Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics Page #5

...I think, for the hero, who's the

representative of all the things we think...

We hope that humanity is capable

of or we're capable of at our best.

Then when the hero overcomes those

things at the end because they have to...

...it says to us that we can too.

NARRATOR:
Every myth has a creation.

Just like our heroes, every

villain must have an origin.

And what qualities do we see

in the most popular villains?

Instilling a sense of

fear simply isn't enough.

Villains must be layered, nuanced.

We must ask ourselves: What

makes a bad guy, a bad guy?

You wanna give your villain idiosyncrasies,

and you want to make him strangely weird...

...and interesting psychologically.

Those kind of characters lend themselves

to having stories told about them...

...because their bones are so strong.

You can put, you know...

You can hang a lot of meat on them.

They have their own path and

they all have their own story.

And, you know, while their

powers may be similar...

...hopefully their

personalities are not.

If a villain is great-looking

or is great just visually...

...but doesn't have a back-story...

...it really takes away

from enjoying its run.

The wonderful thing about

Batman:
The Animated Series...

...is that they not only featured...

...and celebrated a number of

DC villains in Gotham City...

...but introduced a

number of origin stories.

Of course, we have this

back-story of Harvey Dent...

...and his struggles with his anger.

We even get to see this session

he has with a psychiatrist.

And the psychiatrist puts him

into this state of hypnotism...

...and asks him to

draw up his alter ego.

He calls it Big Bad Harvey.

Later in the episode, of course, we

see his full development into Two-Face.

And I'll never forget that moment...

...where he breaks open the

door out of his hospital room.

He then turns at the same

time that there's lightning...

...and we see the image of

the second half of his face.

Black Hand really came into his own...

...in Green Lantern 43 when

his origin was revealed.

Taking a character like Black

Hand who was a minor villain...

...and looking at him and saying, "if we have an emotional spectrum..

-...

...and all the colors represent life...

...the absence of color has to represent

death. There's got to be black. "

Black Hand, by becoming the avatar

of death, having a black ring...

...committing suicide to become

a zombified Black Lantern...

...which is one of the best moments

Doug Mahnke's ever drawn in his life.

It's creepy, twisted, dark.

Once people actually got to get inside

his head a little bit and see who he was...

...then it became much

more of a connection.

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