Comic Book Resources

Bruno from The Dark Knight Returns!

I've always had a soft spot for Plastique. I know she was never an A-Lister, but hey, she got a little ink in JLofA #2 this week.

The only legit female villian you seem to have missed from this list would be Giganta. At least as far as I can tell.

Also, if we can delve into the DCAU, Inque was a pretty bad ass Batman Beyond villian. Sure, she was sort of like Clayface, but they didn't have similar origins. Volcanna was a decent enough Superman villian on the cartoon, and even got some JLU screen time.

Cassandra Cain is/was Batgirl, right? If so, when did she become a villain?

Lady Shiva? Definite dark side. Had a brief stint as "Jade Canary," but only in a Trading Places-type deal with Black Canary.

Let's see...Live Wire was put into continuity...there's Jinx and Shimmer of the Fatal Five...Nightshade from Marvel (the one with the afro-puffs). And Giganta! She's currently menacing Ryan Choi in The All-New Atom.

Princess Python! With tremendous, phallic snake!

Titania.

Some versions of the Thorn, including the most recent version.

Silver Swan.

Veronica Cale from Wonder Woman.

The Blue Snowman. (Except she was a good guy in Lash House.)

Enchantress.

Viper.

Mother Superior. (Who I haven't seen in a while an' might be dead.)

Shartakra, or whatever her name was. That evil-alien shape-changer Wasp thing that wanted to boink Spider-man.

Dragon Lady, from Terry and the Pirates.

Cassandra Cain is/was Batgirl, right? If so, when did she become a villain?

Just recently.

She got into this fight with Shiva (who was revealed to be her mother) and, at the end, she gave Shiva the "gift" of killing her (although Shiva was later revived, via Lazarus Pit).

So Cassie is already in a rough spot in her mind, but then finds out that her father, David Cain, had apparently done the same thing (train a little girl into being a deadly assasin) with lots of other kids.

This was the breaking point, at which point Cassie basically snapped and said, "Screw this, I'm just going to be the bad guy I was trained to be."

It's really, really stupid.

Yeah, but... y'know they HAVE to fix Batgirl sometime in the future. They're just breaking her to put her back together better.

I hope.

Crap.

Also: Maddie Pryor. Worst character ever.

If X-Men is anything to judge by, there's not many good female villains left because a lot of the best ones end up getting turned into good guys. There's probably some kind of psychological gender role thing behind this but hell if I can think of what it is.

Women are all sensitive and earth-mothery and caring and they just CAN'T be evil I suppose. Total Crap, of course. We need Dave Sim to write for DC.

In his introduction to one volume of Marvel Masterworks: X-Men, Roy Thomas mentions that Banshee was originally going to be a woman (as the myth would require), but Stan Lee vetoed it because he didn't think women were credible villains.

This might explain why supervillainesses are rather thin on the ground in the Marvel Universe...

In his introduction to one volume of Marvel Masterworks: X-Men, Roy Thomas mentions that Banshee was originally going to be a woman (as the myth would require), but Stan Lee vetoed it because he didn’t think women were credible villains.

This might explain why supervillainesses are rather thin on the ground in the Marvel Universe…

Thanks, Paul, that was really helpful!

We need Dave Sim to write for DC.

Classic.

In these old-school comics there used to be lots more punching going on, what hero is going to be shown punching a woman? Besides Hank Pym that is.

You could add Gloriana Tenebrae, assuming Morrison doesn't kill her in the end.

What about the chick who raped Nightwing?

Couldn't we get Disney to sell Cruella DeVille, give her some Cyber-implants and let her battle Superman?
I'm sure he doesn't mind punching her face in...

I like Ogress.

Who?

Ogress! She got all gamma-irradiated by the Leader, and turned into this ugly, hairy hulk-woman who can't speak. I think she was in a grand total of 3 comics. Someday, she too will have her own fan-page.

What about Thor villainesses? Hela, Queen of the Norse Underworld. Karnilla, the... okay, all I know about her is that she's in love with Balder, but she is a villain.

That woman who ran the super-hero gladiator pit in JSA- was her name Roulette?

