Supervillainess
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A supervillainess is a female supervillain. Often the supervillainess is a femme fatale, a female criminal who knowingly uses her attractiveness to create sexual tension that distracts and threatens to destroy a story's hero. Rarely was the supervillainess used as a character in Western classical literature. A few appeared in the dime novel, but they did not really become pervasive until the advent of the American superhero comic book, the "hard-boiled" detective stories starting from the 1920s, Hollywood's film noir, and the spy craze of the 1950s and 1960s. Science fiction and fantasy literature and films, too, are amply endowed with supervillainesses.
Like many inventions and concepts, the supervillainess has a Chinese progenitor. A "folk novel" of the Ming dynasty, Feng Shen Yan Yi, a name usually translated as Investiture of the Gods, has the earliest. To explain how the Shang dynasty, ruled by a Chinese Emperor who has the Mandate of Heaven, could be overthrown and replaced by the Chou dynasty, the author invents three gorgeous, magically-powered demonesses who attack the subjects who try to rescue the Emperor, and who are able to madden him and pull him to his doom. In this way the novel reconciles the historical events of the dynastic succession with the Chinese veneration of the Emperor as a quasi-divine figure. This work is most accessible to Westerners through its anime elaboration, renamed Soul Hunter.
The supervillainess also has a long history in Western mythology. Homer wrote in The Odyssey of the witch Circe who tempted Ulysses (Odysseus) on his long journey home to Ithaca, and through her magic turned his shipmates into pigs. Other examples include the elven women of knights' tales, such as La Belle Dame sans Merci and Morgan Le Fey, though these tales do not have the plot elaborations woven around them later in literature such as Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur.
Some of the many modern invocations of the supervillainess are described below.
Contents |
[edit] American Comics
[edit] DC Comics
With the first issue of the comic book Batman, The Cat appeared, later to become the Catwoman. Wonder Woman had the Cheetah as an opponent, although there wasn't any sexual tension with that superheroine. Near the end of the golden age of comics, a burglaress named Black Canary (who, in her next appearance, became a superhero) first appeared as an opponent of Johnny Thunder.
In the silver age, supervillainesses took a while to appear. Hal Jordan became Green Lantern when he received an essentially magical item when specially selected by a man from outer space. When his boss Carol Ferris was selected to receive one by women from outer space, she was misled into becoming Star Sapphire, his premier supervillainess.
The teenage Supergirl began her independent set of stories having young girls as her primary audience. Thus, her identical duplicate from the bottle-city of Kandor, whose name was Lesla-Lar didn't have much contact with male characters in the DC universe. Some criminals from the Phantom Zone destroyed her within a couple of years. Thus there never was the tension of a man confronting an evil Supergirl.
Aquaman had a bit of confusion with his wife Mera's identical twin sister, and then a supervillainess from the sea-world of the planet Venus appeared to get him to enable her criminal lover and his gang to survive in the seas of the Earth. This silvery-blue-skinned, dark-gray-haired Aliena was depicted with the slightly different eye contours of an Asian. However, she dies within the frame of one issue.
Genia was a robot similar to Brainiac, who became an opponent of the World's Finest superheroes: the Batman and Superman, while the Queen Bee appeared as an opponent of the entire Justice League of America.
Poison Ivy first appeared as a supervillainess proclaiming that she was superior to three other supervillainesses depicted in one issue and never appearing again for decades: Silken Spider, Tiger Moth, and Dragon Fly.
Adam Strange's own supervillainess, named Brittis years before girls were named after a certain peninsula of France, was superbly drawn by the romance comics artist Sid Greene, and had her own touch of the mythological imagination: it is not depicted clearly what she looked like before, but in order to get Adam Strange as her own, a machine in her spaceship changes the contours of her body so that he will fall for her. She sighs, putting up with the change, whatever it would be.
The second Flash, aka Barry Allen, had a supervillainess called the Golden Glider, who was the mistress of the villain called the Top.
Glorith was somehow connected with the faceless Time Trapper. She and the Emerald Empress were opponents of the Legion of Super-Heroes. A few times, some of the superheroines of that group were temporarily brainwashed by aliens into temporary supervillainesses as well, turning on their male teammates.
[edit] Marvel Comics
The most extraordinary supervillainess of all American comic books was Dark Phoenix, whose story is one of a few comic book tales which ranks with tragedy. Another important and powerful supervillainess in the Marvel Universe was Mystique.
Another supervillainess from the Marvel Universe is Lady Octopus, the female version of Doctor Octopus.
Originally, there were supervillainesses who became superheroines or became neutral, like Black Widow who was originally a spy, and the Scarlet Witch was originally an opponent of the X-Men, as was Emma Frost.
[edit] American Serial Films
The serial of 1942, Perils of Nyoka, features Lorna Gray playing a costumed villainess named Vultura. Carol Foreman starred in the title role of The Black Widow in 1947, who had nothing to do with the later Marvel Comics character of that name. She also played a luxuriantly-costumed villainess in Atom Man vs. Superman.
[edit] Detective Stories and Film Noir
The works of James McCain, Dashiell Hammett, and Mike Hammer, as well as many lesser authors and those whose work is more known for its adaptation into film rather than in print are responsible for many of these villainesses. The character played by Barbara Stanwyck destroys Fred MacMurray's character in Double Indemnity. The most spectacular villainess was the sharpshooter played by Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy.
[edit] Spy Craze
The best examples are the Bond girls, the bad ones. The lesser spy series starring Dean Martin and James Coburn had their own.
[edit] Science Fiction television
Notable small-screen examples from classic BBC sci-fi include Servalan from Blake's 7 and to a lesser extent, The Rani of Doctor Who.
The Borg Queen from Star Trek is another notable TV supervillainess.
