Welcome back! If you haven’t read part 1, go there and start there because the rules and what is happening is all there. This time I draft the supervillains to populate this new universe! Since I’ve already used my team choice, it’s all individuals, too! Let’s get to it.
SELECTION #1: Ursa of Krypton
Not Zod, Ursa. She’s got her own motivations, she’s Kryptonian, and she’s super tough to handle on Earth, making her one bad ass to deal with for our heroes.
This introduces our alien element and the possibilities of other Kryptonians existing within this new universe, as well as the possibilities of other species out there in the universe. Ursa was the one I went with because I wanted to avoid such a male dominated field, of which this is definitely going to be, and she is going to be one of the toughest, if not THE toughest of the group.
Ursa brings a detached evil, cold and calculating, without remorse and clear goals set before her. Is she coming to Earth to get revenge for something or is she just here to try and conquer the place? This is where our first supervillain gets interesting because we can really open things cup right out of the gate with a powerful being that few of our heroes can contend with in a one on one battle.
Depending on which version of Ursa, she can be used to embody the essence of Zodiac rather than just be his complete replacement in this universe.
SELECTION #2: The Plutonian
Forget the heroics and the attempted being of good, this Plutonian will be the “Brightburn” or villain from the start. As a Homelander-esq mentality but having no heroic facade in this universe, the Plutonian will be a sadistic creep and may be more than our heroes can handle when it comes to stopping the unstoppable.
The Plutonian brings to the table our “nurture vs nature” debate, where we can swing an altered origin for this universe to be a poor bringing up of abuse and neglect leading into what will become a horrible personality instability once he gains superpowers. What’s worse than someone who has vast powers and a problems with authority figures?
He’s going to be so mentally unstable that he’ll likely have issues with other supervillains, even if he has agreed to work with any of them for any length of time. Having superpowers is going to lead to the Plutonian having some sort of power trip and pushing his weight around like he’s Darth Vader making new deals every 5 minutes in Empire Strikes Back.
SELECTION #3: Magneto
Three powerhouses right out of the gate, Magneto adds the mutant flavor to the major villains and also adds a new ultimate force to the villain side of the equation. Not gifted with super strength, speed, or flight, Magneto brings an elemental force of nature to bear against everyone who will be dealing with him.
When dealing with someone like Magneto we discover who has metal on them and who is susceptible to being taken down by metal objects in a fight. With control of such magnetism, Magneto presents opportunities against heroes he’s never faced off against in this universe.
Magneto will be more closely related to Cyber Force in this universe and may have some cybernetic connections rather than just mutant connections. This adds a new twist to his personal mission and would also be an interesting twist in whether he would be a deep state government operative or if he is well and truly operating on a villainous front, since his Marvel motivations were the same as Professor X’s in Marvel, he just saw a different means of achieving those goals.
SELECTION #4: The Maker
Bring on the Maker, the evil Reed Richards who became what is easily the greatest villain of the 21st century so far.
The Maker creates things, he “makes,” and that would be this universe’s primary source of weird and bizarre creations that would be our small time threats. They could also be bigger than small time threats, like one time threats or perhaps even iconic nemeses that might emerge down the line.
The best part about the Maker is that the door is wide open with this threat. He would like be in a pocket dimension most of the time, meaning he’s out of the way when other threats are about but pops in when he wants to run a simulation or a test with one of his creations.
Having the Maker in this universe provides us with the “smartest person in existence” threat that can be more than strength or superpowers. He’s more than a Lex Luthor or Norman Osborn and he’s definitely a threat to every hero on my list.
SELECTION #5: Giganta
An unconventional selection but one that adds a twist. Using science rather than magic as the source of her growth, she’s being brought in as a sort of “Hank Pym” villain, the source of growth science while also being an evil personality about it.
Having another woman on the villains list, and converting her to be a top scientist, adds another weapon against the heroes that we wouldn’t get with the others.
Her size provides strength and super human abilities and with her being a scientist in this universe, she will be a double threat to be able to contend with heroes on multiple different layers.
SELECTION #6: Ozymandias
Not a cartoon supervillain, he’s not going to tell you his plan until it is impossible for you to stop it, Ozymandias is absolutely the best possible villain one could want in this new universe. He’s got the smarts of someone who can think with the best of them, he’s got the skills to fight with the heroes that think they can overpower anyone, and he’s got the ability to out maneuver those who aren’t sure how to approach him.
