The Dreamworks animated film "Megamind" opened last weekend, sharing with the Summer's release of "Despicable Me" the theme of having a supervillian as the main character. The fact that two different studios released very similar films is a testament to either the lack of creativity in Hollywood (which I may or may not believe in, stay tuned for new posts,) or the allure of the supervillain.
I believe it's the latter. Before comic books started getting darker and grittier, many of them had a vaudeville-esque goofiness and unintentional innocence. The whole notion of costumed superheros must be hard to take seriously if one were to objectively look at the material (perhaps the reason why 2008's The Dark Knight did not receive a "Best Picture" nomination?) But for whatever reason, we as culture love superheroes, and so frequently are the villains the best part of the show. Villains can be unrestrained, wildly eccentric, cunning, stylish, and much more interesting as characters. As tragic characters, we find them interesting because they are so great, but so flawed: compare Richard Nixon to George H.W. Bush. One of them is evil, but as complicated as a hypercube.
I was writing a play a about two months ago including a scene where a very politically-correct superhero is giving an address on PBS as a fundraiser. Coming up with his name was easy, "Magnificent Man." But thinking of what the villains would be called took a serious brain-wracking. A good villain, in my opinion, has to have a very operatic quality to them, the name then means quite a bit. Here's what I came up with: Krazy Karnage, Death Mistress, and Bloodlust.
The moral of the story is, if you are going to be evil, do it with style.
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