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Best superhero arch-nemesis

I recently watched a Fantastic Four cartoon from the 60's. Magneato was the villain that episode and he was hilariously card board simple. He was sitting in a car levitating it for transportation. He passed by a gas station and was insulted the attendant didn't acknowledge his great power when he asked if he needed a fill up. So he starts destroying things until the guy tells his how amazing he is. Quite a contrast from the one mentioned in this tread.
 
Nexus said:
I recently watched a Fantastic Four cartoon from the 60's. Magneato was the villain that episode and he was hilariously card board simple. He was sitting in a car levitating it for transportation. He passed by a gas station and was insulted the attendant didn't acknowledge his great power when he asked if he needed a fill up. So he starts destroying things until the guy tells his how amazing he is. Quite a contrast from the one mentioned in this tread.
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Saturday morning cartoon villians were incredibly shallow, always wanting to take over the world for no apparent reason other than
they were evil. The hero's usually lost the first skirmish, but would
eventually figure out some clever \ stupid strategy to outsmart the
bad guy.

Very formula. These cartooms were clearly aimed at kids, like me.
These days, the stories seem to be at a level that an adult can watch
and enjoy along with the kids.
 
dockeen said:
Very formula. These cartooms were clearly aimed at kids, like me.
These days, the stories seem to be at a level that an adult can watch
and enjoy along with the kids.
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I watched Spider-man in the 90's and it had some great stories. I don't know if you're include the 90's into "these days". The Spider-man and his amazing friends with Ice-man was good in the 80s but not as well developed as the 90's show. I haven't watched any super hero cartoons recently to see if they're geting better than what I'm familiar with.
 
Nexus said:
I watched Spider-man in the 90's and it had some great stories. I don't know if you're include the 90's into "these days". The Spider-man and his amazing friends with Ice-man was good in the 80s but not as well developed as the 90's show. I haven't watched any super hero cartoons recently to see if they're geting better than what I'm familiar with.
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my version of Saturday morning cartoons goes back into the middle 60's. The FF was about 1967.

In the late 70's, Hanna Barbera brought back some cartoons, like Space Ghost and the Herculoids, and ended up making them worse rather than better.

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Nexus said:
I watched Spider-man in the 90's and it had some great stories. I don't know if you're include the 90's into "these days". The Spider-man and his amazing friends with Ice-man was good in the 80s but not as well developed as the 90's show. I haven't watched any super hero cartoons recently to see if they're geting better than what I'm familiar with.
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my version of Saturday morning cartoons goes back into the middle 60's. The FF was about 1967.

In the late 70's, Hanna Barbera brought back some cartoons, like Space Ghost and the Herculoids, and ended up making them worse rather than better.
 
I'm not really a big comic book guy. I never read comic books as a kid, but I have watched a lot of comic book movies and since comic book stuff is so pervasive in nerd culture I also find that I know a bit more about it than the average jock at least. From this perspective I'd have to say that my favorite is probably Lex Luthor. First off, Superman is a pretty boring character if you ask me (though that Man of Steel movie is pretty badass). However, that doesn't mean Superman's villains also have to be boring. I like Lex Luthor because he pits himself against one of the most powerful comic book characters and yet he has no powers of his own. I just like that conflict. He cannot beat Superman like Doomsday, but his own way is to try to defeat him with the use of his own resources and intelligence. Ultimately he fails (at least to my knowledge), but I find the struggle interesting since he is termed as Superman's arch-nemesis, and for all intents and purposes, he's just some guy.
 
Samhain said:
I'm not really a big comic book guy. I never read comic books as a kid, but I have watched a lot of comic book movies and since comic book stuff is so pervasive in nerd culture I also find that I know a bit more about it than the average jock at least. From this perspective I'd have to say that my favorite is probably Lex Luthor. First off, Superman is a pretty boring character if you ask me (though that Man of Steel movie is pretty badass). However, that doesn't mean Superman's villains also have to be boring. I like Lex Luthor because he pits himself against one of the most powerful comic book characters and yet he has no powers of his own. I just like that conflict. He cannot beat Superman like Doomsday, but his own way is to try to defeat him with the use of his own resources and intelligence. Ultimately he fails (at least to my knowledge), but I find the struggle interesting since he is termed as Superman's arch-nemesis, and for all intents and purposes, he's just some guy.
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Kingpin is interesting for similar reasons, but is a less extreme case than Lex Luthor.

For one thing, Kingpin's primary opponents are some of the weaker Marvel superheroes power-wise (Spider-Man, Daredevil, etc.), and also he is not quite as helpless as Luthor. Sure, he doesn't have superpowers, but he is an extremely accomplished martial artist despite all the extra fat he carries around. It seems like the Marvel underworld and cops keep underestimating his intelligence.
 
Nexus said:
I recently watched a Fantastic Four cartoon from the 60's. Magneato was the villain that episode and he was hilariously card board simple. He was sitting in a car levitating it for transportation. He passed by a gas station and was insulted the attendant didn't acknowledge his great power when he asked if he needed a fill up. So he starts destroying things until the guy tells his how amazing he is. Quite a contrast from the one mentioned in this tread.
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Hah, the old cartoons can be hilarious. I remember there was one scene where Mr. Fantastic held Magneto up with a wooden gun - and magneto just ignored all of the cars around him, and whined about how he couldn't control Richards' gun. The most hilarious thing I've seen ever. If there were a real Magneto, he'd be so pissed...

