10 Most Embarrassing Moments For Comic Book Villains

7. Darkseid Is... Very Good At Underestimating Batman (Final Crisis)

Batman Darkseid Final Crisis
DC Comics

Of all the various Crises to have penetrated the fabric of the DCU, Final Crisis has to be the best. Written by Grant Morrison and published in 2008, FC reintroduced Darkseid with a bang, placing the anti-life equation in his possession and forcing the world's heroes to hop across the multiverse in an effort to stop him.

But while Superman was off-world fighting the vampiric embodiment of evil (seriously, it's terrifying), Batman was leading the resistance on Earth. Captured early on by Kalabak, the Dark Knight eventually breaks free and arms himself with a God-killing projectile, one that was used to kill Orion at the very start of the event.

Darkseid, on the cusp of regaining all his powers and seemingly unfazed at the sight of a human, let alone one with the skill-set of Batman, merely berates the Dark Knight once confronted. Sensing a moment of opportunity, Bats fires his weapon, mortally wounding the tyrant and planting the chink in his armour needed for the rest of the Justice League to finish him off.

Lesson #1 of supervillainy: never underestimate Batman.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.