Why Are Comic Book Villains So Dumb? 

„I don’t want to cure cancer, I want to turn people into dinosaurs.“ has to be the greatest line in fiction.

>puts on bat mask >kills people with bricks >refuses to elaborate >dies

Imagine Sauron and Asbestos Lady teaming up. One causes cancer, the other refuses to cure it, that's a dream team

You forgot to mention the best part of dog welder: the title serves as a mantle passed on from a possessed blow torch, and he canonically has the power to weld stars together, which the second dog welder did to save the universe

There's no such thing as a stupid character, there are SILLY characters, but every character has some ability to be used in good stories. It just takes the right writer and the right idea.

Instantly reminded of the far negative side of this spectrum with Dr Light and Identity Crisis

Reimagining old ridiculous villains to be tragic and profound is genuinely my favorite new comic trend. Villains like Mindworm and Polka-Dot Man have become some of my favorite because of their genius glow-ups

I like what Batman: the Animated Series did with their version of the Clock King, Temple Fugate. Instead of just doing clock-themed crimes, his gimmick is based on extremely precise timing. His getaways all hinged on things like the train always running five minutes late, he could go toe-to-toe with the Caped Crusader because he learned the precise rhythm of Batman's attacks. Hell, his entire motivation is because he lost everything over running late for a court meeting to defend his business. He lost everything because he took the advice of his opposition's attorney to try and relax by deviating from his extremely strict schedule for once, a decision that led to his documents getting ruined in the park fountain and his business going under because of it. Convinced that the attorney - who is now Gotham's mayor, Hamilton Hill - deliberately sabotaged him, he seeks to ruin Hill's life just like Fugate believes Hill ruined his.

I could totally see Asbestos Lady/Man used fully seriously nowadays as a sort of "Lex Luthor got cancer from kryptonite exposure" parallel - they know their suits are killing them but they are so obsessed with revenge they put them on anyway.

I actually think Mirror Master is a pretty decent villain. Think about it, he can manipulate mirrors and reflective surfaces, escaping into the mirror dimension and even trapping people inside it. Thats quite a scary concept, he can go anywhere that has a mirror, the white house, any millionaires mansion, the bat-cave, the watch tower, and he can easily escape back into it after. You could genuinely write some terrifying stories with a concept like that.

Learning that Brick Bat is in the public domain really makes me want someone to make a game about him or something.

I was running a superhero table top game for some friends, and I like to throw out a goofy villain for them to fight every few sessions. It helps break the tension when, after a tough fight with a giant robot or something, they fight The Centinal, a man who can telekinetically control coins, but clearly doesn't know how to properly use his powers.

I may or may not have an entire book titled The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains, so I’m pretty much an expert. My personal favorite was always Brickbat, a man dressed up as a bat who throws poisoned bricks at people. (EDIT: Just finished the video, happy to see my man get the rep he deserves)

I still think Dr. BONG deserves more attention. My dude literally has a giant bell on his head, and fights by HITTING HIMSELF ON THE HEAD and creating vibrations that somehow hurt others and not himself despite the fact that the bell is LITERALLY ON HIS HEAD.

R.I.P. Asbestos Lady. Gone, but also definitely forgotten.

I feel like you could easily make Big Wheel look super cool in a movie. If you look at real monowheels, going top speed, doing spins, etc. and then you extrapolate that to make it bigger, more futuristic, more stable, and with some big guns on it, that'd make for an awesome action scene. You can even do this thing where you brake in such a way that the wheel continues to move forward while the driver essentially does a frontflip inside of it, which could visually be a cool way for him to shoot at a pursuer behind him during a chase scene by going upside down inside the wheel. And you could probably do more cool looking gyroscope-like movements I'm not even thinking of. He may not be the most compelling to base a movie plot around, but I really think with some good design choices he could make for an awesome secondary villain or like a mercenary working for the main villain or something.

The real question is, can these obscure villains take on the monstrosity that is Mr.Bean?

I find Sauron interesting since in the Silver Age when he was introduced, he was genuinely presented as a serious villain. Well, as serious as character with his story could be. The presented him very much of as a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde sort. Karl Lykos was a doctor that cared about people. Sauron was his persona that took over and was a murderous monster that thirsted for power. At some point, he just became goofy.

And sometimes, those goofy villains get reimagined into something truly special as well. Mister Freeze and Clock King were amazing additions to BTAS.

