Top Five Dumbest Super Villains

By Jeff Wysaski on September 14th, 2009

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The world of comic books has given the world some of the most original and diabolical antagonists in the history of the written word. Venom, Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom – these are just a few of the supremely badass super villains that us mild-mannered on-lookers simply love to hate.

But for every classic super villain, there are a slew of lesser-known and incredibly less menacing super villains speckled throughout Gotham City, Metropolis and Apokolips.

Hypno-Hustler

Spiderman has faced his fair share of dumb super villains. In the age of disco, Hypno-Hustler emerged as the worst. This dude, named Antoine, was in a disco band and used special goggles and music to hypnotize club-goers into handing over all their money to him (to finance his coke habit?). Luckily, Spiderman hatches a brilliant plan to evade Hypno-Hustler’s mind control tricks – he covers his ears!

Disco + petty larceny + super obvious Achilles Heel = SUPER DUMB!

Humpty Dumpty

When your name is based off a character who’s greatest claim to fame was sitting on a wall (and he couldn’t even do that right), well your chances for striking fear into the hearts and minds of do-gooders is pretty much slim to none. Humpty Dumpty is most famous for his appearance in Batman’s Arkham Asylum series, in which the egg-shaped troublemaker sneaks around disassembling and reassembling various mechanical devices.

He’s fat. He speaks in rhyme. At one point he actually falls off a wall. Sorry, DC Comics, but using nursery rhymes as inspiration for super villains just isn’t going to cut it.

Asbestos Man

When eggheads don’t get the respect from the scientific community that they think they deserve, what do they do? Why they don a ridiculous costume and use their intelligence and childish need for attention to attack superheroes. One of the lamest of these science guys was Orson Kasloff, aka Asbestos Man.

Theorizing that the best way to combat the Human Torch was to wear a suit of flame-retardant material, Kasloff constructs a suit of asbestos. Sadly, Asbestos Man is defeated when the Human Torch melts the handle on his asbestos net, rendering it useless.

Kasloff was sent to prison and never seen again. Given the amount of asbestos exposure he suffered, he probably died of mesothelioma long ago.

Granny Goodness

A super villain built around the persona of Phyllis Diller? Jack Kirby, what were you thinking? Granny first appeared as an adversary in the Mister Miracle series, employed as a trainer for Darkseid’s elite soldiers. She runs the Apokolips orphanage, using severe torture and brainwashing to mold the children into Darkseid’s minions.

I don’t care if she does have superhuman strength. I don’t care if she teleports. I don’t care if she ran a brothel. She’s old, and she goes by “Granny.” That doesn’t scare me in the slightest.

Rainbow Raider

With a name like Roy G. Bivolo, it seems that Roy was always destined to be an artist. Unfortunately, young Roy was born colorblind, spurring his optometrist father to build a pair of goggles that emitted piercing beams of rainbow light.

When the world laughed at his artwork, Roy used these goggles for evil. To get around, Rainbow Raider slides down the pretty rainbows he shoots from his goggles. And to overcome his foes, he has the insidious power to affect people’s emotions by coating them in a specific color (how diabolical!). He is a reoccurring adversary to The Flash.

Sorry, but rainbows just aren’t used for being cool or wicked. They’re used for Care Bears, unicorns and leprechauns.

Honorable Mentions:

• Crazy Quilt
• Doughboy
• The Turtle
• Stilt Man
• Ten-Eyed Man
• The Big Wheel
• Typeface