Superman Villains: A retrospective

The Core Media Forum
#32

Gallo: You’re correct, that was an episode of the Superman cartoon that Filmation made in the 60’s. Not the best version ever made, but it was my first Superman cartoon, and thus likely responsible for my being a superhero fan. :wink: As for why Parasite looked normal there, I think it was because they thought he looked too scary for kids. Though having him blow up was disturbing enough IMHO.

Khalbrae: You’re right, that was in the Superman/Batman comic. He was probably a “holdover” character (in comics, if you don’t use a name in several years you lose the trademark to it; as a result, sometimes new characters are given old names just to keep the company from losing them.)

OK, with Vartox, we’re definitely entering into the section of villains created in the 70’s. Well, Vartox wasn’t actually a villain- he was a superhero from another planet. But he ended fighting Superman so many times (mostly because he had a really short temper) that I count him as an enemy for this list’s purposes. Besides I wanted an excuse to talk about him. :wink:

Vartox was (supposedly) based on actor Sean Connery, specifically his character in the Science Fiction movie “Zardoz” (note how it sounds similar.) Let’s take a look at them and compare:

Here’s Vartox:

And here’s Connery in Zardoz:

(…Anybody else get the sudden impulse to start singing, “Macho, Macho Man?” :smiley: )

Anyway: Yeah, I see the resemblance. One reason I mention this, is that I can’t help but feel that Vartox was a “pet character” of his creator, writer Cary Bates. He only appeared in a few Superman stories, yet he was as powerful as Superman, if not more (seriously, he could do anything Supes could and more) and (far as I know) their fights were always draws, and in one case, he actually won! On the other hand, he was also a very tragic character: he just kept having bad things happen to him. Though that can also be part of being a “Mary Sue” character: you’re miserable so everyone feels sorry for you. But, I’ll let you decide for yourselves.

Vartox was the champion of Valeron, one of those alien planets in the DC Universe with perfectly human inhabitants that have never been adequately explained. It was located in the Sombrero galaxy (and yes, there IS such a galaxy in real life.) The origin of his “hyper powers” is unknown to me (and he just kept pulling out new ones out of his ass); I do know he’s been active as a hero from when Superman was only a baby (yet another Mary Sue clue.)

His tragic side was apparent from his very first adventure: he found his wife dead! It turned out she was somehow “linked” to a woman on Earth, and when she died -killed in a store robbery- Vartox’s wife died too. Vartox wanted to bring the robber to Valeron for trial, but his powers allowed him to foresee that this would lead to a fight with Superman in which Lois Lane would get killed! So instead, he tricked the criminal into coming with him willingly by telling him he represented alien criminals who were “interested in his talents.” This worked, and Vartox took him to Valeron, were he was given sixty years- literally! He was aged six decades, making him a feeble old man. Note: there was no actual battle here with Superman, only a vision, thought Superman did meet Vartox when he went to Valeron to bring the criminal back to Earth.

His second tragedy wasn’t that big, but it still bothered him: he started losing his powers. He discovered that the only way to recover them was to absorb the disease that another obscure Superman foe, Karb-Brak, was suffering from. Karb was an alien who came to Earth to recover from a disease that made him “allergic” to other superbeings, and caused him to go on rampages. After a few battles with Superman, the hero agreed to simply stay away from Karb.

But to absorb the alien toxins, Vartox had to trigger another rampage. This made him feel SO guilty, that he went in denial, even going so far as to hypnotize Karb into believing it was Superman who had been responsible! This led into his first true fight with Superman. In the end however, everything worked OK for everybody, since not only Vartox got his powers back but Karb-Brak was cured in the process!

But that was nothing compared to what happened next: Valeron EXPLODED!! Yes, just like Krypton, killing everybody except Vartox! Grieving, the hero went to Earth, where Superman arranged for him to live under the identity of “Vern O’ Valeron” working as chief of security of the GBS building (where the Daily Planet was now located.) “Vern” even ended up dating- Lana Lang, who had finally given up on romancing Superman! (No, she didn’t know about his being Vartox.) Things soon turned desperate when Vartox realized it had been HIM who destroyed Valeron, when he accidentally brought some element he’d encountered in space to his planet- it made oxygen molecules explode! Worse, HE HAD BROUGHT IT TO EARTH AS WELL!

…Or so he told Superman, who, however, couldn’t see anything wrong in the air with his supervision. This causes another fight between them, which Vartox actually won! As it turns out, the reason the air inside Superman’s Fortress of Solitude was OK was because of some “radioactive” remains of Valeron that Vartox brought to Earth to analyze- ironically, they were the antidote to the explosive reaction! The heroes gathered more of the “valeronite” and used it to save Earth. Afterwards Vartox decided to leave Earth (to find a planet that needed him as a hero) though at least he was fair enough to tell Lana the truth before leaving.

By his next appearance, he had found one: Tynola, a planet that seemed to suffer almost-constant disasters. He invited Superman over to see his new world… but it turned out he really wanted him to help investigate what was going on. It turns out that the Tynolans worshipped a “space god” and were planning on sacrificing Vartox to it! The “disasters” where all caused by the Tynolans to lure Vartox there. The “god” (basically a huge mouth) almost drains Vartox’s life force until Superman interceded. This causes it to leave Tynola permanently. Vartox then actually decided to stay in Tynola, in order to teach the now “godless” aliens how to have a decent civilization of their own.

