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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jun 23, 2008 18:17:45 GMT -5
4. Dr. Hannibal Lecter Who is he: A brilliant psychiatrist/cannibalistic serial killer. What is he from: Red Dragon (novel and film), “Manhunter,” Silence Of The Lambs (novel and film), Hannibal (novel and film), and “Hannibal Rising.” What has he done: Killed and ate a lot of people. Intelligence: An absolute genius; his mind is often sharper than the knives he uses to dine on people with. Power: He’s a bit of a loner. Vileness: He ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice kainite. Sway: His genius allows him to control conversations and influence even the steadiest individuals. Purity: The Doctor passed the point of no return long ago; he is a severe danger to society. Physical Prowess: Deceptive strength for a man his age; good stamina and dexterity; always remains incredibly calm, even during a struggle; and has one fantastic stare. Name Coolness: “Hannibal Lecter” is very cool. Created by: Thomas Harris. Portrayed by: Brian Cox first played Hannibal in “Manhunter.” However, it was Sir Anthony Hopkins who is most famous for playing Dr. Lecter in “Silence Of The Lambs,” “Hannibal,” and “Red Dragon.” In “Hannibal Rising,” Gaspard Ulliel played a young Hannibal. Harris’s books: Hannibal Lecter is introduced in the 1981 novel Red Dragon. He is a brilliant psychiatrist who is incarcerated after he is revealed to be a cannibalistic serial killer. Lecter spends his time during his incarceration writing articles for medical journals. Red Dragon depicts Special Agent Will Graham consulting Lecter to catch serial killer Francis Dolarhyde, known only to law enforcement and media by the pseudonyms "The Tooth Fairy" and later, "The Dragon." It is revealed that Graham was the investigator who captured Lecter, and that Lecter had nearly killed him before being arrested. After receiving a letter from Dolarhyde, Lecter manages to send Graham's home address to the murderer via a coded letter. Dolarhyde later attacks Graham and his family at home, badly disfiguring Graham before being shot dead by Graham's wife. Lecter appears in the 1988 sequel to Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, where he assists a rookie FBI agent named Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer known only as "Buffalo Bill". Lecter and Starling form an unusual relationship in which he provides her with a profile of the killer and his M.O. in exchange for details about her unhappy childhood. Lecter later stages a dramatic, bloody escape from prison and disappears. Following the success of The Silence of the Lambs and the immense popularity of the character, Harris spent seven years writing a third Lecter novel titled Hannibal, which was released in 1999 and took place seven years after the end of Silence of the Lambs. At the start of the novel, Lecter is found to be residing in Florence, Italy, while Mason Verger, one of Lecter's two surviving victims, is attempting to capture Lecter, planning to feed Lecter to his pigs. Fleeing Verger, Lecter returns to the United States but is subsequently captured by Verger's henchmen, only to be rescued by Starling. Lecter overpowers Starling and using drugs and hypnosis, attempts to transform her into the living image of his long-dead sister; Starling resists, however, and instead becomes his lover. They then elope to Argentina. In 2006, Harris wrote a prequel to the Lecter books entitled Hannibal Rising. Harris undertook the project after Dino De Laurentiis (owner of the cinematic rights to the Lecter character since Manhunter) announced that he was going to make a film depicting Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer. Harris also wrote the film's screenplay. The story explains that Lecter was born into an aristocratic family in Lithuania in 1933, and that he and his little sister Mischa were orphaned in 1944 when invading Soviet forces stormed the family estate. Shortly thereafter, Lecter and Mischa were captured by a band of Nazi deserters, who murdered and cannibalized Mischa before her brother's eyes. The death of his sister was extremely traumatic to Lecter, causing him to become temporarily mute and sparking his fixation with cannibalism. Lecter escaped from the deserters and took up residence in an orphanage until he was adopted by his uncle Robert and his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki. As Lecter grew into a young man he formed a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with Murasaki and showed great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a relatively young age. Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter was consumed by a savage obsession with the horrific events of his childhood. After gaining his first taste of murder (through eviscerating a rude butcher who had previously insulted Murasaki), Lecter methodically tracked down, murdered and partially cannibalized all of the men responsible for his sister's death, forsaking his relationship with Murasaki and losing all traces of his humanity in the process. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted into the Johns Hopkins Medical Center and moving to the United States. “Manhunter”: Petersen plays Will Graham, a former FBI agent who captured the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecktor and was almost killed in the process; he is so traumatized by the event that he retires from the FBI. His former boss, Jack Crawford, calls him out of retirement to help find a killer called "The Tooth Fairy" who is murdering entire families. Graham is a profiler who has an uncanny ability to enter the mind of a killer and think and feel as he does. Some would say that what Graham really does is to insert the serial killer into his own mind at a much greater risk to his own mental health. Doctor Lecktor confronts him about this knack during a trolling visit from Graham and points out something that Will already knows but doesn't like to admit: The reason Graham caught Lecktor is that they are just alike. "If you want to get the old scent back", Lecktor says, "Smell yourself!" There is a subplot about the Tooth Fairy himself, a tortured soul named Francis Dollarhyde (Dolarhyde in the novel), played by Noonan, falling in love with a blind coworker named Reba McClane. This ecstatically novel experience for Dollarhyde temporarily quells his murderous urges. It is then through a simple tragic misunderstanding that his rage returns and he reverts to his old psychotic self. The tragedy here is brought out more fully in the novel when Graham tells Reba that she fell in love not with a freak but rather with an unfortunate man who happened to have a "freak on his back". “Silence Of The Lambs”: Promising FBI Academy student Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from her training at the FBI Training Facility at Quantico, Virginia by Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, who asks her to present a VICAP questionnaire to the notorious Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), brilliant forensic psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial murderer. After learning the assignment relates to the pursuit of vicious serial killer Buffalo Bill, Starling travels to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and is led by Dr. Frederick Chilton to Hannibal Lecter, the sophisticated and cultured man restrained behind thick glass panels and windowless stone walls. Initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter grows impatient with Starling's attempts at "dissecting" him and viciously rebuffs her. As she departs, another patient flings fresh semen onto her face, enraging Lecter who calls Starling back and suggests she checks up on one of his former patients. The name he gives turns out to be a riddle which leads Starling to a rent-a-storage lot where she discovers the severed head of a man. Starling returns to Lecter who offers her a towel to dry her rain-soaked hair; she uses it, though she was told that "if he attempts to pass you anything, do not accept it". Lecter claims that the man is Benjamin Raspail, a former patient. He states that Raspail was not killed by himself, but hints to a connection with Buffalo Bill and offers to profile the killer if he is transferred to a facility away from the venomous, careerist Dr. Chilton. Miles away, Buffalo Bill abducts Catherine Martin, daughter of United States Senator Ruth Martin. Starling accompanies Crawford to West Virginia and attends the autopsy being conducted on the body of another of Bill's recently-discovered victims. She observes something in the victim's throat, and a chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawkmoth is extracted. When news of Catherine Martin's abduction sweeps the country, Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Hannibal Lecter a fake deal promising a prison transfer if he provides information that helps profile Buffalo Bill and rescue Catherine Martin. Once a year, Lecter will even be allowed to stay for a week at a secluded location: Plum Island, where animal diseases are tested. Instead, Lecter begins a game of quid pro quo with Starling, offering comprehensive clues and insights about Buffalo Bill in exchange for events from Starling's traumatic childhood, specifically those following the death of her father, a small-town policeman killed when she was ten, leaving her an orphan. Starling thus breaks more of the rules: don't let "Hannibal Lecter inside your head." Unbeknown to both Starling and Lecter, Dr. Frederick Chilton tapes the conversation and, after revealing Starling's deal as a sham, offers to transfer Lecter in exchange for a deal of his own making. Lecter agrees and following a flight to Tennessee meets Senator Martin and her entourage of FBI agents and Justice Department officials. He goads her over her relationship with her daughter but also claims that Buffalo Bill is the late Raspail's gay lover Louis Friend, who Lecter met after Friend had killed a vagrant and "done things with the skin". (Raspail was the man whose head Starling found in the warehouse.) Meanwhile, Catherine Martin is held prisoner in a dry well with Buffalo Bill and his poodle "Precious" looking down on her. Bill orders her to rub herself with oil, contemptuously referring to Catherine as "it".: "It rubs the lotion on its skin, it does this whenever it's told". The terrified Catherine begs to go home and see her mother, telling her captor that her family will pay any ransom he demands. He tells her to put the lotion in the basket, pulls it up and walks away. Starling travels to Lecter's special cell located on the third floor of the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis, Tennessee, where she confronts him about the false information he gave the Senator: "Louis Friend" is an anagram for iron sulfide also known as fool's gold, to which Lecter simply says "Oh, Clarice, your problem is you need to get more fun out of life." He mocks the false offer she and Crawford made, especially since it is costing Catherine valuable time. Lecter refuses Starling's pleas for Buffalo Bill's real name and demands she finish her story surrounding her worst childhood memory. She recounts her arrival at a relative's farm, the horror of discovering their lamb slaughterhouse and her fruitless attempts at rescuing the lambs. Lecter rebuffs her pleas for a name, simply giving a few pointers and claiming that everything she needs to find Bill is in the case files. He hands them back, and touches her finger, before she is escorted out of the building by security guards. Hours later, Lecter escapes from his cell, attacking his two guards. Police storm the room and discover one guard barely alive and the other disemboweled and strung up on the walls. Paramedics transport the survivor to an ambulance and speed off while a SWAT team searches the building for Lecter. As the team discover a body in the elevator shaft, the survivor in the ambulance peels off a mask of skin covering his face (carved off the second guard whose body was found in the elevator shaft), revealing Lecter in disguise. He kills the paramedics, later murders a tourist and disappears. After being notified of Lecter's escape, Starling pores over the case files, analyzing Lecter's annotations and realizes that the first victim, Frederica Bimmel, knew Bill in real life before he killed her. Starling travels to Bimmel's hometown, meets her father and searches her room. She discovers that Bimmel was a tailor and had dresses with templates identical to the patches of skin removed from Buffalo Bill's victims. Starling concludes that Buffalo Bill is a tailor fashioning a "woman suit" of real skin; Lecter had suggested that Bill had applied for sex change operations and had been turned down. Starling telephones Crawford, who is already on the way to make an arrest, having cross-referenced Lecter's notes with Johns Hopkins Hospital, where Buffalo Bill may have applied for a sex change operation, and finding a man named Jame Gumb, who also had a passion for the sort of moths found in the throat of the victim he and Starling examined together. Crawford instructs Starling to continue interviewing Bimmel's friends while he leads a SWAT team to Gumb's business address in Calumet City, Illinois. The raid proves to be a dead-end, however, when the cops break into what turns out to be an empty house. Starling's interviews lead to the house of "Jack Gordon", who Starling soon realizes is actually Jame Gumb, and draws her weapon just as Gumb disappears into his basement. Starling pursues him, discovering a screaming Catherine Martin in the dry well just before the lights in the basement go out, leaving her in complete darkness. Gumb stalks Starling in the dark with night vision goggles and prepares to shoot her when Starling, hearing the mechanism of his revolver, swivels around and shoots Gumb, killing him. Days later at the FBI Academy graduation party, Starling receives a phone call from Hannibal Lecter, now in the Bahamas. Lecter assures Starling that he has no plans to pursue her, and has the gall to ask her to "extend me the same courtesy". He then excuses himself from the phone call, remarking that he's "having an old friend for dinner", before hanging up and following his former jailer Dr. Frederick Chilton through the streets of the village. “Hannibal”: The film takes place ten years after the events depicted in The Silence of the Lambs. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) has taken up residence in Florence, Italy under the pseudonym 'Dr. Fell'. Meanwhile, FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) is disgraced after a botched stakeout/drug raid that resulted in the death of five people, including drug dealer Evelda Drumgo (Hazelle Goodman) who was shot by Starling while holding a baby and a machine pistol. Even though she tried to call the raid off, her co-worker went ahead and resulted in the massacre, and Starling is unjustly given the blame for the mess by Department of Justice employee Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta), whose advances Starling has rejected. As a result of the failed drug raid, Starling is temporarily taken out of the field and assigned to office work on Lecter's case. Starling is sent to the mansion of billionaire Mason Verger (Gary Oldman), who was mutilated and paralyzed after an encounter with Lecter years earlier. Verger, who specifically asked for Starling, claims he has new information (which turns out to be an X-ray) which he is willing to disclose only to Starling. Upon her arrival, Verger tells Starling about his history with Lecter. He first met Dr. Lecter due to a court order to undergo heavy therapy after being convicted on multiple counts of child sex abuse. Lecter, fascinated and disgusted by his evil new patient, chose him as his next victim. Verger, uniquely, survives his encounter with Lecter, although in a reduced condition: he is paralyzed and bedridden in the hospital wing of his mansion; he's fed intravenously; his remaining eye is irrigated by a saline drip, in lieu of natural tears. He can move around in a motorized wheelchair after muscular attendants and his verbally-abused physician Cordell lift him into it. He is surrounded by experts and minions to help him in various ways, and uses them to track down his old enemy. He has created a Website offering a $3 million reward for the whereabouts of Lecter, mediated by a Swiss bank. Starling later receives a letter from Lecter expressing sympathy for the drug raid fiasco, but also taunting her into tracking him down. Lecter was very careful not to leave anything on the letter that could provide a clue to his whereabouts, but it is also covered with some particular type of perfume which is sold in only a handful of shops throughout the world. In Florence, Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) is investigating the disappearance of a library curator, and meets with his replacement: Dr Fell. At the same time, Pazzi's