This is especially true for Superman. Over his nearly 90 years of history, the Man of Steel has encountered countless villains and while some have gone on to be regular menaces, most have either disappeared to history or just fallen out of favor, the latter option being really unfortunate because there are some really interesting bad guys that genuinely deserve a comeback. They’re the villains who are unusual or simply underutilized, bad guys who could make for some fresh and interesting stories (especially if they got a little bit of an update.) Here are five of the best.
5) Mister Z
Created by Jerry Ordway and Dennis Janke, Mister Z first appeared in Superman #51 and was the first villain Superman faced during the so-called Triangle Era. Seemingly immortal with magic powers, Mister Z had a gem on his cane that he used to take people’s souls. When he tried to collect Superman’s however, the gem overloaded and was destroyed, releasing the souls the villain had collected over the centuries. A short time later, Superman ends up tossed back in time to 1943 where he was sent to Germany to deal with a threat that turned out to be a younger Mister Z currently operating as a Nazi general. Superman thwarted Z’s plot to develop an atomic bomb before America, Superman got sent back to the right time, and ultimately Mister Z ended up stranded on a tropical island without his memories.
Given that Mister Z appears to be functionally immortal and is some sort of magic user who keeps crossing paths with Superman, he’s a villain that has some real potential. Considering that Superman has thwarted his plans a few times now, there’s also plenty of animosity that could be fuel for some real evil, provided Mister Z got his memories back. There just seems like a lot of opportunity there.
4) Funnyface
One of Superman’s weirdest and earliest villains was introduced in Superman #19 from 1942. Created by Jerry Siegel, Funnyface was a failed comic artist who brought the villains from comic strips to life with science. His run was pretty short lived in comics. While he was actually a significant challenge for Superman, when Lois discovered how Funnyface was bringing the comic strip characters to life, she used it to bring heroes over to help Superman and the villain was defeated.
Funnyface would need some updating if he were to make a return, but given all the of the modern technology, Funnyface feels like a villain that could be truly terrifying in an age of AI and deepfakes. It would also just be a really neat thing to see a villain as unusual as Funnyface make his way back — there aren’t too many genuinely weird Superman villains anymore.
3) Titano the Super Ape
Image Courtesy of DC Comics
I’m of the opinion that every superhero needs an ape in their stories in some fashion and as they say, apes sell comics. Enter Titano the Super Ape. Created by Otto Binder, Wayne Boring, and Stan Kaye, Titano first appeared in Superman #127, starting out as a chimpanzee named Toto that Lois made friends with. However, Toto got sent to space and, after being exposed to space radiation, returned as a giant and he ended up gaining kryptonite-like powers, too.
You can think of Titano as Superman’s personal King Kong and while he has appeared at various different time through the decades, DC’s ape characters are honestly just really cool and we’d love to see more of him — his most recent appearances was in an issue of Supergirl where he joins the Super-Pets.
2) Bloodsport
There have been a few versions of Bloodsport, but the Robert DuBois version who first appeared in Superman #4 and was created by John Byrne is the best one — and the most interesting. DuBois was a draft dodger whose brother ended up serving in Vietnam in his place and had some truly awful things happen to him which, in turned, caused DuBois to have a psychological breakdown. This breakdown made him think he was constantly at war and Lex Luthor decided to exploit this, giving him tech that would teleport weapons to DuBois at will, including a gun that could hurt Superman because it fired kryptonite needles.
DuBois has appeared in comics as Bloodsport fairly recently — (Suicide Squad Vol. 7 from 2021) — but he’s a complex and interesting character and frankly a villain ghat deserves a bit more in terms of appearances. He’s a character dealing with complex trauma and there’s a real opportunity for genuine redemption.
1) Conduit
The best villains are personal, which is why we’d love to see Conduit make a comeback. Created by Dan Jurgens and Louise Simonson, Conduit first appeared in Superman: The Man of Steel #0. Real Name Kenny Braverman, Conduit was Clark Kent’s high school rival — or rather, Kenny always seemed to come up short against Clark as kids, something that drove Kenny nuts. When he figured out that Clark was really Superman, it suddenly all made sense and he devoted himself to taking Superman down.
That really was Conduit’s entire motivation: he just really wanted to take Superman down because he had a longstanding personal grudge against him from childhood. It’s extremely petty, but developed a little further, that sort of hatred could make Conduit truly chilling. Forget Lex Luthor, Conduit could be a real problem and it would be a great read.
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