In the last Vartox Pre-Crisis story, he was still in Tynola. He wanted to continue dating Lana, but the atmosphere of Tynola was poisonous to humans. However, a way to help her breathe there is found, and she joins him there… only to be turned to stone by an accidental ricochet of his powers! He also started seeing visions of his first girlfriend (not his late wife) who had turned out to be a criminal so he had to arrest her (his first tragedy) and he started thinking he was going mad. Except it turns out she wasn’t dead; she had stolen a part of Vartox’s powers and had survived the destruction of Valeron. Now she wanted to make him suffer; it was she who had arranged Lana’s “accident”. In the end however, she found she still loved him too much, and saved Lana by taking the “stone” effect upon herself. This left Vartox without either of them as Lana could no longer breathe in Tynola either. (See? The guy never gets a break.)

After the Crisis, Vartox was reintroduced as some alien criminal (I’m not sure about it) and his powers were toned way down ( I think he only has Superstrength now.) He also has a more decent costume:

I hear rumors that soon he’ll be reintroduced in a version more faithful to the original. We’ll see. Hopefully he won’t be overpowered anymore- or so tragic.

NEXT: The Non-Asiatic Yellow Menace: MONGUL!

…Ma-cho, Ma-cho Maaan! ♪ :stuck_out_tongue:

#33

Still the best animated Superman feature ever (In my humble opinion.)

The Mechanical Monsters. It was this close Mabatsekker’s origin didn’t have robots in it.
I did have this interesting spark of redesigning those “monsters” as a kid to new and improved versions with missiles, gatling lasers, etc… Glad I turned out to be a hero instead, eh? >_>;

Keep 'em coming Wil. Perhaps this nigh-daily pace will excercise your writing to it’s peak and then we’ll see even more quality fiction again?

#34

Oh dear god… Zardos… ZARDOSSSSSSSS!!!

I can’t believe they went a based a character in Superman after that film. Not that I have seen that stunning “special-effect” filled film, but my mates used to go on about it quite a bit. Mostly on just how shokcing the thing was.
But yeah can really see the similarities between the two characters. Although I think we all could have done without that pic of Sean Connery Wil:eek:… I don’t think anyway wanted to see that.

#35

Are you kidding me. I want that pic as my new avatar. From Zardoz with love!

So does anybody have access to a photoshop-like program? I want to get as much of that picture into my avatar without it becoming too pixilated (and I’m pretty sure both MSPaint and Word aren’t up to the task).

#36

Gimp?

#37

This work for ya, Killmore?

#38

Maybe he wants a png version with transparent background for blending in better with tutti frutti :wink:

#39

Mabat: Those Fleischer Superman cartoons still hold up very well even today; even with the limited FX they had back then, the combination of pacing, music, shading, etc. make them worth watching.

Keep 'em coming Wil. Perhaps this nigh-daily pace will excercise your writing to it’s peak and then we’ll see even more quality fiction again?
That’s the idea, actually. :slight_smile: But writing original material is much harder than this; here all I have to do is write down all I remember about a character, then adorn it with googled-up images. Still, I plan to follow this retrospective with new stories (here’s hoping!)

Although I think we all could have done without that pic of Sean Connery Wil
Actually, I did that intentionally. I was afraid this was getting a little repetitive so I threw in that to surprise the audience. :smiley: Don’t worry, there won’t be any more male stripper pictures here.

OK, our next villain is from the early 80’s, and can perhaps be thought of as the first truly mean Superman enemy: He actually kicked Supes’ ass more than once! (Unlike Vartox, though, Superman eventually did beat him decisively.) He was also menacing in a smart, ruthless way that no other Superman villain so far had been. The reason for this might be… because he was based on- Darkseid!!

Well, sort of. There’s a story behind that. In the 70’s, comic book writer/artist Jim Starlin created the villain Thanos, who was, at the very least, influenced by DC’s Darkseid. The similarities are so obvious than when they did the “Amalgam” comics crossover (with DC and Marvel characters merged together) Thanos and Darkseid were combined into “Thanoseid”. To be fair though, Thanos is a great character on his own.

(Note: The above is a piece of fanart; far as I know Thanos and Darkseid have never met… though it would rock if they did! :slight_smile: )

Years after having killed Thanos off (he would come back to life later, of course) Starlin came over to DC Comics and wrote a trilogy of stories for “DC Comics Presents” (a team-up title starring Superman ala Batman’s Brave and The Bold) and he created Mongul to be the villain. Anybody familiar with Starlin’s work (which I actually was not at the time) can tell Mongul was based on Thanos. Why not just use Darkseid instead? Well, maybe it was because the New Gods characters were not very popular at the time (up to that point, only their creator, Jack Kirby, had done them well.) Or maybe he just wanted to do something closer to his version of a “space tyrant.”

In any case, Mongul’s origin was not very clear. He was the tyrannical ruler of an alien race. However, a religious figure called “The Archimandrite” brought about a rebellion against him. Mongul swore he would one day return to re-conquer them. (Ironically, The Archimandrite ended up being a worse ruler then Mongul was.) How Mongul got so freakin’ strong was never explained. Was everybody in his planet stronger than Superman??

Anyway, in his first appearance, Mongul kidnapped three of Superman’s closest friends and demanded that the hero steal a “key” in the possession of the Martian race for him. The key could be used to active “Warworld”, a Death Star-type ancient superweapon. In a real “WTF?” moment, Superman actually fought with Martian Manhunter instead of working with him to rescue his friends and stop Mongul! J’onn ends up saving Superman’s friends anyway, but Mongul escaped with the key.

