I agree with your argument that a rogues gallery can limit creativity, and you list a few (certainly not all) of the ways this is so. But what about the protagonist itself? You think recurring villains are the only thing making most superhero comics juvenile? Try ready two hundred issues of a series and have nothing actually change. That's not only repetitive and boring, but after a few dozen issues you notice that you're reading the same story with the parts rearranged. The reasons we love a hero or villain are the same reasons their stories devolve into juvenile rehashing of the same old garbage.
Most superhero comics maintain their popularity because their characters slowly and subtly adapt to to times (the Batman of today is not my grandfather's Batman) but within any given generation the characters maintain a flat veneer to which we can turn and say, "at least Superman hasn't changed!" But that's not a good story. You'd hate a ten thousand page book where by the end much has occurred but nothing is different, why do we let our comic books get away with it?
You may disagree because of some unjustified love of your favorite heroes, but I'm done. Unless there's a certain creator working on a book it's unlikely I'll pick up anything put out by DC or Marvel anymore because the X-Men, Superman, the JLA, Captain America--their time has passed. All they do now is create a pathetic stereotype of comic books and I think it's just demeaning that people who love the medium fall pray to the charms of business as usual.

That being said I'm reading Brubaker's Iron Fist because it's telling a great story that has next to nothing to do with the Marvel Universe, I'll probably read Final Crisis to see what Grant Morrison means when he rambles on about the DCU as a living entity, and I still--wit hesitance--read some Ultimate Universe titles. The rest of my pull list consists of creator owned works that are telling an actually story, and have an ending, even if the ending is seventy or two-hundred issues in.

Ugh.

(Worst example was his "Batman Adventures" fill-in.)

Writing a Batman story and writing a Batman / Joker story that hasn't been done (or at least overdone) before are two very different things. And, I think that the second is the more difficult one. Maybe that is why so many otherwise good writers fail. And, maybe that is why you think that it is easier.

As a writer, I think it is essential to the setting to have recurring villians. It allows for the heroes to have the moment of success without overwhelming success. It establishes that the heroes of the story aren't omnipotent, which is the implication if everyone they combat is always handed a swift, sound, and permanent defeat.

Theno

Now things are different. I think it's a marketing thing. In addition to the hero now the villain too can turn a buck - make the villain iconic then sell his/her action figure.

I like to see arch-villains and such recur but not incessantly because they lend a sense of doom to the hero - oh you THOT you defeated me? Guess again!

But after too long you either get the 'been thru the ringer and back to iconic status' baddie, or the 'always upping the ante' baddie. For instance, the boring as hell Loeb/Lee run on Batman used just about every iconic Batman villain there is...yawn. When the Mad Hatter turned up a few years back in Tec, his MO was the same but now he's a cold-blooded killer. Yet the Prey story from LOTDK featuring both Hugo Strange and the Scarecrow was great - both characters played themselves but with a different twist, primarily because of the late arrival of Catwoman.

I also like to see new villains if they are used in challenging ways. Again, using Batman, in some issue from the late 90's he battled a crazy post office worker and almost got choked to death. I am not lying. But then he battled a cursed soldier in Gotham Knights for three issues and I thought it really challenged the Batman to explore some of his reason for being.

But yes, because villains have fans, then they are reused. I know when I see Amazo pop-up, I always check him out.

Some things you just have to accept, jccalhoun. For instance, I can't think of many valid reasons for a supervillain to wear a colorful costume. It would make far more sense for a criminal to try to be inconspicuos.

If you want a "logical" explanation you can say that costume supervillains are all egomaniacs that really, really want to be the center of attention. I suppose that also could explain why they don't move to some out-of-the-way city. Subconsciously they do want to battle the big heroes.

While one could certainly argue that villains should get tired of losing, they're not mentally stable in most cases and plenty of normal people get addicted to things they fail at.

I also think there's a strong argument for them in cases like the Flash's Rogues especially as portrayed by Johns. While the backstories were a bit overdone, I enjoyed seeing an exploration of guys who treated supervillainy as a job for the most part and having "co-workers" really gives a weight to the characters as a group and individuals.

If I can accept that people dress up in silly costumes and that heroes and the system don't just kill these guys, I can certainly buy the idea that heroes keep tangling with the same people. I think that a focus on moving forward and continuing to expand the galleries is good but I still enjoy seeing a recurring villain if they aren't overused. It's what happens in serial storytelling. If it's done right, you get good stories that feel more real because we have a better handle on the characters.

One of my personal favorite stories with Doc Ock is Spider-Man Unlimited #3 and it's flashback to Octavius as a kid. Showing that he was treated in much the same way as Peter Parker but turned out the opposite played on the big themes of spider-man and would have had much less punch with some brand-new villain.

There are a lot of presumption in this post, but I would say the biggest one is that you can make as much money without DC/Marvel as with them.

