Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics Page #13

everyone's sort of hidden fears.

Instead of characters of good and evil, it

became about characters of order and chaos.

It became about anarchy.

We are artists and we're trying to

reflect what's going on in the world.

That's what all art does. It's a mirror.

NARRATOR:
While DC's rogues' gallery

of villains is already enormous...

...there's always room

for a little more evil.

With the advent of The New 52,

the heroes of the DC universe...

...must face new

threats and adversaries.

I have a strange belief about the

way one proceeds with comics...

...is to using old characters

and introducing new characters.

My belief is if you're gonna

use one or two old characters...

...you have to introduce a new one.

I don't think we should ever be so

content to keep riding on the same horse.

If the hero has to survive

for 16, 20, 30 years...

...you wanna know all the different

aspects of that character...

...and the villain will make them

face certain parts about themselves...

...that on their own...

...they may not even think about

or can come up in a storyline.

A villain will find that, because they're

always trying to find something new...

...to use against the hero...

...which makes you explore

your hero even more.

The goal of any villain is

to challenge our hero, right?

Not to challenge them but to

take them to the ragged edge...

...of his existence in every way.

The idea is to try and think about

what the character is most afraid of...

...at that particular moment

in his or her life, the hero...

...then create a villain that

comes right at that thing.

So for "Court of Owls," that

story was really about...

...you know, a moment when

Batman was on top of the world.

He felt very confident in

Gotham and it made me realize...

...Batman might think he knows the city

but he can't know the history of the city.

He can't know everything about it. So what if

the city itself begins to come at him saying:

"You don't know me that well.

" With the Court of Owls...

...they're this group buried and layered into the

past of the city in ways that are scary to him.

He doesn't believe they exist at all.

Then he sees that they actually

have nests for their Talons...

...inside Wayne buildings and

then in the penultimate scene...

...he realizes that the

person behind the story...

...is actually someone who

claims to be a Wayne himself.

The Guardians of the Universe were

characters that they're ancient beings...

...that divorced themselves

from emotion a long time ago.

They thought emotion was dangerous.

They say the law is supposed

to be devoid of emotion.

The First Lantern is the

being who got the first ring...

...who was there to witness the divorcing

of the Guardians and their emotional hearts.

And he took that emotional

power for himself.

And he had changed who he was...

...and the Guardians locked him

away like they did their emotions.

The First Lantern is a metaphor for all the

pent up emotion the Guardians have buried.

And that First Lantern is now free.

At one point, the First Lantern

says... As he's got them captured...

...he's turned the tables and he says,

I'm gonna change this universe now.

But before I do, I want you

to have your emotions back.

I want you to feel this. "

The Guardians, for the first

time in billions of years...

...have their emotions back

and they feel shame and fear...

...and horror about what they've

done and what they've become...

...which I really enjoyed.

And then that's right before

Sinestro wipes them out.

When I got into Aquaman and I was

launching Aquaman for The New 52...

...my attitude was he

wants to be on land.

So he made a conscious decision in

issue one, "My life is on land here. "

And I wanted to have something that

was gonna drag him back into the ocean.

So we created... Ivan Reis and I

created this race of sea creatures...

...humanoid sea creatures,

man-eating creatures...

...that were starving and from the trench

and they had eaten all their food...

...and they were coming up.

They come up out of the

ocean and attack a town...

...and Aquaman gets

involved with that attack...

...and has to go back into the water.

What Aquaman doesn't know is

they're actually another kingdom.

They're actually another underwater

kingdom that is one of many, with Atlantis.

NARRATOR:
Although it

was spawned from comics...

...the DC universe isn't

limited to panels and pages.

It has expanded to include all forms of media

and given its villains new worlds to explore.

JOHNS:
DC Comics isn't

just comics, you know?

It starts in the comics, all the

characters come from the comics.

But then they explode

into everything else.

KIRSHEN:
If it wasn't for these amazingly

rich and complex and multilayered villains...

...that we had to craft our stories around

and what is driving you through the story...

...what is pushing Batman,

you know, to push his limits...

...to get to the end of the

game is ultimately the plan...

...and the storytelling

around the villain...

...and the villains' interactions with each

other as they all try to take down Batman.

You had your shot, Deathstroke, but

you're not the only assassin in town.

There is such rich material here

and such deep, amazing characters...

...that have such long history

and love from the fans...

...for 50, 60, 70 years that we

wanna tell great stories in our games.

We don't want it to just be about

the gameplay and cool visuals.

There's gotta be the meat

there of a great story.

To me, it was a lot of fun to see that because

it explores the world of these characters...

...and it doesn't just give you

one flavor month in, month out.

NARRATOR:
The future, including the

upcoming Forever Evil comic event...

...will continue to emphasize the

villains and their many diabolical deeds.

As DC celebrates its villainy, we're

doing the first New 52 event series.

I'm writing it. David Finch is

drawing it. It's called Forever Evil.

And the context of this is

the Justice League is dead.

The villains have inherited the earth.

They've been killed by the Crime Syndicate.

So we create an event that now carries

on throughout the rest of 2013 and 2014...

...that's all about the villains.

And when we looked at the whole lineup

of characters, it really came down to:

Why does this character

exist in the DC universe?

What role does this character fill?

How do we show that function through

story, through character development?

Seeing all the villains manifest

themselves in animation...

...and television and film and

videogames from the comic books, that's...

I mean, that's the true power and

testament to the characters themselves.

NARRATOR:
The supervillains

of DC Comics...

...come in all manners of

shapes, sizes, personalities...

...dark recesses and eccentricities.

They conquer worlds, eradicate

cities and terrorize the innocent...

...all while fighting the hero.

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