How about obscure minor villainesses? There's that Liefeld villain team, with Tempo, Thumbelina, and that Dragon woman; Feral, who betrayed X-Force; Frenzy & the woman who shoots electricity from X-Factor; Zaladane; Malice; Vertigo; Pretty Persuasion & Silk Fever from New Warriors; Lodestone from Darkhawk; Satanna; Catseye, Tarot, & Roulette (?- the girl who threw bad-luck discs) from the Hellions; Calypso from Spider-Man; Jewelee; Destiny from X-Men; Sat-Yr-9, the Red Queen (and maybe a couple others from the Crazy Gang), and the Vixen from Captain Britain & Excalibur. Can you tell the early '90s were my formative years?

Spidey fought the "Femmes Fatales" a long time ago, back when Erik larsen was drawing him and he became powerless for a couple issues. It was made up of a handful of woman bad guys. Also, there was that electric powered girl he fought in an Erik Larsen issue of Adjectiveless Spider-Man, who Kirkman later used again in a Spider-Man Unlimited.

Two more: Sin, and Ruby Thursday of the Headmen.

There's Mist from Starman. And Callisto from X-Men. And [SPOILER]the Black Widow from Ultimates[/SPOILER]. And of course, there's always Dark Phoenix. Always. Over and over again. Always.

Also, Maddie Pryor wasn't that bad a character until that stupid Inferno rolled around. In fact, back before X-Men broke 200, I rather liked her - even though Scott was a psycho for hooking up with her because she looked like Jean.

Lame, it strips style tags. Sorry for giving that away to anyone to whom it did.

I'm pretty sure that chick who raped Nightwing is Ravager, Deathstroke's daughter. She's a Titan now, so I guess she's off the list. Now if it is someone else, than I'm clearly an idiot who's not up on his Nightwing continuity, but whatever.

Interesting memo from Roy Thomas

There are also less female serial killers. Maybe there is a correlation in the male to female villain ratio and the male to female crime ratio in real life. Men are more predisposed to violence, after all.

The female villain who raped Nightwing was Tarantula.

Didn't/doesn't Cassandra Nova turn good in the future in the X-Men (the arc with Beast as the villian)?

Does the good Marvel Circe offset the evil DC Circe?

Count me as a fan of Ogress and Vapor, and don't forget the Harpy, the evil gamma-radiated version of Betty Ross.

You forgot the most nefarious supervillainess of all:

Jean Loring.

As I read your list, I had thought up a great list of my own ready to go, but then I read that most of them were mentioned in following posts.

There are FOUR left (from my list) that no one mentioned:

UMAR
Sister of DORMAMMU, mother of CLEA.
She's been shown to be MORE of threat to Dr. Strange (and the Earth) than Dormammu on multiple occasions.
He usually screws her over and robs her of whatever she had been working on, but she's usually MUCH more dangerous and cunning.
In the last DEFENDERS mini-series, she finally screws HIM over and she steals the power of ETERNITY.

LILITH
(NOT the Dracula's daughter one. The "biblical" Mother of all DEMONS one, from Ghost Rider / Dr. Strange / Midnight Sons stuff.

She let out all these "Lillin" (her demon children) and was instumental in the release of Cython (sp?) back onto Earth (well... before Strange put a stop to it).
She screwed with the "dark side" Marvel characters for several years and gave them a run for their money.

SALOME'
Who was supposedly a previous Sorcerer Supreme, centuries before the Ancient One, back when man first walked the Earth.

She stripped Dr Strange of his power, caused him to destroy his Sanctum and go into hiding for over a year while he whipped up a different source of magic to try to fight her.
She had successfully swayed the Vishanti into supporting her and was the cause of Wong getting so pissed of at Doc (she killed Wong's wife, Imei) that he left Strange's service (and for years would be hostile towards Strange - until it was forgotten and now he's back to being a manservant).

and

PRINCESS PYTHON
Of the Circus of Crime.
I don't know how "EEEevil" she is, but she's a GREAT visual.
(Subtext? What?)
And she's ALL DITKO, baby!

My other's were:
Ruby Thursday
Enchantress
Hela

I could probably think of a few more, but I'm whipping this list off the top of my head.

~P~
P-TOR

There was Magma who eventually became a good..uh...person.

Gosamyr....

I know I'm missing at least one more from the New Mutants original run.

Hey...c'mon, when you come right down to it, aren't ALL women evil?

"OW!
What'd I...
YOW!
Stop... OOF!!!

Aaaaagghhhhh...."

(sounds of being run out of town on a rail)

~P~
P-TOR

I forgot about Salome, but I remembered Sister Nil, who was wrapped up in bandages. I don't remember if she was a villain or not. Those David Quinn Dr. Strange stories were pretty out there.

