magneto > batman

I got into a Facebook argument (you know, posting back and forth with someone/multiple ppl) about Magneto > Batman, and on a girl's status update, no less. She already knew I was a nerd, though, so I guess it's alright...? No, not really, me convincing myself that it is clearly isn't going to make it true, hehe. Anyway, while Batman is super interesting, and has some pretty awesome storylines/comics in general, the villains have always been more interesting to me. I mean, just looking at Batman by himself, you get Two-Face (my personal favourite), the Joker, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Bane, Mr. Freeze, Man-Bat...moving on to other heroes (from both DC and Marvel), there are villains like Apocalypse, Doomsday, Brainiac, Lex Luthor, Doctor Doom, Loki, Doc Ock, the Green Goblin, Mandarin, the Red Skull, Kingpin, Darkseid, Galactus, Bullseye, the Juggernaut, Mystique, Black Adam, Sinestro....so many of them. In fact, IGN made a top 100 Comic Book Villains list, and I never tire of reading it, especially when I see who is at no. 1.

Villains, really, are what makes comics (as well as novels and movies, amongst other things) as interesting as they are. No one wants to just hear about the protagonists and their happy lives. Superman comics would be the most boring things in the world if it weren't for Lex Luthor and the gang; the man is literally invincible, he can jump buildings, fly, shoot lasers from his eyes, punch through anything, etc etc etc. By having a villain who is as smart as Superman is strong makes for some pretty interesting comics, even if Superman's one weakness is a material that is not natural to Earth (in the comics, at least)...yet somehow Luthor always seems to obtain some, impossible though it may seem.

It's kind of interesting when the antagonist isn't a person or an alien or a sentient thing like that, but when its something that cannot really be combated, like a disease or even nature/loneliness within nature/loneliness in general. I think that is why zombies are so popular and why they remain an enduring fixture in movies and popular culture; its less the zombies that are the antagonists, and more so the fact that there are always so many of them, that the situation seems hopeless, that you're all by yourself, or with a group in the middle of nowhere. The Walking Dead (both the comics and the newfound TV series), Left 4 Dead/Dead Rising/Resident Evil (video game series), or even movies such as 28 Days Later or I Am Legend (the latter of which was also a book), they are all insanely popular items within their own mediums.

Going back to villains, though, they remain the drawing point for movies as well. A recent (relatively) example of this can be seen in The Dark Knight; Heath Ledger's turn as the crazed and anarchistic Joker earned him a posthumous Academy Award. Javier Bardem's role as the bad guy from No Country for Old Men (I forget the characters name despite having seen the book and read the movie) earned him an Academy Award, and I suppose most recently, the villainous Oscar has gone to Christoph Waltz for his portrayal of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. While those three awards/roles are perhaps indicative of the times of movies, clearly the villanous roles are getting to be more and more popular with the mainstream audiences these days. Even Liam Neeson's role as Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins was insanely popular, but then again Liam Neeson is awesome in everything. Denzel Washington, who I spoke of before in my blog, won his Academy Award for being a bad guy in Training Day as well! I am, of course, leaving out two of the most famous cinematic villains of all time: Hannibal Lecter (portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, who won an Oscar for that as well) and Darth Vader (portrayed by David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones, in Star Wars). Is it a coincidence that these villains are two of the most lasting figures in popular culture? Heck, even the Godfather wasn't a 'good guy', and that is one of the most famous roles/movies of all time!

I always think it's interesting that for James Bond movies, the 'Bond villain' is always such a big deal...and why wouldn't it be? James Bond is the perfect spy; he saves the world and gets the girl, always. The person to match wits with him, who always is defeated in the end, needs to be smeone almost as smooth and suave as him. Some fine actors have been in the role of villain, from Sean Bean to Christopher Lee.

While heroes and protagonists in general often give you the more memorable moments, villains arguably have just as many, if not more, of those moments, and they can be quite fantastic.