department is contacted by Starling, who wants to have the surveillance videos of all perfume stores that sell the particular perfume, including one in Florence. After spotting Fell in the requested surveillance tape, Pazzi finds out Fell's true identity and, hoping to get the $3 million reward, contacts Mason Verger via the bank. Pazzi decides to apprehend Lecter, with the help of Verger's men, ignoring Starling's urgent advice to be careful and leave Lecter alone. Lecter, however, has guessed Pazzi's intentions, and kills him by disemboweling and hanging him from the Palazzo Vecchio, a fate shared by his ancestor Francesco Pazzi. Lecter then heads to the United States to find Starling. In order to exact his revenge on Lecter and draw him out of hiding, Verger recruits a corrupt Department of Justice employee, who happens to be the very Paul Krendler who disgraced Starling. Krendler, tempted by Verger's money, delivers falsified love letters from Lecter to the head of the FBI, claiming he found them in Starling's office. As a result, Starling is temporarily put on administrative leave, and she is thus unable to stop Verger's men from capturing Lecter and bringing him to his estate, where he is to be eaten by a herd of specially trained giant forest hogs. Nonetheless, Starling heads to Verger's mansion, where she manages to kill Verger's men and free Lecter just before the herd of hogs is unleashed. Lecter subsequently saves the wounded Starling from the animals and, while doing so, also persuades Verger's assistant Cordell (Zeljko Ivanek) to let Verger roll into the pit with the hogs, thus giving him the satisfaction of watching Verger die. He promises to take the blame for Verger's death and leaves with Starling. Lecter takes Starling to Krendler's lake-front house and performs surgery on her to remove the bullet. After awakening, she discovers her whereabouts and calls the police before heading downstairs, where Lecter has performed a craniotomy on Krendler. Starling watches in horror as Lecter feeds the severely drugged Krendler a small part of his own brain, sautéed in butter and herbs. Starling tries to attack Lecter, and in the ensuing struggle, he traps her by her hair in the fridge. While trapped there, Lecter asks Starling if she would beg for him to spare her, asking if she would ask "if you love me, would you spare me"? Starling tells him "Not in a thousand years". He replies "that's my girl", and kisses her. As he tries to withdraw it is to find that Starling has handcuffed herself to him and the police are closing in. Lecter threatens to chop off Starling's hand to make his escape, but it is later shown he chose to remove his own hand instead. Lecter manages to escape, leaving Starling behind alive. He is later shown on a plane eating the meal he packed, Krendler's brain among it. A very young boy asks him what it is, and says it 'looks good.' Lecter responds, 'Oh, it is good.' The boy says that he would like to try it, to which Lecter responds: "As your mother tells you, and my mother certainly told me, it is important, she always used to say, always to try new things." Lecter is then shown feeding the boy something, presumably, Krendler's brain. “Red Dragon”: In his Baltimore townhouse, after hosting a dinner party, famous local psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter is approached by Will Graham, a young gifted FBI agent tracking a local serial killer whose victims have all been cannibalized. During the consultation and brainstorming session, Graham discovers evidence implicating Dr. Lecter in the murders, shortly before Lecter returns and attacks Graham, wounding and nearly killing him before Graham resists and subdues him. Lecter is subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in an institution for the criminally insane while Graham, severely traumatized by the experience, retires from the FBI. Years later, another serial killer, nicknamed the Tooth Fairy, who stalks and murders seemingly random families during sequential full moons. Displeased with his current team of inexperienced agents, Special Agent Jack Crawford seeks out Graham and pleads for his assistance. Graham, believing the death of another family to be an unbearable burden on his conscience, reluctantly agrees. Graham, coming to the realization that most of his previous success was achieved due to the insightful collaborations of Dr. Lecter, concludes that he must once again visit Lecter and seek his help in capturing the Tooth Fairy, a disturbed man named Francis Dolarhyde who worships Lecter after learning of his crimes. Calling himself The Great Red Dragon (because of his obsession with the William Blake painting, "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun"), Dolarhyde is unable to control his violent and sexual urges, which turns him into a dangerous serial killer. These conditions were born from the systematic child abuse he suffered at the hands of his grandmother. (For more psychoanalysis of Graham and Dolarhyde, see their individual pages.) Graham continues to run into complications, the first being Freddy Lounds, a tabloid reporter whom Graham despises from the days following the conviction of Dr. Lecter and who now follows Graham relentlessly for leads on the Tooth Fairy story. Further complicating the investigation is the correspondence between Lecter and Dolarhyde, where Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address, endangering Graham's wife and child. Fortunately, both complications are solved: the first because Dolarhyde kills Lounds after the latter writes unfavorably about him in the newspapers; the second because Graham manages to evacuate his family from their house before any harm can come to them. In the meantime, Dolarhyde falls in love with a blind co-worker named Reba McClane. Dolarhyde's newfound love conflicts with his homicidal urges, which manifest themselves in his mind as 'The Great Red Dragon'. After his association with Reba, Dolarhyde attempts to stop the Dragon's "possession" of him. In order to stop killing, he believes that he must dominate the dragon by consuming the original painting. Dolarhyde goes to the Brooklyn Museum, beats a museum secretary unconscious, and eats the original Blake watercolor of The Red Dragon. Graham eventually realizes that the killer knew the layout of his victims' houses from their home videos, which he only could have seen if he worked for a home video editing company, the company that transfers the home videos to video cassette. Dolarhyde's job gives him access to all home movies that pass through the company. Sensing that he is about to be caught, Dolarhyde goes to see Reba one last time, but he finds her talking to a co-worker, Ralph Mandy. Enraged, Dolorhyde kills Ralph Mandy, kidnaps McClane and, having taken her to his house, sets the place on fire. He intends to kill her and then himself, but finds himself unable to shoot her. After he apparently shoots himself, McClane escapes. Graham is given Dolarhyde's scrapbook, saved from the wreckage of the house, which details the killer's tragic childhood and obsessions with murder. Despite himself, Graham feels pity for Dolarhyde, who he realizes was made a monster, not born one. However, it turns out Dolarhyde did not shoot himself but instead the body of Ralph Mandy in order to stage his own death. Dolarhyde pursues Graham to his home and attacks Graham's son. In order to save his son, Graham subsequently uses the same terms that Dolarhyde's grandmother had used against him, on his own son. This enrages Dolarhyde, who attacks Graham, allowing his son to escape to safety. Graham's wife, Molly, ends the horrific ordeal by shooting and killing Dolarhyde. After recovering, Graham receives a letter from Lecter, which bids him well and hopes that he isn't too disfigured. The film ends with Dr. Frederick Chilton informing Lecter that there is a young woman from the FBI waiting to speak with him; presumably beginning The Silence of the Lambs. “Hannibal Rising”: This prequel shows Hannibal Lecter from childhood in Lithuania, to his teen and young adulthood years in France, and up to his arrival in North America. The film begins in 1944, when Lecter is eight years old, living in Lecter Castle; constructed by his paternal ancestor, Hannibal the Grim, in the Lithuanian countryside. Lecter, his younger sister Mischa, and his parents escape to the family's hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. Back at Lecter Castle, six Lithuanian militiamen (Grutas, Dortlich, Grentz, Kolnas, Milko, and Pot Watcher) request to join the Waffen-SS. The SS commander orders them to kill the Lecters' Jewish cook who was left behind, to which they gleefully comply. A Soviet tank stops at the Lecters' lodge looking for water, and forces everyone out of the house. However, the tank is then spotted by a German Stuka bomber, which sparks a firefight. The bomber is shot down by the tank, but subsequently crashes into it, and the ensuing explosion kills everyone except Hannibal and Mischa. The SS militiamen then loot Lecter Castle. Seeing their wounded SS commander, Grutas shoots him and takes his Iron Cross. However, the impending Russian advance forces them to hide out in the woods, where they locate the Lecter lodge. The SS militiamen storm and take over the lodge. Finding no other food in the bitterly cold Baltic winter, the men look menacingly at Hannibal and Mischa. The movie then cuts to a scene eight years later inside Lecter Castle, which has been turned into a Soviet orphanage. A bully harasses Lecter, who has been rendered mute by his experiences, about not singing the orphanage anthem. The bully attacks his head, but Lecter blocks his swing with a fork, impaling the bully's hand. That evening, Lecter experiences a flashback about Mischa screaming in his sleep, which angers the youth commander, who locks him in a dungeon. However, Lecter escapes from the castle orphanage to Paris to live with his widowed aunt, the Lady Murasaki-Lecter. She gets him to speak for the first time since his childhood, and instructs him about flower arrangement, martial arts, and ancestor worship. At a local market, a butcher makes a crude remark about Lady Murasaki. Lecter then attacks him. Later, while the butcher is fishing, Lecter requests an apology from him, and is denied. He then slices the butcher's stomach, arm, and back with a katana, then decapitates him. He is suspected of the butcher's murder by Inspector Popil, a French detective who had also lost his family to the war. Thanks in great part to the intervention of his aunt, who places the butcher's disembodied head outside police headquarters while Hannibal is being interrogated inside, Lecter escapes responsibility for the crime. Eventually, Lecter becomes the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. He receives a working scholarship, where he is given a job preparing cadavers. One day, Lecter witnesses a condemned war criminal receiving a sodium thiopental injection to force him to recall details about his war crimes. In an attempt to recall the names of those responsible for his sister's death, Lecter injects himself with the solution. His subsequent flashback reveals that the pot watcher was killed when the Russians bombed the lodge, and the dogtags were still left in the ruins of the lodge. Lecter then returns to Lithuania in search of the dogtags, as well as his sister's remains. While crossing the Soviet border, he draws the attention of Dortlich, who is now a Soviet border patrol officer. Lecter excavates the ruins of the lodge where his family died, and also unearths the dogtags of the group of deserters who had killed his sister. Dortlich attempts to kill him, but Lecter gets the upper hand and incapacitates him. After he buries Mischa's remains, Lecter ties Dortlich to a tree and forces him to reveal the whereabouts of the rest of his gang. When he refuses to reveal enough details, Lecter decapitates Dortlich with a horse-drawn pulley. Dortlich's blood splashes on Lecter's face, and he wipes it off and licks it. Later, the Soviet police arrive on the scene, only to discover Dortlich's head, its cheeks carved off, apparently made into a brochette. Lecter then visits Kolnas' restaurant in Fontainebleau. He finds Kolnas' young daughter, whom he notices is wearing Mischa's bracelet. He then gives Kolnas' dogtag to her. Kolnas enters the restaurant, but Lady Murasaki persuades Lecter not to kill him, for the sake of Kolnas' children. Dortlich's murder, along with Kolnas' dogtag, puts the rest of the group in alert. Grutas, now a sex trafficker, dispatches a second member of the group, Zigmas Milko, to kill Lecter. Milko sneaks into Lecter's laboratory at night with a gun, but Lecter senses his presence, and knocks him out with an injection. Just as Popil is entering the lab, Lecter drowns Milko in the cadaver tank. Popil questions Lecter about Dortlich's murder, but is again unable to establish Lecter's guilt. Popil then tries to dissuade him from hunting the gang, and offers to let him go free if he helps locate Grutas. After Lecter leaves, Popil remarks to his assistant that Lecter lost all of his humanity when Mischa died, and has become a monster. Lady Murasaki begs Lecter not to complete his revenge, but Lecter says that he made a promise to Mischa. Lecter then sets up a time bomb in Grutas' home, and attacks him in the bath. However, a maid alerts Grutas' bodyguards, who then rush in. Just as Grutas' bodyguards are about to slit his throat, Lecter's time bomb goes off and he escapes. Grutas kidnaps Lady Murasaki and calls Lecter, using her as bait. Lecter recognizes the sounds of Kolnas' ortolans from his restaurant in the background. Lecter goes there and plays on Kolnas' emotions by threatening his children, forcing him to give up the location of Grutas' boat. Lecter then says he will leave Kolnas alone for the sake of his family, and places his gun on the hot stove. As Kolnas goes for the gun, Lecter impales him through the head with his Tantô. He then hides the tantô behind his back. Lecter goes to the houseboat. Just as he is about to untie Lady Murasaki, Grutas shoots him in the back. Grutas then proceeds to molest Lady Murasaki. Lecter takes out the tanto, which was broken by the force of the bullet, and slashes Grutas's Achilles' tendons with it, crippling him. In a final confrontation, Grutas claims that Lecter too had consumed his sister in broth fed to him by the soldiers, and he was killing them to keep this fact secret. Enraged, Lecter carves his sister's initial, M, into Grutas's chest. Lady Murasaki, disturbed by his behavior, flees from him even after he tells her that he loves her. As she leaves, Hannibal bites off Grutas's cheeks in what will become his signature attack. The houseboat is then incinerated, but Lecter, assumed to be dead, emerges from the woods. The film then concludes with Lecter hunting down the last member of the group, Grentz, in Canada. Dr. Hannibal Lector wasn't famous for his mind or his taste in food, but rather for the combination of both. How could a man so brilliant be so blatantly evil? If we could answer that question, then we would probably be as sick and twisted as Hannibal himself. His acts of cruelty from “The Silence of the Lambs” rank right up there with some of the worst ever, amazing considering that the character only appears in a few scenes. A sample: he cuts off the face of a guard and wears it as a disguise during an escape. He has absolutely no remorse while slicing and dicing his victims and his taste for vengeance seems to be unending. Meanwhile, in Hannibal, the doc displayed his love for carnage all over the world. And the climactic scene with Starling and Krendler is about as surreal and disturbing as you will ever see on the big screen. He remains one of the scariest villains of all time, and amazingly, the character has become the standard by which real like killers are compared to. Watching the Machiavellian menace that is Dr. Hannibal Lecter on film gives the viewer a very unsettling feeling: finding a serial killer incredibly creepy but at the same time charming as hell.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jun 23, 2008 19:05:10 GMT -5
