Does VEI need more Iconic Villains?

[WrathOfArmstrong]

DISCLAIMER: I’m speaking to VEI’s output only. If there are some awesome villains from the previous era that haven’t made their way or haven’t been utilized properly, I’d like to hear it…

Master Darque, Dr. Silk, and Harada are the only ‘villains’ that have left an impression on me in VEI. Maybe even Roku…but I think her look is what has earned her higher status. Everyone else has come and gone and don't feel like a threat looming over the universe.

Maybe I’m missing some of the villains that could stand toe-to-toe with our heroes…but do you all think Valiant needs to develop some stronger villains to match the stables of the Big Two? Or is VEI’s closer to reality ‘dead vs. dead’ always going to prioritize the hero over the threat?

[TheeBaldMoose]

DISCLAIMER: I’m speaking to VEI’s output only. If there are some awesome villains from the previous era that haven’t made their way or haven’t been utilized properly, I’d like to hear it…

Master Darque, Dr. Silk, and Harada are the only ‘villains’ that have left an impression on me in VEI. Maybe even Roku…but I think her look is what has earned her higher status. Everyone else has come and gone and don't feel like a threat looming over the universe.

Maybe I’m missing some of the villains that could stand toe-to-toe with our heroes…but do you all think Valiant needs to develop some stronger villains to match the stables of the Big Two? Or is VEI’s closer to reality ‘dead vs. dead’ always going to prioritize the hero over the threat?

I think we are in a transition of sorts, where more villains are on the horizon. Kostity the Deathless stated in yesterdays Ninja-K book, "this is the time of the immortals", and we could see more of those types coming into fold. Her turn to a more villainous roll (and maybe Baba Yaga), could be just the start of new "Bad Guys". I think Baba Yaga would be outstanding as a Villain! We also have David Camp, and I suspect he will be an issue here real soon for Earth. Factor in (maybe) a few individuals from Eternity, and we could have a new batch of bad guys! Another, could The Jonin, if he escapes this arc of Ninja-K, he is a worth while Villain, or at least could be. Seems to know his way around, and can gather others with like minds. Has lived a long time (not immortal, but close), and the book is still wide open on him!

We also know that Master Darque will probably die here coming up in Shadowman, or at least it has been eluded to when they started showing off the Shadowman series. Harada's life and death will happen as well, probably in 2019 (or maybe a future forecast, but still be alive in the now?). Those are iconic Villains, and will be extremely hard to replace

[markie7235]

Generally speaking, I don't feel they have invested the same amount of energy into long standing, cool, interesting, and compelling villains. I would definitely like to see more done on this front

That said, others I would include would be Baron Samedi (Shadowman), David Camp (who knows where he goes from here, but certainly set up as a villain now for Divinity), the Immortal Enemy (EW/The Valiant), the Dying One (EW), Solomon (Harbinger Renegades), Rampage (Bloodshot Salvation), Negral/Gilad's son

There may be a couple others, but I would say all of these are also ones set up that they can be re-occurring villains.

Valiant has tended to keep a more science approach to it's universe and avoid campy villain/nemesis set ups, which works for short time series where you just keep developing the main characters. The problem with this approach is eventually your story becomes stale (which is why it's hard for them to maintain on-going series), and at some point how much more story is there to tell without introducing some new form of conflict. And that's the second problem is villains provide a source of conflict to create narrative. A good story requires conflict, whether it be nature, man, philosophy, etc. While a campy villain can provide conflict to advance a story, a good villain is equally complex and compelling (see classic villains like Magneto, the Joker, Dr Doom, the Green Goblin, etc). I don't necessarily want Valiant to be more like Marvel, but clearly you can see Marvel is doing something right in this regards given their box office success.

So yes, Valiant imo definitely needs to continue developing and adding compelling villains, but also using the villains they already have. For example, why is there not a new Dr Mirage series yet where it pits her against Samedi or Darque? Both seem like they would be natural enemies for her. Or Gilad/Eternal Warrior and continuing the story of his battle with Negral and his son as the avatar of Negral. Honestly for me, X-O has become boring, partially because all his stories just are new twists on his own struggles of a man out of his time. That story can only be told so many times, no matter how many different planets you send him off to.

[Shadowman99]

Father was quite an epic nemesis. Surprised that's not been mentioned yet. But I guess Father was killed, so maybe there's a newly-vacant spot for a new 'big bad guy' in Rai's corner of the VU...

[FormerReader]

Yes.

[hailxo520]

I am surprised that there hasn't been a villain for X-O so far.

From my perspective, the Vine, Armor Hunters, or those bunch of bounty hunters in Matt Kindt's run don't count

[markie7235]

Father was quite an epic nemesis. Surprised that's not been mentioned yet. But I guess Father was killed, so maybe there's a newly-vacant spot for a new 'big bad guy' in Rai's corner of the VU...

