I really like My Adventures with Superman but a lot of the villain designs feel underwhelming
Honestly the voice just kills it for me - I could take his design if he’s voiced by Steve Blum, but whoever decided Cyril from Archer is a good fit for Deathstroke needs to be fired
For me it's his haircut it just looks ridiculous. It also does not help we've had multiple animated versions of Deathstroke all of them better than this one. The best comparison I have he feels like Mercury Black from RWBY, if you've seen it.
yeah, it’s mostly the voice.
Jerrystroke
Leo Spacestroke
So people are just made it's Jerry from rick and morty? Ha
It's Clark's voice that does it for me. You can sound light hearted and strong without sounding like a dweeb that gets shoved into lockers
It’s accurate deathstroke is a loser who’d get tossed a side the second a real villain like lex shows up
Fr bro is definitely mildpainstroke
Bruh he really went from Deatstroke to stroke
Yeah…I wish he at least had the mask…
I genuinely didn’t figure out it was deathstroke until they called him “agent Wilson”
Same!
He should have just been grant
I have a head canon that this is his suit during his you his younger days working for Walle. Then when he leaves to become a full on supervillain he changes the mask to what it is in the comics
Honestly, yeah. Doesn't help that their abilities are all tech based.
I do have an uncharacteristic glimmer of hope that both their powers and costumes evolve as it goes.
I can’t stand that they’re all tech based powers!! And so far pretty much all from the alien kryptonian tech. Idk why but it sucks so much fun out of the rogues gallery for me. I wanna see a DIVERSITY of weird, funny, sad people do bad things with weird, funny, and sad powers 😂😭
yeah , the cool thing about metahumans are that some had meta-genes and some are from other sources.
Silver Banshee , for example , was cool because her origin is mystical to tie her bloodline. It's not a mere sonic scream , she can curse Superman.
I guess this is their version of Smallville's "freak of the week" in which they get their powers through just by Kryptonite. Eventually they moved away from it, but it's part of the early lore of the story.
Sad powers?
Austin’s lesser known cousin.
Haha yeah I mean some villains end up with powers because of really sad reasons
The villains are the weakest part of the show pretty consistently.
Agreed. I love the show but they're very, very badly designed. Exception: I love seeing Monsieur Mallah and the Brain at most any time.
Meh. They’re more fun when they’re evil.
Michael Emerson as Brainiac is killing it so far, and I can't wait to see him spin up in the next few episodes.
Only their designs, they're written really well
Strong disagree.
I think Lex works in context. Braniac is looking neat.
Outside of that I agree
Nah, the majority of them barely resemble or act like their usual characterizations at all, especially Deathstroke.
You don’t like sexy Chris Parnell?
I don't mind that since it's pretty clearly meant to be an elseworld story.
Give it time, and maybe he'll start grooming a child (anyone who knows anything about Slade knows what I'm referring to).
disagree respectfully. Villains have been the weakest part of the show for me unfortunately
They are too bland for me. It’s shying away from being super. Doesn’t help they have the same power source and angular designs
Feels very early 2010s tumblr “practical” superhero costume designs.
Agreed. I am a fan of Mxy and Parasite's designs, but the rest are not good. At least they went with the film redesign for Bloodsport in the tie-in comic, so if he ever shows up on the show, he will look cool.
I think mxy is my favorite villain in the series. Its fun to see him treated as an actual threat instead of a pest like in stas
You’re not alone the villains are the most common criticism of the show
Can somebody turn down the volume and frequency on Olson as well? That character shreds the action and humor like throwing pulled pork into a piranha tank everytime he gets a b-plot. It's as bad as Clone Wars or Rebels.
Yeah, i agree. My main problem is Deathstroke. He's super underwhelming, making him young gets a lot of the menace he usually projects dissapear... being so experienced and deadly is one of the things i like the most about the character, but this version just seems like slightly stronger than average goon with hi tech stuff.
Honestly, I don't mind Slade's interpretation. I think it could go in some interesting directions.