3. Dr. Doom Who is he: Ruler of Latveria. What is he from: Marvel Comics, most notably the Fantastic Four comics. What has he done: Pretty done just about anything and everything to Reed Richards without killing the man. Intelligence: Has extensive knowledge of all sciences, and is an expert in robotics, genetic engineering, weapons technology, bio-chemistry, and other fields; and possesses some magical knowledge. Power: He rules an entire country; it’s a small country but still. Vileness: Sent Franklin Richards to Hell; you have to be one evil son-of-a-bitch to send a little boy to Hell. Sway: Can get a lot of things done, but does talk too much. Purity: He cares for his country and its people, but he cares more about making Reed Richards’s life a living hell. Physical Prowess: Scarred body hidden behind some impressive looking metallic armor that can deliver a massive electric shock, disabling anyone who might come in contact with him; is highly resistant to damage; has the additional defense of a force field generated by the armor; is self-supporting, equipped with internal stores and recycling systems for air, food, water, and energy, allowing the wearer to survive lengthy periods of exposure underwater or in outer space; and utilizes blasts of energy from gauntlets; he also has some mystical powers like the ability to cast bolts of electric energy. Name Coolness: “Dr. Doom” is very cool. Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Portrayed by: Joseph Sirola voiced Doom in the Hanna-Barbera Fantastic Four animated series. In DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' The New Fantastic Four, he was voiced by John Stephenson. Ralph Jones voiced him in the 1981 Spider-Man animated series. In Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, Shepard Menkin did the voice. Neil Ross voiced Doom in the first season of 1990s Fantastic Four animated series, and Simon Templeman did the voice in the second season, as well as in the Incredible Hulk animated series. Tom Kane was Doom’s voice in the last season of the 1990s FOX Spider-Man animated series. In the current Fantastic Four animated series, Paul Dobson does the voice. In the unreleased 1994 “Fantastic Four” movie, Joseph Culp played Dr. Doom. Julian McMahon played Doom in “Fantastic Four” and “Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.” Comics: Victor von Doom was born to the Zefiro travelers (Gypsies) Werner and Cynthia in Latveria, a small European country which grew out of Hungary and was ruled by King Vladimir Vassily Gonereo Tristian Mangegi Fortunov, Baron of Sabbat, Baron of Haasen, Baron of Krozi. Victor barely knew his mother, a witch who had invoked the demon Mephisto for power, which raged out of control before she was finally slain by a soldier. Before dying, she asked Werner to protect young Victor from Mephisto. Victor's father, a doctor, was forced to treat King Vladimir's wife. When Werner could not cure her cancer, Vladimir blamed him for his wife's death, and Werner fled with Victor. Werner died from exposure to the cold while protecting his son. Before dying, Werner placed Victor into the care of his best friend, Boris, and tried to warn his son of the fearful life he foresaw him falling into, but he died before he could make Victor understand. Discovering his mother's mystical artifacts, Victor schooled himself in sorcery. He began an annual contest against the might of Mephisto, attempting to set his mother's soul free. By the time he was a teenager, he had also become a scientific genius and used his inventions to wage a one-man war against the monarchy of Latveria, always a step ahead of them. His genius was heard of even in America, and he was invited to New York's Empire State University on a scholarship. Victor had been in love with Boris' granddaughter Valeria, but he left her behind as his desire to acquire knowledge and the means to seek revenge on others consumed him. Arriving at State, Doom was greeted by Reed Richards, a fellow student who was interested in rooming with him, but Doom rejected his offer of friendship. Throughout his university days, Doom pursued a rivalry with Richards, convinced of his own superior intellect. Doom's greatest invention was a machine designed to rescue his mother's soul from the netherworld. Richards tried to warn him of a flaw in his calculations, but Doom was too proud to listen. He activated the machine and it exploded in his face. Expelled for the explosion, Doom sustained only a few facial scars, but believed his looks had been ruined. Filled with self-loathing he left America for Tibet, seeking new enlightenment. There he found the Aged Genghis, one of the enigmatic Immortal Nine. The now senile sorcerer directed him to seek out a long-lost order of monks. Doom made them his servants and had them forge his first suit of armor, designed to hide his features from the world. Doom had them press the mask to his face before it had cooled, ensuring that if his face had not been hideous before, it was now. Dr. Doom then conquered Latveria, slaying King Vladimir, imprisoning his son Rudolfo, and having a robot duplicate of Rudolfo surrenders the Latverian crown to him, after which he renamed the capital city, Haasenstadt, as Doomstadt. He used his genius and technology to transform Latveria into a paradise where no citizen wants, no one is threatened by war, and all praise Doom-- or face the consequences. While Doom maintained a puppet prime minister, the outside world was largely unaware of Doom's status as ruler, tending to dismiss his existence as a myth. Doom stepped up his scientific prowess, designing a time machine and robotic duplicates of himself: his Doombots. In one of his earliest time travels he journeyed back to World War II and considered killing Adolf Hitler for the crimes his Nazi regime had inflicted upon the Zefiro and other travelers, but ultimately decided to leave him to his own fate. Armed with his genius and the might of Latveria, Victor set for himself three goals: to rescue his mother, to prove his superiority over Reed Richards, and to conquer the world. By this time, Reed and his friends had become the Fantastic Four, so Dr. Doom sought them out and abducted the Invisible Girl. He forced the other members to journey back in time to recover the gems of the legendary sorcerer Merlin for him; but Mr. Fantastic tricked him, bringing back a chest full of chains instead. Although the FF survived Doom's attacks, Doom escaped them by using a Doombot as a decoy. Dr. Doom next formed an alliance with the Sub-Mariner, believing that their mutual hatred of the FF made for a natural partnership. Doom nearly cast the Baxter Building into the sun, but the Sub-Mariner turned on him and Doom was cast adrift into space. He was saved by the alien Ovoids who taught him how to exchange bodies with others. With this new power, he had Marvel Comics creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby lure Mr. Fantastic into a trap so that he could take over his body. However, the Fantastic Four saw through Doom's facade and he was forced back into his own body, and then accidentally cast into the microverse. But the microverse proved to be merely a new challenge for Dr. Doom's genius rather than a prison. Doom conquered Mirwood, the kingdom of Princess Pearla, and brought the Fantastic Four there as prisoners. Aided by Ant-Man (Hank Pym), the Fantastic Four escaped and followed Doom back to Earth, where they battled him aboard his Flying Fortress, from which he threatened to unleash chaos throughout the globe--when the FF thwarted his plan, he escaped again. Doom soon attempted to reclaim his abandoned Flying Fortress from military custody, but the newly-formed Avengers intervened and he was forced to destroy it. Dr. Doom next empowered and sent the Terrible Trio (Bull Brogin, Yogi Dakor, and Harry Phillips) against the Fantastic Four, but this plot also failed and ended with Doom cast into space by a Solar Wave, a fate he had meant for the FF. He was rescued by the time traveler Rama-Tut, who was so impressed with Doom that upon his return to his own time, he created for himself the masked identity of Kang the Conqueror. Rama-Tut had suggested to Dr. Doom at the time that they might actually be the same person, though this eventually proved false. Doom next engaged Reed in a mental battle at the Latverian Embassy to determine who had the greater intellect. They employed an encephalo-gun which would cast the loser into Limbo, and Doom seemed to win the contest; but Reed had actually hypnotized Doom into believing Reed was cast into Limbo. When Doom was freed from the mesmerism by a Latverian hypnotist, he again targeted the Fantastic Four, who had temporarily lost their powers. But Doom was humiliated in the ensuing battle when the Thing regained his powers and angrily crushed Doom's hands inside his gauntlets then allowed him to slink away, furious that he had been forced to become the Thing in order to stop Doom. Doom, in turn, never forgot what the Thing had done. When Reed Richards was wed to Sue Storm, a spiteful Doom used an Emotion Charger to send scores of super-villains to the wedding site, but they were defeated by the FF and their super-heroic wedding guests. Reed ultimately undid the assault with a sub-atronic time displacer which sent all of the villains back to before Doom summoned them with no memory of what had occurred. Reed and Sue's wedding took place without further incident. Doom engaged in new schemes, once stealing the Silver Surfer's powers, which he lost by challenging the barrier Galactus had placed around the Earth. He also swapped bodies with Daredevil, but this farce was foiled by the FF. Doom's obsession with the FF once nearly led him to sacrifice an entire Latverian village to kill them. Doom has also played deadly games with his robot, the Prime-Mover, games which have manipulated Nick Fury and Shang-Chi into battling robot duplicates of enemies such as the Yellow Claw and Razor-Fist. Diablo once tried to force Doom into a partnership by holding his long-lost love Valeria hostage, but Doom used his time machine to cast Diablo into the future. He saved Valeria, but then lost her again--Valeria was ashamed of Doom's gloating over Diablo's fate. Doom's throne was threatened by its rightful heir, Prince Rudolfo, who was assisted by the extraterrestrial Faceless One. Doom also had to contend with his rogue creation the Doomsman, and with the Red Skull, who attempted to claim Latveria for himself. The Black Panther, ruler of Wakanda, foiled Doom's attempt to steal Wakanda's Vibranium, but Doom intended to make an ally of T'Challa one day. Doom also accumulated various power objects, culminating in his using the Cosmic Cube to usurp Galactus' power, but Reed stole the Cube, reversed its effects, and erased the events from everyone's memory. Doom also fought side-by-side with the FF to save the Earth from the Overmind, acknowledging that while he had no love for them, he would not allow anyone to threaten Latveria. When the Faceless One sponsored another Latverian revolt, Doom hired Luke Cage to spy on them in the United States; however, he then refused to pay Cage for his services, so Cage tracked Doom down in Latveria and fought him to a standstill until Doom finally agreed to pay Cage what he was due. After rejecting Doom's offer of a new alliance, Namor reluctantly sought Doom's aid when the people of Atlantis were rendered comatose and Mr. Fantastic could not revive them. Namor aided Doom against Andro, formerly the Doomsman, who had brought many of Doom's robots under his control through a self-created religion; Doom in turn aided Namor against his enemies Dr. Dorcas, Tiger Shark, Krang, and Attuma. Still, Namor could not bring himself to fully trust Doom, so Doom ruined the water rebreather suit Namor needed to survive at that time and threatened to destroy Atlantis unless Namor pledged his allegiance to him. Namor was forced to comply. Learning of Namor's fate, the FF came to Latveria to aid him, only to discover that the United States had signed a non-aggression pact with Latveria, forcing them to depart. Surviving an assassination attempt by the vigilante Shroud, Doom subsequently mind-controlled the Avengers into fighting Attuma for him. Finally, after receiving Namor's aid against the Red Skull, who had slain Rudolfo and briefly usurped control of Latveria, Doom made good on his bargain, restoring the Atlanteans to consciousness; Namor then ended their partnership. Following this, Doom spread a neuro-gas into Earth's atmosphere to bind the entire world's population to his will. His authority was challenged by the mutant Magneto, and they fought, manipulating the Champions, Avengers and Hulk into fighting for their sides. When Doom was attacked by the Ghost Rider, his mask overheated and he was forced to remove it, inhaling his own neuro-gas; this rendered him unable to control anyone affected by the gas. Via power gained from the Negative Zone, Doom accessed the netherworld, only to be overwhelmed by spirits posing as his parents. Realizing that his villainous actions had injured Latveria's reputation, Doom planned to abdicate the throne to his "son", actually a clone of himself named Victor von Doom II; but his son's true origins were exposed, and Doom was forced to slay the clone when it turned against him. However, this plot had merely been a ruse for Doom to take mental control of the United Nations using his Solartron Complex. After he was exposed to multiple images of his own face projected by the Solartron, Doom went completely insane and was imprisoned. Prince Zorba, Rudolfo’s younger brother, reclaimed his family's throne from Doom, but Doom was freed by Boris and regained his sanity. Aided by the Puppet Master, Doom had the Fantastic Four's minds placed into miniature synthetic bodies, living a mostly-idyllic life in the miniature town of "Liddleville" within his Adirondack castle. Doom hoped this would prevent the FF from interfering with his attempts to regain the throne, but the FF managed to turn the tables on him and he wound up imprisoned within a synthetic body in Liddleville. The Puppet Master, furious at how his stepdaughter Alicia had been treated by Doom's world, led an army against him there. Doom sought aid from the alien Microns when they passed through, but was finally rescued when his Doombots activated a contingency plan to return his consciousness to his own body. Learning that Latveria had fallen into anarchy without him, Doom convinced the Fantastic Four to assist him in overthrowing the now-insane Zorba and retaking his throne. Doom himself slew Zorba. In the aftermath, a young Latverian boy named Kristoff Vernard was orphaned by Zorba's forces and Doom took the child under his protection, making him his heir. Another man, Alexander Flynn, claimed to be Doom's true son, but that was later shown to be a falsehood created by the mutant telepath Shadow King. Unleashing Terrax against the Fantastic Four, Doom was disintegrated when Terrax exploded in a blast of cosmic energy. Using the Ovoid technique, Doom transferred his mind into the body of an onlooker, Norman McArthur, an instant before his death. He eventually regained his original body from the Beyonder, who sent him back a short distance in time to participate in the “Secret Wars” on his artificially created Battleworld. There Doom briefly usurped the immense power of not only Galactus, but the Beyonder himself, though he eventually lost all of his stolen power. Back on Earth, Doom once more achieved world domination, using the Purple Man's mind control powers to subjugate the global population. Although Doom was able to solve most of the world's problems by using his work in Latveria as a model, he found the mindless obedience of humanity unsatisfying, and ultimately allowed the Purple Man to slip from his grasp during a conflict with the Avengers and Namor. After Terrax seemingly killed Doom, his Doombots had activated a contingency plan whereby Doom's past experiences were implanted within Kristoff's mind so that he could assume Doom's role. Kristoff went mad, believing he was Doom trapped in the body of a child. While Kristoff ruled Latveria, one of the Doombots, believing itself to be the true Doom, made a weak attempt to overthrow him. Finally, the true Dr. Doom returned to Latveria following a time travel adventure, and he retook the throne from Kristoff. Soon after this he helped cure Ms. Marvel (Sharon Ventura), a new member of the FF who had become a grotesque "She-Thing". Doom used her to spy on the FF, but she eventually gave in to her conscience and turned against him. He transformed her into an even more grotesque creature as punishment. Doom often attributes his many defeats to his Doombots; perhaps the most humiliating case is when Squirrel Girl defeated a Doombot by sending her squirrels to chew apart the wiring in its armor. Another Doombot participated in the “Acts of Vengeance” teaming up with the other prime movers, who were unknowingly pawns of the Asgardian trickster-god Loki, against new foes. Other Doombots, such as Mechadoom, have even turned against Doom and pursued their own goals, though such betrayal rarely long survives Doom's discovery. Doom has seen to it that Latveria's history is constantly revised to suit his needs, employing the mysterious Editor to affect all such changes. Doom tends to blame failures on underlings, such as Gustav and Gert Hauptmann, who seldom live to fail again. Doom claims to have a contingency plan for every situation, and regards the FF's victories over him as mere setbacks. Doom's greatest victory came when, after years of combating Mephisto, he and Dr. Strange finally rescued the soul of Cynthia von Doom from Hell, allowing her to pass on to a better afterlife. After briefly usurping the cosmic energies of Aron the Watcher, Doom was severely wounded while seeking the power