#of their planet's other lifeforms live) and in swamps (which also make up a pretty huge chunk of their land

[chisatowo]

I was gonna do more doodles here but Im tired so

[weaselle]

Monsters

WATER - one of the key ingredients to surviving longer than a couple days, makes up about three fourths of your personal mass, and yet water is easily deadly in normal conditions / activities. SUNLIGHT - the very source of life itself on this planet, without which life likely wouldn’t be at all possible in any form... a biological need for healthy humans, and also, actively killing you both short term and long term. SALT - This is a strong anti-biological agent (wanna clean your cutting board and don’t want the wood to soak up soap flavors? get the board wet, pour salt over it, scrub, let sit 30 to 90 seconds; the crystals will scrub like sandpaper, and the high salt concentration will kill any microbes.) Humans will die without salt, but also, eat just eat a few tablespoons of it and it’ll kill you. GRAVITY -  the only thing preventing you from flying off this rock to die in space, but also the certain cause of your death if you fall off a particularly tall bit of the rock ...or if even a smidgen of the rock falls off a high something onto you. OXYGEN - You need to jam this poisonous bullshit deep inside you and distribute it to every tiny part of yourself one good time every single minute or you’ll be dead in less than ten. This stuff is a powerful corrosive (given enough time it will totally dissolve iron itself) poisonous to most of this planet’s first lifeforms, as well as completely and powerfully explosive/flammable. That’s probably why breathing pure oxygen will corrode your lungs, melt your retinas, and kill you dead. Assuming nothing causes a spark first. YOU: an absolute monster amid the madness -- bomb fuel breathing, radiation frolicking, poison eating, swamp creature. Humans will remove their own limbs or even organs if they believe it necessary. Humans will thumb their nose at gravity, strap a giant sheet of caterpillar spit to their back and jump out of a perfectly working airplane. We’ll punch holes in our bodies for fashion, we’ll poison ourselves for recreation. Humans will cut you open and replace parts of your body with fancy clock bits, and when that means all your blood spills out of you, they’ll pour a bunch of other people’s blood into you to keep you alive. You are a nightmare beast in a world of horror. You bask in solar radiation and dance against gravity. Your bones grow pointily out of your face so you can rend the things around you into tiny pieces and consume them, and humans as a whole eat just about literally everything. Look how scary a shark is. Now know that we eat far more sharks than sharks eat us. Many of the organisms that grew irritating or harmful chemicals to ward off things eating them are our delicacies. We invade everywhere, every deep cave, every high mountain, the air the sea, our moon, the inside of an atom --  we poke our nose e v e r y w h e r e. And we eat or break apart pretty much everything we find there. WE are the most terrifying creature on a planet made of murder. Every damn thing on this hunk of wet space rock is maiming and killing everything around it, and we are the scariest of them all. Think a demon is scary? YOU’RE a demon. And several million tiny demons live in and on you. so don’t be frightened of the things around you, revel in your beastly nature -- you’re breathing a poisonous explosive gas just to keep from dying every minute. You’re already in the all pro leagues surfing a sea of death on a slim board of life... so hang ten. Shoot the curl.

[true-halloween-tales]

2018: #12-SUPERVILLAINS

The origin of the word “villain” reveals a secret about the significance of villains and supervillains. The origin of “villain” is the Latin word villanus; it curiously means farmhand. It refers to workers on villas or plantations. Over the years it transformed into the word “villein,” which meant serf or peasant. A villein came to mean that a person was lacking the politeness or chivalry of a knight – that the person was of a lower social status. Over some more years and human negativity further tainted the term. “Villein” in French is now “vilain” meaning bad or ugly, and the Italian “villano” means rude. What has happened is that one type of people has vilified another type of people as seen in the etymological corruption of the meaning. The significance of this is the difference between a criminal and a villain. A criminal is symbolically branded as a wrong-doer for breaking the law. A villain could be a mislabeled, misunderstood, oppressed person, a farmhand, and not necessarily a wrong-doer. Therefore some supervillains could be more like social rebels and less like evil criminals…

Early villains in fiction wore all black with a tall black hat and a twirly mustache. This was the archetypical image of villains such as Snidely Whiplash from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Early villains included the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood, Professor Moriarty with Sherlock Holmes, and Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon (see 2012: #8-MING THE MERCILESS IN THE FOGGY RING OF HELL). In the 1960’s some villains started to emerge who had huge agendas, including: Blofeld from the James Bond series and the Master from Doctor Who (see 2017: #4-SPIES and 2018: #2-GUIDE TO DOCTOR WHO). Perhaps the furthest a villain can go is to have a successful take over of the entire universe. To be able to threaten the universe’s existence nearly as a god, and to make announcements to the occupants of the universe as your subjects is when you have won the supervillain game. This has been done by the tv villains of the Master and Mantrid from the Lexx series, and each ended up destroying at least a section of the entire universe. Now that’s very, very bad and leads us to supervillains…

Supervillains are primarily comic book villains. The term originates from the 1960’s. The most simple definition of “supervillain” is a villain who has a superhero as an opponent. Supervillains often have specific costumes or outfits, catchy names, special talents or gimmicks, henchmen, secret hideouts, secret identities, and master plans. Supervillains appear in comic books to be challenging opponents of superheroes. If the supervillain does not have special powers, then they may have special skills that distinguish them like being a genius. A predominant supervillain personality trait is that of having megalomaniacal delusions. Many supervillains have similarities to dictators, terrorists, and gangsters, with aspirations of world domination.