Well i'll give you that, it could become cool in the future, i just really don't like him right now =/
This is a man who fights teens for a living he's not that menacing in the first place.
Unfortunately the one big flaw of the show, you wouldn't even know which character they are, if you look at most of them.
The tech thing is also not something I like.
Man I was so disappointed in Brainiac and Parasite's designs you have no idea. It's to the point that apart from Slade I had no clue what the Villians are just from looking at them at first. I want my green humanoid Brainiac.
I actually like Parasites design in this one.
I'm just not a fan of the morphing tech suit. Also I don't know why he is professor Ivo.
They really did just jam a bunch of different characters together with him, without really retaining what makes any of them cool.
wasn't a fan of it first appearance but it got good as it sort of started to like merge with Ivo and starts mutating like crazy.
He's only appeared once in S2 but it looks like the suit just.. regrew itself out of him but it's all misshappen and warped and he looked pretty damn monsterous.
I feel you. Especially brainiac. I haven’t been wild about those robot design with the floating limbs and stuff. They at least couldn’t designed brainiac in a different way.
Brainiac and Parasite's designs
Brainiac 's spaceship is literally a DCAU Brainiac Kaiju.
Neat. Doesn't fix his design
I mean he's saying he needs a new body since his AI is too much for his machine body. So maybe he takes over some Coluan's body like how he's possessed Lex in some stories
I feel like I'm crazy because I love most of them lol.
They all suck
fair, but it works well for what the show is going for
Agreed. Livewire alone is just discount CW Captain Cold. I miss when villains were actually allowed to be villains without being forced into watered down anti-heroes all the time. Not everyone needs to have redeemable qualities. Some people just love to hurt and cause chaos.
Most of the villains in the show are just villains. That, as a broad trend, has not changed.
Except for Deathstroke, he’s cool.
They made him a Metal Gear Rising villain and I'm all for it.
His helmeted design is good, not as much without
I hate this one the most. It just really doesn’t evoke Deathstroke at all. I think it’s kind of generic looking, especially when compared to most other Deathstroke designs.
I agree, but I guess we are in the minority.
There are so many comments bitching about this look and I do not understand the hate.
Honestly I'd say the main problem is the suit's body is all black. If it had just a touch more orange on say the gauntlets, it would look a lot better. Colorful helmet but generic grey/black body is kind of a recurring issue with some designs.
Strong disagree, that’s such a lame and boring design.
I haven’t seen brainiac yet but every design is pretty awful imo. Idk wtf they were smoking with them.
I guess Zod(supergirl🙄) in season 1 looked really nice but that’s about it(until it was revealed to be the super cliché “definitely looks like and is a dude so we can go “haha BOOM it’s a chick! Didn’t see that coming did ya”” that we’ve seen a billion times in media already. So tired of that bullsh
Edit: I forgot brainiac was at the end of s1. He looks like a cool robot wizard. I think it’s good.
zod is not in the show so far ha
Oh. So who was that at the end of s1?
Wait… this is supergirl…
I really don't like that design because it's supposed to be a person inside there but the anatomy makes no sense. Forget the hunchback and head placement, the arms and shoulders are nowhere near where they would be if it was actually Supergirl in there, and yet here we are.
Ngl now that I know that(I was planning on binging the season once it’s done cause I don’t have Max anymore), I’m a lot less excited. What a cheap trick. Btw I cannot believe there’s not a name for the “clearly man character yet is “twist” revealed to be a girl” yet. It happens so often and gets the biggest eye rolls ever time
What about the armor is obviously a man? Is it supposed to have giant boobs? Even in season 1 the fan theory was that it was Superman’s mom.
Anyway, Supergirl and Mxy have been the only really interesting villains. The other ones could really stand to have more development, but I feel like that’s where the show is going.
Wait wait, don’t tell me… you think cyborg spider woman from across the spider verse also doesn’t look masculine and there’s nothing not feminine about it either 😂
Also literally everyone thought it was Zod. There’s still videos on YouTube and this subreddit majority stating it’s Zod.