of the alien Hunger. Doom attempted to take Reed with him and the pair were seemingly disintegrated in a powerful energy blast; however, the immensely powerful Hyperstorm had teleported them away. Long believed dead, Doom was freed from his extra-dimensional prison by the Fantastic Four and Kristoff, and aided them against Hyperstorm. Returning to Earth, Doom seemingly died yet again, this time alongside Earth's heroes battling Onslaught; but Doom and the others were preserved in the new Counter-Earth, created by Franklin Richards, and Doom lived out a new life in which he was an old friend of Bruce Banner, Reed Richards and Tony Stark, who had all been members of a fraternity called "Knights of the Atomic Table." But history repeated itself, and Doom became a villain on this Earth as well. When the heroes regained their memories, Doom helped them return to their own Earth via the Negative Zone, but when he attempted to abscond with Franklin, Doom was assaulted by Thor and cast back to Counter-Earth. With no super heroes to oppose him, Doom soon became ruler of Counter-Earth. He recruited Divinity, Dorma, Lancer, Shakti and Technarx as lieutenants, and won a decisive victory over the powerful Dreaming Celestial, which had attempted to claim Counter-Earth for itself. For a while, Doom ruled both Counter-Earth and Latveria simultaneously by projecting holograms back to Earth, but he ultimately found that Counter-Earth could never equal the utopia of his Latveria, so he returned to Earth to resume his duties in Latveria, leaving Lancer to rule Counter-Earth in his stead. Doom has also shown an infatuation with the X-Men's Storm (Ororo Munroe). Via the powers of a defective Cosmic Cube, Doom once merged two realities, creating one in which he ruled Earth as emperor, with Storm as his queen. Like all of such efforts to achieve supreme power, however, the power was eventually usurped from him, and normal reality restored. When Thor led an unauthorized invasion of Slokovia, a country neighboring Latveria, Doom aided the Avengers in fighting their rogue ally-manipulating events so that when Slokovia's government collapsed, Doom moved in and annexed the country, adding it to Latveria. Dr. Doom assisted in the birth of Reed and Susan's daughter Valeria Richards, who was named after Doom's childhood love, but Doom only performed this act of kindness as part of a grander scheme. Having recognized that it was in magic that he was truly Reed's superior, Doom forged an alliance with the demon Haazareth and sacrificed to them his greatest love, Valeria. The Haazareth increased his mystical might to the point where he was a threat to even Dr. Strange. Dr. Doom fashioned for himself new armor from his former lover's body and made Valeria Richards his familiar. He wielded his new mystical power against the Fantastic Four, attempting to break them as he never had before, sending Franklin Richards to Hell and torturing the FF. Once again, Reed defeated him by both mastering some magic himself and turning Doom's own pride against him by having him claim to acknowledge no superior in front of the Haazareth. The Haazareth took Doom into Hell with them, but he left "parting gifts"-- a traumatized Franklin and a scar down the left side of Reed's face. Determined to devise a final solution to Doom, Reed created an infinitely large Mobius dimension to serve as Doom's prison, and had all of Doom's backup equipment in Latveria destroyed. Doom briefly escaped the prison by taking mental possession of the FF, but was ultimately forced back into his own body. Recently, Doom escaped from the Mobius dimension while chasing after the Mjolnir (Thor's hammer) which was flying through the dimensions following the fall of Asgard. Returning to Latveria, Doom assumed that he was worthy of the hammer since it appeared for him and went with a troupe of robots to obtain it. He was met by the FF, who wished to stop him. Doom reached the hammer, but found he was not worthy of lifting it. Angered, Doom returned to Latveria, where he currently resides. Television: Dr. Doom's first animated appearance was in 1966 on the Sub-Mariner's segment of The Marvel Superheroes. Doom subsequently appeared in several episodes of Hanna-Barbera's Fantastic Four series from 1967, where he was voiced by Joseph Sirola. In 1978, Dr. Doom appeared in two episodes of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' The New Fantastic Four, and was voiced by John Stephenson. Perhaps most significantly, Dr. Doom appeared in no less than six episodes of the 1981 Spider-Man series produced by Marvel Productions. Voiced by Ralph James (with heavy modulation akin to Darth Vader), the latter five episodes, written by Larry Parr, comprised a complete story arc, and four of them were at one point edited together into an animated feature. Dr. Doom's final 1980s animated appearance was in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends voiced by Shepard Menkin. He appeared in an episode entitled "The Fantastic Mr. Frump!" In The Fantastic Four (1994-1996), he was voiced by Neil Ross in season one, retelling his classic origin and his theft of the Silver Surfer's power, and by Simon Templeman in season two, as he struck at a powerless FF, had his hand crushed by the Thing, directed the Hulk to attack the team, and once again acquired the Power Cosmic in the series finale. Templeman reprised his role for guest appearances in two episodes of The Incredible Hulk (1996-1997), in which Doom held Washington, D.C. captive, only to be defeated by She-Hulk, whom he later attempted to claim revenge upon. With his appearance on this show, it can be assumed that Doom survived the fate he met on the Fantastic Four series, if both shows are to be considered within the same continuity. Tom Kane took over the character for a three-part guest spot in the final season of Spider-Man (1994-1998), re-imagining Doom's role in the Secret Wars. In the third part of the episode, Doom turned part of the alien world he was on into "New Latveria" after overthrowing Doctor Octopus and renaming Octavia to New Latveria. However, he did not use his ruling powers to oppress, and allowed the aliens in his country to live in peace and harmony, protecting them from the other villains. He even kidnapped the Thing only to cure him of his deformity, turning him back to Ben Grimm, and healed his own face as an afterthought. With Ben's cooperation, he then stole the powers of the Beyonder, and with this newfound power, Doctor Doom sent the other villains back to Earth and almost killed the superheroes that Ben fought along with. However, the Thing turned Doom's weapon on him, and the powers of the Beyonder were returned to the mystic figure himself. Doom was then returned to Earth with no memory of these events (as well as, presumably, his scarred face), along with every other villain and superhero apart from Spider-Man. Doom is the main villain in the current Fantastic Four animated series, voiced by Paul Dobson. In the pilot, "Doomsday", he is revealed to have diplomatic immunity as a head of state, which means the American police cannot place him under arrest. In one episode where in one of his experiments his mind gets put into Reed Richards, and vice versa, more is revealed about Doom's life and ruling attitude. Doom (with Richards' mind) is now considerably more polite and respectful of others. Reed also commands the Doombots to destroy themselves as "word of Doom is law," and releases the face mask. Though the viewer is not shown Doom's face, when Reed and Doom return to their proper bodies, Richards tells Doom that Doom's insecurity, in particular about his personal appearance is his greatest adversary. “Fantastic Four” (1994): The film begins with Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White) and Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp) as University friends who decide to use the opportunity of a passing comet to try an experiment; however, the experiment goes wrong, leaving Victor horribly scarred. Sue and Johnny Storm are two children living with their mother, who has a boarding house where Reed lives. Ben Grimm (Michael Bailey Smith) is a family friend and college friend to Reed. The film then fast forwards to the early 1990s, where Reed, Sue (Rebecca Staab), Johnny (Jay Underwood), and Ben go up into an experimental space craft as again the same comet would pass by the Earth. They are hit by cosmic rays by the same passing comet due to a necessary diamond being exchanged for an imitation of itself. Reed would dedicate this mission for his friend Victor, believing he was dead years before. Upon crash-landing back to Earth, the four of them soon discover that the cosmic rays gave them special powers: Reed's bodily structure has become elastic; Sue can become invisible; Johnny can generate fire on demand; and Ben has transformed into the Thing. They are later captured by Victor's men, who pose as soldiers of the Marine Corps. After escaping from Doom's men, the four scientists regroup at the Baxter Building, trying to decide what to do now that they gained superpowers. An angry Ben leaves the group to go out on his own, feeling that he has become a horrible freak of nature. Ben would be found by homeless men and join them in an illicit Jeweler's underground lair. It is revealed that Victor von Doom had needed the diamond necessary to capture the comet's powers. The Jeweler would then give the real diamond to the blind artist Alicia (Kat Green) who was also kidnapped by homeless henchmen working for the Jeweler. The Jeweler wants Alicia to be his bride, with the diamond as his wedding present to her. However, Doctor Doom and his henchmen locate the Jeweler's lair. Doom's henchmen first try to make a deal with him; but with no luck. Doom, displeased, seizes the diamond by force. Doom threatens to kill Alicia, whereupon Ben, as the Thing, comes into the room – only to revert to human form. Pursued by Doom, Ben runs out onto the city streets, frustrated at his helplessness. He is therefore changed into the Thing, whereupon he rescues Alicia. A gun fight ensues between Doom and the Jeweler’s men. Doom takes the diamond to power a laser cannon that will destroy New York City. Ben returns to his friends; by now, Reed has learned that Victor was the mastermind behind their kidnapping. Realizing that they are the only ones that can stop Doom, the protagonists don costumes and travel to Doom's castle. At the castle, the Fantastic Four battle a series of Doom's military. Reed has a final battle with Doom. Doom is defeated and possibly killed. Johnny becomes the Human Torch (shown via computerized animation) to stand between the laser cannon's shot and the city. He survives this, as does the city he wishes to protect. Thereafter, the Four dedicate themselves to fighting evil, and the film ends with Reed and Sue marrying. “Fantastic Four” (2005): Dr. Reed Richards, a brilliant but timid and bankrupt scientist, is convinced that evolution is triggered by clouds of cosmic energy in space, and has calculated that one of these clouds is soon going to pass near Earth. Together with his friend, the gruff yet gentle astronaut Ben Grimm, Reed convinces his equally brilliant but conceited MIT classmate Dr. Victor von Doom, now CEO of his own enterprise, to allow him access to his privately-owned space station. Von Doom agrees, in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. He brings aboard his chief genetics researcher (and Reed's ex-girlfriend) Susan Storm, and her brother Johnny, his private astronaut, who was Ben's subordinate at NASA but is his superior on the mission, much to Ben's disgust. The quintet travels to space to observe the cosmic energy clouds, but Reed has miscalculated and the clouds materialize well ahead of schedule. Victor refuses Reed's plea to abort the mission, knowing he must produce results to justify his expenditure, no matter the human cost involved. Knowing Ben is space-walking to set up equipment, Reed, Susan and Johnny leave the shielded inner area of the station to rescue him, and Victor closes the shield behind them. Whilst Victor is seemingly safe, the others are exposed to the cloud. Ben receives full exposure out in space, while the others receive a more limited dose within the station. The astronauts make it home intact; however, before long they begin to mutate, developing strange powers. Reed is able to stretch like rubber; Susan can become invisible (by bending light around objects) and create force fields, especially when angered; Johnny can engulf himself in fire at up to supernova-like temperatures, and is able to fly; and Ben is transformed into "The Thing", a large, rock-like creature with superhuman strength. After Ben, brooding about his situation on the Brooklyn Bridge, inadvertently causes a major traffic pile-up whilst attempting to stop a man from committing suicide, the four use their powers to prevent any loss of life and to rescue a fire truck and its crew from falling off the bridge. The media dubs the team the 'Fantastic Four'; whilst Johnny eagerly embraces his powers and new life, Ben - the only one whose transformed appearance is permanent - suffers. His disfigurement has caused his fiancée, Debbie, to abandon him and has seen him shunned and feared by much of New York. Blaming himself, Reed vows to return Ben to his human form. Therefore he, Susan and Ben work on a cure, constructing a healing chamber in Reed's high tech Baxter Building loft-turned-laboratory. During this time, Reed and Susan begin to rekindle their attraction to one another. Susan admits that she is not interested in Victor, but had turned away from Reed because he feared to make a binding vow, thinking only in terms of variables. His excessive caution was hard for Susan to deal with, and now it begins to test Ben's patience, as he is eager to return to his human form while Reed is taking his time on the machine. Unknown to the others, however, Victor's body is also mutating; he is turning into organic metal capable of absorbing and manipulating electrical energy. As a result of the disastrous expedition, his company is going bankrupt and he is losing public stature; blaming Reed for his misfortunes, Victor swears revenge. After killing a bank chairman who had pulled investment out of his company, Victor sees the opportunity to finish off his rival once and for all. Manipulating Ben's insecurity and anguish, Victor tricks Ben into thinking that his teammates are not working on a cure with due diligence; after a vicious argument between himself and Reed, Ben storms out of the Baxter Building. Reed experiments with the curative machine on himself and nearly dies in the process, but learns that the machine only needs more power to fully succeed. Victor, who has been spying on Reed, tricks Ben into entering the machine and provides the extra power. Ben becomes normal again, while Victor's own mutation increases exponentially, increasing his power but also physically disfiguring him. When Ben realizes that Victor merely wanted the super-strong Thing out of the way so that no one could stop him, Victor immobilizes Ben and attacks Reed after Reed discovers them, taking him prisoner and freezing him to prevent him using his powers of distention. When Susan and Johnny realize what has happened, Victor, now calling himself 'Doom,' fires a heat-seeker missile at the Baxter Building, intending it to target and kill Johnny. Johnny uses his powers of heat and flight to lead the missile to open water, where he ignites a garbage scow to dispose of the missile. However, he is thrown into the water, and whether he is alright is not shown. Meanwhile, Susan attempts to rescue Reed and confronts Doom. She soon proves no match for the powerful Doom, and he is on the verge of killing her when Ben - having activated Reed's machine and used it upon himself to restore his mutation - bursts into the room. Doom and Ben fight, until the battle spills onto the street below. But no matter how hard Ben attacks him, he is unable to overpower Doom, and Doom knocks him flat on his back. He is about to deal the finishing strike, when a recovered Reed and Susan arrive to save Ben. Doom begins to scorn them, when he is blasted from behind with fire from none other than Johnny, who survived his encounter with the missile unharmed. Doom absorbs all the electricity in the area that he can to begin the final showdown. At first, it seems that Doom has the advantage, as the team struggles under his onslaught of electric blasts. Reed manages to use his elastic body to temporarily restrain Doom, and then coordinates the team for an offensive attack, trusting his initial judgment for the first time. He starts by telling Johnny to unleash his supernova heat on Doom, despite the fact that even Johnny agreed this was dangerous. Johnny uses this to surround Doom in a vortex of fire, while Reed gets Susan to try to contain it (and its dangerous amount of heat) within a force field. She manages to do so while Doom makes futile attempts to break free with his electric blasts. When