Superman villains poll

If this goes well, Batman and Spiderman foes should probably get polled, too.

Obviously, the best answer is Lois Lane!

she wasn't listed on the wikipage. IT'S NOT MY FAULT!

I guess she's not technically a villain...if it was an "enemies" poll, howev!

This was harder than I would have guessed. I went with Mxyzptlk since the last time I bought Superman and/or Action regularly (oh, about 1981 or so) those were always the ones I liked the best.

Voted Lex, especially for
- the purple and green powersuit version best exemplified in Elliot S. Maggin's Last Son Of Krypton, who stays in jail long enough to work out his next plan and then busts out when he get bored
- the egotistical freak from ASS
- a really smart reboot that actually works, with the post-Crisis businessman version (although I've read hardly any of it, just the bio prestige, Rick Veitch's great version in Swamp Thing and the odd 50c second-hand comic c. 1991)
- the 1930s gangster version from Tom DeHaven's novel, who starts out running numbers, gets more confident when he belts a pickaxe through a dude's head in a cemetery, and gloriously blossoms into building giant death robots by the end

Gotta be Lex.

It kinda does, but I won't be surprised to see a few General Zod votes appear on the strength of Mr. Stamp's performance, some Darkseid enthusiasm from Kirby boosters, and maybe even a Mongul appearance due to "For the Man Who Has Everything."

Since I grew up Marvel Zombie, I have to judge the list by iconic value rather than for individual stories, with a few exceptions. Lex is just the character I think of when I think of Superman, even more than Lois Lane.

Lex, absolutely, for having (when the writers can be bothered) the most complex and interesting personality. I'm definitely a Kirby fan, but it feels weird to pigeonhole Darkseid as just a "Superman villain"- it seems like all the best stories with him are either Kirby's original Fourth World material or Justice League/Legion of Super-Heroes scale stories (Rock of Ages, Great Darkness Saga).

okay, checking around on batman villains on wikipedia I ran across this.

waht

I've never really been enough of a Superman fan to feel qualified to vote in this. I'm up for the Bats and Spidey polls, though (although maybe Batman would be a bit of a one horse race?).

I think this will be a pretty one-horse race, to be honest. It would have been Lex for me for the mid nineties JLA and the Gene Hackman, even before that issue of All-Star.

Yarp, the post Crisis Lex Luthor RoXoR.

HA HA, I was going to refer to Lex Luthor by his initials.

Never forget

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8f/Teamluthor.jpg

I almost had forgotten, you bastard.

I always loved the fact that Oz-Luthor reverts back into being ye olde Luthor by stressing out and losing all hair. (Or at least that's what I remember happening.)

Wasn't there some kinda recent (2000s) storyline that was basically Super-Hush, where some new villain knew all of Superman's secrets and was using them against him and in the end it was revealed to be PETE! ROSS! (who might've even been Prez Pete at that point!)
And then it was even further revealed that it wasn't really Pastepot Pete Ross after all, but, um, a robot???

ALSO deserving mention, especially post-Crisis/post-Dark Knight Returns: BATMAN

Lex Luthor is one of the best villains in comics. He kind of fills a similar role in the DC Universe like Dr. Doom does in the Marvel Universe, as the resident supergenius badass. Morrison's depiction in All Star Superman is genius.

I also like Metallo because he looks all scifi, but he is really just a street hood.

I started wondering if the word 'Brainiac' starts with the comic book character or if it was a slang term beforehand. I kind of dig that Johns seems to be be going to combine the machine version of Brainiac that has dominated since Alan Moore nd John Byrne's version in the 80s with the old green headed version.

Bizarro is also a classic character. It is one of the few villains that seemed to be able to maintain some of the old Silver Age wackiness even in the current version. The last couple of recent Superman stories that featured Bizarro by Morrison and Johns really captured nicely the sad nature of the character.

Mongul (or at least Son of Mongul) seems to be evolving out to more of a Green Lantern villain in the last few years, since he blew up Hal Jordan's town and is now taking control of the Sinestro Corps.

Both Bizarro and Brainiac were coined in Superman comics. Prankster, however, was pre-existing.

Wow, he really does have a doctorate in Superman.

I've just remembered Rock Hardy's "me am going! me am going!" comment, and wish I had voted for Bizarro.

Kryptonite, however, wasn't coined in Superman comics. To prove your Superman trivia mastery, tell me where it first appeared?

Just Huk, or anyone?

Anone, sure.

Radio serials?

Correct!

Wikipedia:
"Kryptonite" was introduced in 1943 on the Superman radio series, as both a plot device and to allow Superman's actor, Bud Collyer, to occasionally take time off.

I wonder what that "take time off" bit means? Krytonite made Superman unconscious, so that other chracters could fill in?

Yep.

This bit from the Wikipedia entry for Kryptonite is great!

Superman has suffered the following random effects upon exposure to various pieces of red kryptonite: being turned into a dragon, a non-powered giant, a dwarf, an ant-headed humanoid, a lunatic, and an amnesiac; being made unable to see anything colored green; growing incredibly long hair, nails, and beard; being rendered totally powerless; growing fat; gaining the ability to read thoughts; growing a third eye in the back of his head; losing his invulnerability along the left side of his body; being split into an evil Superman and a good Clark Kent; being split into young and old forms (Superboy and Superman); being rendered unable to speak or write anything but Kryptonese; growing an extra set of arms; becoming clumsy; swapping bodies with the person nearest him upon exposure to it; transferring his powers; rapidly aging; multiple personality changes; and having his skin rendered transparent, overloading him with solar power.

Superman is from the planet Krypton, which is named after the element #36 in the periodic table. Directly above it, at #18 is Argon. Flanking Argon at #17 is Chlorine and at #19 is Potassium. So the three elements 'above' Krypton (not strictly true, of course, because Potassium is back in column 1) read...

Oh, very good!

The Kryptonite entry is making me rethink shunning Smallville. What say you, ILC, is this a good idea?

I am not the one to ask about Smallville. I may or may not have divX files of them all knocking around and have never got round to watching them.

Hey, that periodic table thing was in this week's Comic Book Urban Legends. It certainly works, but it's not how they came up with Clark's name.

Also, they sort of covered the Brainiac question a while back. The toy (a simpler version of the Geniac "computer" and presumably named after Eniac) came out before the character did, and they filed a trademark complaint against DC (which led to the character Brainiac being turned into a living computer to help try to sell the product). It's probably safe to say, though, that the comic character is what pushed the word into common usage (every etymology I've seen cites Superman).

Lex Luthor'd prob top my villains of all time poll, let alone this one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Oh no! Apparently Luthor's incredible intellect has allowed him to hack the ILX polling code!

okay, who voted for Doomsday?

yeah, that's pretty wtf

Thought Brainiac'd get at least a vote

I forgot to vote. I might have voted for Metallo.