Youtube comment sections will always have the most surface level takes and really shouldn’t be considered, but anyways I gathered a couple of threads of what the subreddit found last year during season 1 (I can’t believe I went through all this effort for what will inevitably be shot down with a “Big character design = Man, slender character design = woman” lol.):
Thread talking about the intro character showcase
Leaked spoilers
Etc, but regardless the sub has known that Lara is around in some capacity and that she might be the armored warrior.
Anyway, insisting that woman characters have to be the same feminine body type ESPECIALLY when they’re in an exosuit or genetically altered with tons of testosterone/whatever is silly. The exosuit doesn’t need to have boob armor or slender hips or whatever, and making it too apparently feminine would’ve given away the surprise instantly considering there are only a couple of kryptonian women characters. The surprise wasn’t supposed to be “It’s a woman!”, it was meant to be “It’s supergirl!” and it’s telling what you put your priorities on. Anyway, it was clearly foreshadowed that the Kryptonian Empire has some evil shit going on and the Braniac/Supergirl arc has probably been the most interesting thing to happen this season.
I like Brainiac and mxy. Waller feels like waller and not just a parody of her that has been the norm for a little while. same with sam lane.
Atomic Skull was pretty good but it was just base line Atomic skull really.
I really love their version of the hawk people and the parademon
Cannot wait to see darkseid
Half the designs of this show feel like the belong in RWBY or something
It's the anti-TAS. TAS the villains were the best thing about the show and Superman the least interesting. Here, Superman is by far the most interesting but most of the villains are kinda meh.
I actually omit Livewire from that though, I'm one of the few who like her better here than previous incarnations. But that's about it.
Exactly - and I would add to that their differences had to do with the nature in which audiences consumed each show.
STAS was pre-streaming, so it favored a more episodic form of storytelling, delivering more self-contained stories so viewing order didn’t matter as much if someone missed an episode. This necessitated flashier villains and a more static leading man.
MAWS on the other hand is a longer form of storytelling. The villains all fit the aesthetic and plot line of the much more dynamic leading man’s story. That’s why it doesn’t bother me that the vast majority of villains are tech-based.
I started watching STAS and MAWS around the same time, and I kinda wish that I had watched STAS in my youth instead. After finishing one episode of STAS I don’t crave another episode since it’s usually unconnected to the previous episode. I’ve been conditioned to prefer the longer-form storytelling to the episodic, and there’s no nostalgia factor for me either.
Yeah they usually look what I imagine higher-tech "Vox Machina" characters would look like
Out of all the villains I’d say the best designs are Mxy, Parasite and Atomic Skull, the others are pretty boring
The only problem i have is for the most part, you cant really tell who they're supposed to be until their name is said
I like the Parasite, deathstroke, and atomic skull, but they all kinda look the same with most of them being tech based. At least live wire is now a meta human
Hopefully they will start doing more redesigns as the show goes on to more comic accurate. At the very least make the tech and armor not lol the same and maybe be more colorful.
The robots aren't helping much. They are look the same to me
Yeah, villains are easily the worst part of the show. Aside from bad designs, the fact all of them besides Mxyzptlk are tecchnology based removes any kind of diversity and uniqueness. I do like Brainiac's characterization though.
i think some of the misses (& hits) are due to them leaning heavy into the anime direction. Like anime femboy design of deathstroke being a miss but the overall anime techniques they use for animating action is a hit
Their designs suck too
Tbh I think Livewire looks great, I don’t mind the minimilistic armored look but I love the new look she got in the latest episode.
Does This Post Reveal Spoilers?
Spoilers include unreleased content (rumors, leaks, set photos, etc.) and new content (under a month old). Titles should never have twists, surprises, or endings.
- u/Frontier246, is there a spoiler in the title? Delete and repost, indicating what it spoils (name of show, movie, etc.). Spoiler in the post? Mark it.
- Commenters, don't spoil outside the scope of the post, hide the text with spoiler code. (Formatting Help)
Spoiling may result in a ban, depending on the severity. Please report if it happens.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
It's the one thing most people don't like about the show, it also doesn't help that a lot of the designs come from the same source, and every machine design looks exactly the same.
