5 Most Painfully Underrated DC Movie Villains, Ranked

Joker in Batman and The Dark Knight. Lex Luthor in the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies and James Gunn’s Superman. Penguin in Batman Returns and The Batman (not to mention The Penguin). These are all amazing villains that are seen as just that. Then there are the ones who were accurately seen as letdowns, e.g. Jared Leto’s Joker in Suicide Squad, Nuclear Man in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Bane in Batman & Robin and The Dark Knight Rises. But what about the villains who fall between those two categories? Those who without a doubt have their merits but aren’t as frequently remembered as the villains of the first aforementioned category.

Those are the villains who follow. They’re either fun to watch or have substantial narrative heft yet tend to be thought of as middling. And that should change.

5) Ross Webster in Superman III

When Ilya and Alexander Salking, producers on the first three Christopher Reeve Superman movies, fired Richard Donner midway through the production of Superman II, this rubbed Lex Luthor’s Gene Hackman and Lois Lane’s Margot Kidder. Now, there’s debate as to whether their vocalizations of that anger were the reason why the former didn’t return for Superman III and the latter had her role reduced to a cameo, but it is noticeable.

This left Superman III with a villainous role to fill. And, as far as Lex Luthor copies go, Ross Webster is pretty good. The late Robert Vaughn always had a ton of screen presence and while his character isn’t as well written he’s just as fun to watch as Hackman.

4) Max Shreck in Batman Returns

Like Ross Webster, Batman Returns‘ Max Shreck is a wealthy industrialist with greedy, hostile intent just below the surface. He’s also like Webster in that he was crafted just for the film.

Now, Christopher Walken’s character is far from forgotten, but if a fan of Batman Returns were asked to say the first villain that popped in their mind, they would say either Penguin or Catwoman. But Shreck is the real blast to watch and considering how he essentially creates both of the other two villains (one with his cash and clout and the other via attempted murder) he couldn’t be any more important.

3) Black Mask in Birds of Prey

While Roman Sionis aka Black Mask is a pretty standard gangster type, Ewan McGregor has such a field day playing him that you almost wish he didn’t die after being thrown off a pier alongside a live grenade with its pin pulled. On the whole Birds of Prey is the DCEU’s most underrated installment, and McGregor’s Black Mask is a big part of that.

The actor makes the audience believe the character’s extreme germophobia just as they believe his psychotic tendencies. It’s a perfectly modulated performance that is slightly exaggerated but not exaggerated enough to be considered overacting. It’s just a performance that understands that the movie surrounding it is fast-paced and somewhat fast and loose with its grip on reality.

2) Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin

Batman & Robin has gone from just plain old bad to so bad it’s good, and that’s deserved. It’s far from an objectively good movie but it is fun to watch.

However, while it’s loaded with over-the-top performances, there is at least one that is well-modulated in its over-the-top nature. That would be Uma Thurman’s work as Poison Ivy. She clearly understood the comic book on screen direction the movie was taking but she doesn’t ham it up so much that her performance is cringeworthy.

1) Black Manta in Aquaman & Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

Most superhero movies introduce the villain in the same movie where they actually are the main villain. If they come back in a movie down the line it’s for a cameo appearance. For instance, all of the Spider-Man movies save for Spider-Man: No Way Home, every Batman solo movie, and so on. In other words, there hasn’t been a Batman movie where Joker pops up for a few scenes in the first movie and then becomes the main villain in the second.

Perhaps this is why David Kane aka Black Manta was such a great presence in James Wan’s two Aquaman movies. He got about 30 minutes of screentime in Aquaman, in which we learned a bit about his backstory and, more importantly, why he comes to hate the title character. Then, when Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom rolled around, we already had a solid feel of who he was, and then we could just see him exact his revenge. Black Manta is underrated because of how his character was gradually revealed, the design, which falls just short enough of silly with his big bug-eyed helmed, and the performance of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. The DCEU ended on a pretty average note with Lost Kingdom, but it’s because of Black Manta it feels like it has any real stakes.

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