There's also: Electra, from that beautiful P. Craig Russell Dr. Strange story; Madame Masque, although she may have turned good; Ma Gnocchi from Ennis' 1st Punisher run; Mercy, Luthor's bodyguard; Knockout & Vandal Savage's daughter from Villains United; Foxfire & Mink from Squadron Supreme; Negasonic Teenage Warhead in Astonishing X-Men; Fatality from Green Lantern.

Of course, one major villainess has not been mentioned:

MODAM!!!

Also from the Fearsome Five there were Shimmer and later Jinx.

Did someone mention Echo from Daredevil?

"Did someone mention Echo from Daredevil?"

Another villainess-turned-hero (although she was only a villain by deception).

Speaking of which, nobody has mentioned the greatest villainess-turned-hero of all: Elektra!

Mike,

I left SISTER NIL out, because she was only "evil" in the sense that she was one of LILITH's "lillin" and was basically USED as a "gun". Pointed at the heroes.

When Strange finds her, she's been hiding out in his Sanctum and is trying to "understand" humans.

She falls in love with DOC (and I WOULD have liked to have seen that go SOMEWHRE), but then after his series wrapped up, she was forgotten, and is apparantly still in his basement or something.

Doc's a kinky Greenwich Village dude!

~P~
P-TOR

I'm surprised that Nocturna hasn't reappeared yet. I strongly suspect that Jezebel Jet, recently introduced by Grant Morrison in Batman, is going to turn out to be a villain.

What, you all forgot Quicksand? Heheheh. Quite right to.

Hey!

Was Frederick Wertham MARRIED?

Would his WIFE be considered a super-villain if she failed to stop him?

What if she actually encouraged him?
How's about then?

~P~
P-TOR

Shocking, but true: there were two female villains in Marvel's Sleepwalker book. Lullaby and Spectra. (Joking aside, I thought Spectra had some potential, at least in terms of how her powers worked. Another minor character waiting for a writer to pick up and flesh out, maybe?)

There's Rancor from Guardians of the Galaxy. She was just a female wolverine, but kicked major arse nonetheless. And how about Enchantress from Thor, and Alkhema from Avengers West Coast. And if she's ever been in a comic book, Hillary Duff is perhaps the most evil female creature alive. She's very believable as someone who is destroying the world, one movie and song at a time...

am i the only one who read the last issue of astonishing x-men?

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white queen looks to have always been evil folks...

Huh? Nightwing was RAPED? Are we talking the "Drug him up and have my way with him?" sort of rape? Or are we talking the "SQUEAL! SQUEAL LIKE A PIG!" sort of rape?

Then again, I'm not entirely sure I want to know o_o;

Thanks for spoiling that fanboy. I was waiting to read Astonishing in trade form.

Theres plenty of female comicbook villains.

Just not any real ICONIC type female villains that cross into mainstream consciousness. Just a lot of forgettable ones.

Speaking of which, I'm surprised that no one mentioned Mothergod (aka Erica Pierce) from Valiant's Unity crossover series.

Magpie

Knockout
Scandel Savage (I think that's her first name)

Orca? lol.

Starfire's sister...what's her name?

Jewlee

Amanda Waller

alright, i admit...all of these are second string villains.

Terra? I just know about her big betrayal of the Teen Titans. I'm not at all familiar with Titan lore.

Anyhoo...

Huh? Nightwing was RAPED? Are we talking the “Drug him up and have my way with him?” sort of rape? Or are we talking the “SQUEAL! SQUEAL LIKE A PIG!” sort of rape?

Then again, I’m not entirely sure I want to know o_o;

Nightwing's life had been torn down by Blockbuster (in as direct a rip-off of Born Again as you will ever see), so he was to the point where he was sleeping on fire escapes using newspapers as sheets.

He finally decides to go after Blockbuster (which is what Blockbuster wants, because he's dying of cancer, so he wants to at least die with Nightwing being the one who killed him - thereby screwing over Nightwing forever), but he can't bring himself to kill him.

Tarantula waltzes up, though, and shoots Blockbuster in the head, killing him.

Nightwing flips out and is just in a total daze.

Tarantula then takes him to the rooftop, gets him aroused and - ahem - mounts him, all while Nightwing is totally out of it.

Wow...that really was an awfully dumb story, wasn't it?

