Where Have All The Bad Guys Gone?

As I posted previously this week I have had the opportunity to watch DC and Warner Brothers cinematic offering which of course is David Ayers Suicide Squad.

Now I'm not going to wax lyrical about the movie as if you want my thoughts you can read my spoiler review which is titled Three Strikes and You're Out. One issue I had with the film (which I mentioned in my review) was the weakness of Enchantress as the films villain and having given more thought I have realised that it is not only a problem with this movie but with the superhero genre overall. Lets take a look at the last 25 years of DC and Marvel movies and see just how big an issue weak villains actually is.

So beginning with 1991 here is a breakdown of DC and Marvel comic book movies along with the bad guys that featured (for the purposes of this I am including Marvel properties that are owned by other studios) -

Batman Returns - The Penguin* & Catwoman

The Fantastic Four (unreleased film available on youtube) - Dr Doom & Moleman (sort of)

Batman Forever - The Riddler & Two Face

Batman & Robin - Mr Freeze, Poison Ivy and Bane

Steel - Nathaniel Burke

Blade - Deacon Frost

Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD - Baron Strucker

X-Men - Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants*

Blade II - Jared Nomak*

Spiderman - Green Goblin

Daredevil - Kingpin & Bullseye

X2 - William Stryker*

Hulk - Dr David Banner

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - The Fantom

The Punisher - Howard Saint

Spiderman 2 - Dr Octopus*

Catwoman - Laurel Hedare

Blade Trinity - Dracula

Elektra - The Hand

Constantine - Gabriel

Man-Thing - F.A. Schist

Batman Begins - Ra's Al Ghul*

Fantastic Four - Dr Doom

V for Vendetta - High Chancellor Adam Sutler

X-Men The Last Stand - Phoenix & Brotherhood of Mutants

Superman Returns - Lex Luthor*

Ghost Rider - Blackheart

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Galactus (or not)

Spiderman 3 - Sandman*, Venom & New Goblin

Iron Man - Obadiah Stone

The Incredible Hulk - Abomination

The Dark Knight - The Joker*

Punisher Warzone - Billy Russotti

The Spirit - The Octopus

Watchmen - Ozymandias*

X-Men Origins:Wolverine - William Stryker, Sabretooth & Deadpool

Kick-Ass - Frank D'Amico*

Iron Man 2 - Justin Hammer & Ivan Vanko

Jonah Hex - Quentin Turnbull

Thor - Loki*

X-Men First Class - Sebastian Shaw*

Green Lantern - Hector Hammond

Captain America - Red Skull

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - Mephistopheles

The Avengers - Loki, The Shitari and Thanos (loosely)*

The Amazing Spiderman - The Lizard

The Dark Knight Rises - Bane & Talia Al Ghul

Iron Man 3 - The Mandarin (NOT) and Aldrich KIllion

Man of Steel - Zod

The Wolverine - Yashida

Kick Ass 2 - The Motherfucker*

Thor The Dark World - Malekith

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - The Winter Soldier*

The Amazing Spiderman 2 - Rhino, Electro & The Green Goblin

X-Men Days of Future Past - Boliver Trask*

Guardians of the Galaxy - Ronan The Destroyer

Avengers Age of Ultron - Ultron

Ant-Man - Yellowjacket*

Fantastic Four - Dr Doom

Deadpool - Francis*

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice - Lex Luthor & Doomsday

Captain America: Civil War - Baron Zemo (well Zemo anyway)

X-Men Apocalypse - Apocalypse

Suicide Squad - Enchantress (maybe it could be argued Amanda Waller)

So obviously the first thing to note here is the sheer number of superhero movies there have been over the past 25 years, the above list shows 64 films and that is only as I pointed out above DC and Marvel properties, there are many, many more films of this genre out there.

As for the list I have compiled, for my money they can be split into three distinct groups -

Small budget movies that never went anywhere and were pretty much ignored by the viewing public as a whole

Large budget movies which tanked at the boxoffice due to not being very good

Large budget movies that were a huge hit and allowed the superhero production line to continue

Across the divide of these three groups however there is one constant and that is that the majority of villains portrayed are just not very good. In total there are well over 100 villains in these films though of course some appear in different films in different incarnations whilst others appear the same but across multiple films (such as Magneto). If you look at the list you will see Asterix by certain names, these indicate the villains that I think worked and were pulled off successfully whilst the vast majority of those listed were nothing more than abject failiures.

Of course this all comes down to personal taste and there are people who will see good when I only see bad (Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor is incredibly polarising in this way) but I think we can agree that more often than not the bad guys in even the greatest movies of this genre tend to come off as weak and ultimately ineffectual.

Take Civil War for instance, a fantastic film that is probably going to be the best superhero movie of 2016 (though Deadpool is a very close second right now). However in Zemo it has a bland, confusing protagonist whos motives are eventually made clear but evenso don't really make a whole lot of sense when it comes down to it. The same can be said of Ultron in Avengers 2, a character who should have been amazing but who wound up being more perplexing than threatening and whos final plan was just stupid.

Then there are the wasted opportunities such as Galactus in the second (or third depending on how you look at it) Fantastic Four film. A virtual god of a villain who here is portrayed as a bloody space cloud which is every bit as dumb as it sounds.

I could go on but the bottom line is that movie makers seem hesitant, or unable, to truly do justice to the villains who are so iconic on the pages of the comic books from whence they originated. These characters provide endless peril to our favourite heroes and in some instance just kill people because thats just how they roll. On the big screen however they always come up short (yes the good guy has to win in the end but the villains could look so much more dangerous in defeat) and feel like nothing more than different variations on the same core principle of super powered loser. The way Hollywood is going it is becoming increasingly impossible to fear for the good of any of our heroes as we know that eventually they will all come out OK, in fact the only hero death that has to this point stuck to the best of my knowledge is Quicksilver in Age of Ultron and that doesn't really matter as the X-Men version is far superior anyway.

Even when heroes die they don't stay dead for long (yes this is true in the comic books but there a death can last for a while before being reversed), prime examples of this would be Cyclops in The Last Stand, a death that was retconned in Days of Future Pastbthanks to the time travelling shenanighans of Wolverine.

In closing all I would ask is that somebody somewhere to please deliver a movie villain that lives up to the source material from whence they came. With this in mind lets hope that Thanos finally delivers a worthy threat in Avengers Infinity War.