There are few villains in the DC Universe as frightening as Darkseid. Created by writer/artist Jack Kirby, Darkseid is the ultimate villain, a being who desires nothing less than the complete and total subjugation of every living being in the Multiverse. Few villains in any comic universe can match his evil or his mighty power and every time he shows up, it’s an extinction-level event that requires all hands on deck.
Darkseid has been through a lot of changes over the years, but not all of them have been beneficial to the character. Darkseid is an easy character to understand but he’s also very easy to get wrong.
10 For Better: He’s Moved Beyond Just The Fourth World
Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Saga was his opening salvo on the DC Universe, telling the stories he wanted to tell in his own way and creating an entirely new mythology from scratch. Darkseid was the dark heart of that, a fictional devil meant to represent the worst excesses of humanity. After he left DC and the Saga ended, Darkseid expanded his focus.
Darkseid quickly became the big bad of everyone, an all-powerful villain who represented the gravest threat the Multiverse had to offer. He didn’t just want to rule or mindlessly destroy everything, but to control and enslave and is exactly the type of villain the brightest heroes would face.
9 For Worse: Making Him A Superman Villain Was Appropriate But It Nerfed Him
Darkseid would eventually become a Superman villain, which in a way fits rather well. Everything he desires is the exact opposite of Superman and it makes sense that Superman would fight him. The problem comes in that Superman’s whole gimmick is winning and having a mortal, even a Kryptonian one, beat Darkseid feels wrong.
There are lots of characters who Darkseid hasn’t beat, but Superman shouldn’t be one of them. In order to make that happen, Darkseid had to be nerfed. This doesn’t fit a being who is ostensibly the God of Evil and the greatest evil in the Multiverse.
8 For Better: They’ve Let Him Win
Kirby created Darkseid as the ultimate evil of his new cosmology, a Devil for the twentieth century. The problem with that is the Devil always has to lose in mythology and religion; good always triumphs in the end. A villain that only loses isn’t scary, though, and Darkseid needs to be scary in order to work.
Over the years, various creators have had Darkseid win some of his battles and this went a long way towards building his dark mystique. If Darkseid always lost, no one would ever believe he was a threat. Letting him beat the heroes once in a while was important to developing the character’s threat.
7 For Worse: His Omega Eyebeams Rarely Work
One of Darkseid’s greatest powers has always been his eyebeams. He can fire a blast called the Omega Effect, which follows its targets and is supposed to be a one-hit kill. There’s also the Omega Sanction, which he can use to send a foe back through time. Both of these powers are defining ones for the character but they don’t work nearly as well as they should.
The problem with giving a villain like Darkseid a one-hit kill is that he’s going to use it. Having Darkseid kill off a hero works sometimes but he’d be using the Omega Effect all the time and would have killed every hero in the universe years ago if it always worked. Nerfing it was a necessity in a lot of ways but it also takes away one of his most frightening weapons.
6 For Better: Grant Morrison Redefined The Character For The New Millennium
Grant Morrison is one of the most prolific writers in the modern comic industry and most of their American work has been at DC. Morrison has a deep and abiding love for DC and it shows in every book they do. One character that has flourished under Morrison was Darkseid. While Morrison didn’t use the villain often, when they did they showed how well they understood what Kirby meant the character to be.
Morrison’s version of Darkseid was the perfect encapsulation of the God of Evil but focused through the prism of their massive imagination. Their Darkseid keeps the Kirby bombast of the character but refined the whole thing and made the villain feel special and unique.
5 For Worse: The New 52 Costume Was Not Great
When the New 52 began, writer Geoff Johns used Darkseid as the first villain that brought the Justice League together and like other characters in the New 52, Darkseid got a makeover. While it kept the color scheme and the headpiece, it changed everything else about Kirby’s simple design. Like too many New 52 designs, the costume was just too busy.
Darkseid’s original look was a bit ridiculous, it was the God of Evil wearing shorts after all, but it worked very well for the character. The new design felt a little too overdesigned for Darkseid and didn’t fit the character very well.
4 For Better: He’s Used Sparingly Enough To Make His Appearances Specials
As great as Kirby’s Fourth World was, Darkseid and his minions were the main villains of multiple books. This meant Darkseid made a lot of appearances; for a fan of the Fourth World books, he was a constant. After those books ended, Darkseid’s appearance lessened more and more.
Unlike a lot of villains, it can be years between Darkseid appearances. The New 52 utilized him several times more than usual to varying degrees of success, but it still felt like an event when he showed up. Keeping Darkseid out of things constantly allows the villain to still feel special and make his appearances as a bad guy count even more.
3 For Worse: Using Him As The First Villain Of The New 52 Was A Mistake
There are some who would argue that using Darkseid as the threat to bring together the Justice League makes more sense than how it was done in the Silver Age, with Starro. Darkseid has name recognition that Starro didn’t at the time of the beginning of the New 52 and DC was trying to put their best foot forward. Finding a threat to challenge the entire League is hard, so Darkseid should have made sense.
The problem comes in that starting things with Darkseid means there’s nothing to build to. The next time he returned, the Justice League already knew they could withstand his assault, as even Batman on his own had weathered a Darkseid attack. Leading with Darkseid was a mistake.
2 For Better: Positioning Him As A Universe Ending Threat Does Him Justice
Kirby’s idea for Darkseid was that he was the tiger force at the center of all things, the inhuman drive to subjugate and consume that all good people fight against. DC’s creators have done an amazing job at making sure that Darkseid is an all-powerful threat when he shows up, barring some missteps like the New 52 Darkseid.
Making Darkseid the final boss of the new DC Omniverse in Infinite Frontier #0 was the perfect way to bring the character back and do justice to Kirby’s vision of the character. Putting him on Earth-Omega is icing on the evil cake.
1 For Worse: Batman Has Beat Him Too Many Times
It’s one thing for Superman to defeat Darkseid; it’s a stretch but one can see it happening. It’s another thing when Batman does it. Batman’s whole prep time thing has made him one of the more insufferable characters in comics far too often and, while it works within reason, having him survive any battle with Darkseid, let alone win one, is a road too far.
The amount of times that Batman should be able to beat Darkseid without the Justice League at his side is exactly zero. Any more than that is insulting to Darkseid and cheapens the villain. Even Batman surviving a fight with Darkseid without major league help is too much.
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