Top Eleven Comic Book Movie Villains

With the release of several comic book films this summer, I've decided to recap the best of the villains. The truth is that Comic Book Films have come a long way.  The film recruit A-Listers and are seen as more than campy action films.  They've won Oscars, ruled the box office and are being taken seriously as quality films.  While the heros are important, choosing the right one sets up your franchise, the villains are just as critical to the success of the superhero.  Here's a quick top eleven:


11) Elijah Wood, Sin City - Wood took the Ring of Doom to Mordor, but after that his spectacles, blue eyes and eerily silent demeanor were just as terrifying as his fast moving attacks.  He and his master (Rutger Hauer) were also cannibals that force Carla Gugino to watch them eat her hand.

10) Michael Wincott, The Crow - Wincott's voice alone gets him on  list. His performance in Alex Proyas' The Crow is the best by far in the franchise and is the most overlooked of the comic book villains. He has sex with his sister (Bai Ling) and a three way with some girl, who's eyes the she cuts out.  Wincott would throw the eye to his next murder victim (Jon Polito), who he stabbed in the throat with a sword. However, when Polito didn't die right away, Wincott screams in disgust, "AW FOR FUCK'S SAKE, DIE!!!", before grabbing a gun and shooting him twice in the chest.  Cold.

9) Brian Cox, X2 (also played by Danny Huston) - Cox is an excellent actor and X2 combined him with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen for good measure.  The main human threat to Mutant kind, General William Striker's hatred for mutant extends from his own son. In X2, his ruthlessness knew no bounds where he bastardized his own son into a weapon to use against Professor X.  For good measure, he found ways to control mutants minds and doesn't exactly hand with care when they start to come to their senses.

8) Willem Dafoe, Spider-man - Dafoe may not be the best of the Spider-Man villains, but he was one of the craziest. Dafoe created one of the more iconic scenes in comic book films with "The Mirror" scene in the first installment.  His cackle and sinister voice is second to the Joker's in all these films and his scheme to make Spider-man (Toby Maguire) to choose between saving Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) or trapped children set up one of the best showdowns in comic films.

7) Liam Neeson, Batman Begins - When Christopher Nolan chose Ra's Al Ghul as the first villain in the new Batman franchise, many were skeptical. Put Liam Neeson in and there was no need to fear.  Ghul had a reason behind his madness at all times and his motivation wasn't for dominance, it's was to sort of a check down to society when they've been bad.  Ghul's only undoing was training Bruce Wayne to eventually oppose him.  His speech about the League of Shadows' deeds is worth listening to over and over again.

6) Terence Stamp, Superman II - Continuing a trend of "great villains have great voices", Stamp's performance as General Zod was bad ass. He basically had no care for a single human on Earth, treating them as ants, but he shouldn't have trusted Christopher Reeve when he went in to the "Powers Chamber" or whatever it was that eventually got Superman the win.  Anyway, he was still good.

5) Gene Hackman, Superman (also played by Kevin Spacey) - Though both of these actors did fine jobs, Hackman's Lex Luthor was funny, quirky, diabolical and such a megalomaniac that he still thinks he's the greatest criminal mind on Earth even after he's been caught. The plan, of course, was simply to increase the value of his land by nuking California into the Pacific, but he won't let his sidekick have a town named after him.

4) Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight - Many villains are good people gone bad and shown the error of their ways, but not Eckhart's Twoface, who sees the error of trying to be decent in an indecent type. Nudged into madness by Ledger's Joker, Gotham's DA uses a two headed coin to decide justice. Once used as a joke, the coin is now scratched up and bad heads means he kills you.

3) Alfred Molina, Spider-man 2 - In the best comic book movie, Molina's Doctor Octopus was a scientist that had a dream and an lab accident ruined him but gave him his power.  While Peter Parker was trying to walk away from his power for the dream of a normal life, Octopus (formerly Otto Octavius) embraces his power to rob banks in an effort to continue his work.  He has a touch of megalomania and his passion blinds him from seeing the truth, that he miscalculated and the experiment was a failure. Eventually his own advice to Peter Parker brings him back, but not before the train sequence (best action scene in Comic Films).

2) Heath Ledger/Jack Nicholson, The Dark Knight/Batman - Both deserve mention in this.  Ledger's is cold and sadistic, whereas Nicholson's was unpredictable and insane.  Both had great schemes, in different ways.  Though Ledger won the Oscar for his performance, to dismiss Nicholson's Joker is just wrong.  The Joker in both Batman films is crazy, but brilliant. Evil and yet likable.  Ledger's Joker doesn't want to kill Batman so he can "go on doing this forever", but Nicholson's Joker can kill anyone at any moment, even his right-hand man.  Both of these characters are different and still greatly memorable.

1) Ian McKellen (also Michael Fassbender), X-Men (X-Men First Class) - Both did well in their roles as the central villain in the X-Men franchise.  Magneto is a cold, calculated killing machine that is willing to create metal plates by pulling the iron out of your blood (X2), that bends the adamantium of Wolverine (X-Men), or turns policemen's guns on themselves (X-Men).  Magneto is a holocaust survivor who watched the worst aspects of humans which has created the jaded view of the world. The worst part about Magneto is that you end up rooting for him.  His mantra that you are who you are and that mutants are never to be ashamed for being different, echos in all the X-Men films.  He is still good friends with his worst enemy, Charles Xavier, despite trying to killing him and use him to kill humanity.  He even when so far to complement Xavier after watching him die (X3).  Fassbender does a great job in "First Class", but McKellen is still the raining champ of comic book movie villains.