Left to right: Dr. Sivana, Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd,
Talia and Ra's al Ghul, The Penguin, The Joker, Mirror Master,
Lex Luthor, the Trickster, Mr. Element, Catwoman,
Mr. Mxyzptlk, The Scarecrow, The Riddler, Abra Kadabra.
Dishonorable Mention: Darkseid, the Anti-Monitor, Mongul, Ares and Brainiac. As evil as they are, Darkseid, the Anti-Monitor and Mongul know nothing but the desire for conquest. Ares, the Greek god of war and arguably the most significant villain to Wonder Woman, is every bit as "locked into" his role. And Brainiac is an artificial intelligence. Though he thinks on his own, he's still basically running a program. They're actually pretty boring as villains go.
Somewhat Honorable Mention: Selina Kyle, Catwoman, sometimes nemesis and sometimes love interest of Bruce Wayne, the Batman. If you only know her from the 1966-68 Batman TV show, where she was played by Julie Newmar and later Eartha Kitt -- and, in the 1966 film version, by Lee Meriwether -- where she was only a villain, despite her flirting with Batman, then you should give her another look.
She isn't so much a villain as an "anti-hero." She has played both sides. Like Britt Reid, the Green Hornet, she has played the villain to other villains to undermine them from the inside. And, many times, she has proven to be a valuable asset to Batman.
Now, the Top 10:
10. Pamela Isley, Poison Ivy, enemy of Batman. A scientist who, having been empowered by an elemental force, can control plants, became an ecoterrorist. She's the opposite of the corporate polluters she hates: She wants to save the Earth, but doesn't care who has to die to achieve this. Her goal is worthy, but her methods are unacceptable.
9. Albert Desmond, who was first Mr. Element, then Dr. Alchemy, enemy of The Flash. Desmond debuted as a chemist who, in a split personality, developed the identity of Mr. Element, developing an "elemental gun" that could change an object's chemical composition. (The so-called Silver Age of Comics, 1956 to 1973, liked to talk about science, but wasn't very good at observing the laws of physics.)
While in prison, he learned of the existence of the Philosopher's Stone, which could do what his gun could, and more efficiently. Upon his release, he found the Stone, stole it, and created the new persona of Dr. Alchemy.
As various versions of The Flash have sometimes been able to do with the villains in the "Flash Rogues Gallery," Barry Allen got Desmond to go straight. But he had an "astral twin": Alvin Desmond, named nearly the same, born at the exact same time, and also with what would now be called disassociative identity disorder, but also with a psychic link to Albert. He took on the Dr. Alchemy identity, and, without Albert's original personality to morally ground him, became a more dangerous foe.
In a story titled "The Good, the Bad, and the Unexpected," Albert (in this case, "The Unexpected") was unfairly accused of Alvin's crimes. So he resumed his Mr. Element identity, and helped The Flash take the 2nd Dr. Alchemy down.
8. David Hyde, Black Manta, arch-enemy of Aquaman. His origin has been tinkered with a few times. The current version has him as the younger half of father & son crooks, and he blames Aquaman for saving him but not his father from a disaster.
But he is always portrayed as a ruthless underwater mercenary, with a black insect-headed costume (even though the manta ray is a very different-looking creature), particularly focused on Aquaman. In some versions, as Aquaman failed to save Black Manta's father, Black Manta killed Arthur Curry Jr., son of Aquaman and Mera.
In the Super Friends cartoon of the 1970s, he was simply "Manta," and his armor was orange, but he was no less evil, and no less difficult for Aquaman and the other Super Friends (Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, and the Wonder Twins) to defeat.
7. Harvey Dent, Two-Face, enemy of Batman. Once Gotham City's crusading District Attorney, and an ally of Police Commissioner Jim Gordon, and of the hero in both his businessman Bruce Wayne and crimefighter Batman personae -- he didn't know they were the same man -- half of his face was scarred by acid.
As a result, he developed the persona of Two-Face, who believed there was no such thing as justice, only chance. He had a two-headed silver dollar, and he took a knife and scarred one side of the coin. (In some versions of his origin, the coin was scarred by the same acid that ruined his face.) If the scarred side came up when he flipped it, he would commit a crime; but if the clean side came up, he wouldn't.