Oh, and by the by, the writer herself referred to the scene as "rape."

granny goodness is a good supervillian

Well, why wouldn't she? It was.

Lex: don't fret too much. Knowing that isn't as big a spoiler as it might seem. There's more going on than just that. But if it helps, I feel the same way about Dane's U2 spoilers.

Best female supervillain ever? The White Rabbit! Bored debutante puts on her playboy bunny suit and commits crimes!

Oh, wait, you wanted villains that weren't awful. My bad...

"why wouldn't she" refer to it as rape, that is...

Paglia may have said it best...

"there can be no female Mozart until there is a female Jack the Ripper"

maybe this is why it's hard coming up with true badass female villain leads. history only gives us few truly evil women of note in regards to murderous activity. Bathory? Wournos? I'm stretching here for inspiration.

I could name off 10 genocidal or serial killers in about 30 seconds who are male.

Well, why wouldn’t she? It was.

Oh, just that, at the time, people debated whether that was the intent of the scene, so I mention it just to clarify that that was, in fact, what the writer intended for the scene.

There's Rosalie Carbone from the Punisher. Not an a-list character, but a step up from the generic mobsters he'd ususaly face.

There was Jesse Custer's grandma in Preacher. I can't remember her name, but she was one hell of an evil bitch.

Here's a few of additions from Flash lore. Not sure how many of these will trip the "decent" qualification.

Golden Glider -- classic psycho
Magenta -- started as supporting cast, later reluctant heroine, later villain
Blacksmith -- well, actually, not that great a villain.
The original Thorn was evil from the start.

Then there's the Impulse villain, White Lightning.

Aaaamd then there's the various Spirit villains, who were split about 60/40 male/female. P'gell is probably the most famous of ALL of them.

"Female Furies"

Weren't all THAT evil in their original conception, and were loyal to Barda.

Has anybody mentioned Live Wire or Silver Banshee from Superman?

Shado from Green Arrow kind of falls in the 'sorta-bad-but-kinda-good' category too. I always thought of her as Green Arrow's equivalent to Elektra or Catwoman...

Spider-Woman also started out as a villainess, albeit tricked/brainwashed by HYDRA

I could also think of a few more:

Madame Masque from Iron Man

Vertigo, Malice, and Arclight from the Marauders in X-Men

how bout Lumi the Ice Queen or Goldilocks in Fables?

Terra from the Teen Titans is ressurected good (DNA tested - back from the dead). Never fully explained how and why she is back - but listed as good atm. Shes getting her own mini-series in fact.

Blackfire (Komand'r) is still an active villainess.

Fables Ice Queen is great as a villainess but as a cross-genre character (from fairy tales) is a bit of a cheat. Much like the Wicked Witch (from Oz) and the White Witch (Narnia); cross-genre villains should be disqualified as they have built most of their reps outside of comicbooks.

how about the body doubles from the much missed Resurrection Man series? A-Duh!

Yo go re, I'm honestly sorry about that. I didn't realize the program would strip style tags (which would have rendered the spoiler text invisible) and there's no "preview comment" feature... Again, my apologies.

The Scarlet Witch goes back and forth from evil and insane to good every decade or two.

I'm not sure Mystique will stay 'good' for long. At least, I hope she doesn't, because it makes no sense. She's better as a villain anyway.

Considering the fact that Mystique beat Carol Danvers boyfriend to death with her bare hands I honestly don't think she deserves to be given a chance to reform. Yeah, it was years and years ago, but it was an incredibly brutal murder, which shows you just the sort of person Mystique really is.

i say girl villains should be noticed alot more than what they are. i didnt eaven know any of those super villains but poizon ivy. make som more or make them be noticed!!!!!

they need more super girl villains. they also need to make them more noticeable. i didnt know any of those villains but poizon ivy!!

If you are going to bump up old blog pieces that were still generating interest when they fell off the front page, I nominate the Greg Burgas "Americans are uptight about nudity" piece as well as the Joe Rice "Art is not subjective" piece. Both were still going strong when they fell off the front page.

Has anyone mentioned Commissioner Ultima from Top 10?

I remember a couple from Amazing Spiderman ca 1990's- Shriek and Delilah. Shriek was all goth and blasting people with sound and was Carnages 'lover' for a time. Delilah was all ANNOYING expressive lettering which i suppose was meant to EMPHAISISE just how SEXUAL and SOPHISTICATED she was. Both, however, were drawn a lot by Mark Bagely and were therefore very hot (although he only draws one female face- it is always the same).

