Scary as Hell Comic Book Villains - Chapter 1

Okay, here's the deal. Pretty much all the villains in graphic novel land are fierce. For the past decade the bar has been raised with regard to what a bad guy will do. Out and out murder - Carnage. The deaths of millions - The Watchmen. Infecting poor victims with diseases. Stealing their souls. The villains below, though, have caught my attention for particular nastiness. But if you're like me, you like to be shocked, and sometimes scared out of your socks.

Marvel 

Look at these guys. They are uuuuugly!!

Carnage and Venom- These Spiderman villains are basically brothers. Here's the skinny. It all begins with a black Spiderman suit that's well...alive. For a time Spidey himself wore this living costume and he got stronger but also all weird. To make a long story short, Spidey discarded the bad suit and it crawled onto Eddie Brock who became Venom. While Venom was bad enough, like a suped-up, long-tongued, razor-toothed Spiderman on steroids who occasionally ate his victims, Carnage was a whole lot worse. Already a psychopath, Cletus Kasady, had no interest in world domination or even robbing banks. He only wanted to kill and his new red duds - a portion of Venom's living costume - allowed him to do just. They projected blades and strangling ropes the way Spiderman's projected webs. In the end, although it was out of character for him, Spiderman was forced to go along with the killing of Carnage. Unfortunately, Venom is still hanging around and still bat-shit loony.

Don't mind me. I'm just here to eat your world.

Galactus  - This dude's aliases tell it all: Devourer of Worlds, Destroyer of Civilizations, or just plain Planet Eater. Once a regular guy in the universe that preceded ours, Galen is the last remnant of that universe. You could say he was altered in the final cosmic blast. After sleeping for God knows for how long he awoke a cosmic vampire who not only must consume worlds to live but these worlds have to have a good sized population to be tasty. Together with his herald, The Silver Surfer, he travels the cosmos in a space ship the size of a solar system. The routine is as follows. Silver Surfer - yes he's silver and yes he zooms into the stratosphere on a surf board - warns everybody that their days are numbered and there's not a whole lot they can do about it. Then after a time, where the inhabitants weep and rend their clothing, Galactus blasts the planet with some energy doohickey and gobbles up the pieces. Of course, he would eventually set his sights on Earth. That goes without saying.

Let me get this out of the way. Growing up I was a whole lot more afraid of monsters who were, shall we say, intimate. Monsters, like the Wolfman or a vampire, who would single you out for their monstering. Giant things, like building-sized spiders, might step right over you and not notice you at all. At least that was my reasoning. 


Our next weirdo, Eclipso is of the former kind. He just looks like someone you would come upon and he would do you personal hurt and for no better reason than that was his nature. Here's what he looks like:

Kind of a hyper-Joker (just as nuts but with a buttload of extra abilities) with a weird mission in life. Let me lay this bad guy out for you. First of all he possesses people, takes over their bodies. I hate that. No thank you. Please leave my mind and body alone. Next he hates light, so he wants to destroy the sun (thus the name Eclipso) or at least blot out its light. Personally, I think this is a bad idea. I like the sun and I think we'd all be worse off without it. I'm leaving out all his super powers - and he has a bunch of 'em - for a last look at another of his penchants. Long ago a crystal called The Heart of Darkness exploded and its pieces flew all over the world - were talking hundreds of pretty dark diamond-looking shards. So imagine yourself walking along a mountain road and you come across one of these pretty rocks and you pick it up. You are now marked for death. And who is your executioner - wait for it - Eclipso. Just for picking up a rock. That hardly seems fair.

Next up Abomination (is that a name or what?), Thanos, and...well you'll just have to see.