I was trying to stick to ones that were alive that could be re-occurring villains.

That said, Valiant does have a habit of killing off villains often it seems in the VEI universe compared to VH1

[markie7235]

I am surprised that there hasn't been a villain for X-O so far.

From my perspective, the Vine, Armor Hunters, or those bunch of bounty hunters in Matt Kindt's run don't count

I'd count the Armor Hunters....If they weren't all dead

[kinggirlfriend]

Quartz and Helix are still alive. Helix still has to fall in love with Sunlight on Snow. And Quartz is going to be on that Unity team with the Zygos twin.

[markie7235]

Quartz and Helix are still alive. Helix still has to fall in love with Sunlight on Snow. And Quartz is going to be on that Unity team with the Zygos twin.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. For some reason I thought both had been killed off later on

[Joshua]

The Armor Hunters could have been great X-O villains if most had not been killed off.

[The Chosen 1]

I agree that Valiant needs some more iconic villains. In my opinion, its the villains that make the hero exciting and popular. Look at Batman and Spider-man. The more interesting villains Valiant has, the more the heroes have the chance to be heroic. Harada, Master Darque and Dr Silk are great. We just need more of them

[jxm640]

I actually think that there is a convincing villain hidden in the books, especially now that HW2 has started...

Kris Hathaway.

She has become a militant leader who believes that she is correct and is willing to use Peter Stanchek (not fully innocent himself) to achieve her goals.

Also, Animalia could become a decent villain given time.

[markie7235]

I actually think that there is a convincing villain hidden in the books, especially now that HW2 has started...

Kris Hathaway.

She has become a militant leader who believes that she is correct and is willing to use Peter Stanchek (not fully innocent himself) to achieve her goals.

Also, Animalia could become a decent villain given time.

I mean, the Renegades even in the original books always skirted the lines of being more anarchists than really heroes, so it's not completely out of left field.

I guess I'm not sure where Harbingers as a book/series goes from here, and they seem to have fallen off the map. The original VEI run basically ran the same course as the VH1 Harbinger series. Sure, there were a couple changes and various events that differs, but both started with the formation of the Renegades in opposition to Harbinger and Harada, and climaxed with the major battle between Harada and Stanchek that saw both characters essentially neutralized and put out of focus. VH1 then tried to come back with a new approach afterwards focused on Faith and being a member of Harbinger, and VEI tried to add a new villain with Solomon, but seems both had about the same success.

I don't know why, but for some reason it seems neither VH1 or VEI could overcome that hump of "what happens once Peter and Harada finally have their massive show down?". I really hope a new Harbinger book comes along that can move the characters and series forward some how so we're not forever doomed to just keep having a re-make of the same story over and over. Maybe Kris as a villain would do that. Not sure. Or does the story of Harbinger really work best as a roughly 25 issue story that starts with Peter leaving Harbinger and culminates with the final battle between Harada and Peter, and that's all there is to the story?

I personally liked the Harbinger Renegade books, but felt they needed to do something a bit more or build to something faster. Sad to see whatever direction this was going suddenly ended just like whatever they intended to do with the VEI re-launch of EW and Gilad's son Mitu as a nemesis (though the Gilad killing off the Gods plot line was just bad)

[The Dirt Gang]

Did XO have a arch-nemesis in VH1? I can really only recall the Spider Aliens which were more a group than one single character. I know there was Ax but I'm more thinking of someone more formidable in the original run.

I realize Dr. Eclipse would probably not make sense in the new Valiant universe but I wonder if they old the rights to that character.

Also, Valiant Intellectual Properties was a pretty epic villain from the past - waka waka waka.

[markie7235]

Did XO have a arch-nemesis in VH1? I can really only recall the Spider Aliens which were more a group than one single character. I know there was Ax but I'm more thinking of someone more formidable in the original run.

I realize Dr. Eclipse would probably not make sense in the new Valiant universe but I wonder if they old the rights to that character.

Also, Valiant Intellectual Properties was a pretty epic villain from the past - waka waka waka.

I never read the entire run of X-O in the original VH1, but I think you're right that his main nemesis was the Spider Aliens. I don't recall him having a specific nemesis villain otherwise. Ax showed up in an issue or 2 as I recall, but he kind of popped up in various places, mostly Harbinger though.

