One of my favorite parts of a good, classic comic story is when we temporarily switch our perspective from the heroes to the villains, and start to get a more clear picture of the stakes of the approaching conflict. Oftentimes, telling this part of the story demands a delicate balancing act from the creators. The temptation is clearly always there to ramp up the villains’ in-group conflicts, and play up their ridiculousness. It must be a lot of fun to write (I had fun writing this comic, so I can speak from personal experience), but the balance that’s demanded is in maintaining the villains’ threat. How dangerous are you, really, if all you actually do is mock each other in your secret clubhouse?
The 1978 Superman movie comes to mind, a movie that I love. Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor is exceptional, obviously, but it’s always been a sticking point with me that this incredibly evil man, who was willing to sacrifice the lives of an extraordinary number of people to create his beachfront empire, employed, apparently, only Ned Beatty’s Otis to put his plan into action. I love Otis as a character, but he’s a guy you probably wouldn’t trust to successfully buy you beer, if you were underage. Heck, the henchmen in the 1966 Batman TV series were more competent and intimidating than Otis!
Of course, it becomes more and more clear, every day, that there are a lot of bumbling stooges in the employ of the evil people in the world, and those evil people often get what they want, so maybe it’s not so unbelievable, after all.
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