I'm again working off of movies and TV only, since I never really read comics...but the Dark Knight primary villains. I actually liked Bane in particular, just because he's so incredibly rude and disrespectful, even though I know most people liked the Joker more.
 
Favorite arch-nemesis: Sabretooth, aka who Wolverine would be if he was taller, stronger, and devoid of all the self-loathing and inhibitions.

Favorite villain: Junior. I usually prefer hired killers like Sabretooth and Bullseye over crime boss types, but Junior really impressed me with her sheer creepiness.
 
Mumbles said:
I remember there was one scene where Mr. Fantastic held Magneto up with a wooden gun - and magneto just ignored all of the cars around him, and whined about how he couldn't control Richards' gun. The most hilarious thing I've seen ever. If there were a real Magneto, he'd be so pissed...

I'm again working off of movies and TV only, since I never really read comics...but the Dark Knight primary villains. I actually liked Bane in particular, just because he's so incredibly rude and disrespectful, even though I know most people liked the Joker more.
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That was the same Fantastic 4 episode I saw. Reed tricked Magneto into believing he lost his powers. I agree about Batman villains. I was never really a fan until Nolan's films but Batman's rogues gallery is by far the best overall.
 
Not really a big Captain America fan, but he had a nemesis back in the 70s I liked. An ex-Nazi with a red skull. That was his name, too, Red Skull(I think. Did a lot of drugs in the 70s. Me, not him.). One of the few villains who actually got killed, dead, ex-evil, no longer a going concern, off his perch. And Cap felt guilty about it. Well, as guilty as anyone would feel handing a Nazi his shit. They duked out their final battle in Argentina I believe.
 
dendrast said:
Not really a big Captain America fan, but he had a nemesis back in the 70s I liked. An ex-Nazi with a red skull. That was his name, too, Red Skull(I think. Did a lot of drugs in the 70s. Me, not him.). One of the few villains who actually got killed, dead, ex-evil, no longer a going concern, off his perch. And Cap felt guilty about it. Well, as guilty as anyone would feel handing a Nazi his shit. They duked out their final battle in Argentina I believe.
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At one point Zemo put Red Skulls consciousness into a cloned body of Steve Rodgers
 
dendrast said:
So, I was wrong. There's no such thing as a truly dead villain.
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Sure there is. It's just not very likely for a prominent, memorable villain in comics published as part of the Marvel Universe to stay dead. Not that characters don't also die and come back in DC, also. They definitely do, but because DC keeps rebooting its entire universe, often a character being brought back is technically more of a "reimagining" rather than an in-story resurrection. DC and Marvel both suffer from an inability to permanently change, though.

If you really want superhero comics where characters actually have a realistic probability of staying dead, I'd recommend Invincible, The Savage Dragon, and other creator-owned works. Death doesn't stick when the writer who kills a character is just a freelancer hired by the company that owns the character, and the company's happy to let the next writer change whatever they want as long as it sells.
 
Speaking of heroes and nemeses, back in the seventies I had a large-format comic of Howard the Duck, and in one of the episodes he teamed up with Doc Strange to fight somebody, but damned if I remember who. (Unless it was good ol' Dormammu again.)

Shit, I wish I still had that comic! Probably worth something by now.
 
Another angle on the dead guy idea, well, tangentially related. Marvel had a "character" a long time ago called Captain Universe that was really a power that went around selecting people at critical places and times and endowing them with powers to solve that particular crisis. Then, they moved on.
 
dendrast said:
Speaking of heroes and nemeses, back in the seventies I had a large-format comic of Howard the Duck, and in one of the episodes he teamed up with Doc Strange to fight somebody, but damned if I remember who. (Unless it was good ol' Dormammu again.)

Shit, I wish I still had that comic! Probably worth something by now.
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Could this be it? The description mentions Dr. Strange.

You can buy it for a little over a buck.
 
Nexus said:
That was the same Fantastic 4 episode I saw. Reed tricked Magneto into believing he lost his powers. I agree about Batman villains. I was never really a fan until Nolan's films but Batman's rogues gallery is by far the best overall.
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Heh, the finale is of course on youtube:



Just a humiliating loss for Magneto.

I'll say this much - at least we don't have to put up with this crap at this point. Even on tv, we have a pretty good presentation of Green Arrow, we have J. August Richards playing Deathlok, and a very good run of A Song of Ice ad Fire. Also, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Shout out to nerds, because, well, y'all made it. We made it. The stuff on screen now, is *vastly* better than the crap from the 70's-80's...
 
dendrast said:
So, I was wrong. There's no such thing as a truly dead villain.
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So.. when Amanda Waller surgically implants bombs in super-villains, then occasionally sets them off, how do they come back? That answer kind of frightens me now.
 
James Brown said:
Could this be it? The description mentions Dr. Strange.

You can buy it for a little over a buck.
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Nope, it was large format, almost the size of tabloid. Actually, the size of The Guardian. I think that's called Berliner. Marvel also released one of Star Wars in that format too. They disappeared when we moved in '84, probably sold them with a bunch of used books.

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Underseer said:
So.. when Amanda Waller surgically implants bombs in super-villains, then occasionally sets them off, how do they come back? That answer kind of frightens me now.
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Never seen Godzilla?
 
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