When you realize a lot of the a lot of the characters are designed by one person, and the same person, Kris Anka, also did a lot of the Spider-Verse designs, you can see why Heatwave and Anya Corazon are very much of a similar build type.
If you're a real fan of anime aesthetics, slim boys, androgynous and butch lesbians body types, then woo, this show is a gateway for you!
I’m reserving judgment now, to a degree. Everyone is so young that they feel like proto versions of themselves. Not quite Smallville takes, but I do wonder if they’re intended to evolve.
He’s not a villain, but look at Steel for example. The suit is so clunky that I’ve got to believe that this is only version 1.
I’m also wondering if Brainiac may have different forms. This initial design reminds me a bit of Cell from DBZ. Given the show’s anime influences, I wonder if, like Cell, Brainiac may become more humanoid as he becomes more powerful.
I've found the designs consistently very cool and recognisable. I don't mind a new take on these characters and I've not had any trouble identifying characters based on their traits and abilities as they appear in the show. They've been very compelling, even if they are different.
I'm very curious how or whether the show will respond to these criticisms next season. Like season 2 was clearly made as a joint thing with season 1 so there wasn't really any time to change things as a response to the audience.
But season 3 is actively being created with awareness of fan response and reactions. Which considering the designs and characterizations of the villains is one of the more consistently criticized aspect of the show I'm curious if they will take those criticisms into account next season.
It feels like the showrunners designed Superman and his friends and allies with love and then went "oh crap we have to make villains too right?" and then threw something together.
I agree the villains on the whole have issues, but you’re really gonna post the best one as the image for this thread? MAWS Livewire is incredible.
I just wholeheartedly disagree.
I hate every villains design in this show. Every single one. Why does every villain need to be tech based and ugly looking at that. Bulky triangular tech machine nonsense
Superman’s villains and costume are so iconic redesigns are often not well received. You’d think they’d learn by now.
i mean this is kinda cool - no, no it's not, it straight up lamer sayain armorer (no hate to the designers i know they wanted something more realistic modern and simple but i feel like they sacrifice its memorability plus it looks too close to anime)
It's because they wanted to make many of them diverse and you can't make diverse characters monstrous because it's seen as demonizing, so people like Livewire and Heatwave are "bad" but they otherwise look normal and they secretly have hearts of gold. The big Intergang guy is just...a guy in a jacket while his colleagues have full facemasks, Deathstroke has a full face mask, etc. That's allowed. Parasite is a white business chode so he's as monstrous as it can get. I don't think we've seen Atomic Skull in a normal state but he's gonna be white, let's be honest.
Then when you get to the robots, every single thing seems to be based on Kryptonian designs and so human robots look like alien robots and neither is particularly original or exciting as a design. The show is generally a failure in terms of whoever was hired as a character designer.
I don't like their designs, nor do I like their character, it's one of the reasons I don;t like this show.
I get it, but ultimately I don’t care.
I love this one’s Supes/Lois/Jimmy.
I don't know what the fuck they were thinking with Deathstroke. When I first started I was just wondering who it was, and then I saw him with the two "swords" and I was like wait, surely that's not Deathstroke. And yet, it is. The show is good, but please. Why do that to him. He is so much better and cooler and intimidating the normal way.
Only one I like is brainiac
Yes exactly my thoughts
Them all being tech based is honestly pretty lame
Deathstroke sucks in this show
This is Gunn's DCU animated series lol JL/JLU or STAS was a better representation of supes villains and supporting cast
It's not though, this was made way before his era.
It was started before but he approved it to continue after they showed him the opening sequence, without him fixing it in any way
It's a modern-day western cartoon that's trying to be anime, made by people who live in Southern California. What do you expect?
You forgot to spoiler tag it.
As someone who's seen little of the show the overdoing it with futuristic ass designs holds me back.
Like ew the Kryptonian shit is disgusting to look at
Everything about the show is underwhelming
Still better designs than The Batman
2 missing replies
what did they do to my boy deathstroke