10 Terrifying Comic Supervillains That Gave You Nightmares
Every day is Halloween - if you just believe.
Between carrying out nightmarish atrocities and bearing gimmicks that resemble those of horror movie monsters, it should come as no surprise that an awful lot of comic villains are actually pretty scary.
Given that their role is essentially to cause evil, it makes sense that some villains genuinely unnerve people. While the catalogue of fear-inducing faces changes from person to person - somebody out there has to be frightened of Kite Man - there are some villains so vile and unsettling that just about everyone remembers the pages they inhabit with something close to fear.
In fact, this is some of what makes comics so great, as having a bad guy that brings out the same reaction in you as it does the characters within the comic makes it feel all the more real.
It's also a decent hallmark of a successful artist and writer, as being able to create a character that is genuinely horrifying shows an amazing (if vaguely concerning) imagination. From mad scientists to Lovecraftian horrors, some supervillains were made to strike terror into their readers' hearts.
From the pages of Marvel, DC and beyond, here are the villains that made us all just that little bit hesitant about switching off the lights.
10. Victor Zsasz
If villains were colours, Victor Zsasz would be decidedly beige.
In terms of the surreal world of Batman, he's a surprisingly conventional villain, armed with only a skill and need for murder. The fact that - homicidal tendencies aside - Zsasz is a normal guy is what makes him just so scary, as out of all the Rogues Gallery he is the one who could easily exist in real life.
His incessant need to tally his victims is yet more unnerving, as the only point at which Zsasz will stop killing is when his body physically cannot hold any more marks - and as this is the same guy who plans to scar inside his eyelid after killing the Batman, its likely that this murder limit is a very long way away.
With villains who use magical powers outlandish science to do evil, there's a level of safety for a reader, as at the least the subject of their terror wouldn't be possible in reality. Every time Zsasz is on page we are reminded that people similar to him exist in the real world, and that's perhaps a little closer to us than anyone would like.