Armless Tiger Man vs Arm Fall Off Boy is the Marvel/DC crossover we all need

“The only way to create good things is to create bad things, and you can’t create bad things if you don’t make anything” definately not expecting such an inspirational speech at the end of a silly video exploring golden age comicbook villains, thank you for those words

Best villain I've ever seen was that one old dude who turned his hands into rotating blades, calling himself No. 1 fan. He accidentally loocked himself into an indestructible fortress and because of the lack of hands couldn't press the buttons to get out. The one page he appears on ends with him face-palming to... predictable results, what with the rotating ceiling fan hands.

I remember Clock King in Justice League Unlimited, he was the operator for the Suicide Squad/Task Force X. Him becoming an operator for a heist because of his ability to calculate time and plan the operation extremely accurately was such a cool idea, Timmverse had the best iterations of almost every character.

"The only way you can make good things is by making bad things, and you can't make bad things, if you don't make anything." That is such a simple yet brilliant line. I need tor keep that in mind more often. Also my favorite villain is Condiment King! Surprised he didn't get a mention, but maybe it's because he is one of the more well known odd ball villains.

My favorite "stupid" comic villain is Satanus, a Judge Dredd villain. It's a cloned, time-traveling t-rex who freaking _HATES_ cops and became a wizard's familiar for a bit before becoming the "king" of the Cursed Earth and went back in time to be worshipped as a god, later becoming the god of violence. It's actually so cool.

I remember reading Cap America/Black Panther team up book and how terrifying they depicted Armless Tiger Man, a feral cannibal let loose. Not a fan of darker and edgier stuff usually but I feel that the context and art in the book twisted the bizarreness to absolute nightmare fuel quite well.

Special mention to Dog Welder's Section 8 team mate, The Defenestrator. A dude who carries around a glass window and throws bad guys through it🙂

I LOVE what you said about deadlines and just basically being forced to make something, because that idea gave rise to my favorite movie ever, The Emperor's New Groove. Basically it was planned to be an epic musical in the same vein as Lion King, but halfway through production, practically everything was scrapped, but the creators had the same deadline. Obviously a crappy thing for Disney to do, but the end result is amazingly hilarious. I highly recommend The Sweat Box, a documentary on the making of the Emperor's New Groove. It was never officially released because it paints Disney in such a bad light, but you can find it online.

1. You’ve gotta appreciate how creative these villains are, I mean slide literally uses cooking oil to slide around. 2. Hope the comic book comes out good, ideas can be hard to perfect. And 3. Kite Man Hell Yeah.

Sincerely thank you for making this video. The last message was definitely something I needed to hear. I really like to write but the last few months it was quite hard to even start because I just want it to be perfect. However, i just need to start writing and see what ends up good. I love your videos man

I remember liking how Batman: TAS handled Clock King. In fact, I think the so-called "Bat Embargo" forced them to use a lot more of the obscure ones. Or was that later?

I love the "turning silly super villains into tragedies" thing, it's so good!!

I love how the wacky and stupid sounding villains often have the most heart and depth to them. Unlike Electro who lame as balls.

I actually enjoy creating villains as stupid as possible and doing it on the spot while trying to do it fast which results in me creating some interesting ones and often they are weird because they use the smallest details that I remember from dreams and/or are created on the spot such as but no where limited to: -Unhappy Birthday looks like an entertainer for a child's birthday but then he can teleport anything out of a wrapped present so when the kid opens their gifts they get nothing! Then he uses their toys as weapons... -Box Man, a man dressed in a costume made fully out of cardboard boxes... He has a car made of boxes, a house made of boxes, even a toilet roll tube gun that shoots cardboard bullets... He really loves cardboard... -The Unbed... Like a bed but it acts like a zombie once it's unknowing victim gets too close then it stands up on its back legs and chances them to eat their brains... -The Mother Wet Floor Kitty...half cat and half wet floor sign... It looks like a wet floor sign but with a cat face and cat ears but then it grows into a super buff version and then poops out little versions of itself... -Copycat... An antho blue and yellow cat with the power to be able to perfectly mimic any action...

This video is what I value in character creation. I absolutely love just making wacky characters based off something obscure. The joy is deepening their character and somehow making it seem less stupid if you don't think about it. Humanity's creativity is amazing.

