Evil has many faces.
A man who laughs.
The master of Metropolis.
The Guardian of fear.
A conqueror of worlds.
Many faces, but just one name:
The supervillain.
Powerful, charismatic...
...intelligent, ruthless.
The supervillain reﬂects our fears and frustrations...
...the dangers and perils of everyday life.
They commit the heinous crimes we will not.
And in a world where right and wrong are not absolute...
...where shades of gray exist in life as well as the comic page...
...evil isn't just unavoidable, it's necessary.
In the world of comics, one could argue that the villain is even more vital to the story...
...than the just and moral hero.
For without a proper adversary...
...we tack the very essence of story:
Conflict.
After all, isn't it the villain who catapults the hero into action?
Without the villain, there's really no story. The superhero exists and does nothing.
If the villain isn't acting out, Superman stays Clark Kent.
The superheroes are always reacting. The villains are making things happen.
Villains are the ones with a plan. The villains are the ones who are taking the initiative.
If you define "protagonist" as somebody who sets something in motion...
...and "antagonist" as somebody who stops him...
...almost all the villains in comic books are protagonists.
You need that ongoing impetus of the bad guy, the one who's gonna be a challenge...
...the one who is going to threaten society's rules...
...and be put in their place by somebody who upholds those rules.
Not only is there no story or conﬂict without the villain...
...but it's through the villain that we see our hero at their very core.
We see their many ﬂaws, we see their many weaknesses.
We see what makes them the hero they are.
Without the villain to define the hero...
...you don't have a hero.
You have no anvil from which the superhero is pounded into the shape that he is.
Villains in comic book stories...
...allow the hero or the superhero to really flex their muscles.
The more power the supervillains have...
...the more you can showcase how important that superhero is.
The stronger your villains are, the stronger your hero is. They have to overcome...
...somebody who's smart, powerful...
...who knows what they want and who's on a mission that they believe in.
So if the hero can stop them, you know, it makes them that much better.
All the more true in the DC universe because we have rich villains.
One is Flash and Reverse-Flash. The very names give you what they are.
Reverse-Flash suffered something so horrible.
And he felt like the Flash could have fixed it. He knew that the Flash could go through time.
He'd seen it happen before.
He said, "Why don't you go back, prevent this from happening? Why won't you?"
The guy won't do it.
"Well, he won't do it because he hasn't felt tragedy like I have.
So I'm going to have him feel tragedy to make him a better hero.
You need to be able to take the measures to protect everyone you love.
You wouldn't do it for me. Maybe you'll do it for yourself. So I put you to the test."
The Riddler, he's all about Batman's intellect.
He, to me, is the sword-sharpener. He's the guy that says:
"if you are not clever enough, everybody dies in that way."
He shows in some ways that Batman, at his roots...
...needs to be the greatest detective.
At his heart, he's born in Detective Comics. At the core of the character is Sherlock Holmes.
He's that guy that, because he's human, needs to be smarter than anybody else...
...to solve these crimes.
For me, the Riddler steps on to the stage and challenges that fundamental element...
...of Batman's capabilities that needs to be there almost more than any other.
I mean, that's Batman's superpower. He's the greatest detective of all time.
The relationship between a villain and their rival is more complicated...
...than a question of right versus wrong, good versus evil.
Together, they form a dynamic that is, at times, interdependent.
A villain cannot exist without a hero and a hero, his or her villain.
They're in a symbiotic relationship in that if the villains were to do off the hero...
...I think they would probably find themselves a little listless.
When we did "Death of the Family" story...
...he comes at Batman saying, “Deep down, we really love each other."
And, of course, Batman says, "I hate nothing more on the earth than you, Joker."
The Joker feels that the family that Batman has built around him all these years...
...is dragging him down.
He says, “These people are draining your soul.
These other members, they're sucking the life out of you.
I'm your friend. I wanna make you be the best that you can be...
...so that we can both have a relationship that we could enjoy for so many years...
...without these knuckleheads on the side constantly draining you.
And so I'm gonna take care of them for you, and I will wipe out all these family members...
...so you can be free of their encumbrance."
What the Joker, at his core, is saying is that:
"You might not love us the way that we love you...
...or you might not want to admit you love us the way we love you.
This rogues' gallery that you have," he's like, "All of us love you.
All of us are here only to make you a better superhero."
The question always becomes: What came first, the hero or the villain?
Did the hero introduce himself to society to do better good...
...and because they put on that costume...
...the costumed villain arose to confront him or to challenge him?
Or did the costumed villain arrive first...
...and the hero was created in order to stop that type of villain from succeeding...
...or getting more powerful?
There are threats that Superman has to face...
...where I would tend to think we're grateful Superman is there.
People might say, "if Superman weren't here, would these menaces be coming to Earth?"
Bane comes to Gotham specifically to fight Batman.
This is the Riddler as he originally appeared.
First moved to Gotham because he was attracted by the challenge of Batman.
They both came there to challenge Batman...
...to see if he could be a foe worthy of them, give them something interesting to do.
So the question is which came first?
And I'm not sure if I really wanna answer that question.
The one thing I can say, one can't exist without the other.
As long as we have villains, there will be heroes.
And as long as we have heroes, there will be villains.
But what is it about the villain that keeps us so entranced...
...that captivates and enthralls us?
What makes us applaud the very person we want to see vanquished?
The reasons are often as multifaceted as the villains we enjoy.
What makes a great supervillain is something that we can relate to.
It's the same thing that makes for a great superhero.
In the superhero we have this exaggeration of what our hopes and desires are.
At the same time the villain has aspects of us...
...that challenge the strengths that we're admiring in the superhero.
I would like to think that most people identify with the hero, heh.
But in this day and age there might be some who identify with the villain.
I understand getting a gun that shoots ice and going into a bank and trying to rob it.
We understand temptation.
The oldest stories ever told have to do with temptation...
...whether it's Pandora or Adam and Eve.
This very basic quality in human beings that runs with us throughout our lives.
Now, there are villains like the Joker or Black Hand...
...that are so twisted and dark...
...you love seeing them do their stuff, but you don't relate to them.
At least, you don't admit you do.
Everyone wishes that they could turn invisible or fly or have x-ray vision.
And I think what's cool about villains is everyone wishes that they could break bad.
What's the point of having a villain who can't act out aspects of ourselves that we repress?
I can be evil. I'm gonna give you my husband's number...
...and you can have a long chat with him. Heh, heh, heh.
I think there are some people who really associate themselves with, like, a Superman.
On the other hand, people covet Lex Luthor's keen intellect.
When I was growing up I loved the character of Vandal Savage.
DC had relaunched The Flash with Wally West as the Flash...
...after Crisis on Infinite Earths and his first villain that he fought was Vandal Savage.
He was immortal. And who wouldn't want to be immortal?
And who wouldn't want to have this far reach into history?
He's one of those villains that has nothing to lose. That's a very dangerous man.
You know, he just knows he will be resurrected.
How do you defeat that person?
You look good. Been working out?
You could probably use a little sun.
Then again, who am I to talk?
They seem to be happy. Heh. They seem to enjoy being bad.
Most of the heroes, especially of late...
...they're all broody and sad. They never seem to be enjoying anything.
You look at villains and they're having the time of their lives.
Harley became popular because, in part, she's funny.
She can stand up to the Joker. She can tell a joke. She can get a laugh.
When I go to conventions and I see young ladies cosplaying as her...
...I think they just tap into that feeling of fun and that she can just be kind of whimsical.
Harley Quinn is one of those characters you love.
Even if she's smashing somebody with a hammer, you love her.
There's a handful of those villains, like Larfleeze...
...the Orange Lantern. He's deadly but he's fun.
He's overwhelmed with greed and he'll kill for it. He's still funny because of that.
He comes to Earth and finds out there's a being called Santa Claus...
...who gives people things that you list.
When Larfleeze finds out there's a being called Santa Claus...
...that answers your Christmas list, he makes a giant list.
When Santa doesn't show up, he gets pissed off and says:
"I'm gonna kill him." And he goes on a hunt for Santa Claus.
There's very few characters that you can pull that story off with.
Larfleeze is one of those characters.
But while villains can be fun, as well as fascinating...
...they're also a direct reflection of our own fears.
They force us to examine the deep and personal terrors...
...that we are unable to face in our everyday lives.
When writers create supervillains...
...when children imagine monsters...
...they're trying to make sense of a scary world.
They're trying to feel strong.
They're trying to do so many things.
Villains in some ways, you know, should reflect our fears and our concerns...
...you know, both as individuals and as a society.
They change over time.
But the more important thing the villains present is our more global fear...
...our more human fear, our fear of loss...
...our fear of death, our fear of the unknown.
The villain represents basically everything that we fear...
...or everything that we need to fight against.
Parallax is interesting because the idea that it's a world-eater, that scares the hell out of us.
At any moment some universal malevolence...
...can come and take us over. That's a pretty scary thing.
