Through groundbreaking successes and hotly debated controversies, the DC Extended Universe has been churning out heroes and villains on the big screen for long-time comic book fans and newbies alike. It’s reimagined the biggest supervillains and the most minor of henchmen into something new while paying respect to the vast lineage that has made DC characters so enshrined in popular culture.
Join us as we count down and celebrate the best of the baddest. From cruel gods enacting their will on the world to greedy mortals fulfilling their darkest desires, these are the best villains of the DCEU so far.
Ares
When you see a renowned British character actor show up in the second act, then you can make a pretty safe bet that they’ll be revealed as a villain in the third. David Thewlis nonetheless does a perfect job of playing the dual roles of Ares the God of War and his alter-ego, Sir Patrick Morgan.
One, a mild-mannered and vaguely paternalistic gentleman that makes good use of Thewlis’ association with the calming wizards of the Harry Potter world. The other, an actual god who can fly and control matter and everything. He’s the classic kind of self-defeating villain that the DCEU needed at that time.
Doctor Poison
Wonder Woman’s most interesting villain spends most of her time in the shadow of male counterparts, but it does successfully shroud her in an important air of mystery that the other villains of the movie simply don’t have.
Doctor Isabel Maru, known as Doctor Poison for her work with chemical weaponry, is diabolical and sadistic as a villain, even going so far as to disfigure herself – according to director Patty Jenkins – to test the power of her weaponry. Yet she ends up becoming the soul of the movie during the title character’s big moment of moral choice. That’s everything a villain should be.
Steppenwolf
He gets a bad rap, mainly for being the most apparent of the downgrades that happened in the Whedon-izing of Justice League. But, beyond his very unpolished looking design, Steppenwolf was a bad guy who wasn’t just good at being a bad guy—he enjoyed being a bad guy.
There’s nothing about him that makes him think, or pretend, that he’s doing the right thing. He’s a guy who blows up planets because he just really likes blowing up planets, and there’s something very amusing and endearing about a motivation that simple. He’s a Saturday morning cartoon villain for a Saturday morning cartoon movie.
Black Manta
A much more accomplished example of a villain who leaves themselves open for a sequel than Steppenwolf. Black Manta may not have been the main villain of Aquaman, but actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stole every scene he was in and that was, of course, the point. For a movie bursting at the seams with so many ideas, Aquaman was deceptively playing the long game.
Aquaman’s famous arch-rival clearly has his best moments ahead of him, and the movie lays an unshakable groundwork for bigger and better things in the future. Despite being fairly iconic, Black Manta isn’t the easiest sell to a general audience, but James Wan constructs a world so wild that he fits right in.
Doctor Sivana
Mark Strong was one of the few things that worked about DC’s semi-disastrous first attempt at a Green Lantern movie, as the villainous Sinestro, so it was good to see him return to the world of DC comics as equally-famous villain Doctor Thaddeus Sivana in Shazam!
Strong, who has a pretty imposing screen presence, plays Sivana with the requisite dorkiness without ever making the character feel entirely like a joke. Mad scientists are an untapped source of villainous fun in comic book movies in general, and Sivana looks to have the legs that Sinestro never did. Paired with fan-favorite villain Mister Mind, the character could easily become a welcome staple of the DCEU going forward.
Faora-Ul
Played by Antje Traue in Man of Steel, Faora-Ul was a sub-commander in the Kryptonian military and continues her role after the destruction of her homeworld as General Zod’s right-hand woman. She’s a fearsome, and fearless, warrior who operates without hesitation or morality.
On Earth, she gains most of Superman’s rudimentary abilities and uses them to devastating effect in the fiery destruction of Smallville’s main street. She’s sent back to the Phantom Zone, and possibly killed, during the final battle of the movie over Metropolis when the airplane she’s in is flown directly into a Kryptonian ship. In her own words, “a good death is its own reward.”
King Orm
The second-born of Queen Atlanna and the seemingly-benevolent ruler of the Kingdom of Atlantis, King Orm harbors a deep-seated resentment towards the surface world because of his mother’s decision to live there and her resulting execution. He seeks to take his frustration out on the people of the surface by declaring war against them and killing all Atlanteans who oppose him.
A skilled warrior and a conniving tactician, Orm goes undefeated in combat with his father’s trident until finally facing off against his half-brother, Aquaman, and the legendary trident of King Atlan. His cocky attitude and emotionally complex familial bonds could make him the DCEU’s Loki.
Lex Luthor
Jesse Eisenberg’s take on Superman’s infamous arch-nemesis drew as many polarized responses as the movie he debuted in did. For some people, it was a little too over-the-top. But, for others, it delivered something refreshing for a character that, much like the Superman movies, had been too slavishly chained to Richard Donner’s original 1978 movie.
Eisenberg’s Luthor focuses on the character’s underlying psychological motivations for his hatred of Superman, drawing from the obsessive nature of Luthor’s lust for superiority over other men and the madness produced by his confrontation with a man who will always be better than him. The result is a cartoonishly animated, but often frighteningly unhinged, individual.
General Zod
Back when Lex Luthor was still just a name on the side of trucks, Michael Shannon gave the DCEU its very first villain and set things off with an almighty boom. Shannon takes Terence Stamp’s infamously snooty – almost Disney villain-esque – interpretation of the fearsome military leader and gives him over completely to Zack Snyder’s supercharged machismo.
Zod makes up the best parts of Man of Steel because he’s so in touch with what Snyder’s DCEU movies were always trying to be at their core: operatic. Zod isn’t just mad with power in Man of Steel, he’s mad on his own sense of duty. He represents the failed system that Superman has to oppose in the movie and it gives his motivations an unusual amount of weight.
Amanda Waller
Viola Davis’ turn as the fan-favorite character produced the DCEU’s most human, and most cunning, villain in what has been their most critically reviled effort yet. Davis manages to outshine some of the biggest, brightest, loudest stars in an almighty ensemble movie that's chock-full of conflicting motivations and personalities.
In a movie featuring some of the most colorful gangsters to ever appear on the screen, Amanda Waller stands confidently as the don of them all. Characters like The Joker are momentary annoyances as far as she’s concerned. She causes a globally destructive incident mostly just to watch what would happen and, when it’s all over, she gets off scot-free.