villain month

Thumbnail: The Arrogance and Endurance of Doctor Doom
Thumbnail: The Arrogance and Endurance of Doctor Doom
Thumbnail: The Arrogance and Endurance of Doctor Doom
It’s been said that Doctor Doom is not just one of the greatest supervillains of all time but rather that he’s the supervillain, the one that defines them all. Whenever Doom appears, he's always a huge threat. That’s evident from his very first appearance in Fantastic Four #5 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, when he kidnaps Sue Storm and forces the rest of the FF to travel back in time to steal Blackbeard’s treasure to help him conquer the world. He later teamed up with Namor the Sub-Mariner to send the team into space --- by literally magnetizing the Baxter Building and attaching it to a rocket ship. Of course, he double crosses Namor and the FF. But Namor gets the upper hand and gets the FF back to Earth, leaving Doom on an asteroid careening out into space. But do you think that stopped him?
The Best James Bond Villain Fan Art Ever
The Best James Bond Villain Fan Art Ever
The Best James Bond Villain Fan Art Ever
Over the course of the last several decades, James Bond has come across his fair share of villains. They’re some of the most colorful class of egomaniacs, sociopaths, thugs, dental problems, hat throwers, and femme fatales. This veritable cast of sometimes classy, sometimes crass criminals all present a unique challenge to Mr. Bond. Whether he’s tied to a chair, strapped a table, or hanging precariously over another death trap, Bond will often inevitably fall into his enemy’s clutches. Lucky for him they also tend to monologue for a while and then leave him alone with more than enough time to figure out how not to die in their precarious traps. Dr. No came out in 1962. It starred Sean Connery along with Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder and Joseph Wiseman as the nefarious Dr. No. More than fifty years later, Connery and several more 007s have worked their way through a cavalcade of bad boys and girls who just want to own the world, destroy the world, or do any other number of things that catch the iconic M16’s attention. Being around for so long, there’s no lack of infatuation with creating art based around this colorful cast. We scoured for some of the best the rabid fan base had to offer to the iconic spy universe. We hope you’ll enjoy this extensive gallery of Bond baddies.
Ask Chris #264: Frankenstein Lives!
Ask Chris #264: Frankenstein Lives!
Ask Chris #264: Frankenstein Lives!
Q: What Halloween-y monster fits into the second-most different narrative roles, behind Dracula? -- @crookedknight A: First things first, you are right to put Dracula at the top of the list. I've been through this before, but for anyone just joining us who hasn't heard me go through it for five or six hours, Dracula is the best. He's been around long enough and often enough that everyone pretty much knows what his deal is just from hearing the name, and you can drop him into any story in virtually any role. He can be a villain, an uneasy ally, a shadowy figure manipulating things from behind the scenes, and even, occasionally, a globetrotting protagonist battling things even worse than he is. He can be bloodthirsty fiend, sophisticated devil, reluctant hero, or all of the above. But given all that, it there's one choice for the spooky silver medal that seems so obvious that I was surprised I got this question. It has to be Frankenstein. Right?
Cast Party: Who Should Star In A 'Tomb of Dracula' Movie?
Cast Party: Who Should Star In A 'Tomb of Dracula' Movie?
Cast Party: Who Should Star In A 'Tomb of Dracula' Movie?
Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comic book adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. Halloween is here, and we're celebrating by imagining a film based on Marvel's Tomb of Dracula, a classic Bronze Age series by Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, and Tom Palmer.
The Question: The Best Queer Villains in Comics
The Question: The Best Queer Villains in Comics
The Question: The Best Queer Villains in Comics
The heroes of fiction tend to conform to a certain type — straight, cisgender, male — and the quests that they go on tend to share common elements. 'Boy meets girl' is a familiar phrase because we expect a male protagonist to meet, seduce, and try to save a female love interest as part of his 'quest'. And because finding a mate is so often part of the hero's journey, villains often get to represent a counterpoint; they challenge the narrative, subvert the norm, and... queer things up. With so much fiction being heteronormative, villains often get to play with gender and sexuality in ways that heroes don't. The queer or queer-themed villain is a trope that has led to some frustrating and upsetting stereotypes, but it's also led to some rich, compelling, and magnetic characters — characters that sometimes have a lot to offer to audiences hungry for representation and uncomfortable with the expectation of 'boy meets girl'. A villain's methods may be questionable, but their desire to overturn the accepted order can hold some appeal. To celebrate Villain Month on ComicsAlliance, and to mark that intersection of villainy and queerness in fiction, we've asked our writers, 'Who is your favorite queer comics villain'?
