Ranking the DCEU villains

The Dc comics shared movie universe finally had its Justice League movie release this summer to not so great reviews, and at this bench mark in the DCEU's movie history I thought it would be fitting to take a look back and rank the major villains that have appeared in each of the film's up to and including Justice League. These villains were the first to plague the DC universe within these first few movies, and its time to take a look into which were the best of the worst. And a reminder before we go in that this purely my opinion, and there are 100% going to be differing opinions to what I say and that is okay, different people have different preferences and reasons for why they like and dislike a villain, and I am not saying these are definitively the ranking of the DCEU villains, just my personal opinion on how I would rank them. Now without further ado, lets dive in.
Spoilers for the DCEU movies going forward.

Note: (Minor villainous character such as Nam-Ek and KGBeast will not be included, and the members of the Suicide Squad are also omitted as they were effectively the heroes in their stories, and not the villains)



11. Incubus

Incubus was a well kept secret before the release of Suicide Squad in 2016, and during the movie much about him was kept a secret as well, right down to why he didn't destroy the Suicide Squad in seconds despite being touted as a God. We watched him take down helicopters through the film, resist gunfire, and effortlessly absorb others into his mass, yet when he is put up against a woman with a bat, a man with boomerangs, a man with guns, and a man who shoots fire, Incubus is suddenly incapable of defending himself properly. He also only spoke around two lines of dialogue throughout the film, and spent most of it sitting out of sight lacking characterization of any sort. Incubus was big, bad, and bland, with his slick, colorful design unable to save his wasted character.

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11. Joker

Admittedly, I am not a huge Joker fan, I think the character is fine, entertaining, but I don't enthuse over him as one of the best villains of all time, and Suicide Squad's version of Joker did nothing to change my mind about the character. I didn't go into the movie thinking he was the main villain, as I knew it was Enchantress, but I assumed he would at least be a wild card in the movie that would cause mayhem and be a general thorn in the side of the characters...turns out he was just a minor nuisance. Joker seemed to be included just so there would be a Joker in the new film saga for people to talk about and compare to the others, and the overall impact he had on the plot was minimal to none; in fact I think he would have been better served to have just been restricted to Harley Quinn's backstory montage and that would have worked better than the waste of screen time he ended up being. The one thing that saved this character from being dead last for me is that he's the Joker that I personally think appears to be the most genuinely insane and unhinged movie version of the character, he seems to act on instinct instead of calculated planning like other movie Jokers have done, and that fits more in line with my image of the character.

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9. Enchantress

Incubus' sister and the primary antagonist of the Suicide Squad film, Enchantress' villainy was kept a secret before the film's release. Then when everyone found out that she was the villain, she was met with an immense "meh,". Visually compelling, but hollow as a character. Enchantress came across as bland and while she had more lines than her brother, they all amounted to beat by beat villainous monologue. She also suffered the same problem her brother did when it came to power levels, as she seems wholly unable to kill the Suicide Squad despite laughably calling out "Enough!" and pulling all their weapons from their hands. That single action puts it to question why she bothered fighting them at all if she could easily disarm them from afar, which would have been useful when her brother was being killed. Despite high hopes for the sibling duo, Enchantress ultimately falls to the bottom of the barrel and only makes it above her brother and Joker for the sheer fact that she got more to do.

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8. Steppenwolf

The villain of the first ever Justice League movie, I had high hopes for Steppenwolf after watching the trailers for the movie. He seemed to be in a large majority of the film and would get multiple fight scenes with the heroes, then I saw the opening scene in which he takes on the amazonian army by himself and I was convinced that he would be one of the best villains the DCEU had seen...then my hopes were dashed. Steppenwolf went on to be a rather generic villain overall, with sub par fight scenes, dodgy cgi, and eventually a complete lack of threat once Superman arrived. Design wise, I liked how Steppenwolf looked, I only wished the cgi for him had been perfected more, and that he had gotten a backstory of some manner that had been reportedly cut out of the film. Instead, he is left as a hollow, uncharacteristic villain who gets to do little more than swing his axe without style and get killed off in a lame manner.
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7. Ludendorff

At this point in the list is where I truly have no bad tidings towards the characters I go over, it just matters who I like more at this point. Ludendorff could have easily been a generic, flat villain like others we have seen before, but as soon as he walked on screen I could tell that he was going to be different. When his soldiers told him that they needed more food and sleep, Ludendorff told them that he himself was not getting that stuff either, and Lufdendorff's dynamic with Doctor Maru was one that I endlessly enjoyed; their giggling after killing off the German leaders is still one of my favorite villain moments in the whole DCEU. He also seemed to genuinely care for Maru, instead of treating her like an underling, and for two thirds of the movie he got to be the primary antagonist before Ares was revealed. Ludendorff didn't come off as a regular villain to me, and he gets bonus points for an awesome power up whenever he took the strength gas; the blue pulsing in his face and the shaking of the camera looked perfect.