In the following issue, also written and drawn by Starlin, Superman and Supergirl go to stop Warworld, only to find its weapons too much even for them (!) However they figure out that Mongul will fry his brain trying to control Warworld for too long, and win by dragging the fight as long as they could. Mongul escaped, though Supergirl was lost in the machine’s explosion.

(The third part of the story, again by Starlin, didn’t feature Mongul; instead, it has Superman going to the afterlife to rescue Supergirl -she wasn’t dead, just lost- only to get his ass handed to him by the magical hero, The Spectre. But hey, Spectre is effectively second only to God in the DC Universe, plus Supes is a sucker for magic. Anyway, all he had to do was ask and Spectre got Supergirl back for him. The whole point of the trilogy seemed to be that Superman was too full of himself and needed to be brought down a peg, something I definitely didn’t agree with. It was interesting, anyway.)

Most of the other Pre-Crisis Mongul appearances were also in the DC Comics Presents series. His next appearance had him conquering the galaxy where the hero Starman (the third one; DC has a lot of Starmen) lived. This served as both a conclusion to the Starman series (which had been cancelled) and also allowed Starlin to revisit his days writing Marvel’s version of Captain Marvel, whom the space-based Starman had a similarity to, and who was Thanos’ first major foe. (Oh, and Thanos gave Supes the beating of his life here! He only ran when confronted by the two heroes.)

His next appearance was also in DCP, in a story co-starring the Legion of Superheroes. Mongul unleashed the Sun-Eater, an old foe of the Legion, to destroy Earth in revenge for his defeats at Superman’s hands. The Legion comes from the future to stop it, while Superman holds Mongul back and, (Finally!) knocks him out in hand-to-hand combat. It wouldn’t do to have Superman always lose to a villain (also, this story was not by Starlin, I think.)

But Mongul’s most famous appearance was in the story “For the Man who has Everything” from a Superman Annual. You may have seen it on TV, as it was adapted as an episode of Justice League. Mongul arranges Superman to get an alien plant as a “gift”, but the plant attaches to him and traps him in a dream world where Krypton never exploded. Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin try to fight Mongul (but are no match for him); fortunately, Superman’s subconscious mind twists the dream into a nightmare in order to get him to wake up. And when he does, and realizes his ideal life, including his wife and children, had never been real, well…

Yow. Never piss Superman off!

The story ends with the “Black Mercy” attached to Mongul instead, trapping HIM in his “perfect life” (the cartoon doesn’t show it, but he dreamed he killed all the heroes and conquered the universe.)

That was the last Pre-Crisis Mongul story; the big DC reboot came in 1985, making Mongul the last of the (good) Silver Age Superman foes.

Mongul was reintroduced after the Crisis, but his power level was much smaller- he could still fight Superman, though note that Superman could no longer do things like move planets anymore either. Mongul also already had access to Warworld, which he used to form a space empire, whose people he kept entertained via gladiatorial games. Superman (who was wandering through space after leaving Earth over his guilt for killing the Phantom Zone villiains, as mentioned above) was captured to take part in them. But he not only won, he ended up ousting Mongul as the ruler! Superman allowed the former champion, an alien warrior called Draaga, to rule it in his place, and went back to Earth, after he recovered from his “breakdown” (which had been in part caused by the telepathic Brainiac). This storyline was also adapted for the Justice League series.

In the comics, Mongul was killed off by the demon lord Neron (same guy who restored Luthor and Metallo) after he refused to make a deal with him. I guess they needed to kill some big villain in order to establish how “badass” Neron is. (He’s pretty dumb if you ask me.) The Mongul currently appearing in the comics is the original’s son, who just happens to be identical to his father. Oh, and he had a sister, Mongal. I swear I’m not making that up. Mongul II killed her off, though you can still see both of them in an episode of the Brave and the Bold cartoon.

Mongul may be my favorite Superman villain; he had the intellect of Brainiac and the power of Bizarro. However, given his few appearances outside the comics, he’s relatively obscure. Plus, Darkseid already fills the niche he had (ironically enough.)

Next: The Little Evil Alien Computer That Could: THE ERADICATOR!

#40

There’s something I always loved about “For the Man Who Has Everything.” You have a supervillain, Mongul, who can match or surpass Superman in just about everything. You also have Wonder Woman, who is able to survive a beating from one of Superman’s strongest enemies. And then you have Batman, who’s physically inferior, but can still be a mental match for just about anyone. But who wins the day? Who finally defeats the warlord once and for all?

Jason Todd, the Robin nobody liked.

This is still educational AND entertaining.

#41

d: Right again. I forgot to mention that fact, but it was a nice touch. (I also forgot that it was the Todd Robin who beat Mongul… honestly, he wasn’t that bad. They only made him a loser retroactively. Oh, and FTMWHE is no longer in continuity, that I know, so I guess that robs him of his victory… )

The Eradicator was (in my opinion) the first interesting new menace created after The Crisis in the Superman books. Its history is pretty unusual, though.

One thing you need to know, is that after the Crisis reboot, Krypton was changed radically. During the Silver Age, it was very similar to the way it was presented in the Superman movies (sans the “crystalline” technology) but after the Crisis, it became a technology-obsessed, logic-over-emotions type planet, ala Star Trek’s Vulcan. The Eradicator was a weapon created for the purpose of, well, “eradicating” any dissenters to this way of thinking.

(…Or maybe not? The Eradicator miniseries apparently later retconned this origin to say that in fact, it had been created by a dying alien race that sought refuge on Krypton, but who where killed off by xenophobic Kryptonians. The “eradicator” had actually been a computer that held the aliens’ historical records, but was reprogrammed by one of Superman’s ancestors. Why was this done? Was it to make it fit into the stupid “no kryptonians other than Superman” rule they had for a while? I don’t know. With all the flip-flops DC’s continuity has done since then, I’m not even sure if the miniseries is still canonical.)

