Who is igns greatest villain

His plan is discovered by his former ally, The Comedian, who Ozymandias personally kills using his superior reflexes and fighting skills. While he is successful in preventing the United States and Russia from starting a nuclear war with each other, he does so by destroying New York and uniting the super-powers against a supposed alien invasion.

He kills millions, to save billions. Venom is the nightmarish mirror-image of Spider-Man. While he resembles Spidey in general, he has enormous muscles and a huge jaw full of razor-sharp teeth and a slobbering tongue. Essentially two merged beings, the symbiont used to be joined with Peter Parker until it began to take control and was forcibly removed with the assistance of the Fantastic Four. It then joined with disgraced journalist Eddie Brock who also hated Parker for discrediting him.

The two became one, and fuelled with hatred became more powerful than Spider-Man. Eddie and the suit even went their separate ways and the suit found new hosts such as former Scorpion, Mac Gargan, and school bully turned war hero, Flash Thompson. When Peter wore the suit, he had greater power than ever. In losing control of that power, Venom was born. He was quickly promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Due to his skills, he was chosen for a secret experiment by the government and imbued with enhanced physical attributes as well as the ability to use almost all his cognitive processes at all times, making him far smarter and more tactical than ever.

Leaving the army after a mission which disgusted him a massacre on civilians he became a gun for hire. One of the biggest-bads in the Marvel Universe is Thanos. Obsessed with death, to the point of falling in love with the personification of it, Thanos is a nihilist and seeks to end all life everywhere as a tribute to her. Thanos usually seeks out items of incredible power, such as Cosmic Cubes or Infinity Gauntlets in order to destroy life, which he sees as abhorrent.

This has brought him into contact with The Avengers who he can stand toe to toe against. While a powerhouse in his own right, his dreams of attaining godhood make him one of the most dangerous foes The Avengers have ever faced. So far, the only obstacle he cannot overcome is his subconscious knowledge that he is unworthy of godhood.

Should he defeat his demons, he may well be unstoppable. Thanos may be the Xerox, but Darkseid is the real deal. Darkseid is a megalomaniac who seeks to conquer the universe and sees all individuals as a mere extension of the state, and thereby himself. He indoctrinates children to be utterly loyal to him, with disobedience being punished by death.

Possessing the Omega Force, Darkseid is already extremely powerful. It is not enough to extinguish free will from the universe however and so he seeks out the anti-life equation, which is fabled to give its user total control over the thoughts and emotions of all sentient beings in the universe. Despite his raw power, Darkseid is highly strategic and often employs agents to do his bidding while he manipulates events from behind the scenes.

His special interest in Earth, specifically his belief that within their collective consciousness exists the fragments of the Anti-Life equation, has led him into conflicts with the Justice League. Thaal Sinestro served as a Green Lantern for many years and was considered to be the greatest member of the Corps. It became apparent that Sinestro was not what he seemed to be however. His sector of the universe was indeed almost completely free of criminal activity, but it was so as Sinestro ruled with an iron fist and the people he was supposed to serve, were terrified of his power.

The planet Koruger went from being his home, to his kingdom. From there he began to forge a society free from individuality, and one controlled by fear.

Eventually, the citizens of Korugar rebelled and his methods were exposed. He was put on trial by the Guardians of the Universe, and tanks to the testimony of fellow Green Lantern Hal Jordan, he was banished to the Antimatter Universe. This was not the end of Sinestro, rather it was the beginning. He wound up on the planet Qward where he encountered the weaponers there, beings who hated the Guardians and the Lanterns as much as he did.

Lex Luthor is also one of the few Golden Age comic book villains who has lasted since his debut. Scarecrow Dr. The ex-professor of psychology has been using his experimental toxins for years, exploiting the people of Gotham City with their phobias. Along with the Joker, Scarecrow is one of Batman's most enduring villains. What makes him truly terrifying is that when he targets you, he makes you your worst enemy. Your mind betrays you, and you're not able to separate fiction from reality — unless you're the Joker, who doesn't seem to be affected by Scarecrow's toxin.

Klaw Ulysses Klaue is yet another man of science-turned-villain. Due to a vibranium-powered sonic converter, Klaw was converted into a being of solid sound, with superhuman strength and durability. The Joker is often seen as Batman's arch-nemesis, but let's say for the sake of argument that this isn't necessarily true. What if there's another villain who presents more internal conflict for Batman?