Johnny and Susan give out, it looks as if Doom is just starting to melt, but he is still on his feet and merely sneers "Is that the best you can do? A little heat?". Reed responds "What happens when you rapidly cool hot metal?". Ben then kicks the top off of a fire hydrant, and he and Reed direct the water shooting out of it at Doom. The steam created as the water hits Doom forms a thick cloud, and when it settles, Doom is seemingly left as a statue of inert metal. Ben informs Reed that he has accepted his condition with the help of Alicia Masters, a blind artist for whom he has developed feelings, and the team decides to embrace their roles as superheroes and unite officially as the Fantastic Four. Reed proposes marriage to Susan, who accepts. Doom's remains are being transported back to his homeland of Latveria when the ship carrying them experiences unusual electronic interference. “Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer”: Set two years after the first film, Reed Richards and Sue Storm are preparing for their wedding. A silver object enters Earth's atmosphere, radiating cosmic energy that creates massive molecular fluctuations and causes deep craters at locations across the Earth. The government approaches Reed to build a sensor to track the movements of the object. As the wedding begins, Reed's systems detect the phenomenon approaching New York City, causing a massive power blackout. The object destroys the sensors while the Fantastic Four protect the crowd. The Human Torch pursues the object, discovering that it is a humanoid, a "Silver Surfer." He confronts the Surfer, only to be dragged into the upper atmosphere where the Surfer snuffs his flame out, then drops him back toward Earth. Johnny reactivates his powers and survives the fall. Later on when Sue tries to comfort Johnny, she touches his shoulders and their powers switch - he becomes invisible, and she is set on fire; when they touch again their powers revert back. Reed's examination of Johnny reveals that exposure to the Surfer has set Johnny's molecular structure in flux, allowing him to switch powers with his teammates through physical contact. Tracing the cosmic energy of the Surfer, Reed discovers that a series of planets the alien had visited before Earth have all been destroyed. The Surfer's movements around the globe bring him past Latveria, where the cosmic energy affects Victor von Doom, freeing him from two years as a metal statue. Doom, able to move again and returned to a human, but scarred, traces the Surfer to the Arctic and makes him an offer to join forces. When the Surfer rebuffs him, Doom attacks. The Surfer returns fire, blasting Doom through the ice. The cosmic energy of the Surfer's blast heals Doom's body, reversing the changes seen in the first film. Doom leverages his experience into a deal with the American military, who force the Fantastic Four to work with Doom. Deducing that the Surfer's board is the source of his power, the group develops a pulse generator that will separate him from it. While setting up the device, Sue is confronted by the Surfer, during which he reveals he is a servant to the destroyer of worlds. The military opens fire on the Surfer, which distracts him and allows the four to fire the pulse, separating the Surfer from his board. The military imprisons the Surfer in Siberia and forbids the Fantastic Four from interacting with him, while they torture him for information. Sue uses her powers to sneak into his cell, where she learns more information from the Surfer. He tells her his master was known by the people of his world as Galactus, a massive cloud-like cosmic entity which must feed on life-bearing planets to survive, and that his board is a homing beacon which even now summons him to the planet. Doom, pursuing the power in the board, steals it from the compound, using a device to gain control of the board and its powers. The Fantastic Four rescue the Surfer, and pursue Doom in the Fantasticar, confronting him in Shanghai. During the battle, Sue is mortally wounded. With the Surfer powerless, Johnny absorbs the combined powers of the entire team in order to battle the cosmic energy-empowered Doom. Johnny succeeds in breaking Doom's control over the Surfer's board, while Ben Grimm uses a nearby crane to knock Doom into the harbor where he is last seen sinking; however, Galactus has already arrived. The Surfer regains the control of his board, and his power is restored. He revives Sue and chooses to defend Earth, flying into Galactus and confronting him. The conflict results in a massive blast of energy, apparently destroying Galactus. The film ends with Reed and Sue marrying in Japan, but they are again interrupted when Venice is threatened. The credits cut back to a shot of the Silver Surfer's seemingly lifeless body floating through space. Just as he drifts off the edge of the screen his eyes open and his board races towards him. There are other villains on this list who are obsessed with the destruction and/or death of one human being. But, they don’t hold a candle to the obsessive rage of Dr. Doom. Never has a supervillain possessed such an unadulterated hatred from a single person as Victor Von Doom has possessed towards Reed Richards. You know, Doom could have been an unstoppable force in the Marvel Universe with his complex mind. But, that raging ego of his killed all that. He could have developed his genius-level intellect and indomitable will could have made him led him to world domination. Hell, he had conquered the world on a number of occasions, but he relinquished it just out of sheer boredom. Doom keeps getting into his own way. The man doesn’t know the meaning of the words “failure” or “responsibility.” It is always someone else’s fault, that someone else is usually Reed Richards. Hell, he blames Richards so much that it has become a joke, to the point where Doom could milk while fixing himself a bowl of cereal and somehow blame Reed Richards for it. And, the lengths Doom as gone to in order to seek revenge on Richards is amazing: blasted Richards’s skyscraper into outer space with him in it, kidnapped and tortured the Fantastic Four and Richards’s kids and sent Franklin to hell, and even killing Richards once by blowing him up. And, Doom does all this for revenge on a lab accident that he believes Richards caused but was technically Doom’s own fault. This obsession with Richards hurts Doom’s chances of being the greatest villain of all time, but at the same time, it is so fascinating that one man would be obsessed with the downfall of another that it puts him so high on the list. Plus, Doom is a grandiose villain in the oldest storytelling form. He is a monarch who lives by a noble code of honor and always keeps his word. But, those who don’t read the fine print of Dr. Doom’s deal will probably end up disintegrated.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jun 23, 2008 20:19:49 GMT -5
2. The Joker Who is he: Failed stand-up comedian/mob enforcer turned violent sociopath. What is he from: DC Comics, most notably the Batman comics. What has he done: Killed a lot of people, most notably Jason Todd and Commissioner Gordon’s wife; stole Mr. Mxyzptlk’s powers and remade the DC Universe in his own image; shot Barbara Gordon, paralyzing her; nearly drove Gordon to insanity; and too many more to mention. Intelligence: Skilled in a number of scientific fields (i.e. chemistry) and has an extremely creative mind. Power: Usually has some henchmen to do his tough stuff. Vileness: Kills people for laughs. Sway: Most people in the DC Universe are scared, even those with superpowers. Purity: He's been pretty insane ever since the dip in the chemicals pool, way past the point of no return. Physical Prowess: Not physically powerful, but that white skin, green hair, and devilish grin are pretty damn scary. Name Coolness: “The Joker” is pretty cool. Created by: Jerry Robinson, Bill Finger, and Bob Kane. Portrayed by: Cesar Romero played the Joker in the 1960s Batman TV show. Curtis Armstrong played him in an OnStar Commercial. Roger Stoneburner played him in a cameo on the show Birds Of Prey. Lennie Weinrib did the voice of the Joker in Filmation’s 1977 The New Adventures of Batman animated series. Frank Welker did the voice on one of the Superfriends show. Mark Hamill played the voice of the Joker in the FOX 1990s Batman animated series, as well as the WB version, “Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm,” and “Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker.” Michael McKean voiced the Joker in The New Batman Adventures episode "Legends of the Dark Knight." Kevin Michael Richardson does the voice of the Joker on The Batman animated series. In the 1989 “Batman” movie, Jack Nicholson played the Joker. In “The Dark Knight,” Heath Ledger will play the Joker. Comics: In his initial dozen or so appearances, starting with Batman #1 (1940), the Joker was a straightforward mass murderer, with a bizarre appearance modeled after the symbol of the Joker known from playing cards. He was slated to be killed in his second appearance, but editor Whitney Ellsworth suggested that the character be spared. A hastily drawn panel, demonstrating that the Joker was still alive, was subsequently added to the comic. For the next several appearances, the Joker often escaped capture but suffered an apparent death (falling off a cliff, being caught in a burning building, etc.), from which his body was not recovered. In these first dozen adventures, the Joker killed close to three dozen people. In the 1950s and 1960s, following the imposition of the Comics Code Authority censorship board, the Joker shifted toward becoming a harmless, cackling nuisance. He disappeared from Batman stories almost entirely when Julius Schwartz took over editorship of the Batman comics in 1964. In 1973, the character was revived and profoundly revised in Batman stories by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams. Beginning in Batman #251, with "The Joker's Five Way Revenge", the Joker returns to his roots as a homicidal maniac who casually murders people on a whim, while enjoying battles of wits with Batman. O'Neil said his idea was "simply to take it back to where it started. I went to the DC library and read some of the early stories. I tried to get a sense of what Kane and Finger were after." Writer Steve Englehart and penciler Marshall Rogers, in an acclaimed run in Detective Comics #471-476 (Aug. 1977 - April 1978), which went on to influence the 1989 movie Batman and be adapted for the 1990s animated series, added elements deepening the severity of the Joker's insanity. In the story "The Laughing Fish", the Joker is brazen enough to disfigure fish with a rictus grin, then expect to be granted a federal trademark on them, only to start threatening and murdering bureaucrats who try to explain that obtaining such a claim on a natural resource is a legal impossibility. The Joker had his own nine-issue series during the 1970s in which he faces off against a variety of both superheroes and supervillains. Although he was the protagonist of the series, certain issues feature just as much murder as those in which he was the antagonist; of the nine issues, he commits murder in seven. A major addition to the character was the introduction of Harley Quinn. Originally introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, Quinn is a clinical psychiatrist who falls hopelessly in love with the Joker in Arkham Asylum and now serves as his loyal, if daffy, sidekick, costumed in a skintight harlequin suit. Their partnership often resembles an abusive domestic relationship, with the Joker insulting, hurting, or even attempting to kill Quinn, who remains undaunted in her devotion. She was popular enough to be integrated into the comics in 1999 and a modified version of the character (less goofy, but still criminally insane and utterly committed to the Joker) was also featured on the short-lived live-action TV series Birds of Prey. The development of the Joker as a sociopath continues with the issues "A Death in the Family" (in which readers voted for the character to kill off Jason Todd) and The Killing Joke in 1988, redefining the character for DC's Modern Age after the company wide reboot following Crisis on Infinite Earths. Though many have been related, a definitive backstory has never been established for the Joker in the comics, and his real name has never been confirmed. He has been portrayed as lying so often about his former life that he himself is confused as to what actually happened. As he says in The Killing Joke: "Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!" In Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth written by Grant Morrison, it is said that the Joker may not be insane, but have some sort of "super-sanity" in which he creates himself each day to cope with the chaotic flow of modern urban life. The first origin account, Detective Comics #168 (February 1951), revealed that the Joker had once been a criminal known as the Red Hood. In the story, he was a scientist looking to steal from the company that employs him and adopts the persona of Red Hood. After committing the theft, which Batman thwarts, Red Hood falls into a vat of chemical waste. He emerges with bleached white skin, red lips, green hair, and a permanent grin. The most widely cited backstory can be seen in The Killing Joke. It depicts him as originally being an engineer at a chemical plant who quits his job to become a stand-up comedian, only to fail miserably. Desperate to support his pregnant wife, Jennie, the man agrees to help two criminals break into the plant where he was formerly employed. In this version of the story, the Red Hood persona is given to the inside man of every job (thus it is never the same man twice); this makes the man appear to be the ringleader, allowing the two criminals to escape. During the planning, police contact him and inform him that his wife and unborn child have died in a household accident. Stricken with grief, he attempts to back out of the plan, but the criminals strong-arm him into keeping his promise. As soon as they enter the plant, however, they are immediately caught by security and a shoot-out ensues, in which the two criminals are killed. As the engineer tries to escape, he is confronted by Batman, who is investigating the disturbance. Terrified, the engineer leaps over a rail and plummets into a vat of chemicals. When he surfaces in the nearby reservoir, he removes the hood and sees his reflection: bleached chalk-white skin, ruby-red lips, and green hair. These events, coupled with his other misfortunes that day, drive the engineer completely insane, resulting in the birth of the Joker. The story "Pushback" (Batman: Gotham Knights # 50-55), supports part of this version of the Joker's origin story. In it, a witness (who coincidentally turns out to be Edward Nigma, a.k.a. the Riddler) recounts that the Joker's wife was kidnapped and murdered by the criminals in order to force the engineer into performing the crime. In this version, the pre-accident Joker is called Jack. The Paul Dini-Alex Ross story "Case Study" proposes a far different theory. This story suggests that the Joker was a sadistic gangster who worked his way up Gotham's criminal food chain until he was the leader of a powerful mob. Still seeking the thrills that dirty work allowed, he created the Red Hood identity for himself so that he could commit small-time crimes. Eventually, he had his fateful first meeting with Batman, resulting in his disfigurement. However, the story suggests that the Joker retained his sanity, and researched his crimes to look like the work of a sick mind in order to pursue his vendetta against Batman. The Joker as a mob enforcer origin is featured in the second arc of Batman Confidential (#7-12). This origin once more states his name as Jack, and eliminates the Red Hood identity. Becoming obsessed with Batman due to the sheer boredom of his work, Jack crashes a museum ball to attract Batman's attention and badly injures Lorna Shore (whom Bruce Wayne is dating). An enraged Batman disfigures his face with a batarang as he escapes. In retaliation, a furious Batman sells Jack out to mobsters who he had crossed and they severely torture Jack in a disused chemical plant. Turning the tables, Jack kills several, but falls into an empty vat. Wild gunfire punctures the chemical tanks above him, and the resultant flood of toxins drives him mad and alters his appearance to that of the Joker. In the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series, the Joker's origin is only hinted at in the spin-off movie, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. In a flashback, a pre-accident Joker is seen as a driver/enforcer for Sal Valestra, one of Gotham City's crime lords. However, in the episode "Dreams In Darkness", an Arkham Asylum doctor says that the Joker's name is Jack Napier, the same name used in the 1989 film. The name of Jack Napier also appears in the episode "Joker's Wild", as Batman was looking through