The Villains You Grew Up With Kinda Suck....
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I know I’m gonna get flack for this one, and I can hear you all furiously typing in the comments how stupid I am (just kidding. I don’t get comments), but I gotta say it. Because it’s true.
The villains you grew up with kinda suck.
That’s, of course, assuming you’re an older Millennial like me. If not, well, still read on and enjoy. But, my fellow OG snowflakes (so I’ve been told), the villains of the superhero cartoons and comics we enjoyed–to say nothing of Saturday morning cartoons–just sucked. They were absolutely terrible villains.
I know, you all have this or that exception to tell me about. I get it, and nothing that I say is absolute.
But the menace of the supervillains that I used to watch on Cartoon Network reruns in the 90s was nearly zero. The bad guys on a Saturday morning cartoon show were on par with that of a troupe of Girl Scouts.
It’s strange for me to say that, as I’ve intentionally modelled Queen Venus, the main villain of my superhero anthology book, The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE, Vol. 1, after these villains. And I’ll eagerly tell you that she’s not really that menacing at all. This is on purpose, as the short stories in that 99 cent book are direct inspirations of the old cartoons from the 60s and 70s that I used to watch.
So despite the inflammatory title, I thought we’d have a little fun today and delve into the ingredients and factors that made the villains you grew up with kinda suck….and helped me create my own supervillain in that image.
Queen Venus, the primary antagonist of Blue Eagle and Switch
But first….
Why do the villains you grew up with kinda suck?
So let’s take a moment and talk about why the villains you and I grew up with really sucked.
Now, okay, okay, let me clarify. As characters, they were amazing. I loved them as a kid and I love them today as an adult. They were some of our favorite characters in any of these shows.
Any of the villains from the old DC superhero cartoons of the 1960s and 70s (from which The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE is directly inspired).
Doctor Claw from Inspector Gadget.
Megatron (and Starscream) from Transformers.
Skeletor and Hordak from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra: Princess of Power respectively.
Cobra Commander from G.I. Joe.
Venger from Dungeons & Dragons.
Team Rocket from Pokemon.
Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
They’re great characters. Tons of fun. Incredible designs. Memorable personalities.
But they’re terrible villains.
Collectively, they’re harmless and ineffectual. Bumbling, weak, cowardly, shortsighted. These shows back in the day were episodic, and therefore they could never win. How often did they have some new brilliant scheme to take over the world and destroy those meddling heroes once and for all, only for it to blow up in their faces in some manner that even the children watching those shows could see coming about five minutes in?
Heck, the shows’ own theme songs don’t even show the villains any respect. How many shows had lyrics that went something along the line of, “Aw yeah! Good Guy can do all these cool things! And when Bad Guy attacks, Good Guy sends him running away!” ?
The classic TMNT cartoon has the line, “When the evil Shredder attacks, those Turtle boys don’t cut ‘em no slack!” They don’t cut him no slack? What is he, a child that they’re sending to his room?
In the movie, it was him not cutting them any slack. That’s what built tension and suspense in the climactic final confrontation; that all four Turtles combined could not stop the Shredder.
In the cartoon, he often ran away the moment he was confronted.
So why were so many villains like this? Harmless and ineffectual?
It’s simple. These were shows for children.
Kids couldn’t be shown excessive violence in cartoons. The Turtles couldn’t even properly use their weapons in the old cartoon. You think they were going to have the Shredder stab Casey Jones like in the IDW comics?
I can assure you that the Green Goblin doesn’t kill Spider-Man’s girlfriend in the classic cartoon. Or Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Heck, even in the 90s series, Mary Jane Watson was thrown off a bridge into an interdimensional void, rather than to her death. But by that point, cartoon villains had some teeth.
So, yeah, that’s really that. These shows were for kids, so the villains couldn’t do anything meaningfully villainous or evil.
Now that that “mystery” is solved, let’s look at the techniques I use to make a villain just like the ones you grew up with. Who, as a character, is great, but as a villain, just sucks.
1) Don’t have them directly engage the hero
I want you all to, right now, read through the entirety of The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE. Go on, I’ll wait. It’s completely free, so you have no excuses.
As you do so, I want you to count how many times I had the protagonist, Blue Eagle, directly fight Queen Venus.
So what’s the answer? How many times?
If you said “One”, then congrats! You earned a Stan Lee-esque No-Prize!
I had a direct Blue Eagle vs Queen Venus fight only one time, in the very first episode, “The Diamante Dilemma!”.
That’s my treat for all of you.
But I also did it for a reason.
Like most Saturday Morning Cartoon villains, Queen Venus actively avoids fighting Blue Eagle.
Just like how you don’t see Shredder or Krang throw down with the Turtles or Megatron fight Optimus Prime.
To be clear, I know that the heroes and villains of these shows do fight. It’s just that it’s always in those first three to five episodes that make up the show’s introductory story arc, where most of the serialized storytelling and the show’s production budget is located.
