Forget Evil Superman, Marvel’s Proved the Real Superhero You Never Want to Turn Bad

Superheroes are meant to represent the best of us. Superman, after all, is a power fantasy about a good person having unlimited power to save the day. Superheroes are the embodiments of all of our best tendencies and choices, choosing to save the day and being able to protect everyone. Sure, some superheroes are a whole lot worse role models than others, and far from all are paragons, but the vast majority of heroes are good people trying to do the right thing. Superheroes are, by the very definition, champions of justice, which is what makes them turning evil so strange, but oftentimes so appealing.

Evil Superman stories are a dime a dozen, from alternate universes like Ultraman to pastiches like Homelander. Superman can rip the planet apart on his own, and universes like the Injustice timeline show exactly how deadly a Superman without morals could be. However, as dangerous as an evil Superman is, there’s one hero who has shown that he’s infinitely worse when he goes off the deep end. Evil Superman is scary, but evil Reed Richards is a monster without compare.

Reed Richards is A Mad Scientist With Infinite Potential

Looking at the facts, even when Superman turns evil, there’s usually a limit to how much damage he does. On the lower tier of destruction, Ultraman lords over his world like a despot, but he is somewhat held in check by the other villains. On the high tier, Superman might destroy the planet, like in Earth -1. Reed Richards’s main evil counterpart, the Maker, has much grander ambitions. In his home universe, he made his debut as the Maker by evolving an entire civilization of perfect superhuman soldiers whom he used to destroy Asgard. Anyone capable of doing that in just a few months is insane, but that’s the smallest of his evil endeavors.

See, the Maker was never content to just be a villain. He wanted to “perfect” everything by remaking it in his image, and he had the ambition and intellect ot do just that. The new Ultimate Universe is literally the byproduct of that. He transformed an entire world into his personal science project, crafting an empire of soldiers and followers out of his once greatest enemies. He made time impassable so nobody could stop him. Heck, he’s remade entire universes, such as when he resurrected the original Ultimate Universe in Ultimates 2. There is nothing that the Maker can’t do when he puts his mind to it. He can rewrite reality in an afternoon, and change time to make himself a god.

When Superman turns evil, you might lose a planet at worst. When Mister Fantastic turns evil, the entire multiverse could be at stake. He’s smart enough to know how to mask his plans until it’s far beyond too late to stop him, and those plans always involve consequences that could shake at least one world. The Maker doesn’t mess around, and that’s why he’s one of the most dangerous heroes-turned-villains of all.

Which hero do you think would be the most dangerous if they turned evil? Leave a Comment below and join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum!

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