100 Fun Facts About DC Villains

Which New God rules Apokolips and hunts for the Anti-Life Equation?

Darkseid. The Equation would let him strip free will from every living being, and Jack Kirby first unveiled this cosmic tyrant in, of all places, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.

Which android from the planet Colu shrinks cities, including Kandor, into bottles?

Brainiac. His name outlived the comics: dictionaries trace the everyday word 'brainiac', for a very clever person, probably to this 1958 Superman villain.

Which antihero from ancient Kahndaq did Dwayne Johnson play in a 2022 DC film?

Black Adam. In the comics, the wizard Shazam chose him as champion thousands of years before Billy Batson, then exiled him when the power went to his head.

Which helmeted underwater mercenary murdered Aquaman's infant son?

Black Manta. For decades his real name and motives stayed hidden behind that oversized helmet; only much later did the comics name him David and give him an origin.

Leonard Snart, leader of the Flash's Rogues, operates under which name?

Captain Cold. He sees himself as a working man's crook with a code against killing innocents, and he hates being mistaken for Batman's own ice villain.

Archaeologist Barbara Ann Minerva is the best-known version of which Wonder Woman foe?

Cheetah. Two women had used the name before her; Minerva became the third when an expedition into Africa ended in a ritual that cursed her into a bloodthirsty half-cat.

Which assassin, Floyd Lawton, did Will Smith play in 2016's Suicide Squad?

Deadshot. The marksman who boasts he never misses began in 1950 as a one-off crook in top hat and tails, then sat unused for 27 years before a revival.

Slade Wilson, archenemy of the Teen Titans, is better known as whom?

Deathstroke. An army colonel enhanced by a military experiment, he turned mercenary instead of soldier, a choice that cost him his marriage and the life of one of his sons.

Which horned alien warlord hunts the three Mother Boxes as the villain of 2017's Justice League?

Steppenwolf. In Jack Kirby's comics he helped murder the wife of a rival world's ruler, the killing that rekindled the long war between the New Gods.

Which monster killed Superman in the 1992 storyline 'The Death of Superman'?

Doomsday. Planning the story, editor Mike Carlin scribbled 'doomsday for Superman' on the board, and the writers took the word as their new monster's name.

Which telepathic super-intelligent ape plots conquest from a hidden African city?

A crashed alien spaceship gave his whole troop sapience; he has fought the Flash since 1959.

Which Batman foe began as a sideshow wrestler, gawked at for a rare skin condition?

Killer Croc. Mocked by the abusive aunt who raised him, he ran away to join the circus; later comics made him ever less human, adding claws, a snout and a tail.

Which Superman foe rules Warworld, a space empire where he stages gladiator games?

Mongul. In Alan Moore's 'For the Man Who Has Everything' he ambushes Superman on his birthday with an alien plant that traps its victim in a dream of an ideal life.

Aquaman's half-brother Orm Marius goes by which villain name?

Ocean Master. He was first written as Aquaman's fully human half-brother, jealous of his powers; later retellings remade him as an Atlantean royal after the throne.

Rudy Jones, a lab janitor mutated by radiation, becomes which Superman villain?

Parasite. The change left him with a hunger he cannot satisfy alone: he has to keep draining the life energy of other people simply to stay alive.

Which villain, in the comics a dark mirror of Batman, was the main foe of Arrow's fifth season?

Prometheus. In the comics his parents were criminals gunned down by police, so he swore to destroy the forces of justice: Batman's origin turned inside out.

Which discharged Green Lantern, modeled on David Niven, founded his own yellow-ringed Corps?

Sinestro. Once the Corps' most admired officer, he kept order in his sector by ruling his home planet as a dictator, and was thrown out when rookie Hal Jordan reported him.

Which swamp-born revenant was once a man named Cyrus Gold?

Solomon Grundy. Each time he is killed he rises again from Slaughter Swamp, often with a new personality: a mindless brute in one life, sharp and scheming in another.

Which alien conqueror, the Justice League's very first foe in 1960, was the giant monster of 2021's The Suicide Squad?

Starro. It conquers by clamping small copies of itself over people's faces to control their minds, until a whole species thinks as one hive.

Which world-conquering demon is the father and arch-enemy of the Titan Raven?

