Villain Type You Hate More: Ultra-Serious or Comedy Baffoon

I am a person that loves a good villain, you guys should know that by now, by how many villain threads I have made.

I think I speak for a lot of people, the best type of villains that balence being serious enough to be effective at their job, but also have a intersting enough personality to entertain you. Villains that are smart and some cases genious at mental minpulation and out smarting the heros, and just maybe awsome fighting skills, but when the time calls for it can say some clever or even funny lines. I call them the perfect villains. Examples for me are David Xanatos, Slade, Lex Luther.

But what about the ones that don't have those quality, which type of villain annoy you more?

1) Altro serious villain. A villain that have a robotic personlity, that is all business, never say anything funny or even interesting.

or

2) Comedy buffon villain. A villain that is just a joke. They are suppose to be funny, some of them are funny actully. But these villains follow the stupid code of blabing about their plans to the heros, using the unnecessary complicated slow moving death trap and leave the room when they use it.

I don't know, I guess the buffon villain annoys me more, but I don't mind if the villain sidekicks are idiots. A good substitue for the perfect villain, is to have the altro serious villain be the boss, and have the comedy buffon be his sidekick.
 
Well, I hate Disney villains like say Ursela, Jafar, Scar, etc. To me, they're a complete joke. I mean come on, sure, Scar killed Mufasa but that's nothing compared to say, The Joker.
 
Yeah, I like this combination. Comedy relief villains can be great when used effectively, but I like it when there's some type of serious threat involved, so the show doesn't feel like one huge joke.
 
That's why I like Dr Robotnik/Eggman so much. he's a mixture of the two different types of villains you mentioned.

In the videogame Sonic Adventure 2 for Dreamcast/GameCube, there was a very good balance of him being both silly (scratching his butt while watching TV, throwing a temper tantrum after blowing up the moon) and evil (Pointing a giant gun into Amy Rose's face, shooting Sonic into space in a capsule rigged to explode, blowing up an island, and shooting-up a military base)

However, in animation, Robotnik hasn't really been able to mix both types of villain. He's either been quiet and sinister (Sonic SatAM) or completely off-the-wall goofy (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic X.)

Him, Doctor Octopus and the Joker are some of my favorite villains for the reasons mentioned in my Sonic Adventure 2 comparison. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy quiet sinister villains, if they are well developed, and have reasons for being so quiet, brooding and evil, then it makes them a bit interesting.
 
Villians are really the backbone of action shows, and most creators get them wrong. A great villain creates the heroes. If the villain is over strong and stupid and easily defeated,,, it's easy writing but the heroes look simple.

"Domination" is a basic goal of a villain, but there has to be a stronger reason than "obey me" to get other soldiers to follow commands.

Evil is easy. Getting "force" (people) to follow, is the real hard part.
 
Okay that is your opinion. I am not going to despute it.

But most of the villains you listed didn't have a robotic personality, and were clever enough to be effective villain.

The question I am trying to ask which extreme style of villain do you dislike the most?

The villain that is very serious, effective, and maybe even scary, but the personality of a door knob.

Or a villain that is the opposite, that has a clown personality, but are such a joke, you can't take them seriously, and also consentraits a lot on the evil laugh.

The question is about villain style or type of villain? Not what villains you hate the most?

But if you want to mention Disney, example of the comedy relief villain that aren't a serious treat and is a joke is Isma (I am sorry if I misspelled her name) from the Emperor's New Groove and the Emperior New School series, and the villains on Kim Possible. Though in Isma's case, Kusco is a equal buffon that it evens out.
 
Well, I don't like the comedic villains when they deal with a serious situation but sometimes even in a comedy show, they can be annoying.
 
I like the villians in Xiaolin Showdown. Mainly because 3 out of 4 of them are all serious, but later on in the series, have a bit more jokes while still staying in character. The last one, Jack Spicer, is a buffon villian but not so much in the "BLAB OUT PLAN" typical villian, but more in a like.

Just bad at being a villain. In the earlier episodes, he used to win from time to time and I kinda missed that. He ended up being one big joke and lost all thoughts of knowing machines and stuff. I kinda liked it when it was in the middle.
 
Originally Posted by Movie06
Well, I hate Disney villains like say Ursela, Jafar, Scar, etc. To me, they're a complete joke. I mean come on, sure, Scar killed Mufasa but that's nothing compared to say, The Joker.
Okay that is your opinion. I am not going to despute it.




^Not to mention that trying to compare one-shot Disney movie villains to recurring comic book villains is like trying to compare ice cream to sardines.
 
Both have their place, but I hate it when A comedic villain(ex. one who is outsmarted by his minions and is constantly making mistakes) is treated like a serious villain by the heroes. it's too jarring and makes the heroes look dumb, especially if that villain is inept.