Supervillains are not always criminals. Sometimes they behave as social rebels. They may not be farmhands or serfs, but they sure are rebelling. Heath Legder’s Joker standing there laughing with millions of dollars burning behind him is the quintessential film scene depicting this. Jack Nicholson’s Joker art gallery scene brings the rebellion to art. Burgess Meredith’s the Penguin only ever had one goal: to have Batman arrested, sued, entrapped, and disgraced. Sometimes supervillains are even depicted as being sympathetic. Magneto from the X-Men comics and films is a supervillain basically because he was a Nazi victim in WW2. Sometimes the line between the hero and villain becomes blurred. Sometimes supervillains become the good guys temporarily at least. The Legends of Tomorrow tv series has included such supervillains as Captain Cold working on a team for a common aim with other supervillains. Since there are so many supervillains, to understand them we must classify them…

The first classification of supervillain is for highly talented people without any special powers. This includes Lex Luther, the Penguin, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, and Cat Woman. A sub-classification are highly talented people with special training: Deathstroke, Kingpin, and even the Joker supposed to have studied chemistry. Another sub-classification of supervillains are highly talented people with scientific gizmos: Dr. Octopus, Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, and the Scarecrow who often uses hallucinatory drugs on his victims as seen in the excellent Batman Arkham video game series. Many gizmo users are also mad scientists (see #2018: #5-MAD SCIENTISTS).

The second category of supervillains include normal people who gained special powers. This often means that the person came into contact with a rare manufactured substance that transformed them. This classification includes the Reverse Flash, Sandman, Bane, Poison Ivy, and the alien-looking Black Manta appearing in December 2018’s Aquaman film. There are a rare few supervillains in this classification that had their transformation sparked by a natural phenomenon. One such supervillain was Vandal Savage who was seen on season two of Legends of Tomorrow. Vandal Savage was a caveman who touched an alien meteor and developed super powers including eternal life. Another supervillain in this classification, Juggernaut from the Deadpool 2 film, received his size, strength, and power from touching the magical Crimson Gem of Cyttora.

A third classification of supervillain are those with natural, special powers that they were born with. This often signifies that the person is a mutant, usually placing them in the realm of the X-Men. This classification includes: Magneto, the blue Mystique, and the also blue Apocalypse, the first mutant from 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse film. A sub-classification of supervillains with powers are aliens, with many from the Superman comics. Superman’s foe, General Zod is an alien, originating from Superman’s home planet of Krypton. General Zod also created an evil Superman clone with grey skin named Bizarro. The strange Mister Mxyzptlk is another Superman supervillain, the “imp from the Fifth Dimension.” Another sub-classification of supervillains with powers are demigods and actual gods, such as Loki or Hela, the goddess of death from 2017’s excellent Thor: Ragnarok. Thanos falls into this sub-classification, from 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War film. Thanos is basically a Grecian Titan even though he is an alien, an Eternal. The top villain in the D.C. universe is Darkseid, whose father was Zonuz, the first god of evil and also the last Old God. Darkseid had the ultimate goal of controlling everyone in the universe. The one superhero who fights the most amount of deities, demigods, and cosmic entities is Doctor Strange. His first foe was Nightmare, evil ruler of the Dream Dimension. He fought the godlike Eternity and had a regular fantastic foe with the cool-looking Dormammu, ruler of the Dark Dimension who briefly appeared in 2016’s Doctor Strange film.

A fourth classification of supervillains exists, those with dark powers. These are supervillains who border on being monsters or really are monsters. One such supervillain is Flash’s foe, Gorilla Grodd. Gorilla Grodd was a gorilla in Africa that came into contact with either a meteor or a spacecraft. In either case, he became ultra-powerful, brilliant, telepathic, and he could control minds. Venom is a particularly cool villain because he is a monster, created by an alien symbiont lifeform. What is surprising about Venom in the comics is that he sort of becomes a hero for homeless people. Eventually a harness is put on him and he works for the military on missions as Agent Venom. Hopefully a sequel to the 2018 Venom film will be made that is a proper cult film. In 1944 D.C. Comics had a wealthy merchant named Cyrus Gold get killed in Slaughter Swamp near Gotham City in All American Comics. He then rose as a zombie fifty years later, as supervillain Solomon Grundy, and went on a killing spree and became a Green Lantern villain. Morbius the Living Vampire is about a man who transforms himself into a vampire via a chemistry experiment, and he dons a cool outfit and transforms from being a Spider-Man supervillain to becoming an antihero superhero with his own comic and a film on the way in the future.