Optimus Prime and Megatron fight multiple times here (with Optimus wielding a ball and chain from his arm generated out of nowhere!). And they almost never fight again until the movie. No, not the Michael Bay movie. This movie.
After that, the hero and the villain never really trade blows again. Maybe rarely, and in a more comedic, slapstick way, like the Turtles using strategically placed ropes to trip Shredder.
Fights are climactic. Unless your hero is tossing the villain around like a football, it is likely going to be a relatively even fight. And when trying to craft a fight scene, you normally want to make your villain a threat. These are the things you normally should be doing.
But if you’re trying to make a villain that kinda sucks at villainy, a harmless villain that won’t scare younger readers, you do not want to make your villain a scary threat.
Which means as little fighting as possible.
Now, there are lots of great ways to actually have your hero and villain never fight. For example, your hero can stay in their lair and do evil through their henchmen, like Claw from Inspector Gadget or Skullmaster from Mighty Max.
But this doesn’t necessarily do it. The villain can still be intimidating, and the story keeping the villain in their lair can do just as much to build mystique and suspense as it can make them seem harmless. After all, Sauron from The Lord of the Rings never directly confronts the heroes either. And a villain that has a legion of terrifying monsters doing his bidding does more to build up their threat than diminish it. Again, Skullmaster from Mighty Max.
There is one way to ensure that your villain is a harmless villain through avoidance of fights with the heroes, though.
2) Always have the villain escape
You’ve seen it time and time again. It’s a staple of Saturday Morning Cartoons. Heck, you probably associate it with villains who’ve never even done it.
It’s the villain that runs away at the sight of the hero or once their plans are foiled, usually shaking their fists and cursing them.
It’s even Claw’s catchphrase. At the end of the closing credits of every episode of Inspector Gadget, he says, “I’ll get you next time, Gadget! Next time!”
I can’t recall an episode of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon where Dr. Wily didn’t shake his fist at Mega Man the moment he saw him and cry out to the Robot Masters to retreat.
And, sure, I get it in that case. Wily can’t best Mega Man physically.
What’s Megatron’s excuse? Or Shredder’s? Or Hordak’s?
These shows always follow the same formula. The villain has some evil scheme to Take Over The World!!!! They invent a doomsday device but they need a power source, or they wish to steal a valuable object that will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Either the heroes stop their scheme and then confront them, or they ambush the heroes with their Evil Destructo-Ray Device but the heroes destroy it. And then, instead of at least fighting it out, the villain orders a retreat and promises to get them “next time”.
Repeat this about, oh, this many times and Voila! A harmless, pathetic villain that is terrible at villainy.
In The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE, I didn’t have 98 episodes to work with, but I did have a proven formula to make Queen Venus a harmless, pathetic, kid-friendly villain.
I make sure to always have her run from Blue Eagle the moment things get rough. My Father-Son Duo may fight other members of their Rogues Gallery such as Poster Boy or Technomancer, but Queen Venus always escapes by way of retreating.
In fairness to her, she’s always the one that doesn’t end up in a prison cell.
But either way, once her plans for the episode are foiled by Blue Eagle and Switch, she and her henchmen beat a hasty retreat.
Speaking of henchmen….
3) Give your villains bumbling henchmen
The bumbling henchmen. The idiots who give the kids reading and watching the laughs and the supervillain a conniption. The grown men with the IQs of a seven year old with a severe learning disability. The ones that screw up everything they touch and still inexplicably are sent on important missions.
Part of the reason the villains you grew up with kinda suck is because they surrounded themselves with these fools.
Transformers had Skywarp and Thundercracker, Mega Man had Cut Man and Guts Man, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog had Scratch and Grounder.
These guys are everywhere and they usually come in pairs.
In the spirit of characters like Horace and Jasper from Disney’s 101 Dalmations, The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE has Queen Venus stuck with a pair of doofuses named Frankie and Willie. Frankie is the short, fat one with the mind of a child, and Willie is the tall lanky one who thinks he acts as the brains but really isn’t particularly bright. They’re stupid and ineffectual, say the wrong things to anger Queen Venus, and screw things up time and time again.
The banter between them and Queen Venus is so much fun to write. Honestly, the three of them tend to be far more popular with my readers than Blue Eagle and Switch!
Bumbling henchmen say nothing positive about the villain they work for. After all, what sort of lame villain must they be if this is the company they keep? But villains that suck are often characters that are great. Grouping a pair of bumbling henchmen with a quick-tempered villain can lead to comedy gold and some of the best character writing in your work.
And speaking of a quick-tempered villain….
4) Have your villain act like a child
“But I don’t wanna conquer Dimension X! I wanna conquer Earth!”
That line was spoken by Shredder at the end of the first season of the 1987 TMNT cartoon. The late Avery Brooks delivered it like a raspy child not getting his way.
A great villain has an aura of menace to them. They might be polite, suave, and charming, all while hitting the hero with a sharp tongue and biting wit, subtle enough so that no one can call it out. But when their plans are in tatters or they are pushed too far, they lash out in a way that they would normally consider undignified and that leaves readers or viewers with goosebumps.
