The best DC Comic villains are the ones who believe they are the heroes in the stories, even if they are the worst of antagonists. These are not sympathetic heroes just because they think they are in the right. Instead, these are often arrogant villains who think their way is the best, and in some cases, that they are smarter than the heroes they eventually end up battling. These heroes either think that their way is the best, even if the entire world wants nothing to do with them, or they think they are the chosen ones to take down certain people, believing their actions are neccesary to protect the world from the heroes.
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Here is a look at seven DC Comics villains who believe they are the heroes in their stories.
7) Ra’s al Ghul
Ra’s al Ghul leads the League of Assassins, so it is clear he is no hero. However, that isn’t how Ra’s looks at things, as he believes he is either a hero or a neccesary evil that is there to save the world. In the end, Ra’s al Ghul always believed that he was fated to save the world, but there was one big problem with his mental state. Every time he used the Lazarus Pit, he began to lose sight of his initial goals.
In the comics, Ra’s al Ghul was mostly an eco-terrorist who wanted to save the world, and he believed he was noble in burning down society to save the planet. His entire goal is to raze the people at the top who are destroying the planet for their own goals, and he believes this is to course correct, and that he is the only man to do it. If that means killing thousands of people, that to Ra’s is worth the cost.
6) Black Adam
For many years, Black Adam was a generic villain who was simply the opposite of Shazam. He gained the same powers from the wizard, but then he used them for selfish and often evil purposes. However, that all changed in the year-long DC series titled 52. This saw Black Adam become the savior of his country of Kahndaq, but when other countries refused to trust him, they forced his hand and killed his beloved Adrianna Tomaz.
Black Adam then went for revenge and started World War III, even murdering a member of the Teen Titans to defend his country from aggressors. Black Adam was the hero fighting for his home, and the United States and other countries were the villains, attacking a foreign country to enforce their will. In later years, Black Adam became a hero and a member of the Justice League, but he has always been a ticking time bomb and a villain, although he never sees it that way.
5) Sinestro
Sinestro was a member of the Green Lantern Corps, and he is the man who helped train Hal Jordan. However, when he used his powers to force his home world into subservience, the Guardians ordered him taken down and stripped him of his power. For Sinestro, this was a slight, since he believed he was doing what was best for his planet, and he never forgave the Guardians or the Corps for “betraying” him.
However, in reality, Sinestro is an authoritarian figure to the extreme, and it is the code he lives by. In his mind, it is the best way, and it is a reason he created the Sinestro Corps to rule by fear rather than by the word of the law. Sinestro also has the strong belief that the Corps have to kill to keep the peace, which puts him squarely as a villain, although he genuinely believes it is the only way.
4) Injustice Superman
One of the more controversial yet popular DC Comics storylines was Injustice: Gods Among Us. Set up as a prequel to the video game of the same name, this starts with Joker using Scarecrow’s fear toxin, mixed with some Kryptonite, on Superman, making the Man of Steel believe he is fighting Doomsday. However, this was a hallucination and he was fighting Lois Lane, who he kills. This leads to a nuclear warhead blowing up Metropolis.
It is obvious why Superman lost it here. He murders Joker and then takes over the entire world, using his powers with Wonder Woman by his side to defeat the world governments and declare martial law, killing anyone who crosses him. Superman did this to create world peace, but by the most evil ways neccesary, making him and Batman mortal enemies. Superman believes he is right and the hero here, and in many ways, Wonder Woman is the actual villain, pushing him to go darker and darker.
3) Ocean Master
Ocean Master is Orm, Aquaman’s brother, and the man who believes he should be the King of Atlantis. In older DC Comics, much like Black Adam and Sinestro, Ocean Master is a generic villain and someone who does evil things just to make him a logical villain for Aquaman. However, similar to those other two villains, more modern comics made him a lot more complex and gave him a reason for his actions.
He believes he is the rightful ruler of Atlantis, and he feels he would serve the nation better than Aquaman, who was never around and seemed to care more about protecting the surface world than his own kingdom. His main goal was to protect Atlantis from the pollution and destruction caused by the careless actions of humans, and his lethal attacks were always justified in his own mind.
2) Ozymandias
Ozymandias is the one DC Comics villain who never wavered in his belief that he was the hero in his story. Ozymandias was the former hero in the Watchmen world, and in that seminal, groundbreaking story, he was revealed as the villain who had murdered over three million people in New York City. In the movie adaptation, it was 15 million people across the world, and in both cases, Ozymandias believed it was neccesary.
In Watchmen, the world was on the brink of World War III, and Ozymandias knew, as the smartest man in the world, that nothing would stop the destruction of the world in an all-out nuclear war other than his actions. Ozymandias believes that he killed three million people to ensure that over eight billion people could live by using the fake alien attack to force the world to work together, ending the threat of war. Even in the end, Ozymandias believes he saved the world.
1) Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor is the one DC Comics villain who believes that his evil actions make him the hero that the world needs. Luthor hates Superman for various reasons, but the biggest one in his own mind is that he believes Superman is too powerful to be trusted on Earth. He sees Superman as someone who could destroy the planet if he loses control, and in many ways, Luthor is correct.
Injustice: Gods Among Us showed what would happen if Superman did lose control, but in the main DC Universe, this has never been close to being possible. That hasn’t stopped Luthor, who believes that his brains and vision are what the United States should favor over Superman’s raw powers, and as a result, he has allowed his dreams of being the world’s hero to cloud his vision time and time again, making him one of the world’s greatest villains.
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