Of all the villains Batman has faced, Ra's is the one who can truly match his genius. In fact, they share a lot in common. Both Batman and Ra's were born from tragedy — Batman from the loss of his parents and Ra's from the loss of his wife. From the moment he was introduced, Ra's was unlike any villain we'd seen before.

What's truly compelling about this villain is he demonstrates what could have happened had Batman chosen another path. Hela is based on the Norse goddess, Hel. She's so strong she can engage in direct combat with Thor and put up a good fight. On top of this, Hela has mystical powers, such as astral projection. Furthermore, as a Death Goddess, Hela has a pact with Death that allows her to claim the souls of any worshipper of the Asgardians.

This led to Kevin's birth and Moira ran away before John could get to him. Forced to live in seclusion in his mother's Muir Island research facility, due to his uncontrollable hunger for energy, she locked him in a cell sustained by isoteric energy fields to keep herself and others safe. This also kept his body from burning itself out as well. At one point he escaped the cell after the X-Men and Magneto had a battle damaging the facility.

He took over the body of Angus MacWhirther to disappear unnoticed. Speaking of taking over bodies, Kevin once took over his father's just so he could kill him. After Proteus came into contact with Colossus in a battle, due to his weakness to metal, his energy was dispersed all over the world thusly killing him. Years later a mutant by the name of Piecemeal tried to absorb all of Proteus' dispersed energy.

Piecemeal was so unhappy in this state that he decided to commit suicide. Proteus, who named himself after a Greek god, can alter reality, has telepathic abilities and can bend the laws of physics. He can also change the weather, take mutant's powers, turn anything into liquid and possess other humans. Only creatures with metal in their bodies are immune.

We can't really pronounce his name either, but this little trans-dimensional circus carnie pest is just as trying on our patience as he is on Superman's. Mxyzptlk is not one of Superman's most interesting or dynamic rogues, but he is one of the most consistent and annoying ones the Man of Steel faces.

This fifth-dimensional sorcerer, made up of "other things" than just a funny derby hat, was a welcomed addition to "Tomorrow"'s inventive "what if" storyline, and most fans consider that to be his biggest glory. That, and a few extended appearances here and there, are all that prevent us from saying his name backwards and making him go away. First appearing in the Elseworlds mini-series Kingdom Come , Magog is a kind of semi-villain who works for the cause of good, but with few boundaries.

In Kingdom Come , Magog's rise as a postmodern "hero" is contrasted with Superman's fall. He kills the Joker who is in custody for the killing of Lois Lane , and is subsequently acquitted.

Unable to deal, Supes goes into hiding. It's then that Magog becomes the leader of a new group of more ruthless heroes called the Justice Battalion. When a catastrophic battle between the Battalion and the villainous Parasite decimates American's heartland, Superman and his new Justice League have a violent confrontation with Magog.

He is captured by the League and ultimately has a change of heart, saving as many lives as he can in the subsequent battle before retiring to Paradise Island. The character has since been introduced into the DCU mainstream. In this iteration, Magog is a former Marine who becomes metahuman after interacting with a mystical artifact while on a mission in Iraq. Gog reanimates Reid, dubbing him "Magog," and empowers him by replacing his shattered arm and eye with golden versions.

Magog then leads half of the fractured Justice Society in support of Gog, before realizing the error of ways. Infuriated by Gog's horrific treatment of his fellow heroes, Magog joins with the rest of the JSA to defeat Gog and cuts off his head.

Once, the Saint of Killers was just a man. After serving in the Confederate Army - he was feared for his mercilessness on the battlefield - the grizzled man became a bounty hunter in the West. It was there that he met a woman who cracked his harsh exterior. The two made a life together and had a child. But this isn't a story with a happy ending.

The woman and child fall ill and his attempts to save them are foiled by a gang of outlaws. Driven to rage by the death of his family, the man slaughters the outlaws, kills an innocent bystander, but runs out of bullets as he confronts the gang's leader. The leader kills him and the man is sent to Hell, where he is ultimately banished by the Devil - his hate causes Hell to literally freeze over.

