10 Most Terrifying Villains In DC Comics
DC has made a name for itself with some of the most unnerving villains in fiction.
Halloween may be over, but for DC fans, spooky season lasts all year. If DC Comics are known for one thing above all else, it's being the darker, grittier counterpart to the often-more-upbeat Marvel, and telling stories that revolve around truly unsettling, sinister antagonists.
Comic fans almost universally agree that DC leads the industry when it comes to villains, often pointing to Batman's infamous rogues gallery, or cosmic threats like Darkseid, and it goes much deeper than that. DC has been publishing "mature content" and horror comics for decades, under various imprints, from Vertigo to Black Label, to the new Hill House comics that just started up, and unsurprisingly, they've produced some of the most twisted characters that comics have to offer.
Some villains are power-hungry overlords, some are sympathetic would-be heroes who went too far, and some are just pure nightmare fuel. Whether they debuted in mainstream DC titles, or in one of the company's many imprints, each of the villains on this list proves that DC's reputation for grim stories and dark characters is entirely earned, if not understated.
10. The Joker
In light of DC's recent cinematic megahit, which is now a cultural landmark and the centerpiece of worldwide discussion - a movie based largely on the disturbing nature of its titular main character - it would be nothing short of criminal to leave The Joker off this list.
This summer featured two different movies centered around killer clowns, and the one that was an actual horror movie based on classic source material from Stephen King was, remarkably, the less unnerving of the two.
Of course there are many differences between Arthur Fleck and the classic comic iterations of The Joker, but one thing that's shared between them is how remorseless and brutal the character is. In the comics he viciously murdered kids, skinned a man alive and made him dance on stage while he died, and sexually assaulted multiple victims. It's hard to get more creepy than The Joker.