By the time they were doing the Superman show, I was an adult.
But whenever you'd watch those Darkseid episodes, I'd be like:
"Oh, God, this is gonna be bad." You know...
...anybody who can make Superman bleed...
...is somebody that you don't wanna be trifled with.
Because what are any of us really gonna do against him?
JOHNS: I really made Sinestro and the Sinestro Corps embody fear.
They're cosmic terrorists.
Their mission when they come is to destroy Coast City.
"We're gonna make Green Lantern's town a crater...
...and a symbol of fear, so that nobody will ever come back here."
Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps says, "We're not afraid. We're gonna fight your fear."
Hal flies to his brother's house and his brother is there with his wife and his kids.
Hal Jordan says to his brother, "You have to leave right now."
His brother says, “We're not going anywhere. We believe in you.
We're not afraid. We're standing our ground."
And suddenly another Green Lantern says, "Hal, look outside."
And someone's put a green light in their window...
...and another person puts a green light in their window.
And suddenly there's green lights all throughout the city...
...as a symbolic gesture to Hal.
And for me, that was a recharge moment for Hal Jordan overcoming fear...
...but it was also a moment, emotionally, for me saying, like:
"This is how we deal with fear. We take a stand."
They're our personal demons.
Like, they're the fears we have about ourselves...
...come to life in these incredibly colorful and bright...
...and sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying ways.
All of us face those things in our lives, where you face adversity in some way...
...where you're positive you're not gonna make it through this one.
And I think we've all been there at some point where you're just thinking to yourself:
"I am not capable of overcoming this."
Whether it's a small day-to-day thing or it's a big thing.
And what villains do is they represent those fears on this macro way...
...I think, for the hero, who's the representative of all the things we think--
We hope that humanity is capable of or we're capable of at our best.
Then when the hero overcomes those things at the end because they have to...
...it says to us that we can too.
Every myth has a creation.
Just like our heroes, every villain must have an origin.
And what qualities do we see in the most popular villains?
Instilling a sense of fear simply isn't enough.
Villains must be layered, nuanced.
We must ask ourselves: What makes a bad guy, a bad guy?
You wanna give your villain idiosyncrasies, and you want to make him strangely weird...
...and interesting psychologically.
Those kind of characters lend themselves to having stories told about them...
...because their bones are so strong.
You can put, you know...
You can hang a lot of meat on them.
They have their own path and they all have their own story.
And, you know, while their powers may be similar...
...hopefully their personalities are not.
If a villain is great-looking or is great just visually...
...but doesn't have a back-story...
...it really takes away from enjoying its run.
The wonderful thing about Batman: The Animated Series...
...is that they not only featured...
...and celebrated a number of DC villains in Gotham City...
...but introduced a number of origin stories.
Of course, we have this back-story of Harvey Dent...
...and his struggles with his anger.
We even get to see this session he has with a psychiatrist.
And the psychiatrist puts him into this state of hypnotism...
...and asks him to draw up his alter ego.
He calls it Big Bad Harvey.
Later in the episode, of course, we see his full development into Two-Face.
And I'll never forget that moment...
...where he breaks open the door out of his hospital room.
He then turns at the same time that there's lightning...
...and we see the image of the second half of his face.
Black Hand really came into his own...
...in Green Lantern 43 when his origin was revealed.
Taking a character like Black Hand who was a minor villain...
...and looking at him and saying, "if we have an emotional spectrum..-...
...and all the colors represent life...
...the absence of color has to represent death. There's got to be black."
Black Hand, by becoming the avatar of death, having a black ring...
...committing suicide to become a zombified Black Lantern...
...which is one of the best moments Doug Mahnke's ever drawn in his life.
It's creepy, twisted, dark.
Once people actually got to get inside his head a little bit and see who he was...
...then it became much more of a connection.
A hero's motive is usually straightforward:
Save the day, serve justice, defeat evil.
Villains, however, are driven by a variety of forces.
It could be as grandiose as taking over the world...
...or as direct as forcing others to share their agony.
They can be much more complex, personal and often even relatabie.
What makes a villain the most memorable is the reason they're doing whatever it is they do.
It's not the crime. We've seen a hundred thousand crimes.
We've seen Luthor break into banks.
We've seen all these characters do weird things.
But why they do it.
Every one of us is driven by, you know, our own singular, you know, needs and wants.
So are villains.
A character like the Anti-Monitor from Crisis on Infinite Earths...
...needs to absorb all the universes.
And that's the only way he could survive.
Behold the definition of true power.
He's not doing it because he cares at all about life.
And that makes him frightening because you can't reason with him.
He's not an intellect that you can talk to and say:
"Don't you realize you're doing something bad?
Can't we figure out something else to do?" He's not interested. He has one need.
When I created Clayface Ill at the behest of the late Julius Schwartz...
...I came up with a character who was a monster...
...because he had screwed up.
He was someone born with acromegaly, essentially the elephant man disease.
And in trying to fix himself...
...became somebody who basically can draw the calcium out of your body...
...and reduce people to little clay-like masses.
But he didn't want to. It's just how he survived.
There may also be, certainly, revenge involved.
A lot of villains feel that they've been wronged in some way...
...whether it's by society or a loved one or the police.
With Mr. Freeze, when we developed the character for Batman: The Animated Series...
...I thought, "Somebody that cold has to be that cold for a reason."
Essentially he had some funding to carry out his research to cure his wife, Nora.
And the man who pulled that funding...
...he then became the focus of Mr. Freeze's evil-doing.
His mission is to go after the one man who took away the love of his life.
He actually says to Batman:
"This is my sole purpose, and if you get in the way, you'll pay for it."
Which kind of implies, “Look, if you just step aside, I won't harm you."
As a villain, you can argue whether he's a villain or not.
Atrocitus, he was motivated by anger at the Guardians of the Universe.
His family got killed because the Guardians of the Universe...
...they created these manhunters, androids...
...which were their predecessors to the Green Lantern Corps.
Atrocitus skips over the denial stage of grief...
...goes into anger and stays there. Forget going into the later ones.
The only bargain he makes is to stay angry...
...and avenge his family by going after the Guardians however he can.
That's why the Joker is so interesting, because he sort of doesn't have a motive.
He knows he's crazy.
Most of the crazy villains, most of the villains who in comics, who are insane...
...have no idea they are.
But the Joker is aware of it and he loves it.
He loves the concept that he is chaos to Batman's logic and order.
And, obviously, we have the most recent incarnation on the big screen.
Heath Ledger's Joker is a perfect example of that.
And he even says it. He's a dog chasing a car.
And when he catches it, he doesn't-- He doesn't know what he's doing.
He just sort of does things.
With Lex Luthor, he just wants power.
But how does he attain it?
How many ways does he have to go?
Why is he jealous of Superman?
Because he wants to be more powerful than Superman.
Those self-made men tend to feel that they have license.
Tend to feel that they're superior to everybody else.
He has these personality characteristics that one would consider narcissistic...
...in the sense that he has this element of superiority...
...that he is more powerful than others. Thinks that he's more intelligent than others.
And, therefore, believes that he deserves more than what other people deserve.
He is like the pinnacle of humanity. He has made himself the best man.
And then there's this alien that's better than him.
I did the revision of Luthor back in the 1980s.
I turned him into a character who brought jobs to Metropolis.
He provided museums and philharmonic orchestras...
...and did all this stuff as long as everyone knew he was the best.
He wanted the power. He wanted the control. And he was happy.
He was delighted because everyone honored him.
And then Superman came along, who could fly.
It was ego.
"I am the person who looks down on everybody else."
And the first time Superman and he meet, Superman says:
"I'll be around. If you wanna find me, just look up."
And suddenly there was somebody who was over Luthor and he couldn't deal with that.
ROMANO: I think that's also part of the ego is that villains love to hear themselves talk.
They love to hear their theories as expounded upon by themselves.
The Penguin made a comment in one comic book:
"What's the point in committing the perfect crime if no one knows it was you who did it?"
Lex Luther's brain, as evil as it is, is brilliant.
Once he had him and he was incapacitated...
...to the degree that Lex could do anything he wanted with him...
...he could aggrandize himself in front of him. "Let me tell you how brilliant I am."
You were great in your day, Superman, but it just stands to reason.
When it came time to cash in your chips...
...this old, diseased, maniac, would be your banker.
Mind over muscle.
The grandiose nature of the villains figures into every one of those key aspects.
Whatever their mission is in life, the main thing they want to do.
The one who wants to get the money, he wants to do it in the outlandish way...
...the creative, different way.
When you think of some of the more flamboyant villains in the DC Universe...
...you sort of think about:
Would they really be happy with all the money in the world?
Would they really be happy with running the city?
You know, it seems to be they're much happier trying to take the city than actually having it.
That's why you don't see a lot of books about supervillains now running city hall...
...or "Now I'm the mayor" or, you know...
What are they gonna do with, you know, a billion dollars?