The Angel of Death allows him to return to Earth on the condition that he undertakes the duty of collecting the souls of those who die by violence. This angel of death is straight out of an old spaghetti western.

He wields two enormous revolvers that never miss their mark and never fail to kill their target. The villainous Clayface is one of Batman's oldest foes. The first iteration of the character, Basil Karlo, first appeared in Detective Comics 40 Perhaps the Caped Crusader has been unable to rid Gotham of this threat because he doesn't know where to start.

There have been more versions of Clayface than drummers for Spinal Tap - there have been six, actually. The original, re-emergent, and ultimate incarnation, is a failed actor named Basil Karlo.

He was the star of a classic horror film that was scheduled for a remake. While remakes of horror movies are rarely good news, Karlo took it especially hard. He donned the mask of Clayface, the villain he played in the movie, and began killing the new cast and crew. Before long, he was apprehended by the dynamic duo and left to rot in Arkham Asylum. Other criminals adopted his persona, but with a strange twist.

Sondra Fuller's clay-like body was able to change shapes, and Preston Payne's corrosive body could melt others with a touch. This duo eventually broke Karlo out of prison. Through a blood transfusion, Karlo gained their powers and suddenly became a very real threat to Gotham.

Batman has faced no shortage of Clayfaces over the years, but Karlo could be the most dangerous. As his name would imply, Sandman's body is formed with sand, allowing him to manipulate his body into any shape. Victim of a poor environment, Marko grew up in the slums and quickly found his way into organized crime.

Long before he had his incredible powers, he was a no good thug. During a stint in prison, Marko's girlfriend, Marcy Conroy, left him for another member of gang. This infuriated Marko, who, upon release from prison, killed Conroy's new lover and then went on a crime spree. It wasn't long before Marko found himself back in jail. He managed to escape, an act which would change his life forever.

Marko took refuge on a beach near a nuclear test site. One reactor malfunction later and Marko was bathed in radiation, fusing his molecules with the sand. In real life, this event would have looks a bit more like the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark , but in the world of comics, it meant Marko was now a super-villain.

When in sand form, Sandman can take any shape he wishes and increase his density and strength to lift up to 85 tons. Marko can form his hands into weapons, such as a hammer or mace, form a near-impenetrable wall of sand or create a dust storm. He has long been a fan-favorite foe of Spider-Man. Lots of people don't get along with their father-in-laws. But when that father-in-law is partly responsible for turning you into a giant green monster where every time you stub your toe or someone cuts you off in traffic and you get really mad, things could become a little strained at Thanksgiving.

General Thaddeus E. Bruce Banner, who sometimes goes by The Incredible Hulk. Ross was the head of the Gamma Bomb Project, which turned Banner into the hero that he is today. He has committed treason chasing the Hulk and has even been discharged from the military.

At one point, S. In the aftermath, the former General was fatally wounded. He realized his longtime foe was actually a force for good, and gave his blessing to Bruce and Betsy on his deathbed. Over the last several years, Thunderbolt has been resurrected and is once again leading the crusade against the Hulk. His popularity has led to his inclusion in both Hulk films and he is currently involved somehow in the Red Hulk case in monthly comic books.

Few villains are scarier than those who truly believe they are doing God's work. Such is the case with William Stryker, a televangelist who uses his position of influence to turn as many as he can against Mutants, a species he believes is an abomination that should be wiped off the face of the Earth. The film took the general framework from that graphic novel - in which Stryker kidnaps Professor X and attempts to use him to unwittingly help set off a machine that can kill all mutants on Earth.

Thanks to X2 's hype and success, Stryker has played a major part in modern X-Men comics, where he's proved to be just as dedicated to his cause as ever, targeting every last mutant on Earth as his "holy crusade" continues.

As is the case with so many longtime DC characters, the Cheetah has undergone many revisions throughout her seven decades of existence. This classic Wonder Woman villain has seen no less than four incarnations, including one where the furry bombshell babe was replaced by a man.

The third, and current, Cheetah is British anthropologist Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva. Heiress to a vast fortune, Minerva was selfish and raised by her parents' servants. Throughout her childhood she grew to be very neurotic. At seventeen her parents were killed in a car accident, which permanently disabled Ann as well. She decided to visit Africa to search for the powers of the cheetah to heal herself. Ingesting a combination of human blood and berries of the plant-god Urzkartaga, she became Cheetah, but not without a catch.

