REVIEW • D-List Villains (The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains by Jon Morris)

Meet the lesser of all evils!

Every hero needs a villain. But not all villains are dangerous–some are incompetent, comical, or just . . . weird.

In his follow-up to The League of Regrettable Superheroes, author Jon Morris presents over a hundred of the strangest, most stupefying supervillains to ever see print in comics. Meet D-list rogues like Brickbat (choice of weapon: poisonous bricks), Robbing Hood (steals from the poor to give to the rich), Swarm (a crook made of bees; Nazi bees), and many more. Drawing on the entire history of the medium, The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains affectionately and hilariously profiles oddball criminals from the history of comics.[/note]

myreview

[note note_color=”#BFD1D1″ text_color=”#ffffff”]I received this book for free from Quirk Books for review consideration. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.[/note]

First sentence: “What good is a superhero without a decent supervillain?”

We all remember villains like the Joker, Red Skull, Magneto, and Scarecrow. However, not all villains in superhero comics are gonna be a hit. Comics go through many villains—good and bad ones—and many of them have been forgotten or ignored. The League of Regrettable Supervillains showcases the D-list strangest super villains you have never heard of, and when you read about them, you’ll understand why they are rarely remembered.

**In The League of Regrettable Supervillains, you get…**

A brief introduction of the different eras of comics books—the Golden, Silver, and Modern age.

Each eras describe a different point in American comic books. The Golden Age, which is between the 1930s to 1950s, is the start everything—specifically the creation of the superhero and the supervillain. This time period was an “era of endless possibilities” where there were no rules of how and what a villain should be. The Silver Age, which covers the mid 1950s to 1970, was an age where the villains’ got deeper backstories that were on par with their super villain counterparts. They had a recurring appearance in comics, whereas prior to this age, most villains were one-shots. The Modern Age covers villains that had become more darker but also maintaining that deep backstory.

A bunch of strange D-list villains.

You get profiles—a bit of their history, their superhero counterpart, their creators, and what comic they came from—of all types of strange and incompetent super villains you didn’t know existed! Take these villains:

Former opera legend wearing a crow costume and terrorizing people because he’s not on top and unable to sing on pitch
Homicidal marionette toys
Poor man’s villainous Spider Man who shoots plastic ropes
Detached body parts like hands or heads
Weirdly named villains like “Animal-vegetable-mineral man” and “Brickbat”
Ugly racist stereotypical villains emphasizing on the ~oriental threat
Supervillain group of jugglers
A featureless pink head man who’s emotions are expressed through written sans serif words like PONDER or FROWN on his face

And there’s plenty more villains I haven’t talked about.

Comic panels involving these villains.

Each profile of these villains contain vintage comic panels, portraying the things that the villain will say and do. These panels give you a taste of what these villains are life, and it really takes you back.

Should you read The League of Regrettable Supervillains? Sure. Don’t you want to read about all the silly and incompetent super villains that never quite ~made it? The League of Regrettable Supervillains is one of those books that you don’t have to read from the start. You can open up to page 112 and read about the profile of this ridiculous villain. It’s great to learn about all the villains you didn’t know even existed.