The villains you grew up with kinda suck, however, and so they don’t do that.
They whine, they scream, they stamp their feet, and they name-call.
They throw temper tantrums.
The thing is, if you are intentionally writing a harmless villain, this is a great way to make them a fun character brimming with personality.
To this day, the classic original cartoon Shredder is probably the most popular iteration of the character, and he spends about a third of the show’s runtime jumping up and down like an angry toddler whenever Bebop and Rocksteady screw up.
Queen Venus is the same. I love having her explode in a fit of rage at Frankie and Willie whenever they screw up.
Even more fun is the constant barrage of plant puns and alliterative insults I have her hurl.
“You traitorous tamarisk!”
“You moronic magnolia!”
“You withering willows!”
And I love having her just shout things that are incomprensible. “Those meddling mountains of morality are moving me to madness!”
Despite her menacing appearance, I also make sure she ends up in comical slapstick situations. She’s often running away from angry mole men or angry appliances come to life. It’s like writing a Looney Tunes character sometimes.
I think that’s part of the joke, having a villain that looks intimidating but acts like an antagonist in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You see this all the time. Shredder has an intimidating character design, and the sight of him jumping up and down and stomping his feet like an angry child wouldn’t be as funny if he had a silly design as well.
It’s a shame I don’t get to use Queen Venus in a visual medium, but it’s the same either way. If you want to stylistically make a villain that sucks at being a villain, make them act like a stupid child. It will be fun to write, but also make them great and interesting characters.
5) Write in an episodic format
The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE is written in an episodic format. Each short story is a standalone adventure that sticks to a tight status quo, and the episodes can be read out of order if the reader chooses.
This is the same as the old Hanna-Barbera and Filmation cartoons that the story is based on. This is the same as the Saturday Morning Cartoons that I based my villain on.
Why does writing in an episodic format contribute to writing harmless villains? Do having standalone episodes make villains suck?
No, not necessarily. But in a heavily serialized story, the villain is likely going to have one great master plan. Realizing that plan will necessarily involve many victories that may not come so cleanly. The heroes may win a battle against the villain’s minions, only for henchmen to still come away with the McGuffin their master is looking for. Moreover, the heroes may suffer clean defeats, and they can do so without compromising the story (meaning the villain doesn’t take over the world and kill the heroes, because the heroes’ defeat is only a setback).
In an episodic format, each story is self-contained. Each evil scheme stands on its own.
And that means your villain can never win.
They constantly come up with new schemes to take over the world and kill the heroes. New doomsday rays. New mind control devices. New power amplifiers or nullifiers. And not a single one of them works. The heroes send them running each and every time.
And this is part of why the villains you grew up with kinda suck. How many times can Cobra Commander or Megatron fail before they just aren’t impressive villains anymore?
If you’re trying to create a villain that is a credible threat each and every time they appear, don’t do this.
But if you are trying to stylistically create fun harmless villains brimming with personality but lacking in the threat department, writing in an episodic format is a great way to go.
I’ll Get You Next Time, Reader! Next Time!
Image courtesy of ToonOutArt
If you grew up watching old cartoons from the 1960s through the 1980s or early 90s, the villains you grew up with kinda suck.
They surrounded themselves with bumbling henchmen while acting like buffoons themselves. They rarely ever engaged the hero in combat, preferring to run at the first sign of danger. They tried dozens and dozens of evil schemes, possibly hundreds, only for every last one of them to fail.
And yet, we loved these goofy goobers. They were fun, they were memorable, and they live on as some of our favorite villains. Even if they weren’t very good at villainy.
Sometimes, making a good character is more important than making a good villain.
It depends on the story, but if you’re making a work that is supposed to be reminiscent of Saturday Morning Cartoons, then you might want to do these things to make your villain a fun Saturday Morning Cartoon villain.
Keep them out of confrontations with your hero, and have them shrilly call for a retreat every time. Surround them with idiots that do little to help, and make them throw childish temper tantrums when they fail. And write in an episodic format; it helps ensure that you have a villain that fails time after time after time.
You won’t really have a great villain in the traditional sense, but you’ll have a really fun character that might be a fan favorite. If you’re writing children’s stories or something stylistically in that ballpark, this is the sort of antagonistic character you want to have.
I did exactly that with my supervillain, Queen Venus. In most of the twelve stories that make up The Adventures of BLUE EAGLE, Vol. 1, she is out there making puns and insulting her henchmen, but never quite besting our heroes. But she, Franky, and Willie are without a doubt the most fun characters in the story.
If you want to write a kids’ supervillain that is more fun character than intimidating antagonist, then check out my book at that link. And if you want to read a story with a fun supervillain that will keep you entertained, well, then check out my book at that link. Costs less than a candy bar.
For exciting superhero fiction written by me, be sure to check out the BLUE EAGLE Universe!