I see David Camp as possibly becoming the new Dr Eclipse in a way, at least in the same way you could say Divinity is the new Solar Man of the Atom. But obviously there's key differences between Solar and Divinity in the same way Camp is radically different from Eclipse. I'm not sure Eclipse would really work in VEI. He was a much campier villain, and saw him as Valiant's attempt almost at making a "venom" style villain. I liked Eclipse, but he was kind of polarizing in terms of if people liked him or hated him as a villain. Origin aside, he's just a little too wacky as a VEI villain

[The Dirt Gang]

I see David Camp as possibly becoming the new Dr Eclipse in a way, at least in the same way you could say Divinity is the new Solar Man of the Atom. But obviously there's key differences between Solar and Divinity in the same way Camp is radically different from Eclipse. I'm not sure Eclipse would really work in VEI. He was a much campier villain, and saw him as Valiant's attempt almost at making a "venom" style villain. I liked Eclipse, but he was kind of polarizing in terms of if people liked him or hated him as a villain. Origin aside, he's just a little too wacky as a VEI villain

Interesting, I don't know that I ever viewed Dr. Eclipse as analogous to Venom but I can certainly see that. But I agree with what you are saying in terms of fit in the current universe. Erica Pierce, of course, was a great one time villain, however, I don't think she would work the same as a reoccurring villain.

It is interesting that while VH1 had a great stable of heroes, in hindsight, they do seem lacking on truly great villains.

[markie7235]

I see David Camp as possibly becoming the new Dr Eclipse in a way, at least in the same way you could say Divinity is the new Solar Man of the Atom. But obviously there's key differences between Solar and Divinity in the same way Camp is radically different from Eclipse. I'm not sure Eclipse would really work in VEI. He was a much campier villain, and saw him as Valiant's attempt almost at making a "venom" style villain. I liked Eclipse, but he was kind of polarizing in terms of if people liked him or hated him as a villain. Origin aside, he's just a little too wacky as a VEI villain

Interesting, I don't know that I ever viewed Dr. Eclipse as analogous to Venom but I can certainly see that. But I agree with what you are saying in terms of fit in the current universe. Erica Pierce, of course, was a great one time villain, however, I don't think she would work the same as a reoccurring villain.

It is interesting that while VH1 had a great stable of heroes, in hindsight, they do seem lacking on truly great villains.

Sadly, not counting Pierce, they only had Darque and Harada for their stable of great villains. Ax I think was ok used here and there also. Many of the other villains that came later felt somewhat forced and just not as organic as Darque and Harada did. It's hard to say where Valiant would have gone had Shooter not been forced out...That's not me saying Shooter was great or not great, but much of the early valiant works were focused on origins and world building, which he did a great job on. That same trend can be seen in VEI now. The issue is you get to a point where you can only focus on the origins of your heroes so much before it feels like over-tread ground without any further conflict aside from internal strife to move the world forward. This is where great villains come into play, because they create that conflict.

Pierce was an incredible villain because she was so damaged and broken, and that's what lead to her misguided villainy. But I agree, she wouldn't work as a re-occurring villain. Her story was closely tied to Solar and was written in the pages of Unity. I think bringing her back would have caused more problems than it solved from a writing standpoint. I mean if it took the entire cast of Valiant heroes to stop her the first time, than making her recurring would mean you'd constantly need to have numerous heroes pulled together to stop her. Than again, Solar was also problematic after the Unity story line also since he could do or undo basically anything. In retrospect, his story should have ended after Unity. His story was really the origin story of the Valiant universe, since when he re-made the world it caused the aberration of "special powers" existing in the world. He really was "The God" of the Valiant universe at that point, and it's hard to have God walking around as a character after this point...at least as an on-going story. They at least didn't make this mistake with Divinity. He's powerful, but we've seen there are certainly limitations to his abilities, and they've done a good job keeping his stories more focused on a cosmic scale, or on foes that were on his level due to his own mistakes.

[SlyTrooper]

I think it's slightly unfair to compare Valiant's villains to those of DC or Marvel. You have to consider the output of DC and Marvel as well as how long they have been around to create villains. I mean, if you read Superior Foes of Spider-Man for example, you'll see how many forgettable villains there are in Marvel. This is made more obvious because the book is a comedy, made pretty much just to joke about how bad the villains are and have no place as main Spider-Man villains. Even that book didn't push them into the spotlight as primary antagonists. I think Valiant are fine for now.

[TheeBaldMoose]

I actually think that there is a convincing villain hidden in the books, especially now that HW2 has started...

Kris Hathaway.

She has become a militant leader who believes that she is correct and is willing to use Peter Stanchek (not fully innocent himself) to achieve her goals.

Also, Animalia could become a decent villain given time.

I mean, the Renegades even in the original books always skirted the lines of being more anarchists than really heroes, so it's not completely out of left field.

I guess I'm not sure where Harbingers as a book/series goes from here, and they seem to have fallen off the map. The original VEI run basically ran the same course as the VH1 Harbinger series. Sure, there were a couple changes and various events that differs, but both started with the formation of the Renegades in opposition to Harbinger and Harada, and climaxed with the major battle between Harada and Stanchek that saw both characters essentially neutralized and put out of focus. VH1 then tried to come back with a new approach afterwards focused on Faith and being a member of Harbinger, and VEI tried to add a new villain with Solomon, but seems both had about the same success.

