DC Comics has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to its characters. They have some of the best superheroes in pop culture — Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Nightwing, and many, many more — and when you have the best heroes, you need villains that can match them. Luckily, DC delivers here as well. Villains like Lex Luthor and the Joker are the most popular villains in pop culture, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Since DC started putting out superhero comics in 1938, readers have been treated to the greatest villains ever. Every DC hero has at least one amazing enemy, and characters like Superman and Batman have entire rogues gallery of the greatest villains you can imagine. However, there’s always room for one more, and the next great DC villain is already a very popular character — Raven.
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Raven first appeared in DC Comics Presents #26, but she’d come to prominence in New Teen Titans. Raven is the daughter of Trigon, a powerful demon lord, and is one of the most powerful magic users in the DC Multiverse. Raven is one of the best Teen Titans, but any fans who knows anything about Raven knows that evil is in her blood. DC has played around with Raven on the edge of being a villain multiple times, but it’s about time they pulled the trigger and just made her a villain. Raven has changed a lot over the years, and it’s about time DC finally made the move that fans have been waiting for.
Raven Would Make for a Universe-Shaking Villain
New Teen Titans was hugely popular in its time, and anyone who knows about the history of the title knows about Raven’s struggle with her dark side. Trigon was always trying to get his hands on his daughter in order to become more powerful, desiring her on his side. Raven was constantly fighting against the evil inside of her. For years, she held herself aloof from her teammates, afraid that any strong emotion would cause her dark side to take control. This ended up happening, and Raven would have to control her emotions in order to keep herself from falling completely to the darkness. However, this became a huge problem for Raven, because the go to Raven storyarc is her losing control of herself and her dark side taking control. The last major Raven story in the early issues of the newest volume of Titans saw her taken over by her dark side, which had taken on its own physical form using the Helm of Chaos to become Doctor Hate, defeating Raven in battle in order to take over her body. This evil Raven worked against the Titans from behind the scenes and eventually the Titans had to band together to stop her. The story ended with her melding every side of her. This was the umpteenth time this sort of thing happened, and it’s getting boring. That’s why it’s time to pull the trigger.
Everyone who writes Raven for any amount of time does an evil Raven story eventually, and the love of her friends always brings her back. However, it’s about time for that to fail. Raven keeps falling to the darkness. She’s the daughter of a demonlord and has an insane amount of magical power, to the extent that she can alter reality. If she’s always falling, that means she’s fighting her evil nature. That nature needs to take over completely. Over the years we’ve seen Raven’s evil side become a separate being, and if that’s the case, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be able to finally overcome the love of her friends, and hold onto her. Besides which, this is the only Raven story we haven’t tried yet. Raven has fell to darkness, she’s fought the Titans, she’s come back. Why even have Raven around if she’s going to keep doing the same thing? If Raven is going to keep having the same story, we might as well get a change, and Raven as a villain would be a huge change. A lot of people love Raven — she’s very famous on the cosplay circuit, for example — and these fans would be very interested in seeing what an evil Raven could do. Her power levels are insane, as well. Raven as a villain would definitely be able to fight the entire Justice League on her own. We need that Raven.
Raven Is Exactly the Villain that DC Comics Needs
Raven has almost been a villain plenty of times, in both the comics and outside media. We just got another story where she almost went evil, and honestly it’s getting boring. It’s time that DC went all the way and made Raven into the monster she could be. Let her kill Beast Boy or another member of the Titans and just let it be.
Making Raven a villain would be big news. She’s a character that a couple of generations of fans have grown up with because of animated series like Teen Titans and Teen Titans GO!, and the cosplayers would love her getting a new, evil form. Raven only has one story. It’s time to give her a second one, and by doing so it would give DC their next great villain.
Do you think that Raven should be a villain? Sound off in the comment below.
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