I always liked the way Marvel handled Fu Manchu in the pages of Master of Kung Fu. That guy had it together so tightly that you couldn't help but admire him, even as he manipulated the readers along with Shang Chi, long after we thought we were ready for all of his tricks. Was what he was doing "evil" by most standards? Absolutely. Were people getting hurt? Absolutely. Did he deserve to rule the world, though? Just maybe.





But then you've got so many of the early Marvel villains who were in conflict with the heroes just as often due to misunderstandings as to megalomaniacal convictions, Sub-Mariner probably being the greatest example, and I just read a run of Avengers last night (#157-160) where two of the three villains within fought the team due to a grave misunderstanding. Not sure that's a statistically reliable sample, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Of course, if you have a villain who actually wants to be a villain, it's far easier to bring him/her back time and again.

Most of the Flash's Silver Age rogues gallery were villains for the sake of wanting money. No existential need to be a villain. No childhood tragedy. They wanted to steal money. While I can only deal with Silver Age DC in very minuscule doses, I do like that. Not everything has to be life-shattering angst. Some guys just want to rob banks and have money.

I think that was a Silver Age DC thing across the board. The villains are always looking for money or world domination, and the motives are seldom more complex than that. In fact, often times the means by which they gain super powers isn't any further developed than their motives. They exist to serve the script.

As a perfect example, when I was re-reading Brave & The Bold #56 for my Teen Titans review thread, I realized for the first time that the villain had no actual motive.



He wasn't trying to accomplish anything beyond threaten a village and provide the Teen Titans with someone to trounce. We never see him demand money nor power, and he certainly doesn't explain any personal vendetta or other reason for doing what he does. I've read that story probably a dozen times by this point, and I'd always taken his motives for granted, but that was DC's Silver Age for you.

I find money to be a more reasonable motive than most.  I tend to have a hard time with the "try to take over the world thing".  It's just not realistic...and yes I know how silly that sounds when talking about people who run around in longjohns and fly.  "I got a freeze ray and I'm going to use it to knock over a bank" makes a lot more sense.  

It's been eons since I've read any Master of Kung Fu, so I really can't speak to Fu Manchu there with any degree of authority.  Interestingly, at least in the very early Fu Manchu novels, you can read Fu as a Chinese or Pan-Asian nationalist freedom-fighter.  I'm  100% sure that Rohmer never meant it to be read that way, but you can without much difficulty at all.

Both usually come off as implausible to me. Ruling the world sounds good when you're six. Once you get a little older, you start to wonder who would actually want that job. That's an immense amount of pressure and responsibility, even if you just want to run it in order to serve your own whims and interests. At the very least, rebels and other would-be dictators are going to be coming at you at all times, and you'll spend more time defending your right to rule than actually enjoying it.

As for the money angle, it's nearly impossible to pull off any of the schemes we see in comics and then go back to a normal life without getting caught. Stealing a priceless jewel or painting? Good luck selling that! Stealing sacks full of money from the bank? Where are you going to stow that without someone noticing it?

As a result, I never buy into either of these motives unless they are executed in a particularly convincing fashion. I absolutely believe, for example, that Dr. Doom has carefully considered why he wants to rule the world and how he would handle it.

I wasn't going to go into detail on this one, but why not? You're right about the Passenger Pigeon feather deal. The thing is, when Mr. twister shows up, he knows as well as the town that the Passenger Pigeon is extinct, and he offers no explanation to anyone of why he's asking for one then.

To quote my review of that story: