DC Comics has created some of the greatest supervillains of all time. One of my favorite things about DC Comics as a whole is the way the publisher has matured over the years. DC used to be the most fantastical and childlike of the Big Two, but as Marvel pushed the envelope of superheroes in the Silver Age, DC went often further in much smarter than ways than Marvel. DC’s villains have definitely benefited from this. Villains who were something of a joke at first became something altogether different and fans were able to understand their outlandish goals even better, because those goals became even less outlandish and started to make sense.
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While DC has plenty of mad dogs villains, it also has a lot of villains who do have a point. While we can argue with their actions, it’s hard to argue against their motivations. Some DC villains are right about certain things, and this has made them even more interesting in the long run. These ten DC villains have a pretty good point, even if their methods are terribly brutal.
10) Pariah
Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths is very underrated in my opinion, and a big part of that is the villain Pariah. Pariah was part of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, a scientist from an Earth who was cursed because of his discovery of the Anti-Monitor and Monitor, jumping from Earth to Earth as it was destroyed. He eventually became an ally of the heroes and helped save the Multiverse. He was killed in the run-up to Infinite Crisis, but would return later as the DC Multiverse was rebooted. Pariah was driven mad by the suffering he had seen and he eventually decided that he need to recreate the old multiverse in order to find his home. There was honestly nothing wrong with that goal; the original Crisis killed countless beings. Wanting them to come back actually isn’t bad at all. However, the problem came in that Pariah decided to use the Great Darkness as his tool and tried to use the energy of the greatest heroes to recreate the multiverse. If he would have went to the heroes and asked for help, he would have gotten his wish, because he definitely had the right point.
9) The Crime Syndicate
The Crime Syndicate is the Earth-Three (or Earth-3 in later DC Multiverses; yes, there is a difference and no, we don’t have time to go into it) version of the Justice League. Their Earth is the Earth where evil always wins, so they’re actually the heroes of their world, which means as long as they are on their Earth, they have a point. This was shown in the classic JLA: Earth-2 (yes, I know I said they were from Earth-Three/3, but in the post-Crisis DC Universe it was different), when the JLA went to their Earth and tried to “save” the people there. They didn’t want to be saved and found the JLA to be wrong, and Brainiac took advantage of their altruism to almost destroy the world before the Crime Syndicate returned. Later, in the New 52 appearances by the Crime Syndicate, they were only wrong because of how they did things. Their Earth was destroyed by the New 52 version of the Anti-Monitor and came to the Prime Earth to find a new home. As living beings, they do deserve to have a home, they just don’t deserve to rule it.
8) Vandal Savage
Vandal Savage is one of the greatest Justice League villains, an evil who has existed since the beginning of humanity. In Vandal Savage’s 100,000 years of life, he’s lived by one tenet — the satiation of his appetites. This is basically exactly how all lifeforms work. On the simplest life, every lifeform is about consuming whatever they can in order to make sure they can survive, have offspring, and keep their species going. Vandal Savage is all about surviving and satiating his appetites. However, it’s how he’s gone about it over the millennia that make his actions evil. Vandal Savage is all about survival of the fittest, and that’s the literal way that life works. It’s only his boundless greed that makes him evil, but otherwise Vandal Savage going through the world and trying to survive, while getting things that he wants, is basically the way that everyone lives their life.
7) Amanda Waller
Amanda Waller has long been an antagonist in the DC Universe, but it’s hard to argue with her motivation. Waller believes that metahumans are dangerous and that there needs to be some kind of control over them. This is pretty much correct. Just look at everything evil metahumans have done to the Earth; Waller can point at millions of deaths and that’s before she even gets to the Crisis events that have rebooted existence multiple times. Absolute Power was Waller’s latest bid to control metahumanity, and the way she went about it was completely wrong, but anyone who doesn’t think Waller has a point needs to think about what kind of world we’d live in if there were metahumans.
