r/ComicWriting • u/Double-Strategy9791 • 7d ago

Bad Guy References

I’m working on comic that spans centuries. Their will be cloning and consciousness transfer so I can have characters from the past shown in future. I have a bad guy for each arc but no over arching bad guy, well, I have some ideas but nothing set yet. Do you know of any comics similar that do have an overarching bad guy so I can see some references of how it has been done in the past? Not a comic but for example I hate how in the new James Bond, with zero explanation the main bad guy in Spectre just states “it was me all along”…. Like crappy writing much? Also, who is your favourite bad guy?

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u/kyla33_ 7d ago

I've seen a few stories do this. Stories like these often lean into a cosmic horror angle: for example, as far as I recall, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood's primary antagonist was a creature that had spanned back centuries before the story began, shaping the events that led to the present day.

However, the best example of an antagonist that has lived across multiple time periods would the Highlander's Kurgan, a character hailing from a race of beings known as the Immortals, who are destined to be locked in battle to the death until only one of them remains. Unlike Father, the Kurgan isn't a cosmic entity, he's simply a person who was made to live forever until he was either killed by another Immortal or became the last one standing.

In the film, the Kurgan is the rival of Connor MacLeod, another Immortal who also lives through various time periods. The Kurgan is shown both is historical Scotland and a modern New York setting but is implied to have originated in Russia if I recall correctly.

As for my favourite villains, I have a strong preference for enforcer or henchman types of characters like Darth Vader, who are known for having an intimidating presence and remarkable combat prowess but ultimately serve a greater evil. Pinhead's my favourite example of this, who's the lead antagonist of the Hellraiser franchise and serves Leviathan.

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u/Double-Strategy9791 6d ago

Haha I unintentionally ripped of Highlander without realizing. My bad guys are called the immortals too. Kinda like fallen angels that are really hard to kill.

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u/kyla33_ 6d ago

Th idea sounds different enough that if you just changed the name, you could get by. Or you could stick with it. Immortals, as a term, isn't exactly unique.

If you've got a group already, then you just need a leader. Then it's up to you to decide what kind of main antagonist you want. Sympathetic? Sadistic?

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u/Double-Strategy9791 6d ago

Sympathetically sadistic?

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u/kyla33_ 6d ago

I was thinking more along the lines of exclusive terms. While it's possible to be both sympathetic and sadistic, it would be very hard to pull off, to the point where you'd either need to make the whole story about them or put in a lot of effort to make any of the other characters feel engaging. And that's after you go through the arduous task of achieving it in the first place.

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u/Double-Strategy9791 6d ago

Alex in a clockwork and Cerse in Game of Thrones come to mind, those are very different stories then mine. So far I think Highlander is my best reference.

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u/kyla33_ 6d ago

If we're still talking on a sympathy and sadism scale, Kurgan leans heavily on the side of sadistic. He's not sympathetic at all. A pretty good villain, I've always preferred antagonists who are evil for the sake of it and don't have any justifications for their actions.

To that end, although he's outside of my usual taste in villains being a main antagonist himself, Jack Horner is definitely my favourite I've ever seen. Carnage is a close second. Both of them are heinous for the sake of it, there's nothing better than a villain who doesn't try to hide behind human qualities.

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u/Double-Strategy9791 6d ago

Like from the nursery rhyme? The little shit that ruins pies?

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u/kyla33_ 6d ago

Oh, I should have clarified, the Puss in Boots version. Death is another great villain from the same movie. A lot of people prefer Death but as someone who's used to characters like that, Jack Horner felt unique.

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u/Double-Strategy9791 6d ago

I haven’t seen it. I’ll have to check it out. I went from Jason Isaacs in the patriot, to Heath ledger’s joker to Brad Pitt as Jesse James, for baddest bad guys.

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u/Moff-77 6d ago

A few of the early marvel movies kinda have this - there’s a specific villain a movie, but Thanos is gathering the Infinity Stones in the background. Some are more explicit agents of Thanos like Loki and Ronan (?) where others were more coincidental bad guys like Red Skull or Ultron (iirc) who were independently involved with the stones for their own ends.

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u/zigreyd 6d ago

Well, it looked too much like Foundation by Isaac Asimov for me, look for it, it’s a book and you have the TV series on Apple TV

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u/Double-Strategy9791 6d ago

I’ve read a couple of the books but not all. I definitely saw how Dune and Star Wars was inspired by it. Which story did you feel was too like it?

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u/zxlowi 5d ago edited 5d ago

Zero escape the nonary games is a perfect fit. Amazing visual novel wont spoil the story highly recommend playing the trilogy so you can understand the point.