3 Great Comic Book Movie Villains That Were (Wrongfully) Forgotten

Jack Nicholson’s Joker, Heath Ledger’s Joker, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Danny DeVito’s Penguin, Jeff Bridges’ Iron Monger, these are all villains who, to arguably varying degrees, have become icons of comic book cinema. Then there are a few that flopped as soon as they hit the screen, like Mark Pillow’s Nuclear Man in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. But what about the ones that fall between those two categories, the ones that made a respectable impact but then seemed to fade a bit from public consciousness in time? Those are the ones that follow, with the only qualifications being that the actor clearly did the best with the material they were provided and that, on the macro-scale as far as general audiences go, they’ve mostly been forgotten. So, while the late Robert Redford’s Alexander Pierce isn’t as well remembered as the title antagonist in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he is still remembered to a fairly considerable degree. He even popped up in Avengers: Endgame.

Furthermore, just missing the cut was Nick Nolte’s David Banner in Hulk, who is certainly a memorable villain for being an abusive, manipulative father, but he’s not really fleshed out more than that. At least not enough to be considered a “great” villain.

3) Jared Nomak in Blade II

If someone has seen the Blade trilogy once, say back when they were first released, and they were asked to name a villain now, they would probably say Deacon Frost or “the guy Stephen Dorff played.” On one hand, that’s how bland Blade: Trinity‘s take on Dracula was.

On the other hand, Jared Nomak of Blade II, unlike Dracula, deserves to be remembered just as much as Frost. He’s a super breed vampire who hates regular vampires and hates his regular vampire dad even more for making him a super breed vampire. That’s a lot of internal conflict for one character, and English actor Luke Goss does a great job bringing his rage to life.

Stream Blade II on Paramount+.

2) Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze is the more macro-scale remembered villain in Joel Schumacher’s disastrous Batman & Robin. For one, with his over-enthusiastic line deliveries and eye-rolling puns, his character was a major part of why the film ended up being such a punchline. Two, he made $25 million for the film, which was 25 times what George Clooney made for playing Batman.

But Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy is undoubtedly the better half of the villainous duo. Thurman was asked to deliver absurd lines, but she manages to pull off even the worst of them with some level of grace. It’s also just blatantly obvious that she’s having fun in the role. That is really the best that can be expected of someone in a movie featuring a scene where a villain with a deadly kiss smooches a hero only for the hero to then remove a lip guard. And, instead of just kissing him again since he’s right there in her face, she inexplicably pushes him away. Baffling.

Stream Batman & Robin on HBO Max.

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1) Kingpin & Bullseye in Daredevil

At this point in time, if one were asked to name which superhero movie featured Colin Farrell, they would likely quickly reply with The Batman, especially given how his Penguin was given his own fantastic Emmy-winning spin-off series. If one were asked to name which actor plays Kingpin, chances are high they would say Vincent D’Onofrio, considering he has been part of the MCU for quite some time now.

But Farrell’s first superhero movie wasn’t The Batman, it was 2003’s Daredevil, which is also to this day the only big-screen live-action project to feature Kingpin (he was animated in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and has only been in small-screen MCU projects). A big part of the reason their characters in Daredevil don’t spring to most general audience members’ minds is that Daredevil in and of itself was a very weak movie. Outside Jennifer Garner’s work as Elektra the only thing that worked about it were the pair of villain performances by Farrell and the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan. Sure, this entry was a two-fer, but this villainous duo deserves to be remembered, even if the surrounding film does not.

Stream Daredevil on Disney+.