The Cheetah host was supposed to be a virgin, and Minerva wasn't. Her transformation was part curse and part blessing, as she experienced severe pain in her human form and bloodthirsty elation in her cat form. As one of the most iconic and oldest Wonder Woman villains, Cheetah was an absolute must for our villains list.

Neil Gaiman is responsible for creating one of the more complex and, dare we say, sympathetic portrayals of the devil is quite some time. Lucifer's adventures on Earth following his exit from Hell are methodical and patient, poetic in their simplicity and always underlined with a sense of menace. Part of Lucifer's appeal as a villain is that he doesn't brow beat readers over the head with his villainy. His intellect is matched by his ability to manipulate creation into what he imagines.

Any being that can marshal demons to battle angels and still find time to stir humanity from indifference is a threat no one can ignore. Yet somehow, Lucifer's ability to stay below the radar and simultaneously impact mankind is both a gift and a curse.

Being mostly confined to the Sandman universe has not stopped this character from making an impact, but it has prevented Lucifer Morningstar from making the epic one he deserves. But we like his less is more approach.

Lucifer doesn't have to lie to make you do what he wants. Worse, he tells the truth and allows people to find their own way to Hell. Victor Fries had an obsession with freezing things even as a small child, which led him into the field of cryogenics. When his wife Nora fell seriously ill, he discovered a way to cryogenically freeze her body until a cure could be found.

Fries' colleague attempted to stop the process, and the ensuing struggle doused Fries with hazardous chemicals. These chemicals induced strange physical changes in his body: his skin grew pale, he could only survive in sub-zero temperatures and his mind became fractured. Fries created a containment suit that served to protect his body and augment his strength, as well as a gun capable of flash-freezing anything in its sights.

With his wife gone and his grip on humanity shattered, the newly dubbed Mr. Freeze began terrorizing the citizens of Gotham City. His gun became a way of inflicting on others the pain he feels in his own heart. Though his crimes typically serve little purpose, Mr. Freeze is still coldly ruthless and one of Batman's most deadly foes. Pathos is a key ingredient in any great villain, and Freeze has tons of it. This man dedicated his life's work to curing his cryogenically-frozen wife's cancer, and just happened to fall victim to one of those unfortunate accidents that seems to always befall comic book characters.

Who can't relate to that? More importantly, Victor Fries' loss is as deep as Bruce Wayne's, which makes him such a dynamic antagonist. To up the stakes even further, the comics have progressed Mr. Freeze into a truly deranged lunatic, one who has given up all hope of reviving his dead wife and accepted a career of unadulterated murder.

Good stuff. Writer Garth Ennis created one of the most colorful comic book villains of all time when he conjured up Herr Starr, foe of Preacher protagonist Jesse Custer.

A former German special forces solider, Starr is recruited by the Grail and tasked with recovering Custer - but he has plans of his own. He intends to use Custer in his own scheme to overthrow the leadership of the Grail. Starr's countenance is marred by a series of scars around his right eye that form star shape - they were put there by bullies in his youth whom he has long since dispatched with.

He is a skilled marksman, despite not having sight in one eye, but is not especially adept at unarmed combat - his justification for this is that he has "no intention of being unarmed. Through a bizarre string of punishment that is meted out to Starr, a running gag in the series, the character becomes even more disfigured. He loses a leg after being attacked by three hillbillies, he has his right ear shot off, and Jesse cuts a penis-shaped gash in his forehead.

Oh, and to add insult to injury a Rottweiler bites off his genitals. Although he has no superpowers, Kang is a genius, history scholar, physicist and engineer. Due to his expertise in time travel, he is trained in 40th century combat and has battle armor that has sweet hologram and force field capabilities.

With the help of his time ship, he also has access to technology of any century. Bored with his time, he travels back to ancient Egypt and becomes Pharaoh Rama-Tut. Luckily, the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange just so happened to be time traveling as well, and stopped him.

Calling himself the Scarlet Centurion, he somehow manages to manipulate the original Avengers into fighting the Avengers of the actual time. After he is thwarted, he goes back to his home century and becomes Kang the Conqueror and starts his own empire. Most of his problems seem to stem from women though, as he tries to impress Princess Ravonna by defeating the Avengers. He also tries to woo Celestial Madonna, which leads to the death of Avenger the Swordman.