confidential files, one page had the Joker's rap sheet, including the Jack Napier identity. From the Joker's first appearance in Batman #1, he has committed crimes both whimsical and inhumanly brutal, all with a logic and reasoning that, in Batman's words, "make sense to him alone." In Batman: The Killing Joke, the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon (then known as Batgirl and in later comics as Oracle), paralyzing her. He then kidnaps Commissioner Gordon and taunts him with enlarged photographs of his wounded daughter being undressed, in an attempt to prove that any emotionally and morally stable man can become insane after having "one really bad day." The Joker ridicules him as an example of "the average man", a naïve weakling doomed to insanity; but fails in his attempts to drive Gordon insane as Batman saves the commissioner and even though distressed, Gordon keeps a sound mind. After this Batman tries one final time to reach the Joker, offering to rehabilitate him. The Joker refuses, but shows his appreciation by sharing a joke with Batman and allowing himself to be taken back to Arkham. The Joker murders Jason Todd, the second Robin, in the story "A Death in the Family". Jason Todd discovers that a woman who may be his birth mother is being blackmailed by the Joker. She betrays her son to keep from having her medical supply thefts exposed, leading to Jason's brutal beating by the Joker with a crowbar. The Joker locks Jason and his mother in the warehouse where the assault took place and blows it up just as Batman arrives. Readers could vote on whether they wanted Jason Todd to survive the blast. They voted for him to die, hence Batman finds Jason's lifeless body. Jason's death has haunted Batman ever since and has intensified his obsession with his archenemy. In the one-shot comic Mad Love, Arkham psychiatrist Harleen Quinzel ponders whether the Joker may in fact be faking insanity so as to avoid the death penalty. As she tries to treat the Joker, he recounts a tale of an abusive father and runaway mother to gain her sympathy. She falls hopelessly in love with him and allows him to escape Arkham several times before she is eventually exposed. Driven over the edge with obsession, she becomes Harley Quinn, Joker's accomplice and on-and-off girlfriend. During the events of the No Man's Land storyline, the Joker murders Sarah Essen Gordon, Commissioner Gordon's second wife, by shooting her in the head as she tries to protect the infants that he has kidnapped. He surrenders to Batman, but continues to taunt Gordon, provoking the Commissioner to shoot him in the kneecap. The Joker laments that he may never walk again, and then collapses with laughter as he "gets the joke" that Gordon has just avenged his daughter's paralysis. In a company-wide crossover, Last Laugh, the Joker believes himself to be dying and plans one last historic crime spree, infecting the inmates of 'The Slab,' a prison for super criminals, with Joker venom to escape. With plans to infect the entire world, he sets the super-powered inmates loose to cause mass chaos in their 'jokerized' forms. Meanwhile, he tries to ensure his "legacy" by defacing statues in his image. The entire United States declares war on the Joker under the orders of President Lex Luthor; in response, Joker sends his minions to kill the President. Black Canary discovers that Joker's doctor modified his CAT scan to make it appear that he had a fatal tumor in an attempt to subdue him with the threat of death. Harley Quinn, angry at the Joker's attempt to get her pregnant without marrying her, helps the heroes create an antidote to the Joker poison and return the super villains to their normal state. Believing Robin had been eaten by Killer Croc in the ensuing madness, Nightwing eventually catches up with the Joker and beats him to death. To keep Nightwing from having blood on his hands, Batman resuscitates the Joker. In "Emperor Joker", a multipart story throughout the Superman titles, the Joker steals Mister Mxyzptlk's reality altering power, remaking the entire world into a twisted caricature, with everyone in it stuck in a loop, repeating the same patterns over and over. The conflict focuses on the fate of Batman in this world, with the Joker torturing and killing his adversary every day, only to bring him back to life and do it over and over again. Superman's powerful will allows him to fight off the Joker's influence enough to make contact with the weakened Mxyzptlk, who along with a less-powerful Spectre, encourages Superman to work out the Joker's weakness before reality is destroyed by the Joker's misuse of Mxyzptlk's power. As time runs out, Superman realizes that the Joker still cannot erase Batman from existence, as the Joker totally defines himself by his opposition to the Dark Knight; if the Joker can't even erase one man, how can he destroy the universe? The Joker's control shattered, Mxyzptlk and the Spectre manage to reconstruct reality from the moment the Joker disrupted everything, but Batman is left broken from experiencing multiple deaths. Superman has to steal Batman's memories so that he can go on, transferring them to the Joker and leaving him catatonic. In the Under The Hood arc (Batman #635-650), Jason Todd returns to life. Angry at Batman for failing to avenge his death, he takes over his killer's old Red Hood identity, abducts the Joker and attempts to force Batman to shoot him. At the conclusion of Infinite Crisis the Joker kills Alexander Luthor, hero of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths and villain of Infinite Crisis. In current continuity as of January 2008, the Joker is involved in the Salvation Run miniseries, leading one of two factions of supervillains who have been exiled from Earth to a distant prison planet. In issue six of the series, Joker engages Lex Luthor in an all-out brawl. Just as he gains the upper hand, however, the planet is invaded by Parademons, he helps fight off the invasion and later escapes along with the rest of the surviving villains in the teleportation machine. Batman (TV series): With the success of the 1960s television series, the character was brought to the forefront along with the rest of the classic rogues gallery. During that period the Joker, as portrayed by Cesar Romero in 18 episodes, was a crazy, but less murderous character than his comics persona up to that point. The Joker of this series is characterized by a cackling laugh and comedy-themed crimes that were silly in nature, such as turning the city's water supply into jelly, beating Batman in a surfing competition, and bank robberies based on stand-up routines. The only reference to his early life is a remark by Batman that, in his youth, the Joker had once been a successful hypnotist. Romero refused to shave his mustache for the role, and it was partially visible beneath his white face makeup. OnStar commercial: During the OnStar "Batman" ad campaign, the Joker appeared in one commercial, played by Curtis Armstrong. In the commercial, Joker attempts to escape from the Batmobile in his Jokermobile. He uses a remote system to activate a steel wall. Batman crashes into the wall and his airbag deploys. When the OnStar representative calls him, Batman instructs her to get the police to set up a blockade. Batman then arrives at the scene and apprehends the Joker. Birds of Prey (television series): Roger Stoneburner made a cameo appearance as the character in an episode of Birds of Prey in which Barbara Gordon is caught in the crossfire between Batman and the Joker. In the series, the Joker not only paralyzes Barbara, but hires a thug (who later turns out to be Clayface) to kill Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman. Joker is said in another episode to be locked up in a prison far from New Gotham, but his old partner Harley Quinn intends to take over the city and avenge him. Mark Hamill, who voiced the Joker in various animated shows throughout the 1990s, provided the Joker's voice in the scene, and he was the only one of the two actors to be credited. Early Animation: The Joker appeared as a recurring adversary in the 1968-1969 Filmation series The Adventures of Batman. Two episodes of the 1972 series The New Scooby-Doo Movies featured a meeting with Batman; the Joker was one of the villains, voiced by Larry Storch. The Joker was featured in five episodes of Filmation's 1977 series The New Adventures of Batman, where he was voiced by Lennie Weinrib. His only Super Friends appearance was in the show's final incarnation, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, where he appeared in both the intro and the episode "The Wild Cards", which featured a version of the Royal Flush Gang. The leader of the group, Ace, turned out to be a disguised Joker (voiced by Frank Welker). Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures: Batman: The Animated Series offers another version of the Joker's history, primarily in the episode "Beware the Creeper" and in the spin-off movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Here he is a former anonymous hit man for a Mafia gang known as the Valestra mob with ties to the Beaumont family. His boss is crime lord Sal Valestra, who is owed ransom money by Beaumont. The gangster never speaks in his original form, and later it is implied that he killed Carl Beaumont. Years later, as the Joker, he murders Valestra, who dies with a strained grin on his face. As in the 1989 movie, he is not wearing any disguise when he makes his fateful attempt to rob the chemical factory. In both this animated series and the comic-book series based on it, the Joker believes Batman intentionally pushed him into the chemicals. Unlike in the 1989 movie, however, no attempt is made to connect the Joker with the death of Bruce Wayne's parents, although, to homage the movie, Jack Napier is listed as one of his aliases, and is believed to be his real name by several officials. As in his comic-book persona, the Joker in this series is obsessed with Batman; he often says he is the only one who "deserves" to take out Batman, halting those who try or punishing those who he thinks beat him to it. This version of the Joker combined past elements of his characterization from the comics, in which some episodes show him performing comical, less aggressive aspects, while others show him as a sociopath willing (and eager) to murder dozens of people. As in previous depictions, The Joker is shown as a mass murderer although due to children's television restrictions, the killings are never depicted onscreen but subtly alluded to; perhaps most notably in "Mad Love" in which Harley is examining a newspaper with text that reads "Joker still at large, Body count rises." Near the headline a picture shows at least 20 corpses, each with the signature Joker smile. Much like the Joker of the comics, the Animated Series Joker cheats death multiple times. He has fallen into a smokestack, been attacked by a shark, fallen from a roller coaster, and is caught in an aircraft crash, among numerous other fates, yet still emerges unharmed. In the episodes "Joker's Wild" and "Dreams in Darkness", the Joker's identity is revealed as "Jack Napier", although "Beware the Creeper" reconnects this as a alias. In Batman: The Animated Series, the Joker made the most appearances of any villain in Batman's rogues' gallery. He is also the only character aside from the Penguin to not receive an origin episode, suggesting he has been a thorn in Batman's side for some time before the series' storyline picks up. The Animated Series version of the Joker also appears in the Static Shock episode "The Big Leagues". The Joker in this series up to Justice League was voiced by Mark Hamill, a role that received praise from fans and critics. In the New Batman Adventures episode "Mad Love", the Joker tells Arkham psychiatrist Harleen Quinzel that he was abused by his alcoholic father, though Batman offers the possibility that the Joker's version of his childhood is a lie used for gaining sympathy. Later in life, he joins Sal Valestra's mafia and serves as a hitman. One night, during a break-in at the Ace Chemical Plant, Batman attempts to knock him out with a blow to the face. Stumbling, the man falls into a vat of green chemicals and, losing his mind in the face of death, emerges as the Joker. In one episode, a receptionist at a hotel where he is staying calls him "Mr. Kerr", a reference to Joker's alias "Joseph "Joe" Kerr". The New Batman Adventures episode "Legends of the Dark Knight" is about three teenagers telling often contradictory stories of Batman's exploits. One story features the Joker in a tale inspired by the Dick Sprang comics of the 1950s. This segment's Joker was voiced by Michael McKean. The Joker was also featured in the Batman/Superman crossover World's Finest. Having lost everything thanks to Batman, he makes a deal with Lex Luthor, for $1 billion, to kill Superman with a large Kryptonite dragon statue he stole. After the deal goes sour, Joker goes on a rampage while flying through the skies of Metropolis in Luthor's Lexwing aircraft. He is last seen laughing maniacally as the aircraft falls into the sea and explodes, having been damaged by his own bombs which are accidentally set off. His body is not found, but later episodes of the show reveal that he cheated death once again, and escaped alive. Justice League: In the Justice League episode "Injustice for All", the Joker becomes a member of the Injustice Gang after Copperhead is arrested, much to Lex Luthor's annoyance. In these episodes, his knowledge of Batman's methods prove useful in helping the Injustice Gang capture him. Indeed, when Luthor at first rebuffs the Joker, the Joker points out how he's needed by plucking a homing device off of Luthor and telling him "I know how the Bat thinks." Much to Joker's annoyance, Luthor elects to keep Batman alive so that they can further interrogate him. During the ensuing battle between the Justice League and Luthor's group, Joker is the last one to be captured during the episode, even deterring The Flash with explosives and escaping Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth by tossing an explosive doll at her. He returns to kill Batman with a gun, but the Caped Crusader escapes and easily defeats him. He had cameos in two other episodes, "Only a Dream" in Doctor Destiny's dream sequence, and an alternate reality counter-part in the episode "A Better World" who had been lobotomized (along with other members of Batman's rogues gallery) by the Justice Lords version of Superman. In the episode "Wild Cards", the Joker places a series of bombs all over Las Vegas, and challenges the Justice League to defuse all of them in less than 30 minutes, all while on national television. Joker then sends the Royal Flush Gang (Ace, Ten, Jack, Queen, and King) to stop the League. When all but one of the Royal Flush Gang are defeated and all of the bombs are disposed of, the Joker reveals his true plan: to use Ace's powers to drive people crazy just by looking at them on the millions of people watching the broadcast. When Batman arrives, however, he pulls the headband that controls Ace's powers from Joker's coat. Ace, angered by Joker's betrayal, uses her powers on him and renders him in a catatonic state. While the ban on Batman villains did not allow him to appear in Justice League Unlimited, he was mentioned several times throughout the course of the series. It is revealed that Joker rescued the Royal Flush Gang from Project Cadmus, and it is also mentioned that he stole technology from the government as well. Batman Beyond: In Batman Beyond, which is set 40 years in the future, the Joker has not been seen in several decades. There are now street gangs known as Jokerz, some of whom emulate his appearance and others who simply use some sort of clown motif. In the episode "Joyride", a skeleton wearing the Joker's suit is seen in a cave where the Jokerz go for initiations. The Joker appears in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, both in flashback sequences, in his Justice League attire, opposing the original Batman and in the "present" of Batman Beyond. It is revealed that the Joker kidnaps Tim Drake (the second Robin in the "Animated Series" continuity). Over the course of three weeks, he tortures Robin by electric shocks and through the use of a mysterious microchip, mutilates the boy into a mindless replica of himself known as "J.J." (Joker Junior). In the course of the ordeal, the Joker learns of Batman's secret identity from Tim. He then reveals Tim to Batman and Batgirl as his "son". In the ensuing showdown, the Joker incapacitates Batman and orders Tim to shoot him with a speargun. At the last second, however, Tim turns the gun on the Joker and kills his tormentor, Joker's final words being "That's not funny. That's not..." (in the edited version, Joker is pushed by Tim into a sparking area, slips on a puddle of water and lands in an electric chair, accidentally killing himself off-screen). Batman and Batgirl, in conjunction with Commissioner Gordon, bury