When talking about superhero ethics in the movies it often goes into the same patterns; the jerk-like characters tend to ride off these heroes as evil while all the "sensible" characters believe in the hero. However in real life we have to admit that these so called heroes are taking the law into their own hands because they have the ability to...which is illegal for a reason. Luckily for most comic book stories they tend to give us obviously evil villains to prove that the superhero is actually a good guy.
However in modern interpretations they tend to make the villains more complex and understandable, like Two-Face or Mr. Freeze (yeah Batman always gets the awesome villains). While we do get those success stories we also get those villains that not only have a good reason for their villainy but also make you question who the good guy really is.
Now before I begin I should explain that I have nothing against these villains or the movies they are featured in. What I'm trying to do is make a point that villains can be complex in their motives but should still be, well, EVIL!
So without further ado, let's begin with...
5) RA'S AL GHUL- BATMAN BEGINS
Ok, so here we have a British ninja terrorist who wishes to destroy one of the major cities in the country, Gotham City (I like to think of it as the Detroit of this universe). You may be wondering why this guy's on the list, after all I don't seem like the guy who would support terrorism (and I'm not by the way).
He's here because, well in a sense, he's this world's Punisher. His motives are pretty easy to understand; he sees that criminals are corrupting our legal systems so they want to attack them outside of this system. The issue here is that throughout the Dark Knight trilogy this is also Batman's motives. Batman's war on crime involves working around the legal system so the mob (who abuses the system the most) can be put behind bars. The only difference is that Batman refuses to kill, which seems nice until you realize that his alternative is to physically and psychologically torture these criminals. In that case it's harder to justify the Caped Crusader on this matter.
Now I will admit that he's really considered the villain of the movie when it turns out he wishes to kill everyone in Gotham no matter if they are criminals or not, but this also seems like something Nolan put in after reading the script and realized that the villain wasn't all that bad (I say Nolan because I can't trust Goyer alone with a script after seeing The Unborn). While this is kind of pushing it, trust me when I say they get less transparently evil as the list goes on.
4) WHIPLASH- IRON MAN 2
Now usually when you have a villain, they tend to have a scheme that involves the loss of lives of several innocent people (you know because the hero's supposed to be a HERO). But not in the movie Iron Man 2. Here we have a villain who's entire goal is revenge on one person, Tony Stark. The problem here is that this is that revenge for the loss of a loved one is a major motivation for superheroes, ranging from Superman, Batman, Spider-man, and on a technical level Iron Man (though this could be argued). And the issue with this motivation is that he has no desire to harm anyone except Tony.
You may be thinking that Tony's a good guy who technically didn't do anything wrong to Ivan, so why would he have a point? Well in Iron Man 2 they really like to have us question whether or not Tony actually is a good guy. Consider the fact that in Iron Man 2 we see a court case that features Tony going up against the government because they want the armored suit for the army, which Tony doesn't want to do. It's understandable why he doesn't since he doesn't want another powerful weapon getting into terrorist hands, he doesn't show us that he would be any better suited (no pun intended) to take control of the tech. In the course of the movie, Tony only uses the armor a few times, to make a flashy appearance at a convention, defend himself against Ivan (using a suit based on Tony's design) and get into a drunken boxing match with his good friend Rhodey.
He doesn't even have good security for his suits. At one point Rhodey literally just walks into his armory, grabs a suit and and arc reactor that's just lying there, and flies off (something that even Nick Fury makes fun of IN THE MOVIE). Imagine if a terrorist learned where he lived. He can just grab a suit and fly it home, then they would have the greatest weapon in the world and the U.S. wouldn't because Tony wants to "privatize world peace". This is why I don't like Iron Man 2, because they make Tony look so incompetent and stupid that if the villain wins in the movie then I'd actually feel safer.
3) CURT CONNORS- THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
Before I get into this one I should clarify that my problem isn't the villain himself but how this kind of villain functions in most science fiction stories. Ok, so we have world renowned scientist Curt Connors who tries to solve the problems of disease with his research into gene splicing. Things go wrong when he uses a formula on himself turning him into the villainous Lizard.