Alexis Luthor from the Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon.

That is seriously the best supervillainess concept to come down the pike in years.

There's Lynx from Robin. She was one of the two main villians when the first Robin mini's came out. I think she ended up killing the main guy (although I'm pretty sure they killed her to make Batgirl evil).

I would imagine that it's harder for the writers to do convincing female super-villains just because of the constraints of telling a super-hero story. At some point, there's generally going to be a slug-fest - and do very many people want to see Spidey or Supes knock a woman out? (I really hope the answer to that question is an emphatic "no!".)

Given all that, I expect fewer baddies to be women, and I really expect very few of them to make the A-list.

This is one case where apparent gender inequality doesn't bother me - violence against women is way too prevalent in our society already. So, I don't want to see the comic book good guys beating up women, even if they are villains.

Did i miss any mention about Star Sapphire? And it seems that with the latest Green Lantern, we are going to get a huge back story to what seems like a possible Star Sapphire Corp.

I might ass that it seems that once a female villain becomes interesting there is quite a bit of drive to make her not so evil - see Mystique, White Queen, Ravanger, Maxima, etc...

Also, where is the fariy queen from JLA. She was a very interesting villain who got shifted into the tax code via the flash - is that worse than being killed and stuck in a fridge???

Woo hoo, I'm coming in late, scrolling down through the entries, and it looks like noone's named my all-time favorite: Quiz, from the Brotherhood of Dada in Doom Patrol. She's got every power you haven't thought of, so get busy thinking, quick. I especially liked the escape-proof spirit jars.

Oh yeah, and Nekra, the nasty, long ago.
They should bring her back for a Nekra movie. She'd fit right in these days.

How about Spiral, that woman with the six arms. There was also that villainess of the Sub-Mariner, Llyra. Moonstone is also a villainess at heart.

"I remember a couple from Amazing Spiderman ca 1990’s- Shriek and Delilah. Shriek was all goth and blasting people with sound and was Carnages ‘lover’ for a time. Delilah was all ANNOYING expressive lettering which i suppose was meant to EMPHAISISE just how SEXUAL and SOPHISTICATED she was. Both, however, were drawn a lot by Mark Bagely and were therefore very hot (although he only draws one female face- it is always the same)."

And for reasons passing all understanding, Delilah is back. Without the annoying lettering.

There was Jesse Custer’s grandma in Preacher. I can’t remember her name, but she was one hell of an evil bitch.

That still wouldn't make her a super-villain since Jesse's not a superhero amd Preacher isn't a superhero comic. Same thing about Goldilocks from Fables.

I think that with Marvel in particular, the lack o female supervillains is a symptom of the tendency to turn villians into heroes. This is true of male villains to, of course, but it is particularly common among the girls.

Off the top of my head:

Scarlett Witch
Rogue
Mystique
Emma Frost
Lady Mastermind
Calisto
Moonstone

There are probably other obvious ones I've forgotten.

Notably, there isn't any simular trend of turning heroes BAD. This is what I call Marvel's Villain Deficit. It's hard to esablish a good villainess when the tendecy is always to make them good as soon as they get popular.

What about the one who seduced the Hulk in the Defenders mini-series last year (drawn by Macguire)?

Umar is the one who seduced the Hulk. She's mostly a Dr. Strange villain.

"That still wouldn’t make her a super-villain since Jesse’s not a superhero amd Preacher isn’t a superhero comic."

Having God on your side isn't enough power to make you a super-villain? wow, tough crowd.

Well, there's Shiv from the Injustice Society, and Dansen Macabre, who fought the West Coast Avengers. How about Anaconda, from the Grapplers?

fourth worlder said:
"Woo hoo, I’m coming in late, scrolling down through the entries, and it looks like noone’s named my all-time favorite: Quiz, from the Brotherhood of Dada in Doom Patrol. She’s got every power you haven’t thought of, so get busy thinking, quick. I especially liked the escape-proof spirit jars."

Quiz was awesome. And don't forget Sleepwalk from the Dada team. Great strength, but only when she was asleep...

Let's see, some people have probably already mentioned some of these but I can also think of-

Baroness (G.I. Joe)
the Girls in the Serpent Society (Black Mamba, Asp, etc.)
Hummingbird (from Hawkman)
Ig'nea (from L.E.G.I.O.N.)
Magpie (from Batman)
Shrike (from Ostrander's Suicide Squad. Her tenure with the team was...brief).

