Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics Page #9

A number of stories feature

him running for mayor...

...not because he wants to do

something great. He wants that status.

He wants the power...

...and he wants the status to be the

big man over everybody else in Gotham.

The criminal mastermind is sort

of an extension of the real...

...Mob crime organizations or crime families

that have been a part of American history...

...almost since the country was founded.

That's a great character for comics...

[GUNSHOT]

...because you can take that

into the area of caricature.

Currently, guys like Black Mask.

What's more hideous than

a guy in this, you know...

...awful-looking skull mask...

...wearing a business suit,

commanding a legion of street troopers?

I mean, that's a great foe for Batman.

To guys like Penguin, Black Mask,

they're out to really dominate the city.

They wanna be the distorted, hideous,

grotesque face of Gotham City.

MAN:
Can we get some girls in here?

CATWOMAN:
Careful what you wish for.

[MAN GRUNTING]

Unh!

Cat got your tongue?

NARRATOR:
The apple on the tree.

The seductive siren

song of the temptress.

The femme fatale.

The femme fatale crystallizes the qualities

of both a villain and a love interest...

mall at the same time.

You can find roots in movies.

You can find the actresses...

...who maybe inspired some of

the villainesses who were created.

And these were women who used

their beauty to lure the hero in...

...to get the hero to do their bidding.

And that of course was

reflected in the comics.

It was part of the

inherent popular culture.

Poison Ivy is a great

example of a female villain...

...who will actually take advantage,

knowing that the male characters...

...the male heroes, and

even the male villains...

...that she's working with, are

the ones susceptible to love...

...to connecting with her.

And she uses those

assumptions for her own gain.

She finds that her power

is in, essentially...

...taking advantage of other

people's vulnerability to emotions.

She took everything that could be seen

as objectification towards women...

...and then used it as her own power

and turns it around on the guys.

LANGLEY:
She's very interested

in controlling people.

Harley Quinn is a case of love gone bad.

The individual who's fascinated

with the supervillains...

"fascinated with their egos and their

qualities, and Joker plays to that.

So Harleen Quinzel is a woman...

...who is a psychiatry intern,

essentially, at Arkham Asylum.

When Bruce Timm and I

wrote the origin for her...

...in Mad Love, then we really

got into her personality.

That she wanted to write a tell-all book

about Gotham's psychotic criminals...

...then wound up falling under the

sway of one and becoming one herself.

LETAMENDI:
She wants the

toughest case possible.

And who is the toughest

case? It's the Joker.

There's this connection

that they have together.

I think there is an element

of manipulation on his end.

That he, um...

I think he fancies her, but

also that he's realizing that...

...here's an opportunity for

him to get out of Arkham Asylum.

Harley's a bit of a social chameleon.

She molds herself to the people around her.

When she hangs out with heroes, she's heroic.

She hangs out with villains, she's villainous.

When with the Joker, she's more murderous...

...than she is at other times.

Some of the villainesses that

we have in the DC universe...

- ... are almost more powerful than the villains.

- The sky is the limit...

...as far as female

villains are concerned.

PORTER:
Someone like Cheetah,

who is crazy ferocious.

With the Cheetah, I wanted

to create somebody...

...who resonated with

Wonder Woman, with Diana.

We added kind of a back-story

that they were friends...

...and then ultimately

she became the Cheetah.

And Wonder Woman later learned

she was never really her friend.

It was all just a play, and it was

a bond of trust that was broken.

And the Cheetah has turned into this savage

creature that wants to destroy humanity...

...as much as Wonder

Woman wants to protect it.

At this point in time...

...I think we're lucky enough to be in

an era where there is a lot more equality.

And you're getting some great stories.

They can be defined by

what their plot is...

...what their motive is, what their

goals are, what their methods are.

And that's great that you don't

simply have to define them by gender.

The female villain, you

know, historically...

...goes back all the

way to Greek mythology.

Look at a character like

Hera, for instance...

...who is both a heroine and a

villain, depending on the story.

Other female villains throughout time

have a lot of that same complexity to them.

You look at a character

like Catwoman, for instance.

In her original incarnation, I

believe, she was just an adventurer.

She was out there being a

burglar and jewel robber...

...simply because of the thrill of it.

We began learning more about her in the

80s, what her past might have been...

...and that certainly made her more of a

complex and more of a sympathetic character.

And then to the present

day where she is...

...I believe one of the

members of the Justice League.

So she's gone all the way from being a

villain to anti-hero to straight-on heroine.

She's very curious to us. She has

that duality of both good and evil.

And I think that that

allows her to be relatable.

I think that she's the most realistic.

BLACK:
It was just interesting to

see this strong, female character.

And she was a precursor, I think...

...to a lot of the sort of

heroines that we now see on screen.

Women really started to become more

popular on the big screen and on TV.

As a result, I think of characters

like Catwoman being portrayed...

...in the early days

of television and film.

Today, happily, from what

I have seen and read...

...you have superheroes, superheroines,

supervillains, supervillainesses...

...all on a level playing field.

I think any time you can

make the character strong...

...whether they're male or female,

you'll end up with a good villain.

NARRATOR:
it should come as no

surprise, no coincidence, really...

...that the more popular heroes are the ones

who typically battle the most sinister...

...and charismatic rogues' galleries.

For it's this dynamic

roster of villains...

...that bolster and buoy

the popularity of our hero.

When you look at the very best

characters, the very best heroes...

...in comic book mythology, they typically

have the strongest rogues' gallery.

I think you develop a better rogues'

gallery around the superhero...

...if the scale of the superhero...

...is one where it's easy to imagine

the villain coming into being.

You look at Batman, Batman

ultimately is a human being.

So therefore you can have villains that

face him that are human plus a little.

Batman's rogues' gallery, which I

think is the best rogues' gallery...

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