My problem is that it implies we shouldn't try to better ourselves on a scientific level, which is wrong. If it wasn't for scientific advancement, none of you would be able to read this article online, cars wouldn't be around, and I'd probably die in this 100 degree weather because of no air conditioning (I know I'm a drama queen).
Ok I'll admit that he should of thought about ethics and proper testing before using the serum on himself but how much do you want to bet that they would make Norman Osborn the villain in the sequels for wanting to continue the research? This is an experiment that could virtually eliminate all diseases in humans. Why wouldn't we want to try it out? Why make Connors seem villainous because of his desire to better mankind? Again he does other things that make him evil but it's implied that it's because the serum made him evil, meaning that his desire to better mankind made him evil. Why?
2) GENERAL ZOD- SUPERMAN 2
Now this one will definitally confuse a lot of you out there. After all he tried to take over the world and enslave us all. How can you justify that? Well here me out on this.
Let's consider the circumstances for Zod and his team coming to Earth in the first place. His planet blew up leaving only 3 surviving Kryptonians that he knows of (4 in actuality not counting that crapy Supergirl movie). That plus the fact he saw the powers his people got the closer to Earth they got gave them the perfect opportunity to rebuild his species stronger than ever. While this does still sound pretty evil, keep in mind we did it first.
That's right, we came here to this great land, we saw the possibilities, and we conquered simply because we could. If we didn't then we wouldn't be living here today. In fact we had less of a reason to take over since the European nations who conquered this land were already the most powerful countries in the world. Zod didn't even kill anyone in the movie Superman 2 (unlike our ridiculously high body count). So while he's still kind of a villain, at least don't count us as particularly that great.
1) SENATOR KELLY/MAGNETO- X-MEN FRANCHISE
It was hard for me to choose one of these two to put into this spot so I had to put them both here. Each are considered adversaries of sorts for the X-men. One trying to discriminate the mutants of the world while the other is trying to fight for his kind. Yet the movies give both of them a good point.
First of all Senator Kelly who uses his position to try to pass the Mutant Registration Act, which all mutants hate. But let's take a look at what the act says. According to the movie what this means is that mutants are to tell the government that they are mutants and state what exactly their powers are, which makes sense considering there are mutants with the power to shoot lazers out of their eyes. He doesn't want to discriminate the mutants. He just wants to classify them based on the potential danger level they pose, which is kind of great as shown from the White House scene in X-men 2. If someone shows to have, let's say, a cannon built in his nostrils, don't you think that there should be some kind of government involvement there? Guess not because according to our heroes that's racist (or mutantist).
Then there's Magneto on the other end of the spectrum who hates humans for their discrimination of their kind. While this seems odd considering that I just talked about Kelly's proregistration as being right, the world shows that there is mutant discrimination here and that's what he's fighting against. In fact he's often compared to Malcolm X to Charles' Martin Luther King Jr. Now I have two issues with this comparison, first is that Malcolm X is a well known civil rights hero while the movies show Magneto as a villain and second, the hero of the story Charles does nothing for the rights of mutants. King's stance didn't involve violence but he did actually do things like making speeches and forming protests. All Charles does in these movies is open a school for a few hundred mutants to hang out without persecution. And all his X-men do is try and stop Magneto from doing things for mutant rights. If he doesn't like Magneto's desire to use violence to get rights then why not do something like get involved in politics or something so Eric would have no need to do anything.
Now this involves the Ian McKellen Magneto and not the one by Michael Fassbender since at that point mutants were unknown by the public and his thoughts of persecution were based only on his experiences during the holocaust. And again this list doesn't mean I support terrorism like these villains, but if you want to include people who take the law into their own hands then don't give us villains that are in some way right.
So there's my list. Please like if you liked and comment below on villains that you think had justification. Also please make suggestions on articles you'd like to read from me. I do reviews, lists, and a segment I call What Happens Next. See you later.