Victorious Villains: The House Always Wins

Within the complex dichotomy of heroes and villains there exists a complex, yet delicate tête-à-tête. This is staggeringly apparent in the medium of the comic book. Men and women in capes and masks chasing after dastardly malefactors in a never ending dance; but, what were to happened if one side were to end these tireless encounters? Is stopping evil as simple as locking it in a box? The answer is not as clear or as apparent as one would think.

It is easy to hold an opinion that good always triumphs over evil in the world of the super hero, but that isn’t the case. An excellent example of this is The Joker. A being so evil, that his pure existence is his victory. The fact that Batman will never kill him is, in his own way, his continual vanquishing of all that Batman strives for. It isn’t about killing a busload of civilians, or gassing a city, but just that crooked tooth grin that leers ominously from behind the cell door as a caped hero comes knocking to learn about something he has no grasp of controlling. In a prequel to Batman’s current “R.I.P.” story arc, Batman does just that. While being interrogated, Joker just sits silently and deals Batman a tarot-style fortune from a deck of playing cards. Aces and Eights, the dead man’s hand. Ha-Ha. The villain doesn’t have to do anything in order to “win.”

Another example is from the acclaimed work by Alan Moore, “The Watchmen” (and I don’t care about spoilers, the book is 20 years old). Adrian Veidt, while not specifically a villain, because we are in a world where no one is exactly a hero, “saves the world” by killing millions of people in a mere moment. While some might argue the true villain of the book is the nationalism and militarism of the American government, it is a bit more tangible to place it on someone in particular. And, in fact, he did it 35 minutes ago. The “heroes” were too late.

Bullsye has two different stories in which he “wins,” “Bullseye’s Greatest Hits” and “Punisher/Bullseye”. Not only that, but he’s killed Daredevil’s main love interest. And what happens to him in the long run? He becomes a member of The Thunderbolts, a team of villains on a “parole” of sorts for the U.S. government, doing the dirty laundry for a couple of years, until they are set free once more.

The idea of villains winning is explored often in the work of Mark Millar. His series “Wanted” deals in a world where the super villains killed all the super heroes and reshaped society to their benefit. Oddly enough though, Millar creates a sub-dichotomy in which we have the bad and the very bad taking each other on. “Superman: Red Son” presents a different origin of Superman, being raised in the Soviet Union. Lex Luthor is still the “bad guy,” even though he is the American perspective, and working towards American goals. He wins in the end, but only to set forth a chain reaction that will continue a cycle which he struggled to end.

My point is, wondering what would happen if a specific bad guy won is simply not thinking hard enough. It can be something as subtle as Doctor Doom delivering Susan and Reed Richard’s second child, and forcing her to name her in his honor. Magneto’s motivation for action is the betterment of the lives of the homo superior. Edward Nigma in “Hush” (a character not seen for many years in the pages of “Batman”) solves the greatest riddle of all time, Batman’s identity, but never tells anyone because then it would not be a riddle. DC’s run of “In the Line of Duty” focused on the Gotham City Police Department and shows that while Batman might “win” in his comics, the average human can still get killed easily on the front line.

There are plenty of comics in which the villain has already “won.” Mark Millar’s “Wanted,” as mentioned previously, but also Mark Waid’s “Empire,” or Warren Ellis’s “Planetary.” These make complex narratives not because of the fact that your moral compass is sent spinning by this amazing twist, but because of the fact that we actually have to see the hero struggle beyond a point we normally see. H.P. Lovecraft wrote horror fiction in which humanity slowly learns that there is no escape from the evil that dwells in the universe, but their attempt to figure this out ends with the realization that there is something bigger than our lives out there and you can’t beat it with just a few punches. Evil always wins in his work, but it is something that we can’t grasp until it is horrifyingly too late.

There is more to the narrative. With gambling in Vegas, you may win a few hands of black-jack, but in the end, casinos wouldn’t be in business if they didn’t win more, which is exactly how the comic baddies do it. But, in the end, one of America’s greatest super heroes, The Tick, puts it best, “I don’t want to stop crime, I just want to fight it.” Stories like “Emperor Joker” can’t last because no one wants to read about Joker sitting on a throne of skulls for too long. Without action, there is no plot, and without plot you have nothing. Let us not forget the people killed, the heroes slain, the nations conquered and the lives ruined. It is the joy of the evil-doer to win in their own particular way, and without this particular conceit, there wouldn’t be a story worth reading.