The Issue: Imperfect Harmony in 'Buffy Season Eight' #21
The Issue: Imperfect Harmony in 'Buffy Season Eight' #21
The Issue: Imperfect Harmony in 'Buffy Season Eight' #21
Welcome to The Issue, where we'll take a look at some of the strangest, most interesting and most distinctive single issue comic stories ever to grace the medium. You know the ones; silent issues, sideways issues, backwards issues; the comics that try to do something different with the form, and stand out from the series they belong to. Buffy Harmony Cover In the last installment, we talked about issue #12 of The Invisibles, a comic that takes a sympathetic look at one of the series' throwaway baddies. This time round, it's 'Harmonic Divergence', issue #21 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, written by Jane Espenson and drawn by Georges Jeanty. It's a comic that takes a very different approach to a similar idea and, as Hallowe'en is nearly upon us, throws in some spooky Draculas too.
Find Out What Villains Want With Steven Waters' Bamtan Posters
Find Out What Villains Want With Steven Waters' Bamtan Posters
Find Out What Villains Want With Steven Waters' Bamtan Posters
The record will show that I'm pretty biased on this subject, but it's hard to argue that Batman doesn't have the single greatest gallery of foes in the history of comic books. His villains are uniquely compelling, with fantastic visuals and character hooks so simple and so enduring that, more often than not, what they want can be boiled down into a single word. That's the premise behind a beautiful set of posters by Canadian artist Steven Waters that combine minimalist silhouettes of the Caped Crusader's greatest enemies with simple captions about why they choose to break the law in a city where that'll usually get you punched out and thrown into the world's worst hospital.
The Secret Villain Lurking at the Heart of 'Preacher'
The Secret Villain Lurking at the Heart of 'Preacher'
The Secret Villain Lurking at the Heart of 'Preacher'
One of the most enduring series in American comics history is Preacher, the Vertigo series from the creative team Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, Matt Hollingsworth and Clem Robins. It's the story of a young couple --- and their best friend, a chirpy vampire --- who go on a personal crusade against divinity, and the series takes on everything that comes at it: sex, violence, family, religion, war, hate, race. It’s powerfully made, a force of nature that rebels as hard as it can, creating a tale that's sensationally sordid and gleefully graphic. And yet what’s most interesting about Preacher is that it takes a turn halfway through the run, almost abandoning the central conceit to give readers something unexpected. (Stop reading here if you don't want to be spoiled.) Because it turns out that one of our heroes is actually the greatest villain in the book.
Bizarro Back Issues: Bizarro Meets Frankenstein! (1961)
Bizarro Back Issues: Bizarro Meets Frankenstein! (1961)
Bizarro Back Issues: Bizarro Meets Frankenstein! (1961)
First things first: Bizarro is terrifying. Yes, with the exception of maybe two stories, he's been played for laughs for around 57 years, but if you stop to think about it for a minute, the very idea is one of the most sinister things superhero comics have ever come up with; someone who has all of Superman's powers, all of his unstoppable indestructibility, but a concept of morality that exists in complete opposition to Superman's, and that will not, that can not ever change? It's harrowing. But as scary as he might be, I don't really consider Bizarro to be a Halloween monster. "Supervillain" isn't quite right either, but there's nothing about Bizarro that I'd think would put him in competition with, say, Dracula or the Wolfman. But then again, I'm not Otto Binder, who apparently thought that Superman's imperfect duplicate battling it out with Frankenstein for the title of the greatest of all monsters was something that should definitely happen. You know, except for the part where it's not actually Frankenstein.
The Issue: Empathy for the Henchman in 'The Invisibles' #12
The Issue: Empathy for the Henchman in 'The Invisibles' #12
The Issue: Empathy for the Henchman in 'The Invisibles' #12
Welcome to The Issue, a new feature examining some of the strangest, most interesting and most distinctive single issue comic stories ever to grace the medium. You know the ones; silent issues, sideways issues, backwards issues; the comics that try to do something different with the form, and stand out from the series they belong to. As October is Villains Month here on ComicsAlliance, we're taking a look at an issue focusing on a character who is nominally one of the bad guys, though the story tries to unpack what that really means. The issue is The Invisibles #12, 'Best Man Fall', written by Grant Morrison and Steve Parkhouse.

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