I love Calendar Man because he's the reason Batman is paranoid about his future and creates the Knightfall protocol in Arkham Knight after Calendar Man almost killed him in a tie-in comic.

This man is quickly climbing my favorite RU-vidr ranking. Every single video he has made has never missed and has been so entertaining imo

In short, making a ridiculous Armless Tigerman will be more memorable than your typical Tigerless armed man.

Asbestos Lady is a great example of my personal favorite trope. Zeerust. Sci-Fi tech that used to be sound, cool supertechnology, but now, it's been eclipsed by modern tech. In the 60s, Maxwell Smart's secret shoe phone was impossible spy tech. Now, it's the most inconvenient cellphone ever, with a rotary dial. The huge, monochrome pixel computer monitors in the original Alien movie. I adore the trope.

Fun fact, according to the blue whale cancer paradox, larger animals are less prone to getting cancer, up to the point where a blue whale can't even get cancer. So, by turning everyone into dinosaurs, he has an actual fair chance of also curing cancer.

10:10 It’s funny because if he did use his talents for curing cancer, asbestos woman and asbestos man wouldn’t have died.

Sometimes when designing characters I Google search for inspiration and sometimes I end up coming across some weird villains from comics. I remember one was named White Rabbit and she of course took inspiration from Alice In Wonderland but the fun y part was that nobody took her seriously so she had no choice but to hirer actors to make it look like she's actually got friends working with her when she commits crimes. Sometimes the villains nobody takes seriously in the comics as well as real life turn out really funny like that

There was a pretty recent villain I created he was once a cartoonist who created a 40’s cartoon character but his show got cancelled by executives so he vows to get revenge by unleashing his creations to those who did him wrong He decided it was a good idea to create a cartoon world where all his crazy cartoon creations exist Also has the ability to create any of his cartoon drawings to life with a ink pen and weaponize insults.

Within the realm of fiction, there's no such thing as bad ideas, only bad writers. Even the most stupid, seemingly unworkable ideas can be made into masterpieces in the hands of a good writer, and good writers also know when something isn't broken and not to try to fix it. Sometimes you don't need a deep, relatable character that resonates with the viewer to strike gold. Sometimes you just need a dinosaur with his priorities straight.

Half of these could totally just be random crazy people, especially the ones without any real powers. Big wheel is pretty much the killdozer.

As a big fan of this channel, very excited to see that we're finally getting Alexander and Jacob in the coming months. Genuinely more excited for this than most movies releasing next year.

"I dont want to cure cancer, I want to turn people into dinosaurs" is an incredible line, one of the best single sentences Ive ever read or heard

I didn’t know paste pot Pete was the Trapster and knowing that now my brain feels violated

Supervillains turned Anti Heroes are some of my favorite stories. Seeing the internal conflict of characters that arent quite all collected up there is something that can always lead to interesting outcomes. Yea, super villains can be a bit nutty, but always grabs my attention. Whats a thought provoking peice without a bit of comedic relief?

How could you forget Big Dix from the origonal Dan Jarret blue beetle run? Sure he was a mobster and not a full on supervillain but he deserved at least a passing mention.

That Sauron panel is an absolute classic. I kind of want it framed.

I love how the matador wants to make it so that the blind man can’t see. Sheer genius