So I do think it's sort of more the pursuit.
It's not enough for the Riddler to rob a bank or steal a diamond.
He's got to drop clues on his way to robbing a bank or stealing a diamond.
The Riddler's probably the most self-defeating villain in the history of comic books...
...because he's always providing Batman with a clue to his comeuppance.
He's obviously got some deep, dark...
...damaged psychological reason that, you know, deep down he wants to be caught.
He wants to be punished.
Otherwise he wouldn't leave ridiculous riddles to be left for Batman to solve.
The journey toward evil follows a long road...
...with many possible avenues.
But for the fallen, the question remains:
Were they born bad or did they willingly turn down the dark path?
Is it the end result of a lifetime of suffering...
...or did one horrible incident forever push them over the edge?
ls there real evil? Does evil in itself really exist?
Or it is always a reaction to something? Is it a reaction to some childhood trauma?
There are a number of different, I guess, causes or trajectories toward evil-doing...
...or toward a life of villainy.
The best villains probably are born bad.
You want them to be, at least.
There's always, like, maybe they were born bad, and then you had horrible incidents occur...
...that sort of kept them down that path.
We have yet really to have true examples of these particular experiences...
...that the Joker, Harvey Dent and other villains have gone through.
So I think there is a lot of room for the fictional writing...
...and the fictional exploration of one event creating--
Completely redefining a person where it turns them to villains.
I created a character called Man-Bat.
It's this guy who is a Batman fan.
He is a genius. He is a scientist.
Works in museums. But he's just a little off.
And he thinks that if he creates a serum out of bats...
...that he can give it as a gift to Batman...
...and Batman will have the attributes of a bat.
Wouldn't that be great?
But somebody has to test it.
So he tests it on himself.
It's Jekyll and Hyde.
He's turned into this creature. He becomes a man-bat.
You can say, "Man-Bat is a villain." No, he's not a villain.
He can be manipulated by villains, but he's a good guy.
In fact, he loves Batman.
He thinks Batman is the greatest hero on earth.
And he wants to be like Batman.
But if he's like Batman, he becomes a drug addict then becomes this monster.
You will bow down before me!
First you, and then one day, your heirs!
General Zod is a fantastic villain for Superman.
While some of his actions aren't justifiable, you completely understand why he is the man he is.
You know, someone like the Scarecrow...
...the fact that he was bullied into submission...
...and picked on by way more powerful people than him...
...and he was so scared to live his life because he had this constant air of fear around him.
It drove him to figure out why that fear existed within him.
And then at the end of the day, how he could inflict it upon other people.
You're writing it and you see:
"Why can't you just go left instead of right at this seminal moment?"
That kind of story, I think, is equally inspiring and exciting to read...
...for different reasons, but because mostly you see that making the wrong choice...
...or falling victim to sort of difficult circumstances and letting them turn you...
...and twist you that way is something that gets you nowhere but Blackgate or Arkham...
...or, you know, the Phantom Zone or that sort of thing. Heh, heh.
Consider this.
The function and role of the hero and the villain is all simply a matter of perspective.
If we reversed focus and considered the story from the point of view of the villain...
...wouldn't they be the hero and the hero the villain?
You have to think that pretty much everyone's a hero in their own story.
The villains who are really interesting characters...
...have an affirmative reason for what they're doing.
Their strength comes from...
...absolute certainty, 100 percent certainty, that they are correct.
If they're uncertain about what they're doing, then they're not interesting characters.
Perspective of ants. You know, do ants see us as giant villains?
We're walking around. It's ruining my picnic, so I'm just stomping on ants. I'm not thinking.
To someone's point of view down there...
...we are these giant gods who are villainous and are destroying their civilization.
So it's really just about your point of view.
Sinestro wanted to control things so much on Korugar, his home world...
...he wanted it to be safe for everybody that he started to instill fear like, "I'm in control."
Sinestro is a villain who really did see himself as a hero and couldn't believe...
...that he was being chopped off at the knees by the Guardians all the time...
...and being perceived to be someone who wasn't looking out...
...for the better interest of the universe and his own people.
And, eventually, it pushed Sinestro into a dark place...
...where he finally just had to use his powers...
...to bring to light what he thought was the best thing.
And Hal Jordan ultimately had to stop this guy who had gone renegade.
So it just set them on a collision course.
BROWN: Lex doesn't perceive himself as a bad person.
He doesn't perceive himself as anything...
...but the agent of order and civilization.
You hold the future of the entire planet in your hands.
- I'm here to take it back. - Lex?
You'll never threaten the world again.
I think Luthor is correct in the way he views the world.
He's right. Superman is an alien and we shouldn't trust him.
He has a lot of people on his side today...
...in that I think in the '50s, during the Eisenhower years...
...the idea of a superman with all these incredible powers...
...that we can't stop even if we wanted to, but he's a benign force for good, that's reassuring.
In today's day and age, I don't know if that's as reassuring.
So the idea that there's a guy who is a businessman...
...you know, a tycoon who's looking out for his fellow humans...
...against a threat that actually can't be contained or controlled...
...I think it really speaks to I think a lot of people's fears...
...about authority and power today.
In modern story...
...just as it is in fife...
...the choice between right and wrong often isn't so cut and dry.
Heroes are flawed, sometimes villains justified.
But it's the villain and sometimes society itself...
...that further blurs the line.
The same way there's a thin line between love and hate, to me...
...the best heroes are the ones that probably act a little villainous.
And the best villains are the ones that might have martyr complexes.
Where we are in comics right now, we probably examine the line between good and evil more...
...than ever had been done before.
Batman is always trying to maintain that control within himself.
You know, “This is how my parents were killed.
I'm gonna make sure that doesn't happen to anybody else."
He is a guy who's fighting to not become a bad guy.
Had it not been for the humanizing anchors of his humanity, Alfred...
...and a few other key people keeping him in line...
...young Bruce Wayne, traumatized...
...by witnessing the murder of his parents before his eyes...
...could easily have gone the dark side of that line.
All I've ever wanted to do is kill him.
A day doesn't go by when I don't think about subjecting him...
...to every horrendous torture he's dealt out to others.
And then end him.
But if I do that, if I allow myself to go down into that place...
...I'll never come back.
There's sort of a power struggle going on with the villains too.
There's the character that's sort of more of a gray nature...
...who was originally maybe intended to be a villain...
...who cleaned up his act a little bit or who is just so engaging that you like him a lot.
You look at a character like Lobo.
Here's this guy who should not be called a hero by any stretch of the imagination...
...but he's got just enough honor, I guess you'd say...
...like, you know, he's a bounty hunter.
If he goes after somebody, for better or for worse, he'll honor the deal.
And he'll track down the guy and bring him in.
The appeal of Lobo is just the over-the-top black comedy and violence...
...I think the character brings.
You know, he's a badass biker from outer space.
Who doesn't love somebody like that?
GUGGENHEIM: Deadshot is nice and simple and clear.
He's like a bullet. He goes from point A to point B and he doesn't waver.
KIRSHEN: He's got layers to him. He's not just doing this for the sake of fun.
He's doing it because this is the thing he's good at. He's good at killing people.
And he only does it for money.
With a character like Deathstroke, I actually did not create him to be a villain.
I created him thinking he was a character who was morally ambiguous...
...who was doing certain things for his own reasons.
He was a hunter, he was a mercenary, he was an assassin...
...but always on a political, for-hire basis.
And then because his son was trapped by the H.l.V.E., he was forced into becoming a villain.
He didn't want to be, and no matter how many times he wants to get out of it...
...he can't because he has a certain code of ethics...
...that says he promised to complete his son's mission...
...and he can't stop until he does, even though he knows it's not his mission...
...and even though he knows it's wrong.
Amanda Waller is one of the greatest characters in DC comics.
She is the black ops government leader of the Suicide Squad...
...the program that recruits supervillains and forces them to do missions for them.
And she is manipulative, super smart.
Amanda Waller can only be viewed as a bad guy because she makes the tough choices.
That's the reason why.
And what she's doing is she is willing to sacrifice the individual for the greater good.
Amanda Waller continues to be a presence in the DC universe.
She's created a Justice League called the Justice League of America...
...that is designed to take out the real Justice League if need be.
She's prepared for the worst because she's experienced the worst.
She has a very clear moral line and whether you agree with it or not, it doesn't shift.
That's why you'll have that discussion going back and forth...
...of whether Amanda Waller is a hero or villain.
Heroes typically have a strong moral code.
"I Will not kill."
"I will uphold the law."
But just because villains commit crimes...
...does not mean they are completely without principles.
There does exist honor among thieves, even if that honor is warped and twisted.
I don't think you can generalize about villains...
...the same way as you can generalize about heroes across the board.
You know, I do think that there are some villains who have a moral code...
...or have a line that they personally will not cross.
Two-Face, where he basically lets his morality be decided by a flip of a coin.
Sinestro certainly has a code of ethics he thinks he's following.