Trigon. He fathered children across the hundreds of worlds he rules to use as weapons of conquest, but his daughter Raven sided with the Teen Titans against him.

Which immortal Cro-Magnon warrior gained eternal life from a prehistoric meteorite?

Vandal Savage. For some 50,000 years he has schemed to rule the world, claiming a hand in the great empires of history, Rome's among them.

Who is the main antagonist of 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths?

The Anti-Monitor. Born in the antimatter universe, he set out to erase every other universe and was opposed by his own benevolent twin, who rallied heroes from every world.

Which flawed, chalk-white duplicate of Superman first appeared in a 1958 Superboy comic?

Bizarro. The imperfect copy usually wants nothing more than to be seen as the hero Superman is, which makes him a creature more to be pitied than feared.

B-list actor Basil Karlo was the original version of which shapeshifting Batman villain?

Clayface. Karlo snapped when a horror film he had starred in was remade without him, and began killing the new cast dressed as the villain he once played.

Bandage-wrapped neurosurgeon Tommy Elliot, Bruce Wayne's childhood friend, is which villain?

Hush. As a boy he cut the brakes on his parents' car to inherit their fortune, and never forgave Bruce's surgeon father for saving his mother's life.

Jervis Tetch builds mind-control devices as which Batman villain?

The Mad Hatter. Tetch is so obsessed with Lewis Carroll's Alice books that he sometimes cannot tell them from reality, and he quotes them as he works.

Dr. Pamela Isley is the real name of which Gotham villain?

Poison Ivy. The former botanist is less a thief than an eco-terrorist: she wants plants to rule the planet, and bends people to her will with her own pheromones.

Jonathan Crane, a psychology professor turned criminal experimenter, is which Batman villain?

The Scarecrow. Terrorised as a boy, he decided that mastering fear meant it could never master him again, and built a toxin that makes victims live their worst nightmares.

Which centuries-old Batman foe leads the League of Assassins and cheats death in the Lazarus Pits?

Ra's al Ghul. He judged Batman a worthy heir and offered him command of the League; Batman refused, appalled by schemes such as wiping out half of humanity.

25th-century scientist Eobard Thawne is best known under which villain name?

The Reverse-Flash. He grew up idolising the Flash and recreated the accident that gave him speed, then broke on learning he was fated to become his hero's worst enemy.

Which Kryptonian villain did both Terence Stamp and Michael Shannon play on film?

Zod. Superman's father had the rebel general banished to the Phantom Zone, so when he finally escaped he took his revenge on the jailer's surviving son.

Which villain, played by Tom Hardy in 2012, broke Batman's back in the Knightfall storyline?

Bane. Born in an island prison to serve out his father's sentence, he built his mind and body into weapons there, then picked Gotham to prove himself against its champion.

Which silent-film star's grin inspired the Joker's face?

Conrad Veidt. In The Man Who Laughs (1928) he played a man whose mouth had been disfigured into a permanent grin, and writer Bill Finger showed the artists a photo of him in the role.

In which 1988 graphic novel is Barbara Gordon shot and left paralysed?

The Killing Joke. The shooting stuck: Barbara Gordon gave up being Batgirl and re-emerged as Oracle, the wheelchair-using information broker to DC's heroes.

Which Robin did the Joker murder in 'A Death in the Family'?

Jason Todd. DC put his fate to a reader phone vote and had both endings drawn; a narrow majority chose death, and he stayed dead until his return as the Red Hood.

Alongside Bill Finger and Bob Kane, who is credited with creating the Joker?

Jerry Robinson. Kane's teenage assistant said a joker playing card he sketched was the character's seed; Kane insisted the card only came afterwards.

Who played the Joker in 2008's The Dark Knight?

Heath Ledger. He shut himself in a hotel room for about a month to find the voice and kept a Joker diary; the Oscar he won for the role came after his death.

Harley Quinn was created for which show before she entered the comics?

Batman: The Animated Series. She was written as a walk-on henchwoman for a single 1992 episode, and proved so popular that DC's main comics continuity adopted her seven years later.

Before becoming Harley Quinn, Dr. Harleen Quinzel worked at which Gotham institution?

Arkham Asylum. Sent there to study the Joker, she fell in love with him instead, helped him escape and reinvented herself as his sidekick.