I’m bringing this back, the joke villain cinematic universe! Phase 1: Big Wheel The Unstoppable Wall Big Wheel 2: The Bigger Wheel (With The Bad Samaritan and Rocket Racer.) Kite Man (Cod Piece cameo.) Polka Dot Man The Demeaned (Big Wheel, The Wall, Kite Man, Polka Dot Man, Codpiece, The Bad Samaritan.) Phase 2: Big Wheel 3: Bigger, Faster, and Broken Kite Man: Hell Yeah Polka Dot Man: Black Spot (Eyescream and Walrus intro) Serpent Society Demeaned 2 (Condiment King, Signalman, Captain Stingaree intro.) Calendar Man Phase 3: Polka Dot Man: Bad Friends (Polka Dot Man, Codpiece, Eye Scream, Walrus, Calendar Man, Condiment King VS Big Wheel, Bad Samaritan, Rocket Racer, Signalman, Armless Tiger Man, Paste Pot Pete.) Crazy Quilt Serpent Society Ssssssequel Paste Pot Pete: Sticky Man Kite Man: Torn Wings Armless Tiger Man Demeaned: Gang War Calandra Man and The Eraser Stilt Man Demeaned: Endshame Paste Pot Pete: The Unstuck World Phase 4: Condiment King/Signalman Series Eyescream and The Walrus Series Batmite Series Bad Samaritan Why? Series Egg Fu Super Apes Eyescream Series Paste Pot Pete: A Sticky Situation Ten Eyed Man Sauron (Not LOTR) Crazy Quilt in the Manyverse of WTF Lady Stilt Man Series Kite Man: Nice and Wind Asbestos Series Armless Tiger Man 2 Serpent Society Sssssssaves Christmas Phase 5: Calendar Man and The Eraser: Pencilmania Angle Man Series Morbius (2022) The Clock King Eyescream: New Yummy Flavors Serpent Society 3 Tightface Series Stilt People Slide Series Paste Pot Pete: Stuck Together Batmite Season 2 Danny Devito Penguin From Batman Returns Funny Bunny Series Gorilla Man Series Blue Snowman Series Brickbat The Tickler Jackal: Cloned Again Series Codpiece: New Boss in Town Suicide Squad (2016) Phase 6: Rocket Racer Series Paste Pot Pete: Torn Apart Why? Season 2 The Frightful Four The Matador The Animal Vegetable Mineral Man The Living Eraser The Demeaned: Time Warped The Demeaned 6 Just as a note, if anything is missing. Tell me and I still add it.

I feel you when it comes to comic ideas. I’ve been writing and drawing concepts for two years. I’ve also come to the realization that I’ll only have about a month to create each idea. Good luck and happy Thanksgiving.

I never realized how desensitized I was to DC supervillains, I was aware of every one mentioned in this video and never questioned them

10:26 Matador: "and I would've gotten away with it too- "

My day is made now that there’s a new Alex lennen video

You didn’t mention how Big Wheel fixed the New York transit system.

I still love what they did with Clock King in the Justice League cartoon (and also in Arrow, I think, probably) with him now being obsessively meticulous about timing and planning things out so that he coordinates the rest of the team from behind the scenes.

As shown with Peacemaker, making a good show with an underused villain as the main protagonist isnt impossible, so i really hope we get to see someone like Kiteman in a tv show. He's one of my favorite villains and I think a show centered around him would be nice to see

Every one of these characters would be right at home in the Venture Bros.

"Eye-Scream, whose power was that he could turn into any flavor of ice cream that he wanted-" Wow what an awful villain lmao "-including banana-split." Absolutely broken, not even Onslaught could beat this guy.

I like that Animal Vegetable Mineral Man became a thing on the Doom Patrol series XD

This was way more meaningful than I anticipated. I love the personal spin you put to all your videos. Your recent success is definitely well deserved.

This ended much more profoundly than anyone was expecting

Some of the best dumb villains of the 90s came from Sleepwalker. Most notably 8-Ball, but really they were all pretty good. No other comic ever really succeeded in capturing the madcap anything goes nonsense style of the silver age, while still maintaining the look and feel of a gritty 90s comic, the way Sleepwalker did.

the thing you said at the end about writing your story and just writing and not being caught up in what you might be lacking or failing at really resonated with me as im writing my own spiderman comic rn, thank you for that

Why are you such a good content creator. These videos are so silly yet perfectly thought through. It’s such genius and extremely entertaining. Good job man.

As someone struggling with writing at the moment, the core message of the video means a lot to me

God, I remember clockman from “Batman: The brave and the bold” when he tried to drop batman and robin into boiling acid.

One of my favorites is the Rainbow Raider, a color blind artist turned criminal by the name ROY G. BIVolo who shot hard light in the form of rainbows through specialized glasses. He wore one of the most ridiculous get ups even by supervillain standards, but at the same time, he found a way to manipulate people's emotions through his colored beams. That ironically could make him quite a threat if you used him smartly.

Hey, Alex. I don’t know how helpful this might be, but I wanted to say that every time I write I don’t expect perfection. Otherwise I don’t get past the first chapter. I try and push through and when I’m done, at least I have something to work with. Then I read everything over, analyse it, close my word document and start writing the whole thing again from scratch without looking at the first draft. It’s a process that really works for me.

2:58 I find it funny how they it’s clarified that asbestos man is the man of asbestos, like they’re giving an example of two similar sentences that mean the same thing or trying to reach a required word count.