the Joker's body beneath Arkham Asylum. Forty years later, the Joker unexpectedly returns to Gotham. Quickly taking control of the Jokerz, he wreaks havoc on the city. It is eventually revealed that the Joker is actually the now-adult Tim Drake, whose body is possessed by the Joker's memories and physical appearance. The Joker had used stolen Project Cadmus technology to implant the same chip encoded with his DNA and personality during the time he held Tim captive, revealing why Tim was transformed into Joker Junior in the first place. The Joker's stored personality is eventually destroyed when Terry McGinnis uses the Joker's own electrocuting joy buzzer to overload and destroy the chip, destroying the greatest match that Batman had ever faced. The Batman: A very different interpretation of the Joker appears in the animated series The Batman, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. In his first few episodes, he sports a purple and yellow straitjacket, fingerless gloves, bare feet (which are white with green toenails), wild green hair, red eyes, harsher voice, athletic prowess, and martial arts skill that mark him as different from his predecessors. Later in the series, he regresses back the more traditional garb of a purple suit and spats, but still has wild hair and wears no shoes, save one episode. The Joker also moves and fights with a monkey-like style, using his feet as dexterously as his hands, and often hangs from the walls and ceilings (as the series progresses, these abilities do not appear as much). He employs the signature Joker venom in the form of a laughing gas. This version is also a skilled chemist responsible for the Joker venom and "Joker putty" which is responsible for Ethan Bennett turning into "Clayface." This version of the Clown Prince of Crime more resembles the campy, comic relief character featured in the comics of the 1950s and '60s. While this interpretation is generally lighter in tone, however, it still exhibits hints of a darker side. One episode in particular closely resembled The Killing Joke: during "The Rubberface of Comedy", he tortures police detective Ethan Bennett to prove a point, quoting the comic: "All it takes is one bad day to make a normal man go insane". Joker also takes Bennett to an abandoned amusement park, like in the book. The episode also implies the building hatred and jealousy that the Joker feels towards Batman as the police focus more on capturing Batman than him ("You mean to tell me you consider this vigilante more dangerous than ME? The Clown Prince of Crime?") In the episode "Strange Minds" viewers learn that this version of the Joker fell into a chemical vat sometime earlier and get to see what he looked like prior to his accident; in the form of what's left of his sanity. Also like the 1989 movie and the animated series, he is not wearing a disguise when the accident happens. There's also a hint that the man who became the Joker was a worker in the chemical plant.Hugo Strange was also seen talking to a young version of the Joker, and noted that the man who would become the Joker was often left alone by his parents, while dreaming of making people laugh. In the film The Batman vs. Dracula, which takes place during the events of The Batman, the Joker escapes from Arkham having learned of the location of buried treasure and runs into the Penguin on the way, whom he disposes of with electric joy buzzers. Towards the end of the ensuing battle, the Joker plummets into the river where he is electrocuted and apparently killed by his own buzzers. However, he is later revealed to have survived, having apparently been accidentally rescued by a fisherman. He heads towards Gotham Cemetery, where the treasure is hidden, and encounters the Penguin again, unaware he has now been made a servant of Count Dracula. Despite Penguin's warnings, Joker ventures into his master's crypt, running into the count himself. His blood promptly drained, and the Joker turns into a vampire. Vampire Joker robs a blood bank to sustain himself. He encounters the Batman yet again and the two fight. Joker is captured in the end and taken to the Batcave, where Batman experiments on ways to treat his undead state and tries to make him reveal Dracula's hiding place. Joker is unable to give him any information, for he is under Dracula's control. Batman eventually develops an antidote and cures Joker, who seems to have lost his memory of being a vampire. Nonetheless, Joker inadvertently reveals the location of Dracula's crypt and is sent back to Arkham. Vampire Joker has pale-blue eyes, lighter hair color, fangs, and an overall more demonic appearance. His jumping abilities and strength have also been enhanced, and he can also scale walls. Other than his constant craving for blood, Vampire Joker seems to have retained most of his willpower. He is also apparently the only vampire slave with the ability to speak, whereas the other vampires merely snarl and growl. Justice League: The New Frontier: In the animated film Justice League: The New Frontier, the Joker makes a small cameo appearance during U.S. President John F. Kennedy's speech at the end of the film. “Batman” (1989): The 1989 Batman film, directed by Tim Burton, offered a somewhat different origin for the Joker, portrayed by Jack Nicholson, while making him part of Batman's origin. Newsweek's review of the film stated that the best scenes in the movie are due to the surreal black comedy portrayed in this character. Unlike the comics, the film gives The Joker a real name: Jack Napier. Nicholson's Joker ranks #45 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 50 film villains of all time. Napier, portrayed as the narcissistic right-hand man of Boss Carl Grissom, is having an affair with Grissom's girlfriend, Alicia Hunt. This prompts the jealous crime lord to have Napier killed by corrupt Lt. Max Eckhardt. Napier kills Eckhardt, and a subsequent bullet fired by Napier to kill Batman ricochets off Batman's armor and goes through his cheeks. Napier tumbles off a catwalk due to the shot, and despite an attempt by Batman to save him, he falls into a vat of chemicals. Napier survives both the chemical bath and being flushed into the harbor via the sewers, but the accident leaves him deformed. His hair is stained green, his skin is bleached a chalky white, his lips are dyed red, and a botched attempt at reconstructive surgery leaves him with a permanent rictus grin. He goes completely insane, and dubs himself the Joker. He kills Grissom, takes over the gangster's empire, and begins a violent, chaotic crime spree. His crimes center on uses of 'Smylex', a potent neurotoxin that causes its victims to die laughing, their faces eventually freezing in a grin identical to his own. The Joker also tries to woo Gotham Globe reporter Vicki Vale, and in the process, attempts to kill Bruce Wayne, who is dating her (although Bruce plays dead after using a tray as a bulletproof vest). When Wayne learns about the Joker, he recalls that his parents were murdered by Jack Napier, realizing that the Joker is indirectly responsible for the origin of Batman. In the climax of the film, the Joker meets his demise during an attempted helicopter escape from Gotham Cathedral. Batman uses a grappling hook to tie Joker's ankle to a large, heavy gargoyle. The gargoyle comes loose of the structure, sending him falling to his death. In the flashback scene showing Jack Napier's murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, Napier was played by Hugo E. Blick. In the original script of Batman, Joker was also originally supposed to be responsible for the origin of Robin, at which he kills Dick Grayson's parents during a high speed chase with Batman. Although this sub-plot was removed, the Batman DVD shows a storyboard animatic sequence of the scene, voiced by the actors of the animated series. While the third film in the series does not make direct mention of the Joker, the murders of the Waynes are shown during a flashback sequence. This new flashback portrayed Ramsey Ellis as the young Wayne, Michael Scranton as Thomas Wayne, Eileen Seeley as Martha Wayne, and David U. Hodges as the shooter. The Dark Knight (2008): A Joker playing card is shown at the end of Batman Begins, where it had been used as a calling card by a criminal who was not explicitly named. Screenwriter David S. Goyer explained in Premiere magazine that he planned to use the Joker as the main villain for the sequel, The Dark Knight. Warner Bros. officially announced on July 31, 2006 that Heath Ledger would portray the Joker. Director Christopher Nolan has said that this portrayal will be inspired by the character's first two appearances in the comics, as well as The Killing Joke, an Alan Moore-penned graphic novel that has been called "the definitive Joker story," which notably garnered praise from Tim Burton, director of the first Batman movie. According to Nolan, there will not be an origin story for the character in the movie, because he "just is the Joker". It will rather be, according to the prologue in the film, the "Rise of the Joker." In the trailer released in May, it is shown that the Joker is somehow involved with the mob, and is shown advising them that by killing Batman they may regain their status in Gotham. It is suggested in an earlier teaser trailer that the Joker may have motives that are unknown to the mob, as Alfred Pennyworth claims that "... in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand. Some men aren't looking for anything logical - they can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." The Joker is also heard saying "This city deserves a better class of criminal - and I'm gonna give it to them." According to co-star Christian Bale, Ledger's portrayal deviates notably from previous interpretations. “It’s a much more anarchic, punk rock, almost junkie version of it... He’s that kind of psycho kid that just will do anything and has absolutely no conscience and morals – I think they’ve done a real nice job with his look. It’s certainly a whole lot more dangerous; there’s a bit of Clockwork Orange there, a bit of Sid Vicious, a whole lot of great, anarchic personalities blended within The Joker.” Chris Nolan says that the Joker's design was based on Johnny Rotten. In a New York Times article, Ledger stated that his Joker is a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy”. Costume designer Lindy Hemming described the Joker's look as being based around his personality, in which "he doesn't care about himself at all." She avoided his design being vagrant, but nonetheless it is "scruffier, grungier and therefore when you see him move, he's slightly twitchier or edgy." Unlike other incarnations, where his appearance is a result of chemical bleaching, the Joker's facial scarring is more in the style of a Glasgow smile and accentuates it through white and red make-up. During the course of the film it worsens, resembling an infection. The Melbourne Herald Sun and The Mercury quotes Michael Caine, who portrays Alfred Pennyworth, as saying that Ledger topped Jack Nicholson's performance as the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman. "He's gone in a completely different direction to Jack. Jack was like a clown figure, benign but wicked, maybe a killer old uncle. He could be funny and make you laugh... Heath is like a really scary psychopath. I did one scene with him and he was ready to go and had to come up in a lift and raid our place... I didn't see him for rehearsal and when he came out of the lift he was so incredible I forgot my lines. He frightened the life out of me. ... I'd never met him before. He's a lovely guy and his Joker is going to be a hell of a revelation in this picture." Video games: Joker appears in the video game Batman: Vengeance. As the main villain of the game, Joker orchestrates a murderous plot to burn Gotham City to the ground with his own Joker toxin and promethium, a wonder drug that is highly flammable when broken down. Joker funded the research to make sure plenty would be made for his schemes. The Joker begins his plans by making a false kidnapping to set up his fake demise, which will allow him to reside in the shadows and make his plans without the police looking for him. Joker and Harley indirectly gets the game's other villains involved to further his plot, although they believe they are serving only their own needs. His ultimate plot is to pump his Joker toxin and promethium through the sprinkling system of the city and burn it down while he escapes on a blimp he stole and used to store the substance to pump through the pipes. His plans ultimately fail and he decides to attempt suicide by jumping off the blimp rather than be sent back to Arkham Asylum. Batman both saves and defeats Joker and sends him back to Arkham. In addition to the above game, Joker has appeared in most of the Batman video games. He has appeared in the various video game adaptations of 1989's Batman. He is the final boss in the Batman: Return of the Joker game and has appeared as a boss character in Batman: Dark Tomorrow, Batman: The Caped Crusader, Batman: The Animated Series, The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the SNES, The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega Genesis and the Sega CD and Batman: Chaos in Gotham. In Batman: Vengeance and the Sega CD game Mark Hamill reprised the role of the Joker. Other appearances: There are a few theme park attractions themed to the Joker. The Joker's Jinx, a twisting steel roller coaster in Six Flags America, follows the Joker's dominantly purple and green color scheme, and his mad laughter is played during the ride queue. The current version of the motion simulator ride Batman Adventure - The Ride at Warner Bros. Movie World revolves around the Dark Knight attempting to foil the Joker's plan of spreading his deadly Joker Gas throughout Gotham from an airship. Published in 1990, The Further Adventures of The Joker (edited by Martin H. Greenberg) assembled 20 short stories about the Clown Prince of Crime. The content of its material ranged from macabre to campy. All of the stories featured in the book are considered non-canon in relation to mainstream DC Comics continuity. All these villains on the list are motivated by something, but these motivations are the typical villain motivations: greed, power, hunger, bloodlust, corruption of good, the death of one person, etc. However, there is one who had a completely original motivation: the Joker. His motivation is laughter. The man is psychopath. An unholy serial killer who kills people just laughs. He finds death funny. He is a standup comedian whose comedy is murder. And, he has committed some of the worst acts in Batman’s war on crime. While in the Middle East, the Clown Prince of Crime trapped then Robin Jason Todd in a warehouse, beat the kid to near death with his mom watching, and detonated a bomb that killed Todd and his mom. Not only did Batman fail to save the boy, but he couldn’t even avenge Todd because the Joker has obtained diplomatic immunity by becoming an Iranian ambassador. Joker upped the ante very quickly by shooting Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl, paralyzing her, as well as kidnapping her father, GCPD Commissioner Jim Gordon, and forced him to view nude pictures of his bleeding daughter in order to drive him crazy. That wouldn’t be the last time Joker terrorized Gordon, as he killed his wife Sarah, who was protecting a room full of infants. But, Joker proved that he was more than a simple serial killer when he tricked Mr. Mxyztplk into giving up his powers to him and recreated the DC universe in his own twisted image, like making Superman a criminal, turning Lois Lane into an evil billionaire like Lex Luthor, and killing and resurrecting Batman each day he had his powers. And, that’s just a few samples of the evil the Joker has unleashed on the world, all done for a laugh. The Joker is truly one twisted, evil individual in a purple suit.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jun 23, 2008 20:21:33 GMT -5
Before I revealed number 1, here's a recap of the previous 99:
100. Walter Peck 99. Sideshow Bob 98. Dean Vernon Wormer 97. Bill Lumbergh 96. The French Taunter 95. Col. Kurtz 94. Baby Jane Hudson 93. Auric Goldfinger 92. The Nosferatu 91. M. Bison 90. Luther 89. The Wicked Witch of the West 88. Frank Booth 87. Bullseye 86. R.J. Fletcher 85. Alonzo Harris 84. Sephiroth 83. Norman Bates 82. Black Adam 81. Herr Starr 80. Annie Wilkes 79. Mr. Blonde 78. Principal Ed Rooney 77. Ivan Drago 76. Cigarette Smoking Man 75. Leatherface 74. Angel Eyes 73. Bob 72. Tony Montana 71. Thanos 70. Daniel Plainview 69. General Zod 68. J.J. Hunsecker 67. Megatron 66. Two-Face 65. Kevin 64. Big Brother 63. Johnny Lawrence 62. Vince McMahon 61. Clubber Lang 60. Mr. Burns 59. Biff Tannen 58. Kid Miracleman 57. Bill The Butcher 56. Venom 55. Max Cady 54. John Doe 53. Predator 52. Dark Phoenix 51. Patrick Bateman 50. Dr. Christian Szell 49. Jason Voorhees 48. Godzilla 47. Eric Cartman 46. HAL 9000 45. Starscream 44. Cobra Commander 43. Randall Flagg 42. Keyser Söze 41. Jabba The Hutt 40. Deathstroke 39. Angelus 38. Anton Chigurh 37. Tony Soprano 36. Nurse Ratched 35. Alex Forrest 34. The Green Goblin 33. Iago 32. The Velociraptors 31. Ozymandias 30. Rowdy Roddy Piper 29. Hans Gruber 28. Grand Moff Tarkin 27. The Xenomorphs 26. Freddy Krueger 25. Gordon Gekko 24. J.R. Ewing 23. Noah Cross 22. Galactus 21. Michael Corleone 20. The Four Horsemen 19. The Red Skull 18. Maleficent 17. The Borg 16. Pennywise 15. Magneto 14. Sauron 13. Khan 12. The Shark 11. Darkseid 10. Emperor Palpatine 9. Professor James Moriarty 8. Count Dracula 7. Pazuzu 6. Lex Luthor 5. Darth Vader 4. Dr. Hannibal Lecter 3. Dr. Doom 2. The Joker