The 2nd Robin, Jason Todd -- who did not yet know that Dent had killed his father, gangster Willis Todd, but Batman did know -- asked how he could prepare for an opponent that unpredictable. Batman explained that Dent was actually their most predictable opponent, because his crimes were always based around the number 2, or duality in some form. Typical of this: He robbed the box office at the ballpark when the Gotham Goliaths played the Minnesota Twins, with 2 outs in the bottom half of the 2nd inning of the 2nd game of a doubleheader. Batman once set a trap for him by having a casino pay out a jackpot of $22 million -- money donated by Bruce Wayne, of course.
To make matters worse, there was a second Two-Face. Within the comics' universe, a TV-movie was made about the case, and the actor playing Dent, Paul Sloane, got mistakenly hit with real acid instead of water, and took up Two-Face's persona. The only way Batman could tell them apart was that Dent was righthanded, and Sloane was lefthanded. Sloane's damage was less severe, and he was cured in both face and mind. Dent has occasionally been cured, but has always had the Two-Face personality take over again.
Why do I put Two-Face on this list? Why not The Penguin? Because he's just a gangster with a theme. The film Batman Returns and the TV shows Gotham and The Penguin (the latter, a spinoff of the 2022 film The Batman) have tried to make him more interesting, but they didn't work for me.
Why not The Riddler? He's a bit more interesting, because he's more of an intellectual challenge for Batman -- although I did notice that, in the 1966-68 TV series, Robin (Dick Grayson) solved more of the riddles than Batman did. But he's not as unhinged, and thus as dangerous, as Two-Face, let alone the Joker.
Why not Bane, the man who "broke the Bat"? Certainly, he's more of a threat, but he's rather boring. Even in The Dark Knight Rises, when he was tied to Ra's al Ghul and his League of Shadows (which he previously was not in the comics), he wasn't that interesting.
6. Thaal Sinestro, arch-enemy of the Green Lantern Corps. Willpower is the green on the Lantern spectrum, and fear is the yellow on it. Once the leader of the Corps, and mentor of Earth's main Lantern, Hal Jordan, he believed that, in order to truly face all enemies, the Corps had to fully understand fear. The Guardians of the Universe, who ran the Corps, refused to accept this, and expelled him. So he became a Yellow Lantern, but it corrupted him. And, in most versions, the Green Lantern power ring is ineffective against the color yellow.
(On Earth-2, their Green Lantern, Alan Scott, got his power from plant life, and thus his ring couldn't be used against anything plant-related, including wood, leading to him occasionally getting hit with wooden objects.)
Turning against the Corps, with all his knowledge of them, made Sinestro not only a particularly effective counterpoint to the Corps, it made him, in effect, their "Anakin Skywalker," even though the character was created in 1961, 16 years before the debut of Star Wars, and 19 years before Anakin's betrayal and conversion to Darth Vader was known. On top of that, Sinestro is usually shown with pointed ears, which speaks more to the Vulcans and Romulans of Star Trek than Star Wars, even though he is frequently highly illogical.
5. Slade Wilson, Deathstroke, arch-enemy of, collectively, the Teen Titans. He's an anti-Captain America: First he was in the U.S. Army, then he received a "super-soldier serum," giving him vastly heightened strength, speed and reflexes. He became a mercenary, and is considered the top assassin in the DC Universe. The Marvel anti-hero Deadpool is considered a ripoff of Deathstroke, to the point where his real name is Wade Wilson.
Deathstroke has fought Batman and Green Arrow, and in the Arrowverse, where Green Arrow was the stand-in for Batman, he and Deathstroke fought each other. In the comics, Deathstroke's vendetta against the Titans began when he swore revenge for the death of his eldest son Grant, a villain who used the name Ravager. His other 2 children, Jericho and Rose, would go on to join the Titans to oppose him, with Rose even taking on the Ravager identity.