Ozymandias also brings another angle to the universe we are missing: a non-super powered being as a villain. His fighting skills are highly honed and very precise but they aren’t super human. His mind is highly developed and considered to be among the smartest in the world… but not super human.
From the Watchmen, Ozymandias worked from within the system as a hero to create his masterful villain turn but in our universe he is a hidden villain only in the fact that he keeps a public persona different from his Ozymandias persona. Think Lex Luthor but different.
SELECTION #7: Ultron
With the cybernetics of the Cyber Force, the technological angles of the Iron Man and Batman, Ultron is a perfect “machine intelligence” arising from experimentation gone wrong in this universe.
Unlike the actual origins of Ultron in the comics, I would begin with Ultron 1 and the slow building of this villain from the very beginning. This would be a slow burn build up to someone realizing over a long time that they’ve made a huge mistake and then releasing Ultron onto the unsuspecting world in a big way.
Ultron wouldn’t iterate as quickly as he did in Avengers Age of Ultron, that was more of an homage to the iterating done in the comics. He popped up with a backstory in the comics with his first iteration being something like Ultron 9 and having been created already but this universe will see his actual origin and the repercussions of creating machine intelligence with cybernetics attached to that.
He may be the most sinister of my villains because he can be seen from the very start.
SELECTION #8: Doctor Doom
A magical powerhouse, a technological powerhouse, and a mastermind of diabolical thinking, Doctor Doom is a man to be watched when it comes to villainy. As the ruler of Latveria (a fictional nation I would keep), he stands as a foil for all my heroes that would be truly interesting to defeat as he is not only a supervillain but also the sovereign ruler of a foreign nation.
Doctor Doom ties in a lot of loose ends as far as drawing together heroes from my list. Shazam has the magic, Iron Man and Batman would have the tech, Cyber Force have a mutant angle but they deal in cybernetics, and the Crow would fall into the mystical… everything that Doctor Doom is into as far as lore and business.
No universe would be complete without a solid heavy hitter and while some would claim a Darkseid or Thanos would need to be that heavy hitter, Doctor Doom fulfills that role without sacrificing the character to a “one track mind” (looking for Infinity Gems or the Anti-Life Equation).
Doctor Doom keeps his fingers in a lot of different pots.
SELECTION #9: Black Adam
My only direct nemesis chosen is that of Shazam’s Black Adam. I wanted to include the direct opposite of the lynchpin of my new universe in this one as having someone else who has the same powers as one of our heroes.
Like Doctor Doom, Black Adam is the ruler of a sovereign nation (Kahndaq) and I would again keep this nation to build upon. This adds a layer of complication to just a straight up “go get him and throw him in jail” reaction to conflict with Black Adam.
Black Adam could also be ancient enough to know more about what the other wizards from the Rock of Eternity were powered by (see part 1 for more on that). His presence in this new universe also opens up some epic conflicts that would see some great battles: vs Shazam, vs Iron Man, vs Hulk just to name a few.
SELECTION #10: Toyo Harada
From Valiant Entertainment’s comics universe comes the dangerously overpowered Toyo Harada. He’s a business man, deep ties to the government, and he’s a psiot (giving me access to psiots as an option for superpower individuals as well).
Toyo Harada is the primary antagonist for the Harbingers in Valiant’s universe and his powers are numerous. He’s got telepathy, mind control, precognition, psionic bolts, telepathic invisibility, telekinesis, force-fields, flight, illusionist, and he’s got eidetic memory. That is a lot of anyone but for a villain who wishes to unlock other psiots to serve in his private army, that’s alarming. Just like in the Valiant universe, Harada will have the limitation of a low conversion rate, meaning that he kills more people he tries to convert than he actually converts. Psiots are turned if they have the potential to become psiots unlike other forms of superpowers and in Valiant he has an opposite with ways to convert at 100%. Will this universe have that, too?
Including Toyo Harada will be the most important pick because with all of the power stacking, muscle, magical, and otherworldly aspects of the rest of my villains, Toyo Harada can still hang with all of them. He’s been alive for a lot longer than any human is supposed to live and he’s virtually untouchable as far as someone to fight with. His powers allow him to go toe to toe with just about anyone and in this universe there would need to be someone to emerge to handle him in a unique way… or the heroes I’ve drafted would need to do some overwhelming indeed.
That’s my draft. What did you think? What are your picks? Who would you start a universe with?
I’d love to hear about it at emeraldspecter – at – gmail – dot – com.
Thanks for reading.