And in a strange way he is following it.
He believes in the Green Lantern Corps so much he's willing to be a villain to them.
Allow me to introduce myself.
I am he who is called Ra's al Ghul.
Ra's al Ghul knows who Batman is.
He can give it away.
He doesn't because there's sort of a respect that he has for Batman.
And he has this hope that one day Batman will come to his side...
...so he doesn't destroy Batman that way.
Specifically, the Rogues, they won't kill somebody. That's where they draw the line.
They do have their own-- It may be a warped code, but they have their code.
If you go to the Rogues and say, “You have a chance to kill the Flash.
Here's the plan. This is how we're gonna kill the Flash. We're gonna kill the Flash."
Captain Cold would be like, "You're out of your mind.
If we kill the Flash the whole Justice League's on top us.
We don't need that right now.
We have this thing going. We don't wanna kill the Flash. He's just in our way."
There's versions of the Rogues who have been more bloodthirsty.
Their versions, I don't respond to because I don't think that's who the Rogues are.
The last thing they would ever do is kill the Flash.
That doesn't mean they're uninteresting to watch...
...or uninteresting characters for the Flash to go against.
That makes them more interesting. What are their motivations?
The best villains represent the counterpoint to the hero.
A polar opposite in many respects...
...but also bearing subtle or sometimes striking similarities.
The villains often mirror the hero's dark reﬂection...
...the result of a divergent path, a different road taken.
I think a good nemesis for a hero needs to have some of the hero in him...
...have some of the qualities of a hero in him.
You are defined as much by the dark side of the mythology...
...as you are defined by this light side of mythology.
So for every mythology about demons, there need to be angels and vice versa.
You need to have a degree of polar opposite.
At the same time, there needs to be those things...
...that make them mirror images of themselves.
You have Ocean Master who is kind of a mirror of Aquaman.
He is an Atlantean king, like Aquaman, but he's Aquaman gone wrong.
He's "What if Aquaman went down a different path?"
In the case of Flash, it's Reverse-Flash.
Literally, it's a reverse version of the Flash, a mirror of him.
And then the opposite would be Captain Cold.
On first blush you're like, “Oh, it's ice. He slips."
You look at Captain Cold and you analyze him a bit more.
When introduced, he was called “The Man Who Mastered Absolute Zero."
And absolute zero means zero atomic motion.
That means the atoms do not move.
You know, when things are colder, they're slower on the atomic level.
So that's why Captain Cold, to me, always captured...
...the essence of an opposite of the Flash.
When you look at somebody like Batman...
...Catwoman is certainly the sexual challenge to him.
Riddler is the intellectual challenge.
Penguin is almost a mockery of what Bruce Wayne is on the social scene.
And the Joker is the horrific version of what Batman is to ordinary people.
Whereas Batman scares criminals, the Joker scares and horrifies the ordinary people.
Black Adam is another good opposite number character.
Kind of got a costume that's similar to Shazam's costume, but it's black.
He's also another member of a police force that has kind of fallen from grace...
...the Wizards Protector Society, which is what Shazam is and what Black Adam was.
The Crime Syndicate characters that have been around for decades...
...they come from a version-- A parallel Earth, a version of our Earth...
...where everyone who's good is bad and everyone who is bad is good.
And so you've got an evil Superman in Ultraman.
Then you have Owlman, who is a dark version of Batman.
And Superwoman, who is a dark version of Wonder Woman.
You have Johnny Quick and Power Ring. Power Ring is this Green Lantern...
...who's a coward.
The Crime Syndicate represent the Justice League completely flipped on its head...
...and if they were horrible, horrible, evil people.
In terms of what they can accomplish and who they can defeat...
...they're on par with the Justice League, but their goals are so perverted...
...compared to the honor and the morality that the Justice League have.
Which leaves the governments of the world with two choices, bow down to us or die.
The best supervillains that resonate the most, they do it on two levels.
They do it-- How they psychologically reflect or challenge your superhero...
...and then also, in the story, what they've done to affect the superhero's life.
If there is not that personal connection, it just weakens it.
It just becomes another person trying to do something dastardly.
When well-paired, the villain's been able to get inside the superhero's head.
It's almost as if he knows precisely what makes them vulnerable, what their greatest fear is.
When they make it personal and can make it personal...
...when the villains have the knowledge to make it personal and know your inner secrets...
...that's when things get real.
Talia al Ghul, she fell in love with Batman.
So when it comes to the point of killing Batman...
...many times in many stories, she draws the line there.
She will not kill him. She wants him for her own.
Star Sapphire was not only Hal Jordan's boss, but also girlfriend.
And when she was manipulated...
...she did not know consciously that she had become Star Sapphire.
Then you've got this interesting dynamic...
...of when he ultimately finds out that this is his girlfriend and he's got to battle her.
And how does he battle her when she's so smart without hurting her?
That kind of conflict of people who were once friends and become enemies...
...you know, it's almost like the Greek tragedies, these enormous stories of betrayal.
I just ended my run with Green Lantern 20.
And as I was wrapping it up the story kind of organically revolved around not only Hal...
...but Hal and Sinestro and that relationship is really key to Green Lantern.
There is this moment where Sinestro, who blames the Guardians of the Universe...
...who have done all these horrible things...
...against the Corps they created-- They tried to destroy it.
They're ultimately the big bad guys of the piece.
And Sinestro vows to destroy them. "I'm going to kill them one by one."
And Hal says, "I can't let you do that." And he grabs him.
And Sinestro says, "You think they can still be saved?
You think that they can be redeemed?"
And Hal says, “This isn't about them, this is about you."
He says, "I wanna save you.
You don't have to lower yourself to this level. You don't have to kill them.
You can be a great Green Lantern."
And he goes, "Because I believe in you."
And Sinestro looks at him and he says, “Jordan, it's too late. I've already killed them."
And you reveal that Sinestro has already wiped out the Guardians, one by one by one.
And Sinestro's like, "I'm leaving forever.
But before I go, you had a question you wanted to ask me."
And Hal says, you know, "Were we ever friends, Sinestro?"
And Sinestro, who has never called him by his first name--
He's always called him Jordan.
--Says, "You know, that's the tragedy of all this, Jordan."
He goes, "Hal, we'll always be friends."
Might is not reserved solely for the just.
While heroes can exhibit incredible strength or skills...
...villains may possess abilities equal to or even greater than their foes.
It's not enough for villains merely to offer a challenge to the heroes...
...but, rather, they must present the all-too-real possibility...
...that good might not triumph over evil.
You're defined by the height of the mountain you climb.
And so the higher the mountain, the more the epic struggle it is to climb that...
...the greater the adventure, the greater the hero.
If I have the powers of the gods, then am I not a god myself?
A good villain, you have to believe that he can win.
If you have Superman fighting a common mugger, that's not interesting.
You know that Superman's gonna win.
The idea that Lex Luthor can out-think Superman, that he is smarter than Superman...
...and no matter what Superman's powers are, Lex Luthor can think of a way to defeat him...
...makes that dynamic between the pair of them brilliant.
ADAMS: It's why we created Ra's al Ghul.
You need a Moriarty for Sherlock Holmes.
If Sherlock Holmes is superior to every criminal out there...
...what's his value?
So we want Sherlock Holmes to have a Moriarty.
We want Batman to have a Ra's al Ghul.
And we want it to be neck and neck.
Superman has all his powers because he's on Earth...
...and watching Zod discover that he has those same powers...
...I think Superman and Zod could fight for centuries.
And basically, it just comes down to...
The person who's gonna win that fight is the person who puts the most heart into it.
When I was writing Superman, I created the character called Mongul...
...who has become very big in the mythos since.
Basically, because I felt, "All right, this is silly.
You've got a guy here who moves planets...
...and he has to fight a guy he has to outsmart to beat.
What about somebody who can kick his butt?"
So I came up with Mongul, who was bigger and strong and taller.
And he gives somebody a physical challenge.
Somebody Superman has to work to beat, just on a hands-on basis.
Darkseid is a great villain just because of the amount of power that he holds.
He's godlike and it's not easy to fight him and come back alive.
Going up against a character like Darkseid really proves your hero's worth.
The Anti-Monitor is a character like Darkseid, one of our cosmic-level villains.
He's a force of nature, a force of danger.
Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor can literally cross time and space...
...and they represent a threat that, again, only a hero such as Superman...
...or a hero of that level can face and that's why they are almost more frightening.
Again, to an earlier point, that's why we need a Superman...
...because they have to deal with threats that we as common people can't.
In a battle of equals, the outcome always remains uncertain...
...and, on occasion, fortune favors the fiendish.
The villain escapes soot-free.
They get their lucky break or manage to land the killing blow.
What does it mean when the hero falls in battle and the villain emerges victorious?
If it's all too clean and too neat, why are we continuing to buy books?
Why are we continuing to read these stories...
...if we don't have the sense that there's a certain danger...
