7 DC Villains Too Powerful to Appear in The DCU

The DCU is building itself into something special. Superman, Creature Commandos, and Peacemaker have all found fanbases and many are looking forward to Supergirl. So far, it’s done a fabulous job of taking the characters and ideas from DC Comics to the big screen flawlessly. DC is known for being the more fantastical of the Big Two. Its multiverse is infinite and its characters are extremely powerful. The DCU has already ran up against that particular wall with Superman, giving fans a weaker (but still exceedingly powerful) version of the Man of Steel. Nerfing the big blue boy scout means that they’re going to nerf other characters, taking DC in a more post-Crisis direction (the publisher heavily nerfed their entire universe to make it more palatable for fans after that classic story).

With this lower overall power level, it means that there are some villains who are much too powerful for the new cinematic universe. Obviously, they could be nerfed as well, but that would take away a large part of what made them so special. These seven DC villains are much too powerful to appear in the DCU, their abilities and skills putting them out of the reach of its heroes.

7) The Empty Hand

The Multiversity is a Grant Morrison classic, taking readers through the new multiverse of the New 52 (although they had started talking about it around the time of Final Crisis, several years before the New 52 began, and nearly a decade before it actually came out). This story revolved around the Gentry attacking various universes, and ended with the reveal of their leader, the Empty Hand. While we never see him in action, it’s safe to assume that anyone who commands a force as powerful as the Gentry and travels the multiverse is a universe ending threat. In fact, he’s so powerful that he can travel to other multiverses. That’s a lot of power on its own, and it makes the Empty Hand into something beyond the DCU (and the MCU, for that matter).

6) The Batman Who Laughs

The Batman Who Laughs was overexposed rather quickly (everyone wants to blame DC, but conveniently forget that everyone loved him at first), but that doesn’t change how powerful he is. A Jokerized Batman, he was able to kill every single being on his planet. While he is merely a normal human (well, until he puts his brain into the body of Dr. Bathattan, that is), he’s also Batman, which means that he can defeat anyone who he is pitted against. He’s just way too OP to appear in the movies, despite not having any in-grown superpowers.

5) Rogol Zaar

Rogol Zaar was introduced when Brian Michael Bendis came to DC Comics, and acted as the main villain of the first phase of his run on Superman. Rogol Zaar hated Kryptonians, and was hired by the powers of the universe to destroy the planet, helping bring about their destruction. He went after Superman, Supergirl, and the Bottle City of Kandor when he learned they had survived and proved to be vastly more powerful. He was able to dogwalk Supes, Kara, and even Zod, and the only way to beat him was to work together, along with Jon Kent. Right now, Kryptonians are the main force in the DCU, so introducing a character that is so much more powerful than them would be a big mistake at this point.

4) Nekron

Blackest Night was an amazing event comic, acting as the culmination of several years of Green Lantern plots. The Black Lantern Corps were the dead of the universe resurrected to defeat the living, and they were led by Nekron. He’s one of the most powerful personifications of the death in the DC Multiverse, and is just as implacable and unstoppable as the end of life is for everyone. The only way to actually defeat is by harnessing the power of the Life Entity, and even then, he’s never actually gone because you can’t actually beat death. He’s an awesome villain, but he’s way too much for the DCU.

3) Extant

Extant was the main villain of Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time, a mid ’90s story that was meant to fix some of the problems left by Crisis on Infinite Earths. Extant’s powers were temporal in nature, allowing him to control the flow of time. He also had vast energy powers and superhuman physical attributes at the highest level imaginable. It was revealed that he was an evil future version of Captain Atom known as the Monarch, which means he also has all of the energy and matter control power of that hero. He can basically control everything around him, age anyone to dust, and use alternate timeline versions of heroes and villains to fight for him. That’s much too much power for the DCU as it currently is.

2) Anti-Monitor

Many DC characters have high body counts, but few of them can match the Anti-Monitor, who destroyed countless universes. The son of Perpetua, he was created to be in charge of the anti-matter of the DC Multiverse, and would eventually decide that he should control an entire multiverse made of anti-matter. This led to him unleashing waves of ant-matter into every positive matter universe, with the heroes of five Earths standing against him. He can destroy universes like people eat potato chips, and is able to smack around pre-Crisis Kryptonians (the ones that can move planets and destroy solar systems by sneezing). He’s on another level compared to any other villain that has appeared in any superhero movie, even making Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet look quaint.

1) Perpetua

Perpetua is the most powerful villain in the history of DC Comics, which is saying something. She is from an order of beings known as the Hands. The Hands create multiverses, and Perpetua was the one who created the DC Multiverse. She decided that she wanted to use it to conquer other multiverses, and her children and the Hands banded together to banish her beyond the Source Wall. She’s the one who made the peoples of the DC Multiverse as powerful as they are. If the Anti-Monitor is on another level than other superhero movie villains, she’s an entire other order of being, and dwarfs the power of everything out there.

What DC villains do you think are too powerful for the DCU? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!

10 Longest Running DC Comics Series