Kang later battles Hawkeye and Thor in the Old West. He ends up drawing too much energy, and destroys himself. But Kang somehow returns. Even though the original was dead, a number of flawed Kangs were created due to his constant time travel, The more-stable Kangs form a council to stop the stupider ones.

Her blood is quite literally toxic, but her pheromone scent is absolutely intoxicating. It takes true sex appeal to have a name reminiscent of uncomfortable itching but to still have men falling all over you. Some villains strike at Batman's loved ones, some at his partner, but Poison Ivy goes straight for the Bat. Coy, sexy and very deadly, we can see why so many men fall under her spell.

All of Batman's foes wield a certain advantage over the Dark Knight that makes them a formidable opponent. For the Scarecrow, that advantage is fear. For Two-Face, it's the feelings of guilt he inspiress. Pamela Isley lands on this list because she employs two deadly weapons that are as old and primitive as time itself: Sex and mind-control or are they the same thing?

We can never be sure. Ivy adds some much needed estrogen to Batman's rogues' gallery, proving that terrorizing Batman and Gotham City isn't a job for men alone. With her hypnotic powers and her ability to control plant life, she's also one of Bats' few super-powered foes.

Whether she's turning Gotham's version of Central Park into her own twisted jungle playground, tearing up the town with Harley Quinn, or terrorizing Gotham's elite industrialists or brain-washing Superman to kill Batman, Ivy always proves a worthy adversary.

The point is that a relatable, sympathetic person exists deep within the Poison Ivy character, and that's the most essential ingredient for any great antagonist. Plus, she's deadly, ruthless and sexy as all hell.

Once known as Samuel Sterns, a chemical plant employee of Boise, Idaho, he was moving radioactive materials one day. Somehow they exploded and Sterns was subjected to gamma radiation. After recovering, he became a green-skinned giant-brained genius who called himself The Leader, due apparently to his subconscious desire to be as smart as his physicist brother Philip.

After the radiation, The Leader could predict outcomes of things in advance, had a perfect memory, superhuman intelligence and could control normal humans by only touching them. He is sophisticated in weaponry, computers, humanoids physics and genetics. He also has an army of plastic Humanoids, which he used to try and rewrite Earth's history, overthrow the US government and capture the Hulk to study him and steal Bruce Banner's Absorbatron to absorb the energy of a nuclear explosion.

At one point, The Leader rescues the Hulk from a battle and operated on him to save his life. Indebted, The Hulk goes to the home world of The Watcher and raids his "Ultimate Machine, which contains all the knowledge in the universe.

This ends up being too much knowledge for The Leader and he collapses. He has created android duplicates of the President and Vice President while trying to kidnap them and he even gamma-radiated Manhattan's water supply to mutate the human race into being like him. He even bombed Middletown, Arizona, killing thousands and built his own society called Freehold in the Arctic which was populated only with people dying from radiation poisoning.

Curt Connors was once a skilled surgeon who enlisted in the army to help wounded GIs. After a blast injured his arm, it had to be amputated. When he got back to the states as a research technologist, he became obsessed with the secrets of reptiles and their limb regenerating abilities.

Connors created an experimental serum from reptile DNA and made himself the guinea pig. His arm did grow back but not without side effects-the main one being turning into a giant human lizard.

As Lizard, Dr. Connors has superhuman strength, speed and agility. He can scale walls, regenerate limbs and whip his tail at high speeds. The Lizard can also mentally command all reptiles within a one-mile radius. What makes Lizard so hard to deal with is the man inside the monster.

Peter Parker continually uses his own scientific prowess to change him back into his friend Curt Connors. But with stress or chemical reactions, he always seems to go back into remission. Even though he shows no love for humans, you can also still tell that Dr. Connors is inside there somewhere, as he never seems to harm his wife Martha or their son Billy.

As Connors, he's sacrificed turning back into Lizard to help Spider-Man many a time. He's saved Aunt May's life, developing a formula to dissolve the Rhino's costume and etc. He also let Parker be his teaching assistant at Empire State University for a time, and you know how unreliable Parker can be.