In any case, The Eradicator, in its original form, was a small metallic device shaped like and egg with fins (very similar to the design of the post-crisis version of the starship that brough Superman to Earth, seen in the cover below.) I believe that was intentional.

Long ago, The Eradicator was used against The Cleric, an alien priest who had come to Krypton to preach. However, despite its great powers, the device failed. This might have been because of the Cleric’s own powers, or perhaps the semi-sentient weapon chose to go with The Cleric? In any case, The Cleric decided to leave Krypton along with those Kryptonians who elected to follow him… only for all of them to die when they were in space! (It turns out the technocracy had secretly altered all Kryptonians’ genes so that they could not survive away from the planet, possibly using the Eradicator’s own powers over matter. Note that Superman survived because his father, Jor-El, found this genetic “defect” and eliminated it from his unborn son.) Blaming himself for the accidental massacre, The Cleric set his spaceship down on an asteroid and waited to die.

And waited, and waited… for thousands of years! It turned out that The Eradicator had “linked” itself to The Cleric, preventing him from dying, probably figuring it needed someone to help it get around and accomplish its mission of preserving Kryptonian culture.

As it turns out, that asteroid eventually became part of Mongul’s space empire. When Superman was captured by them, The Eradicator felt the presence of a living Kryptonian, and eventually linked itself to him. This helped repair the mental damage Superman had been suffering from, but it also caused The Cleric to finally die. Superman took The Eradicator with him when he went back to Earth.

However, he eventually decided the device was too dangerous, and ended up tossing it into Antarctica. Oh, great idea, Supes. Throw a matter-rearranging computer where it had plenty of room and material to play with instead of, say The Sun. You can probably guess what happened next.

The Eradicator created a whole Kryptonian citadel (this was very likely inspired by the crystal-created Fortress of Solitude from the Superman movies, though with a different design.) Superman accepted this as his new base of operations. However, The Eradicator was set in “recreating” Krypton, so it began to influence Superman, making him more cold and calculating, until his family managed to snap him out of it.

(That’s Superman, in full “Krypton Man” mode, about to kill Draaga (from Mongul’s origin story) on the Moon. Umm, no, I don’t remember why the Statue of Liberty was on The Moon.)

It was THEN Superman thought about tossing the Eradicator into the Sun.
Not that it did any good, anyway: by then, the device had “evolved” so far that it could continue to exist in an “energy form”. It came back to “eradicate” Superman for his refusal to accept his “legacy” and to turn the Earth into another Krypton!

With help from Professor Hamilton (a scientist who helped Superman many times- before he too turned into a villain, that is) Superman diffused The Eradicator’s energies, and that seemed to be the end of it.

And then Superman died.

Not killed by anything The Eradicator did, but by the alien monster, Doomsday (more on him later.) This was of course the famous “Death of Superman” saga from the 90’s. As many of you know, shortly after his “death”, several Superman wannabes showed up: A cyborg (who had Superman’s DNA, but no memories of how he came back to life), a teenage clone (The new Superboy), a power-armor equipped hero who just wanted to carry on Superman’s legacy (Steel) and a mysterious, ethereal being who some though might be Superman’s vengeful ghost!

As you can probably guess (I did it right away :stuck_out_tongue: ) the “ghost” was really The Eradicator, having reintegrated itself, but in an incomplete form, so that it thought it was actually Superman! The confused being actually went and recovered Superman’s “corpse” (he was actually in suspended animation) from his grave in Metropolis and put it in a machine inside the Fortress that began healing it… but at the same time, he started draining it of its energies to power himself. As a result, when Superman finally awakened, he had lost his powers!

To make things worse, the “cyborg Superman” turned out to be Hank Henshaw, a minor Superman villain with the ability to “possess” machines who had found and taken over Superman’s rocket and used to create his duplicate body, all a part of a plan to trick the people of Metropolis while he worked with Mongul for the purpose of turning The Earth into another Warworld!

The villains actually managed to destroy Coast City (hometown of Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern) before anybody could stop them. Jordan then joined forces with Superboy, Steel, the just-revived Superman and the (now aware of himself) Eradicator to stop them. Mongul was defeated and (apparently, not really) killed by Green Lantern, while Cyborg-Superman tried to kill the real Supes with a Kryptonite ray-machine. Eradicator, in a surprisingly heroic move, interposed himself, and the beam went right through him and into Superman- which restored his powers!! CoughDeusExMachinaCough!! Anyway, Henshew is destroyed too, and The Eradicator ended up in a coma.

Its body was taken to S.T.A.R. labs, which is another place where superheroes get scientific help in the DC Universe, where a scientist named David Connor studied it (why not keep it in the Fortress? Beats me.) As you can guess, Eradicator eventually revives and physically merged with Connor (again, not sure why.) The combined being decides to become a superhero named- The Eradicator, which, if you ask me, isn’t very heroic-sounding.

It was then the Eradicator miniseries I mentioned above came out. In it, Connor/Eradicator discovers a phantom-zone-like dimension where the remains of the device’s true creators had been hidden by their Kryptonian murderers. Also in there was Faora, NOT the villainess mentioned above (though obviously based on her) but rather another AI entity created by Kem-El (Superman’s ancestor). This one was truly evil, and it escaped and managed to kill Connor’s wife before he stopped it.