Did not expect Smiling Friends to be brought up here. Bravo Alex, once again with a great video.

To be fair Kite man got a killer villain redemption arc in Batman's "War of Jokes and Riddles."

Love your videos as always. The message at the end is inspiring to all of us stuck at writers block. Trying too hard focusing on perfectionism, and thus burning out before we actually create anything. Much love, and good luck on your continued journey. I'll keep following every video!

I'm a simple man, I see a new video from alex, I click like.

what about lithium girl, whose powers is being an alkali metal! In each issue she loses all her electrons.

As silly as Brick Bat may be, he got two pretty cool references in modern media. One is in Venture Bros, in the form of supervillain Brick Frog. Second one is in One Piece of all places, where the villain Gecko Moria uses an attack called "Brick Bats". Not the grandest of homages, if one even realizes they're references in the first pla e, but it's still something ^^

Alex for a "filler video" this was really entertaining and made a pretty good retrospective of silly comic book villains. Thank you for making this and continue making what you like man :)

I wasn’t expecting that message at the end, but I wish you well in your writing, and I am sure that, even if it’s bad, it’ll still be fun to read.

Dresses like a Bat-Narc Throws bricks at people Refuses to elaborate Dies What a madlad!

I just binged all of your videos in the last 2 days, and I can't wait for what you've got coming in the next year

Another amazing example of deadlines is South Park, instead of making all the episodes beforehand and releasing them weekly, they make an episode IN A WEEK, an entire story made in a week and it's always comedy gold

YESSS PERFECT TIMING!!! I WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WATCH AND I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS :DD

I love matador's blinding plan even more given Dare Devil is already blind

If I ran a major movie studio and had millions and millions of dollars at my disposal, the very first project I would greenlight is a completely played straight psychological drama film starring Nicolas Cage as Brick Bat.

ALEXANDER AND JACOB! Can't wait to see what you do with the new series! I found this channel because of the Alexander and Jacob video and now, I'm hooked

Dude I can’t wait for your comic bro, it sounds like you got a lot of love for it and that’s awesome man, been here since speedball and not leaving anytime soon man!

ALEX I NEED TO KNOW IF I WAS THE COMMENT THAT GOT YOU TO INCLUDE BRICK BAT FOR LIKE 2 SECONDS , MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.

there's also wacky comic book heroes haha anyways, i like the idea of reusing these so called funny characters into actual interesting and intriguing characters. calendar man for example, the concept works in more serious and darker stories. and that there are real people who use odd ways of doing crimes makes them more grounded, which also makes them more terrifying. funny concepts, if used properly, will work well. like just thinking of a man wearing a bat costume seems funny and weird (and has been sometimes used in jokes), but they were able to create an iconic character who can be seen as a hero and taken seriously.

The Great Lake Avengers stand no chance against Rich Evans.

Side note: Spoilers for Batman: Killing Time In the recent comic series Batman: Killing time ,which is a 6 issue comic series written by Tom King, Clock King is rebooted as a man who is obsessed with time (similar to calendar me but more specific) He plans a bank heist. he plans everything down to the second he even turn the government against batman as part of his plans.(It’s not cannon but it should be)

Angle man and the Mirror Master are underrated. The angler could fold space. And the Mirror Master the original was version was a really layered character when Geoff Johns wrote him in the mid 2000s.

Loved the insight into why deadlines are important. It can be moved to so many different scenarios

Isn't Saurons motivation the exact same as the Lizard, a main villain who is taken seriously? They both want to turn humans into reptiles.

YES. CODPIECE MY BOY. Thank you Alex for shining a new light on this most significant of villains

asbestos mans story was actually really sad

Honestly I really needed a reminder like this about deadlines. I’ve got a project I’ve been putting off so much, because I don’t feel like I have the proper time or materials to do it. But, you don’t need all that time. Deadlines remind me of my mortality. I can’t achieve perfection, but I can make something. And if that product turns out being silly and stupid, I can try again the next time. But I don’t need my work to be perfect, I need it to exist. If it’s bad, then at least I can look at it, tell what is bad about it, and improve, as opposed to just worrying about it maybe being bad. Thank you for making this video! It was good.

Hey, I’ve been watching your videos and your channel since that Darth Vader video you made, I gotta say, the way you analyze and explain stories is so entertaining and very high quality, keep it up man, cus I’ll be here the rest of the way