exellent

I too love that line from Mister Miracle, but my favorite Darkseid (and fourth world) moment of all comes at the end of Mister Miracle #9…

Young Scott Free has escaped para-demons and dog soldiers to find a way out of Apokolips, a boom tube created by Metron and Himon. Mass-gravity atoms are used to crush him to the ground but still he crawls forward towards the escape.
Scott calls to young Barda, fallen behind him “I’ll crawl to freedom–! Come–with–me–”
Barda calls back “Not-yet-Scott! I-I’m not ready—perhaps–someday!–keep going!”
Then mighty Darkseid himself appears in a crackle of cosmic force, and says of Scott and the boom tube “He can take it! I’ll not stop him now! If courage and bravery took him here!–Some of it was mine!”
Darkseid then reaches a hand to the crawling prince of New Genesis and shouts “Stay, Warrior! Let me complete the destruction of Scott Free– so that you may live with the majesty that is Darkseid!”
But Scott laboriously crawls away. Darkseid says “The young fool goes on! He struggles to rise! If he leaves Darkseid, he’ll still find death!” And Himon answers “If he leaves Apokolips, he’ll find the universe!!!”

Scott Free raises his head and shouts “Let me be Scott Free — and find myself!”
And he leaps into the boom tube and is free.

Yeah.
That’s the good stuff.

Godland is a reason to love comics, and includes Basil Cronus and Friedrich Nickelhead, two lovable villians.

An important point: If you actually look at the original Kirby issues, Darkseid does not make all that many appearances. He is usually manipulating events from off-screen (or off-page, to be more accurate), invisibly pulling the strings of his pawns, who make frequent mention of him in ominous, fearful tones. And when he does show up, he’s typically on the sidelines, offering up his commentary on the action taking place.

I think this was a *very* effective strategy by Kirby, under-utilizing his main villian, to the point that when Darkseid *did* show up, it packed an incredibly dramatic punch. I really wish that creators after Kirby had recognized that. Darkseid should not be getting into fistfights with Superman every other month. I think that John Byrne and Walter Simonson were the only two writers who really knew how to use Darkseid well.

-Have you seen that storm, sir?
-I am the storm.

Batman and the savage Dragon have two of the best filled with villans that may not be able to flesh out a whole reason to love comics but combined have the power.

For Batman

Clayface
Killer Croc
Poison Ivy
Harly Quinn
and more

For the Dragon

Powerhouse
Dung
Mako
and much much more

Think top five of the rest

Mojo Jojo of the Powerpuff Girls is up there (I’ve got two daughters–it’s either PPGs or Winx Club).

Would it be too much to ask to bring forth Achebe from Priest’s Black Panther run? And don’t forget Daki!

I would also have suggested Vulture, but you showed your appreciation for the art of villainy by already honoring him.

To quote Scrooge McDuck, “It’s not a skirt, it’s a kilt!”

Anyway, I am a HUGE fan of the New Gods. It took me a little while to get used to Kirby’s particular narrative voice in his scripting for those books. Once I did, I really came to enjoy them. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve re-read those issues.

Here’s my li’l New Gods website:

http://www.geocities.com/newgods2000/

But if you really want to go for an oddball choice, how about God? He’s made great villainy appearances in Savage Dragon and Preacher and I’m sure there’s more.

He was only at DC for, what… 3-4 years? Not very long in camparison. To downplay it a bit, he only did one thing for DC that stuck: The New Gods. It doesn’t sound like much in the grand scheme of the DCU, especially for those who came to comics in the 80′s 90′s, or even the 00′s.

Now step back and look at the big picture.

Kirby jumped over to DC and immediately created one of the most powerful, cosmic level, galactic threats there is. He created an entire mythology around this one central figure: Darkseid. Full backstory, supporting cast, fringe groups, and an array of protagonists. Then he left.

All Jack Kirby did was create amazing things wherever he went. Jump to DC, drop (in my opinion) THE major background evil into the company’s lap, then book it back to Marvel.

As amazing as the New Gods group was, imagine how much better it could have been if DC had insisted on giving him someone to keep him focused, like he had with Joe Simon & Stan Lee.