Parasite has taken several forms in the Superman comics. This DC supervillain, as his name suggests, has the ability absorb energy, knowledge, and superpowers simply by touching another being.

As you can imagine, that makes him a formidable adversary to the Man of Steel. The character's original Silver Age origin introduced him as a simple plant worker who became exposed to hazardous material -- junk that was brought back from space by Superman -- that transformed him into a purple-hued parasitic entity who rocks sweet green briefs. Parasite's Modern Age revamp introduced the character in a similar manner, but an epic lunar battle with Superman resulted in the new Parasite being mutated into a grotesque monster with a gaping leech-like maw.

He later absorbed a shapeshifting being, granting him the ability to mimic any of his victims. Superman defeated Parasite once and for all after he kidnapped Lois Lane. In the Kingdom Come graphic novel, it is Parasite who is responsible for the cataclysmic events that destroy much of the American Midwest.

In a battle with Magog and his Justice Battalion, Parasite rips apart Captain Atom, unleashing a devastating nuclear explosion.

She may not possess the dangerous feminine charms or impressive superpowers of a villain like Poison Ivy, but Amanda "The Wall" Waller is as deadly a foe as any in the DC pantheon.

Waller, who first appeared in Legends 1, is a widow from Chicago who used her bright mind to escape a hard life in the Cabrini-Green housing projects -- her daughters and her husband were murdered there. She studied political science, and became a congressional aide. Waller saw an opportunity to improve the program, made a pitch to the White House, and was placed in charge of the Squad.

She is soon released, however, and becomes involved in the covert-ops Checkmate organization -- first as Black King, and then as White Queen. She is later implanted with nanotechnology which allows her to control Chemo during missions. Some comic book villains are motivated by greed, or the need for revenge, or pure and simple insanity. The Riddler is a little different - you might say he embarked on a career in crime for the fun of it, at least in a very specific way.

Obsessed with puzzles, mind-games, and elaborate death traps, he's compelled to commit crimes that involve some form of complex mental challenge. What compels him to dress in bright green, though, is anybody's guess. In his early days, Edward Nygma was a bright young boy who enjoyed showing off his mental acuity. This led him to a career as a carnival con-man, where he could easily dupe fair-goers out of their money with his schemes.

Eventually, this proved far too easy to satisfy his boundless ego. He embarked on an escalating series of crimes in search of a more worthy opponent - of course, he found exactly that in Batman. The Riddler is a classic example of the "talking killer. Proving the worth of his superior brainpower is his real goal, which is why he's occasionally taken on less legally questionable challenges as well. For instance, he offered his services as a consultant to Carmine Falcone, when the mob boss sought to determine the identity of the Holiday killer.

While his stock as a villain may have dropped in recent times, Riddler has had more than his fair share of greatest hits over the years - the most noteworthy being his deduction of Batman's secret identity which he has since forgotten after a head injury.

When it comes down to it, the Riddler is one of the few rogues capable of rivaling Batman's knack for detection and deduction. If only he'd drop the whole legit lifestyle and get back to wreaking havoc on Gotham City. Few villains have done more with less. How many other villains have routinely made Batman afraid? Crane's downfall is his own shortsightedness. But as the creepy figure in the night, he helps open up interesting avenues into the Dark Knight's psyche.

That's true power. Jonathan Crane is one of the most formidable and thematically intriguing Batman villains of all time. As a child, he was bullied and tormented, so he decided to research the human psyche and how people dealt with fear.

After being fired from a teaching position, Crane decided to use his knowledge to literally scare people to death for the supposed trauma he suffered in his life.

Scarecrow wants nothing less than everyone in Gotham to be as afraid as he once was. The Dark Knight's single greatest weapon in his war on crime is fear, and the Scarecrow is the only villain truly capable of taking that advantage away from him.

The sole fact that the Scarecrow is often capable of bringing the Dark Knight to his knees by inducing hallucinations of his greatest tragedies - his parents' murder, Jason Todd's death at the hands of the Joker, etc.

That he also happened to play such a huge role in revitalizing the Batman film franchise makes him rank even higher on our evaluation of best comic baddies. Mephisto Pheles. Cassandra Nova. Load more items 50 more in this list. Add to list. Related lists. Best Games of 60 item list by Derron 8 votes 2 comments.

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