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6. Doctor Maru

Also called Doctor Poison in the film, she was another one along with Ludendorff that could have been really generic but ended up capturing my attention whenever they were onscreen to the point that I wished it had focused more on them. I felt bad for Doctor Maru, she had to wear that mask all the time and seemed really insecure about herself to the point that she seems shocked when Steve Trevor speaks to her at the gala. Maru appeared to cling to Ludendorff who supported her, and they had a sweet dynamic, even for a pair of villains. I also thought that her final scene was perfect in which Wonder Woman is faced with the choice of killing Maru, I wanted to see Maru's mask come off and a tear come down her face when in danger of being killed, and that's exactly what I got! She ended up surviving and I'm glad, I just hope she went on to find someone like Ludendorff who cares about her.

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5. Doomsday

To be completely honest, his design did not bother me like it did others. To me he looked like Doomsday from the comics with smaller spikes, and even with smaller spikes he was still a really big monster who gave us a truly epic final battle scene. No matter how CGI heavy it was, seeing Doomsday go up against Superman and Wonder Woman was truly amazing, as well as seeing Batman's terrified look when Doomsday set his sight on him. Doomsday was really only there to fight, and the fight did not disappoint, leading up to the tragic death of Superman that was orchestrated with beautiful music, and massive spectacle. No matter how many complaints there are about Doomsday from the film, I will always remember the monster fondly for one of the best climaxes in the whole DCEU saga thus far.

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4. Ares

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Ares is probably the closest we will ever have to a Dark Souls villain in the DCEU, the armor just has that feel to it. The plot twist surrounding him did not totally grab me since Sir Patrick had not been that major of a character in the film, but Ares stuck out to me a lot because in the end...he was right? He argued that humans were bad, that they started wars, and killed one another, and he isn't wrong. It was interesting to see a villain who in the end was right, painfully right, and so aesthetically pleasing to look at with his armor. When Diana believed that he was lying to her about things and she roped him with her lasso and ordered him to tell the truth it gave me chills when he calmly told her, "I am." Ares was built up as a bloodthirsty warmonger throughout the film, and seeing him as a more logical, composed villain who was not completely at fault was a great surprise. He had the perfect viewpoint to counter Diana's, and any villain that shows us the best of the hero is a winner.

3. Faora

Faora-Ul was the secondary antagonist in the first ever DCEU film, Man of Steel, and she was awesome. She did not have an in-depth backstory, but her presence was enough to get me excited as she acted with stoic coldness and behaved as a trained warrior would. Her fight scene with Kal remains one of my favorite superhero fight scenes of all time, and she was the perfect second in command to General Zod in the film. Her final moments in the film were also awesome, with her tearing her way through the plane only to have her own words from earlier in the film thrown back into her face before her death.

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2. Lex Luthor

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Lex Luthor was not a popular character after the release of Batman v Superman, and the performance his actor gave has been polarizing to fans across the board; however, I am one of the people that genuinely enjoyed Jessie Eisenburg's performance as Lex.  He was maniacal, smart, and believably unhinged as someone who would want to kill Superman. I thought that his reasoning behind that was perfect as well, and expertly put into the film. Beaten and mistreated by his father, Lex grew despondant from God who he blamed for letting him suffer, and once Superman appeared Lex had someone to call God and who he could get revenge on. This was never explained bluntly, Lex never sat down and said to Superman, "Let me tell you about my father," instead, little bits of dialogue throughout the film tell us Lex's story without having the story be outright told. As an audience, we can put together Lex's story for ourselves. The scene in which Lex and Superman meet atop the skyscraper is to this day my favorite scene from the film, solely based on their conversation alone and Lex's obvious excitement to finally meet "God" who he made bow. Lex ended up winning in the end, and I am excited to see where the character goes next in the franchise.

1. General Zod

Man of Steel was the first film in the DCEU, and the first ever villain of the franchise remains my all time favorite even today. General Zod had reason behind what he was doing, and lost that reason by the end of the movie which made for a passionate, beautiful monologue delivered by the villain who had lost his reason for existence. Zod had history with Kal as a good friend of his fathers, as well as his father's murderer during the amazing opening sequence on Krypton. Zod gave a compelling, character rich presence throughout the film up to the explosive final fight which I love every second of, it had variety, amazing music, and incredible atmosphere as Zod put Superman to the fight of his life and ultimately forced Kal to make his first kill by the end. Zod was a truly great villain in my opinion, and no other villains in the DCEU have come close to matching the level of depth that he developed.

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That is my list of how I think the villains of the DCEU so far rank up compared to one another! With Justice League over, the first segment of the DCEU has been a bumpy ride but one with a slew of awesome villains. It makes me excited to see the villains who will be coming next, and how they rank up to the ones we already have!