4. Ra's al-Ghul, enemy of Batman. This character was created in 1971, and was thus unavailable for the Adam West TV series. Centuries old, and revived from many deaths thanks to a Lazarus Pit, Ra's al-Ghul (Arabic for "The Demon's Head") runs the League of Assassins (known in The Dark Knight
Trilogy as the League of Shadows), which has found every succeeding world civilization to be corrupt, and has tried to bring it down, becoming responsible for the Sack of Rome in AD 410, the fall of Camelot in 537, the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Black Death in 1340s Europe, the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Reign of Terror in France in the 1790s, and World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in the 1910s.
Ra's (usually pronounced "Rahz," but, to match the language, it should be "Raysh"), like Deathstroke and Captain America, has more-than-human strength and reflexes, if not on a truly superhuman level, and is one of the world's deadliest physical combatants, having had the time to master multiple martial arts and hand weapons.
He considers Batman's hometown of Gotham City to be the most corrupt place on Earth (there is some reason to think so), and has specifically targeted it for destruction, seeing Batman, whose secret identity of Bruce Wayne he figured out, as a not merely a worthy opponent, calling him "Detective," but as a possible successor to lead the League of Assassins, through marriage to his daughter, Talia.
Talia, nearly as much of a physical marvel as her father, is fine with this, as she is in love with Bruce. Bruce, whose feelings for her conflict with those of his other main love interest, Catwoman, can't resist her, and she kept the birth of their son, Damian Wayne, secret from him for years. Damian was raised to be his grandfather's successor and a great assassin, flying in the face of Batman's no-kill rule. But when Talia introduced Damian to Bruce, Bruce took him in, set him straight (mostly), and made him the latest in a series of Robins.
In the Arrowverse, given their refusal to use Batman, Ra's al-Ghul became the arch-nemesis of Green Arrow.
3. Lex Luthor, arch-enemy of Superman. Superman is unusual among superheroes in that, while he does have opponents who wear costumes and develop themes based on their powers and/or personalities, his Number 1 opponent is a mortal man without powers.
From 1940 to 1985, Luthor was usually portrayed as a stereotypical "mad scientist," who wanted to control the world, not such much out of greed or a lust for power, but because he thought he could run it better. And Superman stood in his way.
Eventually, he was given a backstory to explain his specific hatred of Superman: They had grown up together in Smallville, and were friends. One day, the teenage Luthor made a mistake in his lab, and Superboy, as Clark Kent's costumed identity was then known, blew out the fire, but the fumes caused Luthor's hair to fall out, and he blamed Superboy, not his own mistake, for this. And so, his schemes to stop him were personal, unlike his schemes to "take over the world." (This would be copied in Marvel, with Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom blaming former friend Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic for his facial scarring, rather than his own mistake.)
After Crisis On Infinite Earths in 1985, there was a complete reboot of DC Comics. Now, Luthor was several years older than Superman, and a contemporary and rival of Daily Planet publisher Perry White. And, like the Marvel superhero Iron Man, he seemed a variation on science wizard Howard Hughes.
This version of him hated Superman not just because he was now getting the headlines in the Planet that Luthor himself used to get, but because Luthor believed that the best of humanity -- himself, and people like him -- should be the best of Earth, not some super-powered alien "interloper."
Wanting to "save humanity" is just Lex's excuse for why he wants to eliminate Superman. If Lex's goal was to save humanity, he wouldn't kill people to achieve his sub-goals, be they building a new machine to help humanity, or synthesizing a helpful new drug, or building a factory to employ thousands of people. If he wanted to do those things, he'd just do them. And if he had to kill people to achieve them, being supposedly one of the smartest people alive -- he confesses that Batman is the only man he considers to be smarter than himself -- he'd find a way around killing to achieve them.
In All-Star Superman, Superman points out that, once Lex became as rich as he is, he could have "saved humanity," whatever those words meant to him, any time he wanted to. And he hasn't even tried. Some of the other brilliant scientists in the DC canon have tried, with limited success, particularly on a local scale (Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, in Gotham City; Oliver Queen, a.k.a. Green Arrow, in Star City, and so on). Luthor simply uses his genius and his resources for his own benefit.