Which Batman villain was played by Jim Carrey in Batman Forever and Paul Dano in 2022's The Batman?

The Riddler. Edward Nygma cannot commit a crime without leaving Batman a clue, a compulsion that keeps undoing his own carefully planned schemes.

What is Catwoman's real name?

Selina Kyle. She debuted in 1940 as a jewel thief called simply 'the Cat', and one modern storyline took her and Bruce Wayne all the way to the altar before she backed out.

What is the name of the Penguin's nightclub?

The Iceberg Lounge. The club gives the Penguin a respectable front for his rackets, and Batman sometimes leans on him there for news of the underworld.

Who played the Penguin in 1992's Batman Returns?

Danny DeVito. The film remade the dapper crook as a deformed outcast abandoned in the sewers as a baby, and DeVito hesitated until his friend Jack Nicholson talked him into it.

Which actress played Catwoman in Tim Burton's 1992 film Batman Returns?

Michelle Pfeiffer. She took over when Annette Bening withdrew, trained for months with the whip, and really did hold a live bird in her mouth on camera.

Mr. Freeze debuted in 1959 under which original name?

Mr. Zero. He was a minor gimmick villain until the 1966 Batman TV series renamed him Mr. Freeze, and the comics then adopted the show's name.

Mr. Freeze turns to crime to cure his terminally ill wife, named what?

Nora. She was invented for a 1992 television episode, 'Heart of Ice', which turned a gimmick crook into a grieving husband; the comics adopted the story.

Who played Lex Luthor opposite Christopher Reeve in 1978's Superman?

Gene Hackman. His Luthor hides the character's famous bald head under a succession of wigs, and he came back to the part in two of the sequels.

Which mob boss threw the acid that scarred Harvey Dent into Two-Face?

Sal Maroni. The clue that damned the gangster was his own lucky two-headed silver dollar, found at a murder scene with his fingerprints on it.

Before becoming Two-Face, Harvey Dent held which Gotham job?

District attorney. He fought Gotham's corruption inside the law until a gangster's acid scarred half his face; since then he lets the flip of a coin make his decisions.

Lex Luthor made his 1940 debut in which comic, home of the Man of Steel since 1938?

Action Comics. A 1960s story later traced his hatred to a boyhood lab fire that the young Superman put out, leaving the teenage Luthor bald and vowing revenge.

Which Fifth Dimension imp leaves Superman alone only when tricked into saying his name backwards?

Mr. Mxyzptlk is banished to his home dimension for at least 90 days by the trick, after which the magical pest is free to come back.

Which actor demanded top billing and a share of the profits to play the Joker in 1989's Batman?

Jack Nicholson also secured his own shooting schedule, approval of the makeup designer and a cut of the merchandise sales.

Which wild animals, named Bud and Lou, does Harley Quinn keep as pets and occasional attack dogs?

Hyenas fit a clown's sidekick: Bud and Lou are named after the comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Krypton's worst villains were banished to which prison dimension, discovered by Jor-El?

The Phantom Zone was Krypton's humane way to jail criminals, a pocket universe outside space and time, on a planet that had abolished the death penalty.

Which everyday accessory does the Penguin arm with hidden guns, blades and a miniature helicopter?

An umbrella is his trademark because, in several tellings, his mother made him carry one everywhere after his father died of pneumonia caught in the rain.

Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar as Arthur Fleck, a party clown turned killer, in 2019's Joker?

Joaquin Phoenix ate one sparse meal a day for eight months to lose 52 pounds for the part, and the film became the first R-rated release to gross over $1 billion.

Which thirteen-villain team did Lex Luthor assemble in 1978's Challenge of the Superfriends?

The Legion of Doom built its Hall of Doom in a swamp as a compromise, after members argued for the ocean, the polar ice caps and a jungle.

Which action star spent six hours a day in makeup to play Mr. Freeze in 1997's Batman & Robin?

Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid $25 million, and the script was rewritten for him after Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris were considered for the part.

Which actress played Harley Quinn in 2016's Suicide Squad and returned for 2020's Birds of Prey?

Margot Robbie also produced Birds of Prey, and DC redrew the comic-book Harley with a jacket inspired by her film costume.