The Eradicator was a member of The Outsiders, who are sort of the team where all the DC heroes without their own series end up in, for a while. I hear he was eventually put in a coma again (during the events of “Infinite Crisis”) and has since returned to its “Krypton Man” evil persona (no idea what happened to Connor.)

As far as I know, The Eradicator was never adapted for the animated DC series, though it is worth pointing out that the “evil sentient computer from Krypton” shtick Brainiac was given in the Superman cartoon sounds a LOT like the Eradicator’s; maybe they just combined the two characters into one.

(You know, I have half a mind to write a Superman/Dr. Who crossover just to have The Eradicator merge with a Dalek and go around shouting, “ERADICATE! ERADICATE!!” :stuck_out_tongue: )

Next: Hell Hath No Fury Like A Superwoman Scorned: MAXIMA!

#42

Maxima is definitely my favorite of the “modern” (post-Crisis) Superman’s foes. And that has [STRIKE]nothing[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]a little[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]somewhat[/STRIKE] OK, a lot do with the fact she’s smokin’ hot. :stuck_out_tongue: But seriously, she’s an interesting character.

Maxima is the ruler of Almerac, yet ANOTHER planet in the DC universe whose inhabitants look exactly like Earth humans (As far as I know, no good explanation for this has been provided. Considering that by now both Star Trek and Stargate have provided explanations for their humanoid races, you’d think the comics would do too.)

(See what I meant? :wink: )

(Oh, and the weirdo behind her is Sazu, her handmaiden, there to remind Maxima of her royal duties. And get yelled at.)

Anyway, Almerac actually had its own space empire, and their royal family actively pursued mating with other species in order to gain better abilities; Maxima herself is nearly as strong as Superman and has telekinesis and telepathy to boot. In fact it was part of Maxima’s duties to find a worthy mate that would add to the gene pool. When Superman became “famous” in space (after first defeating Mongul) she decided he’d make a good mate and went to Earth to ask him to be her consort.

As you can imagine, not only Superman was not interested (he was already dating Lois Lane) but he didn’t like the idea of fathering despots. Maxima didn’t take it well. And this being comics, that of course meant a super-fight. :wink: She ended up going back to her planet, angry and with a lot of unresolved sexual tension (she might deny it, but she had the hots for Supes.)

However, it turned out that Almerac was destroyed- by Warworld, which was now under the control of Brainiac! (The green skin, goatee version.) Maxima was forced to ally with Brainiac in order to have the rest of her empire spared. But as you can guess, she turned on him at the first opportunity, which came when Brainiac took Warworld to Earth’s solar system to destroy it; Superman (and a lot of other heroes) joined forces to counterattack. Warworld was destroyed and Brainiac (I think) ended up in a coma. Maxima then decided to hang around Earth for a while, and actually ended up joining the Justice League! (Supposedly looking for a potential mate, but really still stalking Superman.)

However, she didn’t have much of a chance to seduce him, as shortly thereafter, Doomsday showed up. Maxima was in fact among the members of the League that tried to help fight it, but even she was helpless, and she witnessed Superman’s heroic sacrifice, dying to take the monster down. (If she didn’t want him before, I bet she did now!) This helped to mellow her bratty character (a little). She also switched to a purplish, less stripper-iffic costume.


(Why, yes, most of us do. And no, it does not cause blindness. :stuck_out_tongue: )

Around this time, Ultraa, an alien warrior and former candidate for mate who had failed a test but was still obsessed with Maxima, came to Earth and ended up battling the League out of jealousy. That didn’t help Maxima appreciate him any more. They’re enemies now.

(Note: Ultraa is actually a Pre-Crisis character; he was the first superhero of Earth-Prime, a parallel Earth that (until then) had no superheroes- in other words, it was supposed to be the real world!! However, after meeting the (temporarily lost between universes) Justice League, Ultraa chose to leave Earth Prime for Earth-One (the League’s home) since he decided his world was not ready for heroes yet. Of course, being very naive, he ended up causing trouble for the League anyway. Ultraa was actually pretty cool, and I’m sorry that his Post-Crisis version is so lame.)

Maxima stayed in the League for a while. When the League fractured in three teams (so each could have its own comic, natch) Maxima joined the one led by Captain Atom, probably because she was attracted to him (his militaristic leanings may had made him an even better consort than Supes) but he wasn’t interested, either. She then flirted with Amazing-Man (an African-American hero with the power to become whatever he touched) another League member, but that went nowhere either. When the three Leagues were disbanded to form a single one (read: two of the titles were cancelled) Maxima chose to return to space. (Note: by then, Superman had come back from the dead.)

Around this time, a crossover called “Armageddon 2001” happened. In it, a time-traveling superhero named Waverider came to the present in order to find which superhero was going to become Monarch, a villain who conquered the world. He had the ability to see possible futures, and secretly checked out several heroes’. And in one of the futures he saw, Superman DID marry Maxima!! But only after Lois died during pregnancy with Superman’s baby (the baby died too.) Maxima found herself actually falling in love with the grieving hero. It was actually a pretty touching story; too bad it never happened beyond Waverider’s vision.

Tragedy struck Maxima yet again when her empire was devastated by Imperiex, a being who was pretty much a rip-off of Marvel’s Galactus, the planet-eater. Maxima led the survivors away from him, and helped Superman and other heroes battle Imperiex and his forces in yet another big crossover titled “Our Worlds At War”. Sadly, Maxima was killed off during it. Of course, since then other characters killed in that crossover (including Aquaman and Wonder Woman’s mother) have come back from the dead, so I hope they bring Maxima back one of these days too.

Meanwhile, in the animated Superman series, Maxima was adapted as well. They changed her looks, probably to reduce the amount of cheescake in it:

Otherwise, it was a similar story, with Maxima coming to Earth, asking Superman to be her mate and being refused. However, here she knocked him out and dragged him to her planet anyway. Fortunately for Supes, Maxima found herself facing a coup, and Superman helped her to retain her throne, but not without pointing out that, if she earned her people’s love rather than rule through intimidation, such things would not happen. She then allowed him to go back to Earth. It’s probably this version of the character that the public knows best.

I hear Maxima also appeared in the Smallville tv series, but I don’t watch it so I wouldn’t know.

Besides the ahemobvious reasons, I like Maxima for many other things: her powers, her costume (the green one), her background, and even her personality (at least when played against characters who would not stand for her attitude, like Superman.) The fact she also mellowed after seeing true heroism in action made her more likable, too. Besides, Superman has very few good female villains. He could use a few more. (Maxima beats Faora any day.)

Next: The Monster Who Killed Superman: DOOMSDAY!

#43

About the Fleischer Cartoons, you can download them all for free because they lapsed into the public domain long ago (the cartoons themselves, but not the characters in them, copyright law is weird).

#44

That’s pretty good there but it’s too big for the allotted file size for avatars.

#45

Doomsday is probably the best-known of Superman’s post-Crisis villains. Mostly because, you know, he actually killed the hero! Or as much as such a character can be killed, anyway. Which I think it’s a pity, because I don’t find him anywhere near as interesting as Eradicator or Maxima. Though that may have been the point; let’s check out his background…

Back in the 90’s, the Superman comics staff where looking for some gimmick to boost sales. Someone suggested marrying him off to Lois Lane (which made sense, since she’d known his secret for years by then and the two -as Clark and Lois- were dating.) But it turned out the live action TV show (The Adventures of Lois and Clark) beat them to the punch. So, they went for another, older option: KILLING Superman!

Not for REAL, of course. The whole “Death of Superman” had been done several times: in “Imaginary Tales” (read: noncanonical stories) back in the Silver Age; in an episode of Super Friends (!) and in a Justice League cartoon two-parter. To this day, I can’t believe SO many people actually believed DC was really going to kill off their biggest franchise character. (To be fair, most of the people who fell for it were not regular comics fans, and we are living in pretty cynical times. If long-time icons like Barbie and Ken can get divorced, maybe Superman can be killed off as well?)

Anyway, most of us comics fans simply assumed that Superman would seem to die, and then come back a few months later. These things happen all the time in the comics. (Though it was THE first time for the post-Crisis Superman.)

The storyline ran through all the Superman titles (four at the time.) It began with a humanoid figure, wearing a green suit and some broken cables, erupting from the Earth somewhere in the U.S., and then destroying everything in its path. As it battled, its “costume” would slowly rip off, exposing his true appearance: a gray-skinned, Hulk-like monster with bone spikes sticking out of his body.

The Justice League soon learns about the creature and attacks it… only to get their asses handed to them. Now, this is actually not that unusual; for most of their history, the League’s tactic has always been “rush them and if that doesn’t work, THEN use teamwork!” They could learn a thing or two from The Avengers. The League have in fact defeated worse menaces than Doomsday before, and if they’d had time they probably would have found a way to beat him too. But, the situation was too dire; Superman shows up, and when HE gets beaten, he realizes he HAS to stop Doomsday (who was conveniently jumping his way to Metropolis) before he kills millions of people.

He also realizes the ONLY way to stop Doomsday (who btw was named that by an overeager news reporter- the creature had at that point done hardly enough damage to be considered apocalyptic, and it didn’t even SPEAK other than roaring, so it was actually nameless) was to hit it with ALL his might, not unlike what he did to Darkseid in the last episode of Justice League. Too bad Doomsday apparently had the same idea…

After an impact that shook the city and left a crater in its middle, Doomsday indeed dropped dead… and so did Superman.

Well, he lived long enough to dramatically die in Lois Lane’s arms seconds later, but you get the idea.

Actually, he wasn’t truly dead; his wounds were so bad that his body shut down to regenerate, an ability he didn’t even know he had because, up to that point, he’d never been hurt so bad. With a bloody body with no vital signs (and yes they tried reviving him) you can’t blame people for thinking he was dead.

Ironically, by burying him (in Metropolis’ central park) his revival was actually delayed, since his body needed solar energy, which now it wasn’t getting. Oops.

(To be fair, Superman’s soul was actually knocked loose from his body, and it fell into the clutches of a demoness called Blaze (more on her later) and might have been lost if it were not for Pa Kent’s soul (who similarly was having a near-death experience from a heart attack) who, with a little help from good supernatural forces of the DC Universe, managed to get free his adopted son before waking up himself. So Supes REALLY came close to being forever lost.)

As for Doomsday? Well, he looked dead, too. They took him to Cadmus, Metropolis’ secret genetic experiments lab, but later the “Cyborg Superman” recovered the body and tossed it into space, tied to an asteroid, not without first implanting a chip into its body for some reason (we didn’t know he was a villain yet.) But as you can guess, he came back from the dead too.

His next appearance was in the miniseries “Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey” which revealed his origins. With help from Waverider (the time traveler mentioned in the Maxima entry) Superman discovered Doomsday’s past: it turns out he had been created long ago by an alien scientist who was obsessed with creating a lifeform that could adapt to anything, even death. The process involved exposing a baby to a planet’s harsh environment and deadly monsters. The infant died instantly, but his cells were harvested to create a clone… who was exposed to the planet again… and survived a few seconds longer. The same was done to the clone… and his clone… and his clone… after apparently decades of the process, finally a creature that had the desired traits was obtained: the (not yet named) Doomsday. Of course, the process drove it insane, giving it a hatred of ALL living creatures. As you can imagine, Doomsday killed his creator, and (somehow- remember, he hadn’t even been taught to SPEAK) used his spaceship to get off the planet (which, btw, was KRYPTON- apparently millions of years before humans appeared there.)

Doomsday became a galactic legend, as he drifted from world to world killing everything in his path until he found a way off-planet, usually by hitching a ride on unsuspecting spaceships. Finally, the people of a planet named Calaton managed to kill Doomsday (for the first time) using an energy creature they created, “The Radiant”. They then decided to bury him in some far, primitive planet… Earth. :stuck_out_tongue: (Doomsday’s suit, btw, was his burial shroud/containment suit.)

Back in the present, it turned out that the asteroid Doomsday was on landed -thanks to a convenient space warp- on Apokolips, Darkseid’s home world! There he proceeded to wreck the place, and even beat Darkseid himself in battle!! His right-hand man, Desaad, was forced to ask Superman for help. And, being the nice guy he is, he accepted, knowing not everyone on Apokolips deserved to die. But, as you might expect, there was a trick involved: Desaad teleported both Superman and Doomsday to Calaton, hoping The Radiant might help to kill him again. But Doomsday was revealed as having the ability to create defenses against whatever manages to kill him, and destroys the Radiant. With Waverider’s help, Superman sent Doomsday to The End of Time, where it was hoped he would cease to exist.

But Doomsday was brought back by Brainiac, who hoped to use his unkillable body as a host for his (then powerfully telepathic) mind. Nice idea, but Superman interfered. Ever since then, Doomsday (or duplicates of him) has reappeared in many stories, where he has proven easier to defeat and kill. He keeps coming back, though. (Why not send him back to the End of Time again?)

Doomsday also appeared in the animated Justice League series, but he was a different character. For starters, he had nothing to do with Superman’s “death” there. Second, he could TALK! Third, he was defeated by a Superman from an alternate universe- one who believed in lobotomizing his foes with his heat vision, which is how he beats Doomsday. In a later episode, Doomsday -who turned out to be another one of Cadmus’ genetic experiments; created with Superman’s DNA, to boot- had recovered and Superman (the real one) ends up sending him to the Phantom Zone (which caused Batman to bitch on Superman. What, did he have a better alternative!? It isn’t as if the “zone” were hell, you know. Humph.)

Doomsday also appears in the animated movie Superman: Doomsday, which is an adaptation of the Death of Superman story from the comics, although simplified. His origin is not revealed but seems to be the original one (aliens bury him on Earth) with the addition of his having been freed accidentally by Luthor’s agents.

As I said, I find Doomsday a character of limited appeal. I suspect that he was created because the writers didn’t want any of the current Superman foes to kill Superman but couldn’t be bothered to create a really substantial character. (It may also have been a criticism of the ultraviolent, brawns-but-no-brains antiheroes of the 90’s such as Lobo.) He’s just a nearly-inarticulate bruiser who just happened to be strong enough to kill Superman. His origin, as given later in Hunter/Prey, feels tacked on, especially connecting him to Krypton- but at least it’s something. And for such a dangerous creature, he has since been downgraded to “Superman villain we need to use when we need a lot of muscle and someone we can kill off”. Pathetic.

Next: Time to finish this, folks! For my last post, we’ll have a look a several villains which I feel didn’t deserve a full entry, but are still interesting. Get ready because some of them are really… weird.

#46

Doomsday sucks. There, I said it.

#47

I haven’t been saying much because I know little about the last few enemies. All I can say is, I actually remember that Pa Kent story. it was one of the few I ever read, and was a little confused at the time, but it was interesting seeing a father’s subconscious and his son’s mix together.

And yes, Doomsday doesn;t seem that interesting to me, either. But then, machines of pure destruction rarely are.

#48

Lesser villains huh, some of his original “villains” were of course, the people America hated most. Adolph Hitler for one. And of course, America still believed the propaganda by Thomas Edison (who stole credit for many inventions via his company) and villified Nikola Tesla as a mad scientist that made death rays and giant robotic monsters.

#49

Khalbrae: There was actual comic in the 40’s where Superman captured Hitler, Mussolini, and Toho, and ended the war. However it was completely noncanonical. I think it wasn’t even made by DC.

Ok people, I think we’ve covered all the really important and/or notorious Superman villains… but there are a few more that I feel are worth mentioning, so here we go:

Titano, The Super-Ape: They loved apes in the Silver Age, so it was only logical Superman would end fighting one as well. Obviously based on King Kong, Titano was actually a chimp who was part of the American space program. Lois Lane met him while making a report on the mission he would go on. In space -in one of those only-in-comics cosmic coincidences- his space capsule flew by the collision between an uranium and a kryptonite meteor! Once on the ground, the combined radiations caused it to grow to giant size AND gave it Kryptonite Vision, with which he could keep away that pesky Superman while he “played” with poor Lois! How did they beat him? Simple: Superman made a pair of giant lead-lined glasses, then Lois put on a pair of (normal) glasses. And since “Monkey See, Monkey Do”, Titano imitated her and just put on the lead glasses! (Did I mention this was a Silver Age story? ) :stuck_out_tongue: Anyway, once harmless (to Superman) the hero took Titano to a place where he could live happy… Earth’s prehistoric age! Because Tyrannosaurs are SO much fun to play with! (Right?)