...or a mortal danger to our hero?
You know, we have a very clear statement. We said, you know:
"The hero has to win every time.
The villain only has to win once."
Even though we want ultimate good to triumph over evil...
...there will be battles along the way where there are setbacks.
The question of "Can the villain succeed?" is always a tricky one.
I believe they can...
...but obviously you have to make certain that you're careful, the extent of it.
There are different kinds of villains...
...and thus different kinds of impact to what a villain does.
Most of the criminal villains...
...the guys who are just out there to rob a bank or do whatever...
...don't leave lasting impact.
The ones like the Joker potentially can affect an entire series.
Don't you just love a happy ending?
One of the risks of being a superhero is that the people that you love...
...whether they're superheroes themselves or citizens...
...you put them at risk.
And so with Jason Todd, essentially that is what happened...
...where the Joker murders him...
...and we have one of these rare instances where a primary character was murdered.
For Batman, that meant incredible guilt.
That meant feeling that he was responsible for the death...
...and that was what the Joker essentially wanted.
I always loved Black Manta. You never knew his real name.
He had that helmet that covered his face. He killed Aquaman's baby.
You have to be a real sick, cold bastard to kill a baby.
It felt so horrific to me that I couldn't do anything...
...but look at this character and go, “This is the coldest guy in the DC universe."
In a lot of ways, I think Black Manta to Aquaman...
...is very much akin to what Bane is to the Batman.
Both characters were very capable...
...and did cause great harm and pain to the main characters.
When Bane broke Bruce Wayne's back...
...it was proof positive to all the readers around the world...
...that, yes, you got this right all these years.
This is a superhero who has no superpowers...
...who, arguably, his greatest superpower is his humanity...
...who is vulnerable...
...whom you can identify with because he has no superpowers.
And now, maybe for the first time, we're taking that one extra step.
We are crossing the Rubicon...
...and we are showing you, and his back is broken...
...and Batman is either dead or incapacitated.
And I think readers still remember that. Readers have a visceral reaction to that.
This is someone who could hurt Batman. This is someone Batman...
...even in his calmest of nights wakes up and thinks:
"This is a guy who once really severely hurt me, who's still out there."
So I think that's why Bane still has that kind of attraction to readers.
What Bane was to Batman, Doomsday was to Superman...
...the embodiment of brutal physical force.
This is the great fear Superman has.
Having a foe that he cannot find a way to stop one way or another.
He was designed to kill Superman.
Every time he dies, he comes back stronger...
...with whatever killed him now no longer something that can kill him.
Doomsday stirs up massive chaos...
...and delivers the hero his biggest defeat ever.
Doomsday kills Superman.
I can't think of another villain where his appearance on the stage is enough that...
...you know, the world is shaking.
I would even argue that the death of Superman story itself isn't even a story.
It's just a fight scene.
The story comes from how the world reacts afterwards.
When you get to see the "Funeral For a Friend"...
...you see what Superman meant to the world...
...which reﬂected what the real world did a lot...
...when they thought we were really gonna leave Superman dead.
They went crazy sad.
Any time you have that level of tragedy impacting a DC character...
...we go through and show the repercussions of that act...
...and how it affects the relationships between all the heroes...
...and the impact it has on all their friends and family.
And so, to me, it's not done lightly.
We don't have last episodes. We have the next episode.
And we do have to deal with the repercussions.
And, again, if the bad guys are winning too often...
...then that hero doesn't deserve his own title and he should probably stop being a hero.
Superman died, but that wasn't what the story was about.
His death was a piece of that story.
It was almost the beginning of the story.
And then Dan Jurgens and Mike Carlin, all those guys created Reign of the Supermen...
...which is all about Superman's return.
With Batman breaking his back, it was the same thing.
How strong is Bruce Wayne?
His back's broken, but the city still needs him.
So he heals himself and comes back as Batman.
He overcomes that. But sometimes the villains do win...
...but it's only momentarily.
Any general can tell you it's not the battles, it's the ultimate war.
And I think if you look at the grand scope of the DC universe...
...it is ultimately good triumphing over evil.
The best stories, the stories that kind of last with you...
...are the ones that even though good wins, there's a price to be had for that victory.
I don't consider the hero having a victory if it doesn't come at a cost.
They have to have something sacrificed, either personal or physical...
...that occurs every time they win.
They have to be giving up something of what they are in order to help mankind.
They're making a sacrifice every time they put that costume on...
...every time they're confronting something and putting themselves at risk.
So, therefore, there should be something given up in their social life...
...their personal life, about who they are.
They should be a little broken because of what they've done.
Only thing that keeps them going is that they're doing something for the better good...
...and for helping other people.
In the history of comics, DC in particular...
...there are not hundreds, there are thousands of supervillains.
Thousands of supervillains.
And there's no way we can talk about all of them.
We can only talk about a fraction of them.
I think that the very fact that we have such a wide variety of villains...
...that can be anything from, you know...
...essentially, a high-tech bank robber to someone like Darkseid who is a new god...
...is something I think strengthens our universe.
It gives us, you know, a great spectrum of villainy.
This spectrum of evil is diverse and dynamic...
...falling into a vast array of villainous categories and characteristics.
Indeed, the tropes and commonalities of villainy are far-reaching.
First off is the uncontrollable beast...
...that rages and rains down destruction on those unfortunate souls caught in its path...
...the monster.
My favorite monster is my--
The classic monsters, the reason that they're enduring and scary...
...is because they almost-- They look like people that you love...
...or that you care about or that you trust.
Your neighbors, your wife, your mother.
Then something infects them or turns them into something that's an unstoppable force.
Probably the most illustrious monster of the Golden Age of comics was Solomon Grundy.
He's an animated corpse.
The heroes, even Batman, is okay with trying to destroy Grundy...
...because he's dead already.
I like Bizarro Superman because he's just so off-the-wall.
I mean, he's like just sort of a crazy super powerful...
...almost Frankenstein monster version of Superman.
A villain as old as literature...
...but only heightened by the advent of the atomic bomb...
...the mad scientist reﬂects our mistrust and fear of technology...
...of advances that could undo us as a people.
New inventions come along that could be...
...the most wonderful boon for humanity...
...or it could mean the seeds of their destruction.
So it figures that mad scientists would be one of the true fears...
...incorporated into the personified forms of supervillains.
Doctor Sivana was a cackling, bald, bespectacled scientist...
...who usually could be seen in a white coat.
And he was responsible continually for the near demise of Shazam.
Before there was a Doctor Sivana, for Lex Luthor...
...there was the Ultra-Humanite...
...who was sort of like the very first mad scientist.
He put his brain into other people's bodies, or his consciousness in other people's bodies.
So I believe, at one time, he was a beautiful woman.
He was different people throughout his history.
And now he's like a white ape-like creature.
Charmed, I'm sure.
But that just goes to show the power of the mind over the matter.
It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside.
As long as that brain survives, that brain is going to be trouble for you.
A militant general...
...a despot, a conqueror.
This is a villain not far removed from our world's own tyrants.
We know them as the dictator, or more simply the overlord.
I have a duty to my people.
And I will not allow anyone to prevent me from carrying it out.
With Zod, it's a pure power thing.
There's something very moving about the fact...
...that this story begins with him...
...basically seeing his entire planet explode...
...like his home evaporate into nothing.
I can't imagine a bigger launching-off point for a character...
...and then knowing that he'll do whatever he can to make a new Krypton...
...because he can't help himself.
It's the only option he has.
It's what he was born to do.
That's what he's been training to do his whole life.
He's fighting for Krypton, for his people.
And he's a warrior.
And so he's capable of committing, like...
...horrific crimes against humanity and/or anything living.
Starro the Conqueror is an alien starfish.
Giant starfish that comes down on Earth and seizes control city by city.
Then in terms of seizing their minds, it was right out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Culled from our own Mob-laden underworld...
...the criminal mastermind is both power-hungry and immoral.
Feeding their insatiable desire for control...
...they keep the public in fear as they tighten their grasp on their domain.
Certainly one of the great types of villains is the criminal mastermind...
...the guy who holds an entire city or town or village or whatever in a grip of fear.
Penguin has what is informally known as a Napoleon complex...
...the small man who wants to be big.
If he could lose that weight, he wouldn't, because it helps him take up more space.
His hat makes him taller.
His umbrella, when extended, helps him take up more area.
From the very first story he appears in...
...he wants to rise up in high society and wants to be a crime boss.
A number of stories feature him running for mayor...
...not because he wants to do something great. He wants that status.
He wants the power...
...and he wants the status to be the big man over everybody else in Gotham.
The criminal mastermind is sort of an extension of the real...
...Mob crime organizations or crime families that have been a part of American history...
...almost since the country was founded. That's a great character for comics...
...because you can take that into the area of caricature.
Currently, guys like Black Mask.
What's more hideous than a guy in this, you know...
...awful-looking skull mask...
...wearing a business suit, commanding a legion of street troopers?