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jun 23, 2008 21:00:22 GMT -5
And, now the Greatest Villain of All Time: 1. Satan Who is he: A fallen angel, ruler of Hell. What is he from: Paradise Lost. What has he done: Rebels against God and is banished to Hell, where he becomes its’ ruler, creates Sin, causes Adam and Eve to get kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Intelligence: Practically omniscient. Power: Rules Hell. Vileness: They don’t call him the Prince Of Darkness because he’s nice. Sway: He’s also called the Prince Of Lies. Purity: Cares for the angels who joined in on his rebellion and has some good qualities, but becomes corrupted by evil by the time the poem is over. Physical Prowess: Judging by that photo, he looks very physically fit, and those wings look cool. Name Coolness: “Satan” is very cool. Created by: Well, this characterization of Satan was created by John Milton. Portrayed by: Paradise Lost hasn’t filmed for anything. But, Satan has been portrayed by many actors. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan_in_popular_culture Just look at this. Milton’s speaker begins Paradise Lost by stating that his subject will be Adam and Eve’s disobedience and fall from grace. He invokes a heavenly muse and asks for help in relating his ambitious story and God’s plan for humankind. The action begins with Satan and his fellow rebel angels who are found chained to a lake of fire in Hell. They quickly free themselves and fly to land, where they discover minerals and construct Pandemonium, which will be their meeting place. Inside Pandemonium, the rebel angels, who are now devils, debate whether they should begin another war with God. Beezlebub suggests that they attempt to corrupt God’s beloved new creation, humankind. Satan agrees, and volunteers to go himself. As he prepares to leave Hell, he is met at the gates by his children, Sin and Death, who follow him and build a bridge between Hell and Earth. In Heaven, God orders the angels together for a council of their own. He tells them of Satan’s intentions, and the Son volunteers himself to make the sacrifice for humankind. Meanwhile, Satan travels through Night and Chaos and finds Earth. He disguises himself as a cherub to get past the Archangel Uriel, who stands guard at the sun. He tells Uriel that he wishes to see and praise God’s glorious creation, and Uriel assents. Satan then lands on Earth and takes a moment to reflect. Seeing the splendor of Paradise brings him pain rather than pleasure. He reaffirms his decision to make evil his good, and continue to commit crimes against God. Satan leaps over Paradise’s wall, takes the form of a cormorant (a large bird), and perches himself atop the Tree of Life. Looking down at Satan from his post, Uriel notices the volatile emotions reflected in the face of this so-called cherub and warns the other angels that an impostor is in their midst. The other angels agree to search the Garden for intruders. Meanwhile, Adam and Eve tend the Garden, carefully obeying God’s supreme order not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. After a long day of work, they return to their bower and rest. There, Satan takes the form of a toad and whispers into Eve’s ear. Gabriel, the angel set to guard Paradise, finds Satan there and orders him to leave. Satan prepares to battle Gabriel, but God makes a sign appear in the sky, the golden scales of justice, and Satan scurries away. Eve awakes and tells Adam about a dream she had, in which an angel tempted her to eat from the forbidden tree. Worried about his creation, God sends Raphael down to Earth to teach Adam and Eve of the dangers they face with Satan. Raphael arrives on Earth and eats a meal with Adam and Eve. After the meal, Eve retires, allowing Raphael and Adam to speak alone. Raphael relates the story of Satan’s envy over the Son’s appointment as God’s second-in-command. Satan gathered other angels together who were also angry to hear this news, and together they plotted a war against God. Abdiel decides not to join Satan’s army and returns to God. The angels then begin to fight, with Michael and Gabriel serving as co-leaders for Heaven’s army. The battle lasts two days, when God sends the Son to end the war and deliver Satan and his rebel angels to Hell. Raphael tells Adam about Satan’s evil motives to corrupt them, and warns Adam to watch out for Satan. Adam asks Raphael to tell him the story of creation. Raphael tells Adam that God sent the Son into Chaos to create the universe. He created the earth and stars and other planets. Curious, Adam asks Raphael about the movement of the stars and planets. Raphael promptly warns Adam about his seemingly unquenchable search for knowledge. Raphael tells Adam that he will learn all he needs to know, and that any other knowledge is not meant for humans to comprehend. Adam tells Raphael about his first memories, of waking up and wondering who he was, what he was, and where he was. Adam says that God spoke to him and told him many things, including his order not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. After the story, Adam confesses to Raphael his intense physical attraction to Eve. Raphael reminds Adam that he must love Eve more purely and spiritually. With this final bit of advice, Raphael leaves Earth and returns to Heaven. Eight days after his banishment, Satan returns to Paradise. After closely studying the animals of Paradise, he chooses to take the form of the serpent. Meanwhile, Eve suggests to Adam that they work separately for awhile, so they can get more work done. Adam is hesitant but then assents. Satan searches for Eve and is delighted to find her alone. In the form of a serpent, he talks to Eve and compliments her on her beauty and godliness. She is amazed to find an animal that can speak. She asks how he learned to speak, and he tells her that it was by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. He tells Eve that God actually wants her and Adam to eat from the tree, and that his order is merely a test of their courage. She is hesitant at first but then reaches for a fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and eats. She becomes distraught and searches for Adam. Adam has been busy making a wreath of flowers for Eve. When Eve finds Adam, he drops the wreath and is horrified to find that Eve has eaten from the forbidden tree. Knowing that she has fallen, he decides that he would rather be fallen with her than remain pure and lose her. So he eats from the fruit as well. Adam looks at Eve in a new way, and together they turn to lust. God immediately knows of their disobedience. He tells the angels in Heaven that Adam and Eve must be punished, but with a display of both justice and mercy. He sends the Son to give out the punishments. The Son first punishes the serpent whose body Satan took, and condemns it never to walk upright again. Then the Son tells Adam and Eve that they must now suffer pain and death. Eve and all women must suffer the pain of childbirth and must submit to their husbands, and Adam and all men must hunt and grow their own food on a depleted Earth. Meanwhile, Satan returns to Hell where he is greeted with cheers. He speaks to the devils in Pandemonium, and everyone believes that he has beaten God. Sin and Death travel the bridge they built on their way to Earth. Shortly thereafter, the devils unwillingly transform into snakes and try to reach fruit from imaginary trees that shrivel and turn to dust as they reach them. God tells the angels to transform the Earth. After the fall, humankind must suffer hot and cold seasons instead of the consistent temperatures before the fall. On Earth, Adam and Eve fear their approaching doom. They blame each other for their disobedience and become increasingly angry at one another. In a fit of rage, Adam wonders why God ever created Eve. Eve begs Adam not to abandon her. She tells him that they can survive by loving each other. She accepts the blame because she has disobeyed both God and Adam. She ponders suicide. Adam, moved by her speech, forbids her from taking her own life. He remembers their punishment and believes that they can enact revenge on Satan by remaining obedient to God. Together they pray to God and repent. God hears their prayers, and sends Michael down to Earth. Michael arrives on Earth, and tells them that they must leave Paradise. But before they leave, Michael puts Eve to sleep and takes Adam up onto the highest hill, where he shows him a vision of humankind’s future. Adam sees the sins of his children, and his children’s children, and his first vision of death. Horrified, he asks Michael if there is any alternative to death. Generations to follow continue to sin by lust, greed, envy, and pride. They kill each other selfishly and live only for pleasure. Then Michael shows him the vision of Enoch, who is saved by God as his warring peers attempt to kill him. Adam also sees the story of Noah and his family, whose virtue allows them to be chosen to survive the flood that kills all other humans. Adam feels remorse for death and happiness for humankind’s redemption. Next is the vision of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. This story explains the perversion of pure language into the many languages that are spoken on Earth today. Adam sees the triumph of Moses and the Israelites, and then glimpses the Son’s sacrifice to save humankind. After this vision, it is time for Adam and Eve to leave Paradise. Eve awakes and tells Adam that she had a very interesting and educating dream. Led by Michael, Adam and Eve slowly and woefully leave Paradise hand in hand into a new world. There is something I have to make abundantly clear: this has nothing to do with religion. I’m not going to make some rant that Satan is the greatest villain of all time because he will tempt you into evil, and you should all accept Jesus Christ all your personal lord and savior. Nor is this any atheistic rant that there is no Satan and that he was just created by religions around the world to scare people into repenting. This is an examination of Milton’s characterization of Satan, which has to be the most interesting interpretation of Satan ever created. Some readers consider Satan to be the hero, or protagonist, of the story, because he struggles to overcome his own doubts and weaknesses and accomplishes his goal of corrupting humankind. However, this goal is evil, and Adam and Eve are the moral heroes at the end of the story, as they help to begin humankind’s slow process of redemption and salvation. Satan is far from being the story’s object of admiration, as most heroes are, nor does it make sense for readers to celebrate or emulate him, as they might with a true hero. Yet there are many compelling qualities to his character that make him intriguing to readers. One source of Satan’s fascination for us is that he is an extremely complex and subtle character. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for Milton to make perfect, infallible characters such as God the Father, God the Son, and the angels as interesting to read about as the flawed characters, such as Satan, Adam, and Eve. Satan, moreover, strikes a grand and majestic figure, apparently unafraid of being damned eternally, and uncowed by such terrifying figures as Chaos or Death. Many readers have argued that Milton deliberately makes Satan seem heroic and appealing early in the poem to draw us into sympathizing with him against our will, so that we may see how seductive evil is and learn to be more vigilant in resisting its appeal. Milton devotes much of the poem’s early books to developing Satan’s character. One of Satan’s best qualities is his rebelliousness. With his great line, “Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n,” he appeals to people’s sense of freedom and opposition to oppression. It is one of the very reasons many readers look up to him with questionable admiration. Satan’s greatest fault is his pride. He casts himself as an innocent victim, overlooked for an important promotion, but his ability to think so selfishly in Heaven, where all angels are equal and loved and happy, is surprising. His confidence in thinking that he could ever overthrow God displays tremendous vanity and pride. When Satan shares his pain and alienation as he reaches Earth in Book IV, we may feel somewhat sympathetic to him or even identify with him. However, Satan continues to devote himself to evil. Every speech he gives is fraudulent and every story he tells is a lie. He works diligently to trick his fellow devils in Hell by having Beelzebub present Satan’s own plan of action. Satan’s character changes significantly from Book I to his final appearance in Book X. In Book I he is a strong, imposing figure with great abilities as a leader and public statesmen, whereas by the poem’s end he slinks back to Hell in serpent form. Satan’s gradual degradation is dramatized by the sequence of different shapes he assumes. He begins the poem as a just-fallen angel of enormous stature, looks like a comet or meteor as he leaves Hell, then disguises himself as a more humble cherub, then as a cormorant, a toad, and finally a snake. His ability to reason and argue also deteriorates. In Book I, he persuades the devils to agree to his plan. In Book IV, however, he reasons to himself that the Hell he feels inside of him is reason to do more evil. When he returns to Earth again, he believes that Earth is more beautiful than Heaven, and that he may be able to live on Earth after all. Satan, removed from Heaven long enough to forget its unparalleled grandeur, is completely demented, coming to believe in his own lies. He is a picture of incessant intellectual activity without the ability to think morally. Once a powerful angel, he has become blinded to God’s grace, forever unable to reconcile his past with his eternal punishment. But, it isn’t just Milton’s work that makes Satan such the greatest villain of all time; it’s us. Milton’s Paradise Lost has pretty much influence most people and popular culture’s idea of hell and Satan. His characterization of Satan has pretty much become the benchmark of evil. He is the litmus test in which people use to determine just how evil a person is: “He would scare Satan himself,” “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” etc. Hell, most people believe that Pazuzu in “The Exorcist” is Satan himself. And, I know this might look like one big cop-out, but I don’t care. Satan from Paradise Lost is the greatest villain of all time.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jun 23, 2008 21:02:58 GMT -5
Here's the whole list:
100. Walter Peck 99. Sideshow Bob 98. Dean Vernon Wormer 97. Bill Lumbergh 96. The French Taunter 95. Col. Kurtz 94. Baby Jane Hudson 93. Auric Goldfinger 92. The Nosferatu 91. M. Bison 90. Luther 89. The Wicked Witch of the West 88. Frank Booth 87. Bullseye 86. R.J. Fletcher 85. Alonzo Harris 84. Sephiroth 83. Norman Bates 82. Black Adam 81. Herr Starr 80. Annie Wilkes 79. Mr. Blonde 78. Principal Ed Rooney 77. Ivan Drago 76. Cigarette Smoking Man 75. Leatherface 74. Angel Eyes 73. Bob 72. Tony Montana 71. Thanos 70. Daniel Plainview 69. General Zod 68. J.J. Hunsecker 67. Megatron 66. Two-Face 65. Kevin 64. Big Brother 63. Johnny Lawrence 62. Vince McMahon 61. Clubber Lang 60. Mr. Burns 59. Biff Tannen 58. Kid Miracleman 57. Bill The Butcher 56. Venom 55. Max Cady 54. John Doe 53. Predator 52. Dark Phoenix 51. Patrick Bateman 50. Dr. Christian Szell 49. Jason Voorhees 48. Godzilla 47. Eric Cartman 46. HAL 9000 45. Starscream 44. Cobra Commander 43. Randall Flagg 42. Keyser Söze 41. Jabba The Hutt 40. Deathstroke 39. Angelus 38. Anton Chigurh 37. Tony Soprano 36. Nurse Ratched 35. Alex Forrest 34. The Green Goblin 33. Iago 32. The Velociraptors 31. Ozymandias 30. Rowdy Roddy Piper 29. Hans Gruber 28. Grand Moff Tarkin 27. The Xenomorphs 26. Freddy Krueger 25. Gordon Gekko 24. J.R. Ewing 23. Noah Cross 22. Galactus 21. Michael Corleone 20. The Four Horsemen 19. The Red Skull 18. Maleficent 17. The Borg 16. Pennywise 15. Magneto 14. Sauron 13. Khan 12. The Shark 11. Darkseid 10. Emperor Palpatine 9. Professor James Moriarty 8. Count Dracula 7. Pazuzu 6. Lex Luthor 5. Darth Vader 4. Dr. Hannibal Lecter 3. Dr. Doom 2. The Joker 1. Satan
And, that's that. Goodnight, everybody!
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