2. Jack Napier, the Joker, arch-enemy of Batman. Whereas even Luthor would do the right thing if he thought he could benefit from it, the Joker only does things to make himself laugh. And, despite recent adaptations of Luthor as shown in the TV series Superman & Lois and in the 2025 Superman film, the Joker is even more sadistic, determined to prove that, as happened to him, all it takes is one truly bad day to drive a good man insane.
The fact that he was -- depending on the telling; as he put it, "If I have to choose my story, I prefer multiple choice!" -- already a small-time crook, either by choice or forced into it, and was disfigured and shocked into adopting his Joker persona as a result of a confrontation with Batman, makes it all the more poignant: Inadvertently, Batman created his arch-enemy, and he knows it. (The 2019 and 2024 Joker films go against this idea.)
The 1989 Batman film took this to the next level, showing that Napier was not only a gangster and a rotten guy long before he became the Joker, he was also the man who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of a child Bruce. As Batman told him at the film's climax: "I made you? You made me first." This is the only version of the story where the Waynes' killer becomes the Joker: In most versions, it's Joe Chill, who is depicted as either a small-time hood who gets scared, and thus his mugging of the Waynes goes horribly wrong; or a Mob hitman, carrying out the vendetta of a boss that Dr. Wayne offended.
Two oddities, both from movies. In the Tim Burton movies, had the Penguin's plan succeeded, his death toll of over 100,000 would have been greater than any plan yet seen from any live-action version of the Joker. And in the film version of Watchmen, a hero-turned-antihero named the Comedian ends up killing more people, including more innocent people, than any version of the Joker.
So who could be worse than all of these, including Luthor and the Joker? In my opinion, this guy:
1. Eobard Thawne, Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, arch-enemy of Barry Allen, the 2nd Flash. In the 25th Century, Thawne started out admiring the 20th Century hero, The Flash. He wanted to be like Barry Allen. So he found a way to give himself super-speed. Then, just as he's about to debut as his era's speedster hero, Allen comes from the past and saves the people Thawne was supposed to save. Though Barry didn't yet know Thawne existed, Thawne took his action as a deeply personal affront, and began to hate The Flash, and would occasionally go back to the 20th Century to make his life miserable.
He was responsible for the death of Barry's wife, Iris West, although she later returned from the dead. Not satisfied with this, Flash canon was rewritten so that Thawne became Barry's "Joe Chill," but with a twist: He went back further in time, killing Barry's mother Nora, and getting Barry's father Henry blamed for the murder, making Barry "lose" both parents as a boy. But instead of becoming embittered and a villain, Barry still sought justice and became a hero, and still stopped Thawne every time.
In 2011, deciding they needed another reboot, the suits at DC allowed the Flashpoint story: Barry went back in time and saved his mother, but it messed up the entire world. As Barry said in the 2023 Flash film, "I broke the universe!" In the comics version, adapted to an animated film, Thawne decided to lecture him over this:
Yes, Thawne. You are the villain. Barry was not a villain, just a well-intentioned fool.
Tell me, Thawne, when have you ever tried to save a life, instead of end one, or make one miserable? (The Arrowverse's series The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow tried to redeem him this way, but it rang hollow.)
Lex Luthor was an abused kid who lost his hair. The Joker and Two-Face were disfigured and lost everything. Mr. Element/Dr. Alchemy was already mentally ill. Black Manta lost his father, although he blamed the wrong person. Ra's al-Ghul and Poison Ivy want to save the world, though they try it with psychotic methods. Even Sinestro had a point, that no one was willing to listen to, and felt rejected by his own people.
What's your excuse for being a villainous son of a bitch, Thawne? A man who didn't even know you existed at that point, and thus wasn't trying to hurt you, hurt your feelings. He hurt your pride. That's it.
In a way, Thawne, you're even worse than Darkseid, Mongul and Brainiac. Trying to conquer is all they know. You should have been smarter than that. But you weren't. In your origin, you're the worst DC villain of them all. You are the villain.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/arrow-2000-e74e29e1fb2d4d9692084a6ce452825c.jpg){kind=icon}