I mean, that's a great foe for Batman.
To guys like Penguin, Black Mask, they're out to really dominate the city.
They wanna be the distorted, hideous, grotesque face of Gotham City.
Can we get some girls in here? Careful what you wish for.
Unh!
Cat got your tongue?
The apple on the tree.
The seductive siren song of the temptress.
The femme fatale.
The femme fatale crystallizes the qualities of both a villain and a love interest...
mall at the same time.
You can find roots in movies.
You can find the actresses...
...who maybe inspired some of the villainesses who were created.
And these were women who used their beauty to lure the hero in...
...to get the hero to do their bidding.
And that of course was reflected in the comics.
It was part of the inherent popular culture.
Poison Ivy is a great example of a female villain...
...who will actually take advantage, knowing that the male characters...
...the male heroes, and even the male villains...
...that she's working with, are the ones susceptible to love...
...to connecting with her.
And she uses those assumptions for her own gain.
She finds that her power is in, essentially...
...taking advantage of other people's vulnerability to emotions.
She took everything that could be seen as objectification towards women...
...and then used it as her own power and turns it around on the guys.
She's very interested in controlling people.
Harley Quinn is a case of love gone bad.
The individual who's fascinated with the supervillains...
"fascinated with their egos and their qualities, and Joker plays to that.
So Harleen Quinzel is a woman...
...who is a psychiatry intern, essentially, at Arkham Asylum.
When Bruce Timm and I wrote the origin for her...
...in Mad Love, then we really got into her personality.
That she wanted to write a tell-all book about Gotham's psychotic criminals...
...then wound up falling under the sway of one and becoming one herself.
She wants the toughest case possible.
And who is the toughest case? It's the Joker.
There's this connection that they have together.
I think there is an element of manipulation on his end.
That he, um...
I think he fancies her, but also that he's realizing that...
...here's an opportunity for him to get out of Arkham Asylum.
Harley's a bit of a social chameleon.
She molds herself to the people around her. When she hangs out with heroes, she's heroic.
She hangs out with villains, she's villainous. When with the Joker, she's more murderous...
...than she is at other times.
Some of the villainesses that we have in the DC universe...
-...are almost more powerful than the villains. - The sky is the limit...
...as far as female villains are concerned.
Someone like Cheetah, who is crazy ferocious.
With the Cheetah, I wanted to create somebody...
...who resonated with Wonder Woman, with Diana.
We added kind of a back-story that they were friends...
...and then ultimately she became the Cheetah.
And Wonder Woman later learned she was never really her friend.
It was all just a play, and it was a bond of trust that was broken.
And the Cheetah has turned into this savage creature that wants to destroy humanity...
...as much as Wonder Woman wants to protect it.
At this point in time...
...I think we're lucky enough to be in an era where there is a lot more equality.
And you're getting some great stories.
They can be defined by what their plot is...
...what their motive is, what their goals are, what their methods are.
And that's great that you don't simply have to define them by gender.
The female villain, you know, historically...
...goes back all the way to Greek mythology.
Look at a character like Hera, for instance...
...who is both a heroine and a villain, depending on the story.
Other female villains throughout time have a lot of that same complexity to them.
You look at a character like Catwoman, for instance.
In her original incarnation, I believe, she was just an adventurer.
She was out there being a burglar and jewel robber...
...simply because of the thrill of it.
We began learning more about her in the 80s, what her past might have been...
...and that certainly made her more of a complex and more of a sympathetic character.
And then to the present day where she is...
...I believe one of the members of the Justice League.
So she's gone all the way from being a villain to anti-hero to straight-on heroine.
She's very curious to us. She has that duality of both good and evil.
And I think that that allows her to be relatable.
I think that she's the most realistic.
It was just interesting to see this strong, female character.
And she was a precursor, I think...
...to a lot of the sort of heroines that we now see on screen.
Women really started to become more popular on the big screen and on TV.
As a result, I think of characters like Catwoman being portrayed...
...in the early days of television and film.
Today, happily, from what I have seen and read...
...you have superheroes, superheroines, supervillains, supervillainesses...
...all on a level playing field.
I think any time you can make the character strong...
...whether they're male or female, you'll end up with a good villain.
it should come as no surprise, no coincidence, really...
...that the more popular heroes are the ones who typically battle the most sinister...
...and charismatic rogues' galleries.
For it's this dynamic roster of villains...
...that bolster and buoy the popularity of our hero.
When you look at the very best characters, the very best heroes...
...in comic book mythology, they typically have the strongest rogues' gallery.
I think you develop a better rogues' gallery around the superhero...
...if the scale of the superhero...
...is one where it's easy to imagine the villain coming into being.
You look at Batman, Batman ultimately is a human being.
So therefore you can have villains that face him that are human plus a little.
Batman's rogues' gallery, which I think is the best rogues' gallery...
...of all the DC heroes, that resonates the most.
Those characters are considered, you know, sort of the greater villains.
There's an interesting thing about a lot of Batman's rogues...
...and here I'm specifically thinking of, like, the Penguin and Two-Face...
...and Clayface and the Joker.
They're all physically deformed in some way.
And that physical deformity actually drives their evil.
Massively more difficult to have villains of scale for Superman.
Character is incredibly powerful.
Who's tough enough to fight him?
Brainiac felt like a character who could actually fight Superman and win without superpowers...
...because he's a computer. He's a computer character.
So you must be Brainiac. Okay.
Brainiac was an alien who was collecting cities...
...of different world cultures as he moved throughout the galaxy...
...throughout the universe.
And he comes to Earth to shrink Metropolis, among other cities...
...and put it in a glass bottle...
...and take it in his interplanetary collection back to wherever he may have come from.
We didn't want it to always be Lex Luthor that was fighting Superman, or Brainiac.
But then you start running out of the famous names.
So we kept coming up with new guys, you know.
The Parasite, he becomes this individual who draws power from others.
He draws super power from Superman or other superheroes he was around.
He draws life force from other people.
Sometimes even identity from other people.
I think Metallo's a really interesting villain.
And a large part of why I like him is because he was human...
...but now he's got this Kryptonite heart.
So he still has a heart, but it's a deformed heart.
It's an obscene heart. It's a heart of evil.
And that heart affects what he does, and it has such a massive effect on Superman.
Characters like Superman and Wonder Woman, the rogues' galleries get a lot smaller.
Wonder Woman in particular has a very small gallery...
...because of who she is and what she represents...
...and how she becomes more iconic makes it harder to play off of her weaknesses...
...because a lot of people don't see weaknesses in the character.
There's no major villainy that could exploit those weaknesses in her.
We added another layer to Wonder Woman's origin by making her the daughter of Zeus.
So she has divine blood.
And then we wanted to take it even further.
It's like, "Well, let's create somebody new, a new god."
And it is-- We created this character called the First Born.
He has no name. He was the first child of Zeus and Hera.
And he was cast out of Olympus because there was a prophecy...
...that he would take over Olympus.
So here is her original brother who's been cast out of heaven and hated by all.
So now he's got a major hate-on for his family and the world.
Just as heroes wit! bond together to fight a common enemy...
...so too will the villains.
The fusion of good is matched only by the unification of evil.
The Crime Syndicate, the Secret Society...
...the Rogues, the Legion of Doom.
Though their members differ...
...all villain team-ups employ the same battle-tested strategy:
There is strength in numbers.
My favorite aspect of working in this business...
...is when I have created various incarnations of various teams.
We need one character who can fly. We need one character who's really strong.
We need one character who's maybe got some magical powers.
And just putting that together is half the challenge.
The story writes itself more often than not after that.
In The Challenge of the Super Friends...
...where you've got the Justice League members marching...
...towards the screen and then the other side, the Legion of Doom are marching.
They're coming at each other, and there's this explosion when the two sides hit each other.
I mean, you know, as a 6-, 7-year-old kid, you know, it blew your mind.
Normally, villains are seen as individuals and they have their own personal plot...
...to take over the world or something like that.
But the idea of them combining together, you know, makes their threat that much bigger.
Supervillain team-ups, ha, ha, are their own unique animal...
...because on the one hand...
...there's a huge potential and disappointment ratio...
...when supervillains team up.
The potential is, well...
...it's two great tastes that taste great together.
It's two threats are better than one.
You know, when Lex Luthor and Brainiac team up...
...you know, when the Joker and the Riddler team up...
...that's incredibly, you know, resonant and powerful.
The problem is that 99.9 percent of the time...
...the ability of the superhero to overcome their plan...
...is usually hidden in the conflict between the supervillains.
The supervillains, they can't get their act together. A comic book is 22 pages.
They can get their act together for 19 pages, but those last three are just, ugh...
...they're just falling apart.
I'd like to complete this transaction with as little bloodshed as possible, Lex.
Now put your hands up and have Toy Man turn us around.
Don't look at him, Big Boy.
Grodd is leader.
The Rogues are different. The Rogues can come together for a common goal.