I don't know why, but for some reason it seems neither VH1 or VEI could overcome that hump of "what happens once Peter and Harada finally have their massive show down?". I really hope a new Harbinger book comes along that can move the characters and series forward some how so we're not forever doomed to just keep having a re-make of the same story over and over. Maybe Kris as a villain would do that. Not sure. Or does the story of Harbinger really work best as a roughly 25 issue story that starts with Peter leaving Harbinger and culminates with the final battle between Harada and Peter, and that's all there is to the story?

I personally liked the Harbinger Renegade books, but felt they needed to do something a bit more or build to something faster. Sad to see whatever direction this was going suddenly ended just like whatever they intended to do with the VEI re-launch of EW and Gilad's son Mitu as a nemesis (though the Gilad killing off the Gods plot line was just bad)

I do agree, I liked the Renegade books. A touch slow, but I think it was supposed to show detail on these 20-somethings trying to formulate some form of strategy. It was supposed to be bumbling, clumsy, that contained signs of growth from certain characters. That last arc, the one we never got, I think it was supposed to show some great stuff, truly sad that it will never be published.

I don't know, I think so many people are all over the "The Harbinger Kids need to have a new book, they are tent poles" junk, it gets sickening. I mean, let's look at the timeline. Release of information, Kris goes to jail, Pete gets clean at the Saturn Holistic Outer Rings Treatment Center. Faith is Faith, Gen 0 gets killed. Kris gets out of jail, start of new war. I really don't know what people are thinking, where can they get in on a new adventure?

Depending on where this book ends, and what the Harada book entails, could we get something different? No clue. All I know is that in the timeline, there really isn't a spot for any type of Harbinger book.

Personally, any type of Harbinger book is destined to fail, simply because of all of the "The Harbinger Kids need to have a new book" people, and all of the "Joshua Dysart is GOD! He is untouchable! He is the best damn writer in all of the universe" people.

[Shadowman99]

...does the story of Harbinger really work best as a roughly 25 issue story that starts with Peter leaving Harbinger and culminates with the final battle between Harada and Peter, and that's all there is to the story?

"...that's all there is to the story?" Ha! As if a comic company these days is going to kill off a concept to the extent that it can't milk precious $$$ from it any more Seriously though, I'd love it if comic companies were able to break free from the yoke of the almighty buck and execute more artistic and non-conventional concepts like this, but that kind of of action is pretty much reserved for bedroom-produced indy titles these days. End the Harbinger series for good? That's fine with me, just send it out with a massive bang

Did XO have a arch-nemesis in VH1? I can really only recall the Spider Aliens which were more a group than one single character.

I've been wondering since I read this thread as to the likelyhood that Commander Trill could become a major villain in the VU, with Aric as his obvious main protagonist to face off against. He did after all, turn a good portion of humanity against XO by raising the Planting army in the first series.

I seem to recall that the relationship between the two wasn't all sour by the end of Venditti's run, although the details of it all escape me now without having to re-read. Then again, a good writer could always write Trill a good motivation to form a new enmity with XO and Trill wouldn't need much of a push there I feel, so now I think about it, I reckon it's got to be on the cards sooner or later right?

[Sheikhaljabal]

My answer: Yes. That was VH1 biggest flaw, although that are some from those times that could be rebooted and reused (like more ambiguous concepts such as Heisererr's SECRET WEAPONS, which seems inspired on VH-1 Harbinger's B-Squad, or the current BLOODSHOT SQUAD which features Deathmate).

My underused favorite VH1 underused villains are the Immortal Enemy, Sondria Darque and the (currently the Foundation Zone's) Eggbreakers. Further VH1 suggestions: The Destroyer (if Divinity=Solar; Myshka=MotherGod and Kazmir=Dr Eclipse, maybe David Camp can take the role), Dr Silk's former outfit Webnet (a possible global rival of the 1/% or Project Omen, as a conglomrerate of lesser evil orgs such as the Brethren, E.R.A., the Iwatsu clan, etc), Mademoiselle Noir, (although it is a good name for Alyssa the Abettor). Mon-Ark of the Bionosaurs/Dinosoids and the Carboni crime family. Trademarks such as Outcast and Visitor could also be applied to new villains.

Among the VEI there are also several excellent ones waiting to be reused: Commander Trill (who's the military leader of an alien race that is curently colonizing Mars) Warmonger among the solo acts, and Harada's Imperium come immediately to mind (special mention to 4001.A.D.'s X-Eye) But even teams llike the Delinquents and the remnants of Generation Zero could be used as opponents, while updates on the Armor Hunters, the Red Brigade and the United would seem logical.