Three steps to a better bad guy

There is nothing that keeps me moving through a story more quickly than reading about some impossibly tough challenge that the hero has to face and there is nothing more challenging than a great villain.

I was thinking about this today in preparation for a new project, which caused me to look closer at what I look for in a great bad guy (or girl). 

The attribute that hooks me from the get-go how relatable they are to the reader and the world that they live.  Randall Flagg from Stephen King’s The Stand is the example that first comes to mind.  Sure he starts out as your average, everyday “Walking Dude”, but underneath you always know that there’s something more sinister afoot.  Up until the end he moves through the story charming the pants off of one character after another, all the time building his army.  I have to admit, it’s a beautiful thing to witness.  He’s slick, but not in a slimy way in that he never really forces anyone to do anything that is outside of their nature. 

If the villain is only relatable, that can’t be enough.  The couple that runs the Chinese restaurant that I usually go to is nice enough, but could they really rule the world?  Potentially, if they were trying to get everyone hooked on their egg foo young, but that doesn’t really define the ability to “bring it” that most evil masterminds need to acquire in order to be taken seriously.  What’s it?  For our purposes, let’s say “it” is the ability to bring the mightiest of heroes to their knees and generally making things less than good for everyone else (read: collateral damage) that happens to get in the way.  Ozymandias in Watchmen and Saruman in Lord of the Rings are two characters that have all of their resources lined up before moving over to the dark side.  Let’s face it, sometimes getting all of that wealth and power is going to go to your head.  For these two, apparently boredom set in and they decided to mix it up a bit. 

What else?  How about having the will to keep it up after being taken down time and again by those Goody-Two-Shoes good for nothings?  The poster child for sheer willpower has to be Lex Luthor of Superman fame and Magneto from the X-Men.  I like their style, if for nothing else, they know how to take a punch and keep on coming back for more.  The recent reimaging of Superman and his cronies in All Star Superman really does it for me.  Look at Luthor at the end of  All Star Superman, Vol. 2 and you have a guy, who despite being on death row, has already beaten Superman, and is already plotting to humiliate him further.  On the surface you might call it willpower, but if you peel back the onion one level you see that they both have some higher purpose behind their motives.  They don’t have the best intentions for the majority, but they are focused on more than themselves.  Luthor’s endgame has changed from time to time, but it’s always about getting the Big Blue Boy Scout out of the way in order to hatch some other scheme.  Usually it doesn’t include the best of intentions, but every once and a while he’s thinking of how he’s going to make the world a better place (sure it’s with him as the supreme leader, but that’s just a minor detail.)

I’m sure there are plenty of other things that make villains better (or is that worse), but these three really drive it home for me.