They're guys that seem silly at first, but you look at somebody like Mirror Master.
Okay, the guy can teleport through any reflective surface, not just a mirror.
He can bend light, illusions.
He can make himself appear in multiple places at once.
I mean, there's so many very interesting things that he can do on his own...
...that when you put him into a group with other villains that are versatile...
...you have a really cool set of personalities and powers.
Although, they do have, you know, specific rivalries.
Heat Wave and Captain Cold don't like each other.
Yeah, one's hot and one's cold, but there are reasons.
In our "Flash Run," all the Rogues...
...they used to have guns and wands and mechanical devices dating back...
...to when they were originally created. But we made them have superpowers...
...and it's because of Captain Cold.
He made them undergo this transformation that gave them superpowers.
Well, it had negative side effects.
For poor Heat Wave, it burnt off basically all the top layer of his skin...
...so he looks really gross and messed up, so he hates Captain Cold for making him that way.
Why do they hang out together?
There's strength in numbers, and Flash is fast enough...
...he can fight more than one person at a time.
There's something about the Rogues.
They wanna pull their jobs, live their lives and be alone.
Like, it's their job to pull off heists and steal stuff.
That's how they make their living. They consider themselves blue-collar guys.
"Gonna pop a beer and we're gonna spend the money we made by robbing the bank."
What other villains can you think about? They pull a heist, they escape the Flash...
-...and then they go to a bar to have a beer? - The Suicide Squad is the exception to the rule.
And what makes it interesting is it's a bunch of villains...
...who are forced by the government to go on missions that are for the good of the people.
And if they fail, if they decide to try and escape, they have devices that will kill them.
So they are forced to do it.
I think the fact that they are forced to be heroes despite their own instincts...
...and that they're constantly trying to work out ways to undermine missions...
...and to sometimes betray their teammates and be villains even while they're--
When they're forced to do the right thing is the reason why that team, that book...
-...is always around and is always popular. - None of their motivation is theirs.
They're doing the bidding of Amanda Waller and the government.
Are the people that are planting these bombs...
...on the backs of the Suicide Squad members...
...are they the heroes?
You know, purportedly they are.
But the way they're doing it, it really, you know comes down to...
...it's an extreme form of water boarding, I think.
They have reason to hate their handlers, who are supposed to be the good guys...
...but they're not seen that way in the books.
So it's an interesting study in what makes a villain and what makes a hero...
...because it's kind of flip-flopped in that book.
They're not there to personally screw the other guy standing next to them.
They are there to just survive.
And they are-- They don't want it to be their suicide mission.
And I do think that that's of a different and new angle.
Suicide Squad is successful, because it has a rotating cast.
You could kill some members off. There's always that question...
...of something happening to the cast that could change the status quo.
There's always that anticipation that if a mission goes wrong...
...somebody could actually die.
It's a gut-level survival instinct.
For the reader, you're just like:
"Who's gonna make it through this mission and how?"
You know, and then, you know, “Are they gonna manage to actually get free...
...so they can take care of Amanda Waller?" Heh, heh, heh.
Sometimes it's more exciting to find a villain that's so powerful...
...the combined might of an entire team can't defeat them.
So the superheroes and the supervillains have to band together...
...put aside their differences.
You always have that classic shot where they reach out and shake hands...
...and, like, "Let's team up."
And, to me, that's like the ultimate odd couple.
The problem is though that there aren't that many of those kinds of villains.
So it's always a challenge to find one villain powerful enough to take out all of them.
It's interesting that someone like Lex Luthor could do it...
...just because he has the skill to out-think them.
So it isn't always power. Sometimes it's that X-factor.
But if you can manage to do the right storyline...
...again, it can be a lot of fun and a really great challenge.
I'm not here to challenge you, Darkseid. Quite the contrary.
I've got something you want. The only thing you want.
People can identify with that...
...because when we're faced with something that endangers...
...our way of life...
...we can set aside our differences and work together.
A fine line exists between a hero and villain.
And sometimes the line is crossed.
In essence, the hero becomes the villain.
But when a hero loses their way, is salvation possible?
One of the great classic stories of literature...
...is the drama of the good man goes bad.
What is it that can happen to us that puts us through...
...a set of circumstances that drives us to do something we don't morally believe in?
That's a powerful tale.
Trying to turn a hero, you have to actually figure out how to affect their moral center.
It's in the face of a planet being blown up, a city being blown up...
...or a wife or a lover dying.
And the idea that "I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't powerful enough and perhaps...
...me doing the right thing or being a hero was the problem.
If I'd been more vicious, if I'd been more brutal, I could have changed things."
I think every great turn of a hero to a villain, it comes from that.
LEE: In Injustice, the storyline is that the Joker has killed Lois...
...and it's not just Lois' death that drives Superman to almost a level of insanity...
...but the fact that Lois was carrying his child...
...and so it has double significance and impact on him.
That's enough.
At that point, he kind of loses his frame of reference...
...and decides to create almost a totalitarian state...
...where he's the ultimate authority. So again in his mind...
...he is trying to prevent what happened to Lois and his unborn child...
...from happening in the world by becoming...
...you know, the enlightened dictator.
But, you know, you see sort of the holes in logic of that.
You know, ultimately, you are creating a greater evil...
...by trying to do some small sense of good.
There have been a few stories where heroes go villainous for some time...
...and I think probably the most famous one is Hal Jordan when Coast City...
...the city he called home, was attacked.
And many people were killed and destroyed and he wanted to bring them back.
And he went to the Guardians and said, "Give me this power so I can do it."
And they said no, and he ultimately killed them...
...and became--
Went crazy, became this big villain in the DC universe.
You know, they say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Usually when a hero falls from grace it's because they've succumbed...
...to their own power, like when Hal Jordan became Parallax.
It was Hal Jordan overreaching...
...and trying to use his power as the Green Lantern to recreate an entire city...
...and he kept wanting more and more power.
And he basically got corrupted by his own...
You know, by his own super power.
And I think that is usually the path down-- You know, down darkness.
Through becoming the Spectre...
...and ultimately becoming Green Lantern again he found redemption.
But it took years and it was a great hero's journey that we got to witness.
JOHNS: Hal Jordan was always about overcoming fear and I thought, "Well...
...if he's all about overcoming fear, there's gotta be a moment that he gave in to fear.
When was that weakness?" That weak point was when he was worried...
...something else was gonna happen once Coast City was destroyed.
And in that moment, he let fear kind of take hold of his heart.
That's when Sinestro unleashed Parallax, who was this--
We created this entity of terror that could possess his soul and corrupt his body.
And essentially turn him into Parallax.
And by having Hal still make a mistake and give in to fear...
...it was still on point and gave him a point of failure.
But at the same time...
...adding Parallax allowed for an easier redemption.
And so if a hero does cross the line...
...does he just go back to work the next day? The idea was no.
It was a 10-year problem for him.
Comic books, by, I think, their basic nature is about wish fulfillment.
Therefore, the concept of second chances...
...is actually built into the very concept of the type of material we do.
So the idea that a hero or a villain could be redeemed...
...is exactly what comics have to be about.
We can take bad and turn it good.
And we can make good even better.
And that's what comics and fantasy storytelling is all about.
Cry for Justice began with a bunch of heroes trying to track down Prometheus.
Prometheus has actually taken the identity of one of the heroes.
So he actually is amongst them the entire time.
At the end of it...
...Prometheus has worked out a way to destroy most of Star City...
...which is Green Arrow's home.
He also maims Arsenal...
...and then ultimately Arsenal's daughter is killed.
What happens at the very end is the one moderate person...
...Green Arrow, then tracks down Prometheus on his own and executes him.
And that then led to a long arc for Green Arrow where he had to redeem himself.
Green Arrow crossed the line and took the life of a villain.
He did not just come back from that adventure...
...and say, "Oh, well, I'm never gonna kill people again."
He had a mental breakdown, and we did a year...
...a year and a half long story where he lost it.
And it was to show that there's consequences for this kind of stuff.
I do think that in modern comics, it's okay for the heroes to fail.
You just got to have it mean something.
And not just teach them something...
...but have them suffer because they did something wrong.
Taking someone's life, you take away all they're gonna have and ever will be.
And it stays with you even if you do it for the right and proper thing.
So, you know, killing in comics is-- When the hero pulls the trigger...
...I think it's not done a lot, but I think when it's done...
...it has to be done in a real big way...
...that has an emotional punch to the hero's psyche and soul.
After we've witnessed such heinous crimes...
...after we've experienced firsthand...
...pure evil in the face of villainy, can the evildoer be redeemed?
In this comic book world where heroes often get second chances...
...can the villain ever be forgiven?
It's a lot harder to figure out how somebody who spent years...
...taking what they wanted, killing people...
...whatever set of misdeeds will suddenly turn around...
...and find God and become moral the rest of their lives.
Does it happen?
Probably does in reality, but it's a real tough story to tell.