Superwoman (from the Crime Syndicate)
Nebula
Doctor Cyber

HARLEY QUINN.

Preacher is absolutely a Superhero Comic. Jesse Custer has a superpower, a costume, a code-name, an origin, a secret origin and a sidekick. He fights bad guys and monsters. We even got to read a couple of "Silver Age Preacher" stories. He might as well be wearing a "Fair Play" belt buckle.

Though they may not have powers, Garth Ennis writes great female villains. My favorite was Ma Gnucci. Too bad they're all dead now.

Say, does The Russian count?

I suppose we can include Ultron now....

HARLEY QUINN.

Dini just redeemed her in Detective Comics.

I suppose we can include Ultron now….

I think that would fall under a female versions of an originally male villain, right?

You could argue that Harley's just a female Joker anyway.

You COULD argue that, Dan. But then you would be horribly wrong and I would hate you forever!

Might be an intersting exercise to imagine a Y: THE LAST MAN-type scenario in either the mainstream Marvel or DC universes. Who would be left?

Amanda Waller is a lot more than second tier especially as of late and while you could argue she's straddled the line (JLU) to heroism, she's prety damn bad ass the the villainess of Checkmate.

Let me also add Cheshire, Scandal Savage, and Knockout from Villains United/Secret Six (I maintain that the Six are not heroes and have pulled morally bankrupt/morally in debt acts such as assassination for hire).

Sofia Falcone from batman: Long Haloween and Dark Victory.

P'Gel from Spirit

Ava, Blue Eyes, Maraiah from Sin City.

Hecate and Ilsa haupstein from Hellboy.

Mist II (Nash) from Starman (Phenomenal Villainess).

Jean Loring from Identity Crisis.

Obulette from Marvel Boy (tamed...sort of)

Roxy Rocket (needs to be in the stories...Come on Paul Dini!)

Thessaly, the Furies and (arguably) Desire from Sandman.

From Astro City: Demolitia, Madame Majestrix, and the Red Queen.

From Freen Arrow: Shado

From Iron Wolf: Empress Erika Hernadez

From Blue Beatle: La Dama

From Fables: Snow Queen, Goldilocks, Baba Yaga.

From Birds of Prey: Spysmasher

The simple reason there aren't more lady villains is that most hereoes are male and some of the fun comes out of comics when our favorite super-heroes are beating up women, regardless of how powerful they are.

Jesus, you read way too many comic books.

Eclipso, Nuff said!

I, too, think Princess Python is a great villainess. That she is under-rated is due to being under-used by the writers at Marvel!

Now, the recent revelation that she is the widow of Jackson "Stilt-Man" Day was a nice touch. In fact, employment by the Circus of Crime as a stilt walker would have been a natural for him! And, I feel the same way about her having re-married to the Gibbon, on the rebound. It shows that she can charm and manipulate more than just snakes.

And, as it's been hinted that her rapport with snakess might always have been partially telepathic, I would like to see her develop other, low-level psionic powers. Like being able to empathically see through a snake's eyes. Or, maybe even exhibit mind-controlling power over a humanoid reptile (like, say, Curt "the Lizard" Connors)!

Btw; there's a sample of artwork, over at the ComicVine website, that leads me to think/hope that the Circus of Crime might finally get to appear in an animated cartoon. Specifically; the new SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN show.

You Forgot Harley qUINN

why isn't catwoman up there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ya i agree w/ Eh u forgot harley quinn

i second catwoman....and...

i agree w? rylee

rylee
October 16, 2006 at 4:46 pm
they need more super girl villains. they also need to make them more noticeable

"Best female supervillain ever? The White Rabbit! Bored debutante puts on her playboy bunny suit and commits crimes!"

You joked, but I think she'd be an awesome revival for todays tabloid world...she's basically Paris Hilton already.

I don't know if Rogue should really count in the "Villains turn to heroes" list. I mean, technically true, but she had what, 2? appearances as a villain? Seems she was always planned as a hero, just with a different background.

hey
Anne-Marie Cortez is one from x-men , there isn't much about her but she was one of the first mutants to join Magneto as one of his Acolytes I think she had telepathy.

On a more independent note, how about some of the super-villainesses from A.C. Comics? Like Alizarin Crimson, the evil sorceress? Or, the extra-dimensional Fem-Paragon (think Thundra with Superman's powers)?