Now that the first releases are here, it’s already clear that James Gunn’s DCU will have no shortage of tyrannical rebels eager to mold the world in their twisted image. There is also an abundance of street-level crime, but a few ill-intentioned kingpins could soon disrupt the entire DCU. Just as Thanos wiped out half the MCU population with a literal snap and required a superhero team-up of epic proportions for his galaxy-wide reign to end, several DC villains could rise to power and rival Gunn’s (eventual) Justice League. And, many wouldn’t require an Infinity Gauntlet to do so.
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The big picture of the DCU is becoming increasingly clear, with James Gunn promising that Peacemaker Season 2 will offer a significant reveal about where the franchise is heading. Before that confirmation comes, though, there are decades of DC history and plenty of maniacs who could be an evil tyrant on screen.
5) Vandal Savage
Vandal Savage, an immortal warrior, has spent the better portion of his nearly 50,000-year life terrorizing the Earth. Armed with regenerative abilities that could even make Deadpool jealous, Vandal Savage is literally the hardest man to kill in the DC Universe. With over a millennium of martial arts experience and superhuman strength, speed, and durability to his credit, he is one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in comics.
Plus, even if one executes the unlikely task of defeating him in battle, Vandal Savage will simply regenerate in minutes. He’s survived having his face blown off by an explosive, complete vaporization, dismemberment and several bouts with Superman. And, in case you were wondering, he doesn’t possess a weakness to garlic or silver bullets, either.
He’s simply an immortal conqueror with a limitless supply of devious plans and the lifespan needed to execute them. Should he enter the DCU picture, the landscape of the ever-expanding universe would be forever changed.
4) Braniac
A techno-organic alien with a 12th-level intellect, Braniac is one of the most intelligent and dangerous beings in DC Comics. Capable of constructing, and, at times, being any weapon of mass destruction that he can envision, the engineering-inclined tyrant has a surplus of wicked inventions he’s used to threaten Earth.
He’s reduced entire cities with his force field belt and shrinking ray and has a seemingly limitless supply of robotic drones and warriors at his disposal. Many of which are constructed by alien technologies foreign to Earth, making them even more challenging to gameplan for or defeat.
His obsession with knowledge has led him to shrink down many cities to bottle size and hoard them aboard on his Skull Ship to study them, including Kandor on Krypton. After minimizing and collecting his city of choice, Braniac discards the source planet, believing that the knowledge he acquires from the conquest is only valuable if he possesses it.
His galaxy-wide, planet-annihilating endeavor has led to several wars against the Justice League, and he is one of the most notable members of Superman’s rogue gallery. It would not be surprising for Gunn to deploy the cyborg overlord as the big bad of the DCU.
3) Darkseid
Darkseid was positioned to be the alpha villain of the since-scrapped DCEU and could serve a similar role in the revamped DCU. If you need a one-sentence synopsis on why he could be the biggest threat in the DCU, he is the ruler of the nightmare world Apokolips. I’ll say that again. He single-handedly reigns over a nightmare world called Apokolips – one of hundreds of planets he conquered. I’m not sure if it gets more badass than that, a sentence that rings true for Darkseid’s status as a DC villain.
He doesn’t just pursue global domination; he craves it with every core of his being. To this end, he seeks out the Anti-Life Equation, a power that allows Darkseid to turn anyone or anything into his mindless vessel bound to his will. To the dismay of DC heroes, Darkseid also has the power and abilities needed to fulfill his heinous concepts.
In addition to nigh invulnerability and superhuman strength, Darkseid wields a cosmic energy called the Omega Effect, which allows him to traverse time and space and fire target-tracking Omega Beams from his eyes powerful enough to harm Kryptonians and incinerate planets.
He also boasts power absorption, allowing him to become stronger each time he kills (and drains) a superpowered opponent. Needless to say, it would take more than a singular hero to put him down and he’d be a logical choice as the DCU’s Thanos-level threat.
2) Crime Syndicate
What if the biggest threat to the Justice League and the DCU was the Justice League itself? Well, a version of the Justice League, that is. On Earth-3, a rogue, ill-intentioned version of the Justice League ensemble, called the Crime Syndicate, was formed. They come from a universe where seemingly every character’s moral compass is reversed. As a result, heroes like Batman and Superman have become villains named Owlman and Ultraman, whereas the evil Lex Luthor and Joker have become underdog heroes.
Due to their robust power, the Crime Syndicate often rules the universe with an iron fist and is virtually incapable of being defeated in their universe, just as the Justice League almost always prevails in theirs. But, with Peacemaker Season 2 making a multiverse of at least 99 dimensions DCU canon, it’s possible that the two formidable factions clash. On that day, perhaps we will discover what happens when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object.
1) Lex Luthor
Following his swift defeat and imprisonment in Superman, the Vegas odds don’t seem great for Lex Luthor to become the big bad of the DCU. However, the self-centered, tech-savvy genius showed plenty of promise to assume the role.
He sparked a full-scale war as a mere distraction, broke into Superman’s secret Fortress of Solitude and repeatedly pushed the Kryptonian hero to the brink of death. He unleashed a Superman clone against him, blackmailed a Kryptonian-producing alien to attack him and even stole Superman’s dog.
Unnerved by the insecurity induced by comparing himself to Superman, Lex Luthor is highly motivated to rid the world of the Kryptonian and would likely attempt to dispatch anyone he deemed more powerful than him, which could inspire an attempt at overseeing the DCU as its twisted ruler. Plus, the just announced Man of Tomorrow sure seems to imply that Lex Luthor has a big place in the DCU’s future.
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