What role villains?

As you probably noticed, I have some fairly strong feelings about villains. I started this whole thing off with my listing of ten painful villains, and it's been a recurring theme since then.

That said, I'm not really "about" villains. Not at all, I'm all about the heros. You'll never find a poster of Darth Vader, or Magneto, or the Joker around my house. They just don't interest me in that way. A good villain provides a chance for the hero's to show their mettle. Not only in terms of their combat skills, but also in showing what makes them a hero. A good villain is there to create interesting conflict.

That's probably one of the reasons I prefer to see my villains as being recognizably evil. I'm not saying that every one of them has to be some Joker clone, where his madness is obvious to all. Not in the least. I am saying though that it should be clear that a villain really is "the bad guy (or girl)." I don't want the books to sit there and try to make them sympathetic, or that we say "it's not really their fault." Nope, they're evil. Even if they are trying to do "good", they're evil (see Ozymandias).

This is one of the reasons that Toon Terra bugs me, as I mentioned. In the Judas Contract, Terra was your proverbial "bad seed." No explanation what made her such a head case, or why she hated the Titans so badly. Sure she said a few things, but they didn't really answer the question. That worked. Sure, you'll find some more complex, even conflicted villains, but every now and then, it's nice to have a straightforward "bad seed,"

Now, we get to Toon Terra, and they went entirely the other direction. She was entirely conflicted. She was manipulated, yet she knew what she was doing, and did it willingly (for the most part.) Yet, in the end, she "redeemed" herself. An entirely different sort of villain, and one that is, to me at least, less satisfying. I know, the "real" villain in that story is Slade, but it just never quite connected to me as well.

Now, there are two types of villains I truly like to see in a bit "more depth," and those are the villains on the "way up," and those on the "way down." Comics are full of heros who got their start as villains. I'm not going to say Hawkeye was the first, but he's an obvious example.

I'm sure that there are some examples of the opposite as well, heros who have gone bad, bad, bad. Other than Ozymandias, I can't think of any offhand. That's something I'd like to see more of. Especially heros who are fairly "long term." I mean, a hero who shows up, and then five issues later starts to "fall"," is one thing. I'd like to see a hero (even if not a huge name), who has a fairly long history go "down the tubes," some time. Now that'll create conflict for our heros.