In the comics, which office did Lex Luthor win on a platform of technological progress?

US President Luthor did not last: he was driven from office before finishing his first term, and his vice president Pete Ross briefly took over.

In the comics, which small-time mugger murdered Bruce Wayne's parents, turning him into Batman?

Joe Chill went unnamed for almost a decade, from the 1939 origin story until a 1948 issue finally identified the gunman.

Which hard-nosed government official leads the Suicide Squad, a black-ops team of jailed supervillains?

Amanda Waller has no superpowers, yet she picks the team and has the final say over when the explosives implanted in its members go off.

Which hulking Suicide Squad member did Sylvester Stallone voice in the 2021 film The Suicide Squad?

King Shark, also called Nanaue, is the Hawaiian-born son of a shark god, and actor Steve Agee performed his motion capture for the film.

Which Flash villain did Jai Courtney play in both 2016's Suicide Squad and 2021's The Suicide Squad?

Captain Boomerang began as a performer hired by a toy company to promote its boomerangs, a firm secretly owned by his own father.

In the 2019 film Shazam!, Mark Strong plays which mad scientist, the hero's archenemy since 1940?

Doctor Sivana coined the insulting nickname the Big Red Cheese for his foe, which the hero's own friends later adopted to tease him.

Which Gotham mob boss, modelled on The Godfather's Don Corleone, did John Turturro play in The Batman?

Carmine Falcone is nicknamed the Roman, and his stranglehold on Gotham's organised crime has been called the Roman Empire.

Which Gotham crime boss, born Roman Sionis, was played by Ewan McGregor in 2020's Birds of Prey?

Black Mask carved his ebony face from his father's coffin after murdering his parents, then founded a gang called the False Face Society.

Which Superman foe, born John Corben, is kept alive by a heart made of green kryptonite?

Metallo later lost his kryptonite heart to Lex Luthor, and only back-up life support let him restart himself and escape.

Zoologist Kirk Langstrom tests an animal-DNA serum on himself and becomes which winged Gotham monster?

Man-Bat was born from a serum meant to give humans a bat's sonar sense, and Langstrom's wife Francine later drank it too, becoming She-Bat.

Meek Batman villain the Ventriloquist plans his crimes through a gangster dummy with which name?

Scarface was carved from the wood of a prison gallows, and when the dummy went missing his owner made do with a sock puppet called Socko.

Which Gotham serial killer carves a tally mark into his own skin for every victim he claims?

Victor Zsasz slits his victims' throats and leaves them in lifelike poses, then adds one more scar to the count on his body.

Which psychiatrist, one of Batman's first recurring foes, was among the first to learn his secret identity?

Hugo Strange once tried to auction Batman's identity to rival crooks, including the Penguin and the Joker.

Julian Gregory Day is the punning real name of which Batman villain?

Calendar Man plans each crime around a holiday or significant date, and his real name nods to the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

Which Flash villain has Mark Hamill played in live action, in TV series launched in both 1990 and 2014?

The Trickster became Hamill's signature Flash role: he has voiced the character in cartoons and games too, and one animated version was drawn to resemble his portrayal.

Which criminal genius, the first supervillain Superman faced, later put his brain in an albino ape's body?

Ultra-Humanite had cheated death once before, ordering his henchmen to kidnap a film actress and transplant his brain into her body.

Which secret society of rich and powerful citizens has existed since Gotham City was founded?

The Court of Owls enforces its will through indoctrinated assassins called Talons, and Gotham knew of it only as an urban legend.

Which evil Superman counterpart from Earth-Three leads the Crime Syndicate and is empowered by kryptonite?

Ultraman turns the hero's weakness upside down: green kryptonite gives him a new superpower with each exposure.

Which yellow entity, the embodiment of fear, possessed Hal Jordan and turned Green Lantern into a villain?

Parallax was once locked inside the Green Lanterns' own Central Power Battery, which is why their rings long failed against anything yellow.

Which survivor of a massacre in Space Sector 666 founded the rage-powered Red Lantern Corps?

Atrocitus saw his wife and children die in the slaughter, then killed his fellow survivors to forge the first red power rings.

Which enemy, played by David Thewlis, is unmasked as the hidden villain of 2017's Wonder Woman?