Black Adam is an interesting character. He was chosen by the wizard Shazam...
...given powers back in the ancient Egyptian days.
He was a slave in Kahndaq.
He took these powers, became Black Adam, the champion, and he was a hero.
And over time, he was corrupted by that power.
He went back to Kahndaq and he said, “I'm leading Kahndaq now, you are free.
I'm here." And then he found someone he fell in love with. Isis was born...
...and then Isis' brother Osiris. Like, we kind of created a Black Adam family.
And then that family was torn apart and they were killed.
And Isis, who had been such a great presence for Adam, who had preached peace.
As she's dying in his arms, the last words she says is, "Avenge us."
And that sends Black Adam off.
And he kills an entire country out of rage.
And, obviously, hard to redeem somebody after that.
He believes in doing the right thing.
He just goes about it in such a barbaric and awful way.
Pete Tomasi wrote a fantastic story wrapped around a character everybody should hate.
And made him-- You know, made him a hero...
...in a very-- You know, from a very villainous past.
It's a weird spot to be in when you're a writer, when you have to say:
"I committed genocide, but I have to make this character relatable...
...and in a weird way have people understand where he was coming from at that point."
So it's a tough line to walk when you're a writer writing a character...
...who's as three-dimensional as Black Adam...
...because he really is one of those great three-dimensional characters...
...that you could horribly understand why he does something.
With villains, though, when you try and turn them into heroes...
...they can lose their... What makes them special.
So it's a very rare case where a villain is better as a hero.
Most of the time most readers just can't wait for them to be villainous again.
ROMANO: When we worked on Dark Knight Returns...
...where we have Doctor Wolper...
...trying to bring the Joker back and trying to work with him...
...and now Doctor Wolper also has an enormous ego.
And so you've got Joker's ego, Wolper's ego.
It doesn't work out well. It doesn't work out well for Wolper.
But the Joker absolutely was all about:
"I am rehabilitated. I'm here. I've seen the error of my ways."
And he really just used that as a matter to get himself out of Arkham...
...so he could commit tremendous crimes.
I think some of them can be redeemed, but I think what you gotta do...
...is you gotta dangle the sense of redemption in front of them then rip it away.
Ultimately, you show why they were a villain in the first place.
As society continues to evolve, so too do our villains.
In September of 2011...
...DC relaunched its entire line of comics...
...dubbed The New 52.
Two years ago, relaunched the DC universe.
We called that The New 52 and it was basically a soft reset of the universe...
...where we basically fixed the things that we felt weren't working...
...and kept going with the things that were.
We sat down and thought about: "What do we need more of in the DC universe?"
And one of the things that we wanted to address was the villains.
What is villainy to us in 2013? What is real evil in 2013?
It's horrendous, right? And sometimes if you get too close to the reality of it...
...it takes you out of the comic book.
So using super villains as metaphors for whatever that is...
...and for the brutal attacks that they do, it's gotten darker. It's darker. And it's scarier.
And the attacks come without notice sometimes and they're personal.
I think that's because we live in a very, sort of, fearful time.
Ever since 9/11, the world's been on edge...
...and no one knows when the next shoe is gonna drop.
Is it gonna be a tsunami? Is it gonna be economic collapse?
Villains that sort of embody that sense of unpredictability...
...that sense of, you know, doom can come in any form and at any time.
I think that speaks to everyone's sort of hidden fears.
Instead of characters of good and evil, it became about characters of order and chaos.
It became about anarchy.
We are artists and we're trying to reflect what's going on in the world.
That's what all art does. It's a mirror.
While DC's rogues' gallery of villains is already enormous...
...there's always room for a little more evil.
With the advent of The New 52, the heroes of the DC universe...
...must face new threats and adversaries.
I have a strange belief about the way one proceeds with comics...
...is to using old characters and introducing new characters.
My belief is if you're gonna use one or two old characters...
...you have to introduce a new one.
I don't think we should ever be so content to keep riding on the same horse.
If the hero has to survive for 16, 20, 30 years...
...you wanna know all the different aspects of that character...
...and the villain will make them face certain parts about themselves...
...that on their own...
...they may not even think about or can come up in a storyline.
A villain will find that, because they're always trying to find something new...
...to use against the hero...
...which makes you explore your hero even more.
The goal of any villain is to challenge our hero, right?
Not to challenge them but to take them to the ragged edge...
...of his existence in every way.
The idea is to try and think about what the character is most afraid of...
...at that particular moment in his or her life, the hero...
...then create a villain that comes right at that thing.
So for "Court of Owls," that story was really about...
...you know, a moment when Batman was on top of the world.
He felt very confident in Gotham and it made me realize...
...Batman might think he knows the city but he can't know the history of the city.
He can't know everything about it. So what if the city itself begins to come at him saying:
"You don't know me that well." With the Court of Owls...
...they're this group buried and layered into the past of the city in ways that are scary to him.
He doesn't believe they exist at all.
Then he sees that they actually have nests for their Talons...
...inside Wayne buildings and then in the penultimate scene...
...he realizes that the person behind the story...
...is actually someone who claims to be a Wayne himself.
The Guardians of the Universe were characters that they're ancient beings...
...that divorced themselves from emotion a long time ago.
They thought emotion was dangerous.
They say the law is supposed to be devoid of emotion.
The First Lantern is the being who got the first ring...
...who was there to witness the divorcing of the Guardians and their emotional hearts.
And he took that emotional power for himself.
And he had changed who he was...
...and the Guardians locked him away like they did their emotions.
The First Lantern is a metaphor for all the pent up emotion the Guardians have buried.
And that First Lantern is now free.
At one point, the First Lantern says-- As he's got them captured...
...he's turned the tables and he says, “I'm gonna change this universe now.
But before I do, I want you to have your emotions back.
I want you to feel this."
The Guardians, for the first time in billions of years...
...have their emotions back and they feel shame and fear...
...and horror about what they've done and what they've become...
...which I really enjoyed.
And then that's right before Sinestro wipes them out.
When I got into Aquaman and I was launching Aquaman for The New 52...
...my attitude was he wants to be on land.
So he made a conscious decision in issue one, "My life is on land here."
And I wanted to have something that was gonna drag him back into the ocean.
So we created-- Ivan Reis and I created this race of sea creatures...
...humanoid sea creatures, man-eating creatures...
...that were starving and from the trench and they had eaten all their food...
...and they were coming up.
They come up out of the ocean and attack a town...
...and Aquaman gets involved with that attack...
...and has to go back into the water.
What Aquaman doesn't know is they're actually another kingdom.
They're actually another underwater kingdom that is one of many, with Atlantis.
Although it was spawned from comics...
...the DC universe isn't limited to panels and pages.
It has expanded to include all forms of media and given its villains new worlds to explore.
JOHNS: DC Comics isn't just comics, you know?
It starts in the comics, all the characters come from the comics.
But then they explode into everything else.
KIRSHEN: If it wasn't for these amazingly rich and complex and multilayered villains...
...that we had to craft our stories around and what is driving you through the story...
...what is pushing Batman, you know, to push his limits...
...to get to the end of the game is ultimately the plan...
...and the storytelling around the villain...
...and the villains' interactions with each other as they all try to take down Batman.
You had your shot, Deathstroke, but you're not the only assassin in town.
There is such rich material here and such deep, amazing characters...
...that have such long history and love from the fans...
...for 50, 60, 70 years that we wanna tell great stories in our games.
We don't want it to just be about the gameplay and cool visuals.
There's gotta be the meat there of a great story.
To me, it was a lot of fun to see that because it explores the world of these characters...
...and it doesn't just give you one flavor month in, month out.
The future, including the upcoming Forever Evil comic event...
...will continue to emphasize the villains and their many diabolical deeds.
As DC celebrates its villainy, we're doing the first New 52 event series.
I'm writing it. David Finch is drawing it. It's called Forever Evil.
And the context of this is the Justice League is dead.
The villains have inherited the earth. They've been killed by the Crime Syndicate.
So we create an event that now carries on throughout the rest of 2013 and 2014...
...that's all about the villains.
And when we looked at the whole lineup of characters, it really came down to:
Why does this character exist in the DC universe?
What role does this character fill?
How do we show that function through story, through character development?
Seeing all the villains manifest themselves in animation...
...and television and film and videogames from the comic books, that's...
I mean, that's the true power and testament to the characters themselves.
The supervillains of DC Comics...
...come in all manners of shapes, sizes, personalities...
...dark recesses and eccentricities.
They conquer worlds, eradicate cities and terrorize the innocent...
...all while fighting the hero.
And it's this bond between villain and hero that is inseverable...
"unbreakable, a fusion of soul, a sense of feeling...
...a deeply rooted connection that cannot be extricated.
Theirs is a war of intellect, of strength...
...of darkness and intertwined fate and destiny to keep doing battle.
They can't give up on each other.
Without the hero, there is no villain.
Without a villain, there can be no hero.