6) Ra’s al Ghul
Ra’s al Ghul is another evil DC immortal, but his point is way better than Vandal Savage’s. Ra’s al Ghul has watched humanity for centuries, and has seen the cancerous way that humanity spreads and effects the world. Ra’s al Ghul wants the Earth to survive and he knows that the increase of the human population and their reliance on technology will do terminal damage to the planet. Ra’s al Ghul has decided that he’s going to do everything he can to cull the population in order to save the planet. The Demon’s Head’s plans are completely wrong, but there’s nothing wrong with the ideas behind it. Humanity is destroying the Earth in the pursuit of profit for the most minuscule portion of the population, and someone needs to do something about it. However, destroying 90% of the human race is the most evil way to go about it.
5) Sinestro
Sinestro was once the greatest Green Lantern of them all. Sinestro hates the chaos of evil, and wants to ensure order for the majority. Of course, the problem with that is Sinestro wants to use fear to control the populations under his “protection” to make sure that his idea of order prevails. Sinestro’s desire for order is at the same level of fascists. He believes that anyone who doesn’t see things his way is wrong and needs to be dealt with. Sinestro is right — chaos is the enemy of society and order is the best way to create a prosperous society. However, Sinestro using the power of fear to ensure that no will step out of line is why he’s a villain.
4) Alexander Luthor
Infinite Crisis is a legendary DC story, one that laid the building blocks for the return of a more classic DC Multiverse. The story brought back the heroes of Crisis on Infinite Earths, and saw Alexander Luthor and Superboy-Prime decide that the DC Universe they had defeated the Anti-Monitor to create is too dark. Luthor and Prime wanted to create a “perfect” Earth, one where everyone could be happy, and nothing terrible would happen. Now, Luthor is correct; the DC Universe had become much darker than what came before. The heroes were sullied and the villains became monsters that devoured everything in front of them. Much like Pariah later, if Alexander Luthor would have asked the heroes for help, they would have worked with him to create his perfect Earth. However, he took it all in his own hands, costing millions their lives across the universe, all to try and do something that no one knew would be successful.
3) Two-Face
Harvey Dent was a crusader for Gotham City, doing the best he could to clean up the city. However, there was always something ugly inside of Two-Face, something that would go to any extent to protect him, and it was brought out when Dent was attacked in the court room, his face terribly burned.This changed his view of the world, as he saw everything as black and white, good and evil. Here’s the thing — Two-Face isn’t wrong. There are good people right now doing evil things they think are good. While there are certainly shades of grey to some actions, this is a world that is predicated on duality; light and dark, good and evil, plenty and famine. Now, this isn’t a reason to lose all hope in society and embrace that duality; however, it’s still a pretty valid way of looking at the world.
2) The Joker
The Joker is insane. This is undeniable. However, even the most mentally unwell people have a point, and one place where the Joker wasn’t completely wrong was in The Killing Joke, he just misunderstood the results. It’s true that one bad day can change anyone’s life. However, that change doesn’t just make people into monsters like him. Bruce Wayne had one bad day, and it made him into Batman. So many heroes have had that one bad day and ended up better than they were. That’s the thing about life — horrible things happen and they change us. However, change isn’t always bad; it’s not terrible to become something new. In the specific case of Jim Gordon in The Killing Joke, his one bad day changed his life in many ways, but instead of breaking him, it re-doubled his dedication to justice. The Joker had a point about how things change us, but he was wrong in the way he thought the changes go.
1) Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor is the smartest villain of them all. The only thing greater than his intellect is his ego, and this ego has made him wrong about a lot of things. However, one place where Lex Luthor does have a point is the effect on Superman in society. Lex Luthor likes to talk about the impact of Superman on society, that he’s basically a superpowered nanny to the extent that people will depend on him too much. This is actually a pretty astute observation. One thing anyone who has studied human history has seen is the way that humans embrace any shortcuts, allowing other skills to atrophy. Superman saves the day, and because he’s around, people don’t have to think of ways to solve their problems. They can just wait for Superman to save the day. Lex Luthor is wrong about a lot of why he hates Superman, but there’s definitely something about his idea that Superman is a super nanny who will atrophy humanity’s skills. We watch this happen in the real world all the time.
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