A fifth classification of supervillain are atypical supervillains who may fit in no other categories. These usually are supervillains that did not originate from comic books. M. Night Shyamalan’s film from 2000, Unbreakable, features Samuel Jackson as Elijah Price, a supervillain who is returning in January 2019’s Glass along with James McAvoy’s character from 2016’s Split. A sixth classification of supervillains are those appearing in comedy. The Terror appeared in both series of The Tick, and the new Amazon The Tick live action series is pretty good. The animated Adult Swim tv series from 2006-2008, Frisky Dingo, created by Archer’s Adam Reed, featured the supervillain main character of Killface who appeared as a ridiculous but powerful lich obsessed with destroying the Earth with his mad scientist weapon, the Annihilatrix. There are not many supervillains appearing in comedy.

But there are quite a few teams of supervillains. The Suicide Squad is a team of supervillains forced to work for the good guys. The 2016 film was awful, and a sequel is in the way. The Suicide Squad team members change a lot throughout the comics but usually include Deadshot and Captain Boomerang. The Sinister Six are a group of Spider-Man supervillains who are rumored to appear in a future film. The team includes Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and the Sandman. 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home will nearly include the Sinister Six with: Michael Keating reprising his Vulture, Michael Mando as the Scorpion, and Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio. Yet another supervillain team is the Legion of Doom which appeared in 1978’s Challenge of the Superfriends cartoon tv series. The Legion of Doom consisted of: Bizarro, Cheetah, Captain Cold, Black Manta, Gorilla Grodd, Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, and more!

If we toss all of the supervillains into the Cauldron of Creepiness, which three bubble up to the top and rise above the rest? The Joker is pretty much the number one villain. And Venom is pretty much the most monstrous villain. So those two are easy. I would have to say that Superman’s strange supervillain, Mister Mxyzptlk, would be the third to rise to the top. Since he is from the Fifth Dimension he can virtually do magic and twist reality. The Joker, Venom, and Mister Mxyzptlk are probably the top three coolest supervilllains. But if the top three strongest supervillains were selected, it would be a completely different group. Thanos with his Infinity Gauntlet is certainly in the top three; he sure had plans on making major alterations to the universe! Dormammu is definitely one of the top three most powerful supervillains with godlike powers. His head is made out of evil fire. Dormammu would not be affected by the Infinity Gauntlet, and he could take Thanos down with ease. But Dormammu could be taken down by Galactus, an alien from the planet Taa from before the Big Bang. Galactus survived the destruction of his universe by bonding with the Sentience of the Universe. He gestated for billions of years in our universe until he woke up, and he woke up hungry so he started devouring whole planets. An alien eventually made a deal for Galactus not to gobble up his planet, and the alien was transformed into the herald of Galactus, the Silver Surfer. So Galactus is pretty much the most powerful supervillain.

Superhero films pretty much started with 1966’s Batman: the Movie with Adam West. The quality of the film is usually directly related to the quality of the depiction of the supervillain. 1989’s Batman with Tim Burton’s vision and Jack Nicholson as the Joker is a classic. The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger as the Joker is also an incredible film. The Dark Knight Rises with Bane is also a decent film with an amazing scope. As for tv, Adam West’s Batman series is one of the best for outrageous supervillains. Cesar Romero’s Joker is excellent, Burgess Meredith served up the best Penguin to date, Frank Gorshwin provided an effervescent and the best Riddler, and Vincent Price laid a wonderful Egghead. All three seasons of the series are finally available on disc. Ralph Bakshi’s Spider-Man cartoon series from 1967-1969 was a great series also for its supervillains. It delivered the best Green Goblin even from any film, included traditional supervillains from Electro to the Rhino, had neat-looking monsters, and it featured great incidental music. The Legends of Tomorrow tv series features interesting supervillains, including some who are members of the team of the superheroes. Captain Cold and Heatwave are Flash supervillains who made the transition into being acting superheroes. An entertaining recent depiction of a supervillain was by Tom Cavanaugh as the Reverse Flash on the first season of The Flash tv series. These days Netflix is starting to cancel the Marvel superhero series – the ones with the least interesting supervillains.

Back to the derivation of the word, villain. Could supervillains be related in any way to farmhands, serfs, the poor, or social rebels? Are the superheroes now the super-rich land owners, the knights? Are superheroes ever depicted as being millionaires? Like Bruce Wayne…Tony Stark…Oliver Queen… Hmmm, maybe sometimes the supervillains may not be as bad as they seem, and the superheroes may sometimes be really more villain and less hero…