Such examples would be The X's and Robotboy, where complete idiot villains were treated seriously and both groups could have solved their threats permanently if they ever wanted to.
 
The Disney villains serve their purpose in the genre in which they inhabit. Like Zoombie said, this thread isn't for beefing about villains you hate.
 
ultra serious > big baffoon

Why? Because an ultra serious villian can at least be mysterious, which is sometimes all the personality you need for a show.

As for big baffoons, well, I'll just list them and you be the judge:
Team Rocket
Bebop and Rocksteady
all those bumbling idiots from Power Rangers
everyone from Captain Planet, even Captain Planet himself

See what I mean?
 
Like D dubbs said earlier, comic relief villains or alto serious villains can be good villains if done right.

For example for me (you all can disagree, but I like them) the H.I.V.E. Five of Teen Titans are complete jokes if you look at it. They are complete buffons, but they are fun characters and they are interesting characters for me, even though they are buffons. They are not as good as Slade, but they are still cool, and I love any episode that features the H.I.V.E. Five.

On the other side, Trigon he had zip personality, but his powers were awsome, it is one of my favorite season arcs of Teen Titans. Having Slade be his sidekick, didn't hurt either. But I liked the story in the comic book as well.

Another example of comedy buffon villains that were written as a serious threat is every villain on Kim Possible, though I actully like Kim Possible, it is a good show if you just want comedy. It is suppose to be a parody on action cartoon shows.

I am not saying ever villain has to have that balence of serious and smart, with interesting and funny to be good. Some of them are good if written right, but what I was trying to ask, which type if writing wrong is worse?
 
Oh come on. Scar murdered his brother and then turned around tried to kill trusting, grieving little Simba, who had just seen his father die. Scar was a badass. He was oily and sarcastic, but deadly when it suited him.

Jafar is delightful. Creepy yet aristocratic, vengeful and (in one scene, literally) venomous. An elegant villian, not quite on Darth Vader's level, but within a respectable distance.

As for the Joker - again, come on. Which version do you mean - the movie version with Jack Nicholson, the WB toon version, the old Batman TV show version, or the Frank Miller version? IMO all the Jokers are a joke - anorexic schlubs in clown makeup who prance around and make lame witticisms -except for Miller's version in his classic comic Dark Knight. THAT Joker was scary - a cross between Charles Manson and David Bowie, who killed a troop of Cub Scouts for laughs. Just the same, IMO, Scar could have had any of the Jokers for lunch. Metaphorically and otherwise.
 
I have a hard time taking any superhero-linked villian seriously. I will say that some are more cleverly-conceived than others: the Batman villians, for instance, are far and away the best of the whole "Curses! Foiled again!" bunch. The Riddler, the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman...each embodies the concepts behind their identities with style and even a touch of dark humor. And they're brilliantly designed too. On the flipside, Spiderman's villians, IMO, are pitiful. The Green Goblin? Ooohh, scary. And Doc Octopus. A cross between Squidward and the Tin Man. Feh. To me they're kids' stuff.

I don't have a lot of regard for "comic" villians either. One Disney bad guy I don't care for (except for his voice) is Prince John, the feygalah lion from the movie Robin Hood. He was so weak and ineffective that he made things just a little too easy for Robin, and any villian who doesn't make life too difficult for the hero is an abject failure as a plot device. The Prince's advisor, Sir Hiss, was even worse. A pathetic slithering sycophant who took an enormous amount of abuse for dubious reward. At least the Sheriff of Nottingham was funny, but he too was an inept coward, so there was hardly any motive to root for Robin since the whole sitch seemed like a gay lark, a grand day out, rather than a life-and-death struggle against tyranny. I love anthropomorphic animal movies, but I didn't bother renting the Robin Hood DVD when it was released a few months ago. It bored me enough as a kid, and I doubt it's improved with time.

Second-worse comic villian is Lord Spite from World of Quest. He's a simpering effeminate twit with a unicorn horn on his head. :P He has the usual inept lackeys who mess up all his plans. And yet we're supposed to believe that he's the center of a struggle between good and evil. Yawn. I want Nestor to kick Spite's butt just because he's such a hateful embodiment of all that is wrong with comic villians these days: they all act like Jack from Will and Grace. And preening obnoxiousness is no substitute for true villiany IMO.
 
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about either villain beyond the movies or the lame 90s cartoon.

Venom I'll give you, completely pathetic.
 
That's nothing compared Itachi. Ok, that's probably a stupid comparison but the thing is, I'm talking about in terms of cruelness, Scar maybe on a scale of 6 but Itachi is at a scale of 8.



He fell for the most cliched trick. Not even Xanatos would fall for something like that.



Since we're talking about cartoons, I'm referring to DCAU Joker. The thing is, this guy managed to press Batman's buttons really hard. He triggered his anger and turned Tim Drake into Joker Jr. by torturing him.
 
Back
Top