How to make a villain for your hero
Comic Reviews for week ending 8/7/2022
Good morning, my friend,
Let’s talk about villains. Comics writers, reviewers, analysts, and pundits (including myself) love to blather on all day long about the hero’s journey and the innate qualities that make a character heroic. We do so because it’s fun, and frankly, the Big 2 get those characteristics too wrong these days.
But there is no light without dark, no yin without yang, no positive without negative. If you’ve got a rock-solid idea for a hero, do you have an equally solid idea for your villain? If you don’t, do you know how to get one? If not, here are the basics that will send you on your way.
To define your villain, first, define your hero.
As the heading applies, the easiest way to define a villain is to take whatever qualities make your hero special and create the opposite.
If your hero is a cyborg mutant with ice powers, make a villain that’s an expert hacker with villain powers.
If your hero can fly or run super fast, create a villain that can distort gravity to slow down your hero.
If your hero is a powerful telepath, create a villain that can confound and confuse the senses.
It sounds too easy, but think about every great hero and how they stack up against their most famous villains. Superman has his Lex Luthor (brawn against brain). Batman has his Joker (order and saving lives against chaos and murder). Captain America has his Red Skull (freedom and democracy versus oppression and fascism).
The point here is to take whatever qualities are central to your hero and create a villain that’s the opposite.
The villain must be stronger
Part of the hero’s journey is the act of overcoming whatever challenge stands in the hero’s way. For a hero to overcome, the challenge must be greater than the hero. Therefore, the villain must be more powerful than the hero to force the hero to grow, evolve, and become greater to defeat the villain.
How much more powerful? That depends on how much time (page space, issues, etc.) you have. If your story is a one-shot, the villain needs to be powerful so the hero can grow enough to win by the end of the issue. A 12-issue maxi-series will understandably give the hero more time to grow and evolve.
Regardless of how much time is available, overcoming the villain defines the goal of the hero’s journey. If the villain is evenly matched or weaker than the hero, there’s not much challenge to make the journey worth the destination.
Lean into the evil
The trope of the “misunderstood villain” has taken root in recent years, and it’s a bad one. Don’t do that. Make your villain as brutal and nasty as you can imagine without apology or reservation.
When your hero has aspirational qualities that a reader can get behind, a reader becomes emotionally invested in the hero’s success. When the villain is so vile and despicable that the reader wants to jump into the page to get in on the villain’s butt whooping, the reader becomes just as emotionally invested in seeing the villain get what’s coming to them.
As a writer, you hook a reader by stoking the flames of emotional investment. Getting the reader on the hero’s side is good. Getting the reader also against the villain is even better. You stack the emotions and exponentially increase the hook for the reader.
Don’t be shy about being bad.
It really is that straightforward. A great hero needs a great villain, so if you need one:
Define a villain as the exact opposite of the hero
Make the villain more powerful to give the hero a challenge to overcome
Increase the emotional hook for the reader by getting them to root for the hero AND root against the villain.
Who are your all-time favorite villains? Comment below and share the best of the worst, in your opinion.
Now, let’s get on with the week in reviews.
COVER THE DEAD WITH LIME #1 – Review
RED SONJA: RED SITHA #4 – Review
DOCTOR WHO: ORIGINS #3 – Review
007 #1 – Review
PROJECT SUPERPOWERS: FRACTURED STATES #5 – Review
GRIMM FAIRY TALES (VOL. 2) #62 – Review
GRIMM SPOTLIGHT: IRON MAIDEN – Review
The Tiger's Tongue #2 (Mad Cave Studios)
Blade Runner: Black Lotus #1 (Titan Comics)
Dragon Whisperer (Vol. 2) #3 (Red 5 Comics)
Pellucidar: Across Savage Seas #4 (American Mythology)
Beyond the Farthest Star: Warriors of Zandar #4 (American Mythology)
Grimm Universe Presents Quarterly: Sleeping Beauty (Zenescope Entertainment)
Red Sonja Fairy Tales (One-Shot) (Dynamite Comics)
Vampirella Fairy Tales (One-Shot) (Dynamite Comics)
Draculina #5 (Dynamite Comics)
Elvira in Horrorland #3 (Dynamite Comics)
Sheena: Queen of the Jungle #8 (Dynamite Comics)
Archer & Armstrong Forever #4 (Valiant Entertainment)
In Our Dreams Awake (Indie Submission)
Big Bang Adventures #15 (Indie Submission)
That’s the shortlist for now. We’ll add more titles and adjust as time and resources allow.
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