Ares spends the film posing as a British politician, Sir Patrick Morgan, quietly steering both sides of the First World War into more conflict.

In his 1951 origin story, the Joker was which costumed criminal before his plunge into a vat of chemicals?

The Red Hood jumped into the vat to escape Batman during his final heist, and the chemicals bleached his skin and turned his hair green.

Which bounty hunter became the last Czarnian by killing every other member of his own species?

Lobo was meant as a parody of grim and gritty 1990s heroes, but fans of that trend embraced him anyway.

Which android villain copies the powers and weapons of every Justice League hero it fights?

Amazo's copied weapons are weaker than the originals, and after one defeat the League stored the android in its trophy room.

Which master archer and nemesis of Oliver Queen did John Barrowman play in the TV series Arrow?

Malcolm Merlyn was invented for the show, and the comics later gave the name to their older archer villain, originally called Arthur King.

Which 13-issue Batman mystery by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale serves as an origin story for Two-Face?

The Long Halloween also hunts Holiday, a killer who strikes on one holiday each month, and it influenced the Dark Knight film trilogy.

In 1987's Superman IV, Lex Luthor grows which solar-powered villain from a strand of Superman's hair?

Nuclear Man shuts down without sunlight, so Superman beats him by pushing the Moon out of orbit to create a solar eclipse.

The Suicide Squad, DC's black-ops unit of expendable supervillains, goes by which official name?

Task Force X is based at Belle Reve prison, where its first comic series gave the villains an in-house chaplain and psychiatric staff.

Which artist quit Marvel for DC and created the Fourth World saga, home of the villains of Apokolips?

Jack Kirby left Marvel unhappy that he held no copyright or creative custody over the many characters he had created there.

Which writer created Harley Quinn with artist Bruce Timm, basing her on his friend Arleen Sorkin?

Paul Dini got the idea after watching Sorkin play a jester in an episode of Days of Our Lives, and borrowed her wisecracking manner.

Lex Luthor's exposure to kryptonite gave him cancer, forcing doctors to amputate which part of his body?

His right hand was lost to a kryptonite ring he wore to keep Superman away; the ring later passed to Batman, to use if Superman ever went bad.

Which actor wore heavy prosthetics and a fat suit to play the Penguin in 2022's The Batman?

Colin Farrell spent two to four hours in makeup each day, came out unrecognisable, and went on to lead his own HBO spin-off series.

Which actor played the Joker opposite Adam West in the 1960s Batman television series?

Cesar Romero refused to shave for the part, so the white face makeup was simply smeared over his moustache throughout the series.

Which actor played Max Shreck, the industrialist behind the Penguin's mayoral campaign in Batman Returns?

Christopher Walken based the tycoon on real moguls such as Samuel Goldwyn, in a part written to show that true villains do not always wear costumes.

Which actor played Maxwell Lord, a businessman famous for TV infomercials, in Wonder Woman 1984?

Pedro Pascal had been cast in a Wonder Woman project before: he appeared in the pilot of a 2011 television adaptation that was cancelled.

Which actor played Lex Luthor as an eccentric young businessman in 2016's Batman v Superman?

Jesse Eisenberg said he wanted his version as far as possible from earlier screen Luthors, to avoid unfavourable comparisons.

Which pink-skinned alien tyrant of Kalanor uses a third eye to hypnotise the Justice League?

Despero debuted in the first issue of Justice League of America, beating the Flash at a chess-like game to banish the team to another dimension.

Which villain wears the Medusa Mask, an artefact that lets him project emotions onto other people?

Psycho-Pirate is one of the few characters who still remembered DC's original multiverse after Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed it.

Which Soviet assassin came to Gotham to kill Ronald Reagan in his 1988 comics debut?

KGBeast escaped Batman's rope by chopping through his own snared wrist with an axe, then had a cybernetic gun fitted in its place.

Which power-hungry priest and cult leader is a recurring enemy of the Teen Titans in comics and cartoons?

Brother Blood is a title passed down since the 13th century, and each new holder claims it by killing his own father.

Which minor Batman villain did David Dastmalchian play in the 2021 film The Suicide Squad?

Polka-Dot Man waited since 1962 for a live-action role, having begun as a local crook who built a crime wave around spots and dots.