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by Chuck Dixon

(originally published in a WIZARD SPECIAL)

 

 

We need the bad guys.

Let's face it, the Garden of Eden was probably a great place to live. You had all you could eat, no timeclock to punch and a 24 hour petting zoo. But the story doesn't kick in until the serpent arrives. Let's face it, without the bad guy the Bible could be printed on a cocktail napkin.

 

The same goes for the Ultimate Battle of Good and Evil going on in your favorite comic titles. A hero, and ultimately his whole franchise, stands or falls on the strength of his villains. These characters are damn sure judged by their enemies.

 

Batman would just be another roof crawling malcontent if it weren't for a rogues gallery like the Joker, Catwoman and the rest. The Fantastic Four were just a bunch of gizmo loving penthouse tenants until Doctor Doom decided on World Domination as a career. Spiderman? Another teenage whiner who dressed funny. He needed riffraff like Doc Octopus and Electro to make him grow up

 

Even Hollywood knows this. Just compare George Clooney's paycheck to Arnold's.

Ever since Professor Moriarty retired from teaching and Ming got merciless the rotters of this world have been doing their best (or worst) to make the goodguys look good. And, before Reed Richards showed up, they also did most of the talking in comics. Superhero dialogue didn't get much more interesting than Barry Allen apologizing for being late again. But villains would fill endless word balloons with their detailed plans of conquest, their paranoid ramblings, their twisted motivations and their threats.

 

Comic book bad boys have to excel at threats. I know, I have to put words in some high profile miscreants' mouths every month and a good threat is worth its weight in gold. Where most of us have to struggle to squeak out an "Oh yeah?" when we get pissed off these guys have to rattle off strings of hair raising promises of bodily injury or worse. All while ordering minions about.

 

The villain provides the contrast that every hero needs. The more interesting the heavy is the more interesting and complex the protaganist seems. With a only a few exceptions a lead character without a decent nemesis or three won't last long. Superman is the biggest exception to the rule. Until recently, the Man of Steel's most compelling threat came from a bald guy with a bad temper. But in recent years Supes' mug shot files have been way thickened with some more worthy opponents. That's probably the reason his popularity has been so firmly re-established. In my opinion the Last Son of Krypton's lucky to have made it out of the Fifties. Look at his closest competition back then; Captain Marvel, a superpowered muscleman in a cape whose main enemy was...a bald guy with a bad temper. The way I see it, Superman's been dodging krytonite bullets for decades.

Speaking from bitter personal experience, I think this whole contrast (or lack of contrast) thing is why the Punisher plummeted so swiftly from the heights of popularity he was enjoying. I guess we could blame Dolph Lundgren if we wanted to be petty. For the longest time myself and other writers and editors thought that Frank Castle's shortcoming was that he was always killing off his villains and there was no rogues gallery being assembled for him. The consensus was that he could re-win the affections of the readers by having gunbattles with a better class of lowlife. Every effort came to nada as none of the new meanies caught on.

But a curious scenario played out every month whenever the Punisher appeared in another character's book; the sales went up. If Brooklyn's Bad Boy appeared even in a loser title the sales of that book spiked to higher than any of the Punisher's own titles.What was up with that? Why was he popular everywhere but his own books?

It's not until now that I realize that not only was the Punisher the villain on his own book but he had no one to contrast with. We could have him battling to the death in stinking back alleys and abandoned warehouses with some amoral, gun-crazed, homicidal maniac. But that description is the Punisher. You kind of reach a point of diminishing returns where the readers don't care who wins that kind of fight. That's why he did so well when he crossed over. By fighting an established hero he achieved what he lacked in his own book; a compelling conflict.

Yeah, if I knew then what I know now I would have proposed a recurring goodguy for the Punisher titles. A Van Helsing, a Jean Valjean, a Lieutenant Jacobi to relentlessly pursue the Punisher month in and month out. A super virtuous man of morals and conviction who would fight to end Frank Castle's misguided vigilante spree. This would have added the tension and conflict and contrast that the titles needed. There'd be a reason to pick them up every month.

And what makes a great supercreep? It's not a cool costume or a bad attitude or the way he can pull your spleen out and show it to you. What makes a great baddie is that he doesn't believe he's all that bad. By his lights he's doing "the right thing".

Darth Vader thought he was looking out for his son's best interests. Doctor Doom is concerned about Latveria's place in the New World Order. Baron Strucker thinks HYDRA can provide better health care than SHIELD. The Violator just wants to be loved.

Well, maybe this theory doesn't work with every stinker.

But just as every do-gooder needs a strong motivation for donning spandex and kevlar every wrongo needs a reason for doin' dirty. From lousy childhoods and lab experiments gone wonky to diminished expectations and simple revenge these perps and mopes and scuzzballs have to be as well thought out (or better) than the guys the books are named for.

 

So, God bless 'em all. From the musclebound lunkheads and cheap gunsels to the super-intellectual worldmunchers and overly theatrical psychopaths.

 

We need every last one of them.