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Best superhero arch-nemesis

Underseer

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Who is your favorite comic book arch-nemesis? Who is your favorite villain?

Normally, I prefer Marvel comics over DC comics, but I have to admit that Green Arrow has the best arch-nemesis. Green Arrow is one of those superheroes who doesn't have any actual superpowers. He just happens to be really good at archery and has a lot of trick arrows.

So his arch-nemesis Merlyn is... a better archer. How cool is that?

Of course Merlyn is a great arch-nemesis because he automatically creates a major problem for the hero, but he's not my favorite villain. That would go to Magneto because he genuinely believes himself to be the savior of his species, and the really disturbing thing about Magneto is that he may very well be right about humanity. We might actually be every bit as evil as he says we are.

Anyway, who are your favorites?
 
Good point about Magneto. Like Liam Nelson's portrayal of Raw, I can actually see myself being a follower of them under the right circumstances.
 
dockeen said:
Good point about Magneto. Like Liam Nelson's portrayal of Raw, I can actually see myself being a follower of them under the right circumstances.
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Another thing interesting about the X-Men is that both Xavier and Magneto are motivated by fear of genocide, they just disagree with each other on how best to prevent it. Xavier is willing to do some pretty awful things in the name of preventing genocide (e.g. enslaving an AI just to improve the training of the X-Men, keeping detailed files on exactly how to kill each individual mutant he knows about), while Magneto can sometimes do truly noble things in the name of preventing genocide. It, uh, keeps things interesting.
 
Magneto is good because he's a complex character. The beyonder was good, if anyone remembers him(it)? I like the Blob too, kills people by sitting on them as a gigantic fat ass.
 
Interestingly, the Beyonder classified Magneto as a hero. Exactly because his motivation was protecting other mutants, not world domination for himself.

As villains go, Keith prefers Doctor Doom. Many villains speak of themselves in third person, but somehow, Keith has always thought they look like unlettered dweebs. Doom, however, manages to do it with a credible panache. He's a class act, Reed Richard's intellectual equal, whilst being his moral inferior.
 
I like Loki, especially how he's portrayed in the movies. In the comic books, I find him to be more of a snivelling little brat than anything else, but the movies had nailed what his character should be.
 
braces_for_impact said:
Magneto is good because he's a complex character. The beyonder was good, if anyone remembers him(it)? I like the Blob too, kills people by sitting on them as a gigantic fat ass.
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The Beyonder wars was back when I was still a regular reader. That was where Spiderman got the costume that would go on to be venom.
 
One thing about the comics. Villians tend to reappear again and again, so their is kind of a natural evolution in which villians move from cardboard "bad guys" to acquire more depth and interest. At least, some of the time. ;)
 
dockeen said:
One thing about the comics. Villians tend to reappear again and again, so their is kind of a natural evolution in which villians move from cardboard "bad guys" to acquire more depth and interest. At least, some of the time. ;)
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That's true. Deadpool comes to mind.
 
For best arch-nemesis, I like Galactus. He isn't villainous per se, his actions are driven by his intense hunger, and his food source just happens to be the life energy of planets. His size, and innate ability to utilize the cosmic power, make him virtually unbeatable, which is really what you want in a comic book arch-nemesis. The ability to overcome that which cannot be beaten is what ultimately defines the greatest super heroes.

For best villain, I like Thanos. Much the opposite of Galactus, Thanos was initially motivated by hatred, and empowered himself with cybernetics so that he could seek revenge on his own family. He eventually came to be obsessed with death, and fell in love with Lady Death herself, the personification of death in female form. After she cursed him with immortality, he tried to win her favor by killing half of all life in the Universe (an attempt to balance life and death). He is kind of the ultimate malevolent villain, motivated purely by his love of death. He then becomes a god, and realizes he is stronger than even Death, and spurns her as a result. He then decides that the ultimate act of death dealing would be to destroy the entire Universe, leaving himself as the supreme (and only) power. As far as I know, he is the only villain who actually succeeds in his ultimate goal, but finds the act of destroying the Universe to be a hollow achievement. As a result he actually makes the biggest u-turn in the history of villains, undoing his act of destruction, and then doing away with the source of his own power.
 
KeepTalking said:
The ability to overcome that which cannot be beaten is what ultimately defines the greatest super heroes.
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Ooooh, i disagree.

I don't think heroes are defined by their successes, but by their risks.

Superman is not at risk for simple bullets. Batman is.
Between those two, walking towards a gunman is a more heroic act for Batman. He's at a greater risk of failure.

Sure, for self-interest, if i was dangling from the side of a helicopter, i'd want to be rescued by Superman, the flight, the faster-than-human-thought all contribute to his repetoire while i was still out of Batman's reach.

But if i was a Valkyrie dispatcher, Batman would be my first choice to be carried off the battle field as A Hero.
 
Galactus is frequently referred to as essentially a force of nature, so referring to him as evil was somehow not appropriate.

It was interesting that Doctor Strange was able to take him down with a spell....
 
Keith&Co. said:
Ooooh, i disagree.

I don't think heroes are defined by their successes, but by their risks.

Superman is not at risk for simple bullets. Batman is.
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I don't know if we necessarily disagree that much. I did not say that super heroes are defined by success, but rather by an ability to overcome that which is unbeatable. Superman is not at risk from bullets, so bullets are not unbeatable for him. It is when he is confronted with kryptonite, that which he cannot beat, that we find out if he is truly the super hero we see him as. Does he shrink from it? Or does he persevere, and ultimately overcome that obstacle?

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dockeen said:
Galactus is frequently referred to as essentially a force of nature, so referring to him as evil was somehow not appropriate.
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That is why I put him in the category of arch-nemesis, rather than villain. Villain implies evil intent, whereas a nemesis can simply be a formidable opponent. Thanos had that evil intent, and he eventually became even more powerful than Galactus, so for me, Thanos is the ultimate villain.
 
Kryptonite seems to vary in availability by the way, sometimes it's rare, sometimes every two bit criminalhas enough...
 
dockeen said:
Galactus is frequently referred to as essentially a force of nature, so referring to him as evil was somehow not appropriate.

It was interesting that Doctor Strange was able to take him down with a spell....
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My favourite Dr. Strange enemy was was the Dread Dormammu. They fought for at least a year it seemed like. He had to enlist the help of Eternity to take him down. What's not to like about a guy whose head is a big wisp of smoke?
 
dendrast said:
My favourite Dr. Strange enemy was was the Dread Dormammu. They fought for at least a year it seemed like. He had to enlist the help of Eternity to take him down. What's not to like about a guy whose head is a big wisp of smoke?
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His dialogue, his personality, his costume, and the style in which his head is drawn.
 
I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way. (Sorry, couldn't help it, Jessica flashback)

Doom and Iron Man didn't cross paths a ton, but it was an interesting contrast when they did. I remember a bubble from Doom where he thought:

"if Stark's underlimngs are this clever, Stark himself must be a genius"
 
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