Titano is an obscure but beloved part of the Superman mythos, since he was basically harmless unless enraged or controlled, and he appeared in a few more pre-Crisis stories. A post-Crisis story sadly reinvented him as a victim of painful experiments investigated by Lois (in a blatant animal research criticism story) who grows to giant size but doesn’t have K-vision (it didn’t need it as Superman was now less powerful) and ultimately died in the end… just like Kong. ;(

The Superman Revenge Squad: Introduced as the SUPERBOY revenge Squad, they were a bunch of alien space pirates whom Superboy stopped once, so they SWORE they would get him back!!.. except they never did. Seriously, they were losers. They continued plaguing Superman all the way to adulthood (by that time, many other alien criminals also foiled by the Man of Steel had joined them, but strangely, none of Superman’s other space-based villains. Maybe they realized what losers the SRS were.) One interesting story had Superman himself join the cult-like organization (disguised as an alien, complete with temporary amnesia to avoid telepathic discovery) in order to root them out. There was a post-Crisis version of the Squad, composed of a bunch of low-level Superman enemies that sucked so much I’m not even going to bother looking them up. (You know, considering the number of foes Superman had, you wonder why they didn’t team up more often against him. Unless you count the Legion of Doom.)

The Composite Superman: This one is a doozy: a villain with ALL the powers of the Legion of Superheroes… obsessed with bringing down Superman AND Batman… and he looked like this!:


He was actually some poor schmuck who worked at the Superman museum and secretly envied Supes and Bats for their popularity. Then, while standing in front of a bunch of statuettes that of the LoSH that Superman had brought from the future, he was hit by a lightning bolt, and (since the statuettes had “traces” of the original heroes’ energies) he gained all their powers!! So he created the Composite Superman identity and used his powers to ruin the two heroes, beating Superman in combat and ordering them to quit or he would reveal their secret IDs to the world!! And the heroes actually considered giving in!!! Fortunately for them, the power-charge just FADED on its own, and the guy conveniently FORGOT ALL THAT HAD HAPPENED! Yeah, the Silver Age was WEIRD…
(There was a post-Crisis version of the CS, now called just Composite Man, but he fought the Legion, not Superman or Batman.)

The Galactic Golem: An artificial, mindless creature created by Luthor out of “galactic matter” in order to destroy Superman; he tricked it into attacking Superman by charging the hero with the “stellar energy” that it fed on. It might have been even stronger than Superman. During their battle, the hero suddenly vanished- and so did everyone else on Earth except Luthor! The villain was actually tormented, thinking some unforeseen side effect had disintegrated the human race. He also forgot that with Superman gone, the Golem would attack the nearest source of “stellar energy”… Luthor’s machine! The villain was only saved by the sudden reappearance of Superman, who threw the machine into space, with the Golem following right after it. Supes then explains to Luthor that the clash of their super-energies had sent him AND the rest of the human race to another dimension, but he’d since brought everyone back. And Luthor was actually OVERJOYED about it, despite being taken back to jail! (this was definitely the pre-Crisis Luthor.)

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Intergang: Not much to say: they are one of Metropolis’ mobs. The difference was that they had superior technology… which actually came from Apokolips! I’m not sure how that helped the alien villains, but this eventually led to Superman’s first encounter with Darkseid. Otherwise they got mopped up easily and were mostly forgotten until recent times, when they resurfaced as an international crime organization.

Colonel Future: Ok, this guy is REALLY obscure, but deserves mention for… being the cause Superman married Lois Lane?? The ORIGINAL Superman, that is, as in, the guy who came out in 1938!! You see, after it was decided that such a version DID exist on the DC Universe (on “Earth-2”) someone decided, hey, we can FINALLY marry them off! (This was back in 1978.) So they did, in a story that explained that a high-tech criminal called Colonel Future, whose crimes were interrupted often by Golden Age Supes, decided to pay magical villain The Wizard for help. And the Wiz agreed, casting a spell that would cause Superman to cease to exist…

…And it worked! You see, IT CAUSED CLARK KENT TO FORGET HE WAS SUPERMAN! Clark changed, stopping his mild-mannered act and becoming a crusading reporter (obviously his true nature was showing) and even wooed Lois off her feet! On their honeymoon, however, Lois found out he was Superman -NO, NOT THAT WAY! but rather by trying to cut his hair while he slept (the scissors broke.) Lois then investigates and eventually finds The Wizard, who was now a homeless man (Future never paid him) and she convinces him to reverse the spell. Superman then captures Future and his gang, and after assuring Lois he still loves her, formally marries her as Superman in his fortress in a Kryptonian ceremony.

(There was a modern version of Colonel Future, but he was an entirely different character- a guy who could see the future, but only when his life was in danger. Except he didn’t interpret his visions right, and he thought Superman was going to cause a disaster, so he battled him using a power suit.)

Hmm, this is turning out longer than I expected… I guess I’ll leave it here and finish this “epilogue” section next time!

#50

I actually remember the Composite Superman having one more story Pre-Crisis. Some alien criminal’s son wants revenge on Superman, so he stages the accident again so the janitor gets turned back into Composite Supes. The heroes fight him, get their asses kicked, etc. Then Composite Superman turns back to normal and jumps in the way of the alien’s guy, getting vaporized in the process. So, I guess that makes it another villain Superman never TECHNICALLY defeated.

#51

Composite man: Laziest. Design. Ever.