Every vil­lain has a use­less­ness level. On a scale of 1 to 10, if you make good on your master’s plans and actu­ally accom­plish the death of a super­hero, you’re closer to 1. If you can’t get the job done, you’re mov­ing a lit­tle higher on the scale. And trust us, both comic pow­er­houses have a few on the higher end.

Loco­mo­tive Breath/Marvel

Loco­mo­tive Breath (Mar­vel)
Fought: War Machine
Use­less level: 6
With a name like Loco­mo­tive Breath, it’s only a mat­ter of time before you have put up or shut up. He did nei­ther and that’s why he only appeared in two issues before dis­ap­pear­ing back into obscu­rity. He may have been an Eter­nal but, really, his name stops any seri­ous dis­cus­sion about mis­deeds cold.

DeSaad/DC

DeSaad (DC)
Fought: Super­man
Use­less level: 1
As the right-hand man to Man of Steel arch neme­sis Dark­seid, DeSaad actu­ally did some pretty nasty deeds in the name of evil and his master’s wrath. If he’d only bro­ken off a lit­tle sooner, he could have avoided the beat­down Dark­seid liked to inflict for fail­ure. Oth­er­wise, DeSaad was a bad man that played both sides of the coin when it came to the chance for more power.

Quintesson/Marvel

The Quin­tes­sons (Trans­form­ers)
Fought: Auto­bots and Decep­ti­cons
Use­less level: 3
More annoy­ing than use­less, the Quin­tes­sons were actu­ally dan­ger­ous. They served as the judges, jury and exe­cu­tion­ers for the war­ring fac­tions that used to live on Cybertron. If you want to see the extent of their use­ful­ness, watch the 1986 ani­mated movie. They weren’t too bad there and actu­ally served a pur­pose such as con­demn­ing every­one to die.

Silvermane/Marvel

Sil­ver­mane (Mar­vel)
Fought: Spider-Man
Use­less level: 4
Sil­ver­mane is actu­ally kind of cool. He employs a bionic body, aging and de-aging abil­i­ties and takes on King­pin for con­trol of his crim­i­nal empire. Because of his age, he takes on his crim­i­nal name. Not bad, old-timer. Not bad.

Edgar Plunder/Marvel

Edgar Plun­der (Mar­vel)
Fought: Cap­tain Amer­ica
Use­less level: 7
OK, the name is a keeper but he was still use­less. If you’re going to fight Cap­tain Amer­ica at least have the sense to do some­thing amaz­ing. But he hasn’t. He’s done noth­ing remark­able other than have an imper­son­ator that was killed by the Pun­isher. Bor­ing. Who hasn’t been killed or threat­ened by the Punisher?

All pho­tos cour­tesy of the Mar­vel and DC Wikia sites

Mag­neto

Mag­neto – Erik Lensh­err doesn’t dwell on his past as a Holo­caust vic­tim or the fact that his entire fam­ily has been wiped out numer­ous times. While any­one else would live a hard life because of the repeated loss and dev­as­ta­tion, Mag­neto finds a way to make it his mis­sion to move his life for­ward. You’ve got to give the man his due when you stop and real­ize that, ulti­mately, he’s prob­a­bly right about homo sapien supe­rior not being able to co-exist with reg­u­lar humans. At least he’s got his eyes open to the inevitable. While his meth­ods may be bru­tal (much like his arche­type Mal­colm X), he works hard at achiev­ing what he’s set out to do.

Why we love him: Mag­neto will do any­thing to fur­ther his mis­sion, even if it means sac­ri­fic­ing his chil­dren and  his life. He’s got noth­ing if not determination.

Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor – Super­man once had noth­ing to do in Metrop­o­lis solely because Lex Luthor was behind bars. When you pro­vide the major­ity of the work for a crime fighter you are some­body. Lex is no excep­tion. You really know you’re some­thing spe­cial when you can com­mit as many crimes as Lex, get out of jail and still win the U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Lex rep­re­sents what many other aspir­ing king­pins wish they could become.

Why we love him: Try­ing to kill the Man of Steel is no easy feat. Nearly suc­ceed­ing in almost every instance makes you a cut above the rest.

Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom – Vic­tor Von Doom has been the thorn in every self-righteous group of super­heroes since the villain’s dawn in the 1960s. If he isn’t ter­ror­iz­ing the Fan­tas­tic Four to demon­strate his supe­ri­or­ity over Mr. Fan­tas­tic, he’s steal­ing the Infin­ity Gems to make him­self a god. For all of Doom’s intel­li­gence (he’s genius level), he still has charisma. With­out it he couldn’t run his own nation, Latveria.

Why we love him: He’s mega­lo­ma­ni­a­cal and charm­ing. What’s not to like to take home and meet your mama?

The Joker

The Joker – In his many incar­na­tions, the Joker is mul­ti­fac­eted. It doesn’t mat­ter if he’s the malev­o­lent killer clown or the bum­bling chem­i­cal genius; he still man­ages to find a way to get under the skin of Bat­man. Every actor who’s por­trayed him — Cae­sar Romero, Jack Nichol­son and Heath Ledger, Mark Hamill — has found inspi­ra­tion in his dark and funny sides. That is the stroke of a man who really needs no expla­na­tion or intro­duc­tion for his work as a criminal.

Why we love him: He’s the Joker. Eter­nal thorn in the side of the Caped Cru­sader. Need we say more?

Venom

Venom – OK, let’s just get this out there from the begin­ning: Venom is crazy. No, not just reg­u­lar insane, but WAY out there extra spe­cial spicy insane. The sym­biote didn’t know whom it was deal­ing with when it picked Eddie Brock to bond with after Peter Parker rejected it. Venom’s brand of logic includes killing as a means to an end. If you get in the way, you die, but he doesn’t go out of his way to harm you. That’s what we like about Venom. He’s a got a method to his mad­ness. It’s just fig­ur­ing out the method that makes no sense.

Why we love him: Did we men­tion he’s crazy? And any­one who says “We want to eat your brains!” as a taunt in a video game is awe­some. Period.