Nightwing was on his way to one when Chuck Dixon was writing the book - Blockbuster, Lady Vic, Double Dare, Torque - and okay, yeah, the Trigger Twins - but subsequent writers didn't do much with them from what I could see.

It's got to be tough writing a book like Iron Man where he's only got one or two really memorable villains.

Superman, by and large, goes up against criminal masterminds with the power and genius to conquer the world. Batman hunts down lone psychopaths. Spider-Man's foes (with the exception of the Kingpin) are lone mavericks who are quite powerful but never seem to develop a long-term strategy — much like Spider-Man himself.

Captain America and the Flash both have terrific rogues' galleries because there's a variety of threat levels. That allows the writers to keep things interesting: they can follow the recent Red Skull three-parter with a one-off fight against Batroc the Leaper.

My favorite use of a rogues gallery was in William Messner-Loebs' "Flash." Some of the villains reformed (Captain Cold, Golden Glider). Some reformed to the point they became Flash's closest friends (the Piper, Chunk). A few became deadlier than ever: Grodd, Abra Kadabra.

This played into the overall theme of the book: carrying on a character's legacy while allowing some elements of the character to evolve. And it made the Flash seem like an effective hero. It's interesting when villains come back, but unless the villain is essentially invincible (Doom or Darkseid), it also raises the question of how useful the hero's efforts really are.

Many people have fond memories of the God of All Comics’ JLA, and he didn’t use a lot of established villains.

Rene already touched on this, but I'd like to reemphasize just how many existing villains (or variations on existing villains) Morrison used in his run:

T.O. Morrow
Professor Ivo
The Key
Neron
Abnegazar, Ghast, Rath
Injustice League
- Lex Luthor
- Joker
- Circe
- Mirror Master
- Dr. Light
- Ocean Master
Darkseid
Starro
Shaggy Man/Wade Eiling
Queen Bee

And I'd say it's up for debate whether to count the spontaneously villainous versions of Quisp and Triumph.

It means that editors can hold on to a villain and keep them out of let's say, any book that's not a bat-family title.

creator owned books.

Why take the time and effort to create a unique, deep, original villain (or hero for that matter), slap him in a Spidey book and lose all rights to him forever? When, you can a) take a character like Venom or the Hobgoblin, write them well (if you are a good writer) than use that fame to launch your own original comic with all of your original good ideas? Which, in the long run, will garner you more money, rights, and control than anything you would put into a DC or Marvel book?

And again, seeing as this generation of writers has grown up as fans and heard some of the (arguable) horror stories of writers/artists who did create a character than have to change them when they wanted to use them later, why would you even go through the hassle?

But that's the shift I see coming in the next 10-20 years. People who have been fans since they were kids will be older or finally get out of it (I'm talking about 40-50 year olds who will be phasing out for one reason or another) and you'll have a generation of readers who don't have as strong an attachment to these older characters (or at least, less will have the attachment).

Or you won't have readers and you will just HAVE to try new things.

There WAS a time when comic book superheroes had a lot less reliance on the rogues' galleries element: the 1940s and 1950s, and those stories were incredibly juvenile, with heroes always fighting generic gangsters or aliens or scientists.

That doesn't mean a writer shouldn't create new villains. Hell, I'm all for it. But said new villains, if they're good, will be recurring, and become part of the "Gallery", at least while the writer's run lasts, and sometimes well after that.

The Joker became more bloodthirsty not because the writers didn't know what to do with him, but because he's been changed to adapt to the times. Just like Batman. As for Norman Osborn and Gwen, the solution to dumb ideas isn't to rely less on Rogue's Galleries, but to have firm editors willing to say no to dumb ideas.

IMO, most of the best runs in superhero books never dispense with the concept. Grant Morrison actually used many established villains in his JLA run (Luthor, Darkseid, Queen Bee, Ivo and Tomorrow) and also expanded on already existing concepts (like the 5th-dimensional imps or martians or Starro).

I do agree he didn't do it in his X-Men run, but we have to consider that what Morrison tried to do in X-Men was revolutionary in more ways than one, and not using many established villains was perhaps only a consequence of this: Morrison was writing the X-Men not as a superhero series, but as a science-fiction speculation on mutation (physical, moral, social), generational conflicts.

They can't all be like Morrison. Actually, most times when a writer tries so completely reinvent a franchise, he draws flak from fans for changing too much stuff around. I'm thinking of Bruce Jones' run on Hulk, more X-Files conspiracy than superhero adventure, not many supervillains, but not as fondly remembered by most as Peter David's or Bill Mantlo's, who did use the established villains. Greg Pak did have considerable more success with the Hulk as alien gladiator, still, it's a gamble. JMS's run on Spidey with all the magical background was certainly novel, but had as many detractors as fans.

Dispensing with the galleries usually means the writer is trying to re-invent the whole concept of a certain superhero, and THAT is even more risky than trying to come up with the "definitive" story about some classic villain.