WonderCon: What Makes a Great Supervillain?
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What makes a good supervillain? It’s a question that we wrestle with as we turn up for new superhero movies or even just watch our favorite TV shows. Travis Langley (Daredevil Psychology: The Devil You Know; Wonder Woman Psychology: Lassoing the Truth), Peter Coogan (Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre), Kathleen McClancy (Texas State University), and Alan Kistler (Doctor Who: A History) held a panel as a part of the Comics Arts Conference and here are some highlights:
The 5 Types of Supervillains
During the panel, Peter broke the supervillain down past the archetypes into five easily identifiable categories. They were:
1) The Mad Scientist,
2) The monster
3) The enemy commander
4) The Kingpin,
5) The inverted superhero super villain
What was really cool about these is that of the five, the final one is the only one who is native to the superhero genre. You can find examples of these other ones in literature but the “I could have been this if I was bad” is only in the superhero genre
The Main Differences between Villains and Heroes
In order to understand the villains you have to understand the heroes. Superheroes like Superman are defined by several characteristics: pro-social agendas (doing what’s best for society), selfless missions, powers, identity, code names and costumes. Now villains can have some of those but what really defines them according to Alan Kistler is their methods, which are selfish. Villains take their wound and turn inward, whereas heroes take their wounds and turn outwards to help. Alan expressed admiration for Killmonger as a character and how he got T’Challa to think differently, but that he’s a prototypical villain because his plan is all about his wound and selfish plan.
James Bond, Villain?
One of the most interesting parts of the panel was when Dr. Travis Langley mentioned that psychologists initially used a Dark Triad to determine the worst of human behavior (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) but that characters like James Bond could be high functioning versions of the triad and actually be heroes. So they were forced to add a fourth element, sadism, in order to account for this.
Supervillains and Heroes Allow Us to Get Into Deep Topics
It’s hard to ask people to consume a ton of traumatic stuff but somehow we keep turning up to see new villains and heroes deal with their pain. Dr. Langley mentioned that in his class he can talk about Batman and the Joker and everyone stays with it, but real life issues force people to take breaks. Peter brought up that on Smallville we got to see what happens when heroes are faced will moral dilemnas. If you take a moral shortcut and it goes badly, they learn, whereas villains double down. They also spoke a bit about the Punisher and how he’s a vigilante hero, most noble heroes leave the judge and jury to society. Heroes are supposed to be like George Washington, save the world and then step away. Villains just want all the glory.
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