Villains are often as much the stars of comic books as are the Heroes.
As in most forms of storytelling, the heroes are to a large extent defined by their villains. While easy enough to populate the book with generic thieves and politicians (or whatever sort of villainous type one might prefer to insert), trying to create a memorable villain can be a far more difficult feat.
And when your hero is
Superman... well, the complaints about the difficulty of writing villains for him are nearly as legendary as
Kal-El himself these days. And understandably, especially back in the days when he could juggle planets while kissing Lois. Whatcha gonna do?
Well, let's jump back 40 years and see how
Marty Pasko handled the problem. This morning we saw Clark using the telephone landline to his
Fortress Of Solitude (of which Clarks seem to be so fond). The reason he was calling was to check with the computer on a bit of
Kryptonian history. Like nearly all Kryptonian history, it involved his father,
Jor-El.
Step One) Begin with a Kryptonian organism.
A friend of Jor-El named
Ser-Ze had developed a type of commensal
(sort of a non-parasitic symbiote) that could animate synthetic component and react to nerve stimuli...
Once again, however, that dreaded X factor pops up. They hadn't considered that living organisms, by nature, multiply. What happens when they grow past the material they were designed to inhabit?
It didn't go well, and soon they were faced with outright revolution and invasion from within...
In the aftermath, some remaining samples are discovered which, of course, means they're going straight into Jor-El's usual trashcan - outer space...
Decades later on Earth, since Jor-El shot most of his trash in the same direction that he launched his son...
Superman, in space dealing with the bus the Commensals rode in on, notices the Kryptonian origin of the piece that got away...
...and, as we well know, anything from Krypton gets a massive level-up upon entering Earth's biosphere...
The two collide, sending each flying in opposite directions and dropping Superman unconscious into the sea.
Step Two) Add one high-powered military officer with a bitter grudge against our hero.
The general in charge of the mission that was scrapped by Superman's mission in space (for the government), has shown a consistently hostile attitude toward the Man of Steel. Far more than one might think we'd see from just having his command undermined...
Step Three) Add one recovered & reprogrammed Superman robot.
Step Four) Combine Kryptonian Organisms and Superman Robot.
Step Five) Blend in Military Officer (Mix Well)
Step Six) Fold in Surprise Ingredient - an unexpected power.
(I know what my theory was as to how this power worked. Have you got one?)
Step Seven) Combine hatred of Superman with hatred of Jor-El for added spice. (Caution - may get too hot!)
There you have it - ready to serve.
But, we're all out of comic, so i guess we're done here, eh?
page art by Curt Swan and Frank Chiaramonte for Superman #328 (1978)
