10 Smartest Comic Book Villains

By K.J. Stewart / August 14, 2014

9. Mister Sinister (Marvel Comics)

Mister Sinister, simply put, is just a great character - and he's more than just a smart villain.

He€™s incredibly powerful, possessing telepathy, telekinesis, molecular manipulation, a healing factor to rival Wolverine's, superhuman durability and strength, and formidable fighting skills, but he is indeed also extremely intelligent. Sinister has been a key component in the origins and manipulation of several important characters in the X-Men comics and is particularly strongly associated with Apocalypse (he has impersonated him using his cunning, made pacts with him, joined forces against common foes with him, gone directly up against him €“ such as the time he used his genetics knowledge to create Cable specifically to destroy him €“ and, most importantly, he was essentially created by Apocalypse in the first place).

He is also a scientific genius, with expertise in the fields of biology and genetics (as already touched upon thanks to the aforementioned mentioning of his creation of Cable), cloning, physics and engineering. He's a master manipulator (he manipulated Apocalypse for Christ's sake, as we already said) and planner, which is thanks to his age having granted him decades of scientific research to fall back on. He has gone to incredible lengths to preserve his powers and personality through elaborate technology of his own creation, such as conditioning certain children to be his "hosts" in the event of his future death.

Mister Sinister is so arrogant (and rightly so when you're as much of a genius as he is) that he is almost likeable, but you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him - because if he didn't squash you like a bug on the spot, he could make your life hell with his cunning mind alone.