. But the Riddler has always been a tricky villain to get right. How do you present him as a credible threat to Batman when he always gives away his plans? Apparently, the answer is to make him the Joker.
In everything from the current comics to The Batman, Riddler has basically become a psychotic killer more in line with the Clown Prince of Crime than his former goofy, clue-giving self. DC even went so far as to give the Riddler his own Killing Joke in One Bad Day: Riddler. Unfortunately, with the actual Joker still around and causing havoc, Riddler has pretty much become redundant.
6) Deathstroke
The problem with a villain who’s supposed to be the world’s best mercenary/hand-to-hand fighter/tactician/assassin is that, for plot reasons, you can’t have him win very often. That’s the dilemma Deathstroke constantly faces as a villain. Essentially, an evil version of Captain America, Deathstroke has had his brain and brawn enhanced to just above peak human levels, making him possibly the most lethal street-level character in DC — or rather, he should be.
Instead, “The Terminator,” as Deathstroke was originally called, has seen his effectiveness on the battlefield slowly dull over the years until a warrior who used to be able to beat Batman now gets his butt handed to him by Nightwing.
7) The Joker
There is no denying that the Joker is one of the most iconic villains in fiction, but in the 85 years since his debut, he’s kind of lost his way. There is a way to write the Joker as menacing and funny. Batman: The Animated Series did it, and so did the first Tim Burton Batman movie. Unfortunately, most modern writers ignore the “funny” side and just go for the sickest, most psychotic murderer they can imagine.
While we understand how joy buzzers and telescoping boxing gloves might be hard for DC to pull off in the 21st century, that doesn’t mean it had to pivot to a guy who cuts his own face off and then a year later staples the rotting flesh mask to his exposed muscles. The guy’s name has “joke” in it for crying out loud.
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