10 Unproduced Comic Book Pitches You Need To See

Superman is, of course, one of the most iconic superheroes of all time

Now, it's understandably difficult to rustle up a baddie who can genuinely go toe-to-toe with such an unstoppably potent superhero

So, it's little surprise that the villains in Superman movies have offered up mixed results, to say the least

With that in mind, I am Gareth from WhatCulture.com, and here is every Superman movie villain ranked worst to best

Number 20, Nuclear Man, Superman IV The Quest for Peace Was anyone ever going to make last place but Superman 4's infamous Nuclear Man

Created after a missile containing one of Superman's hairs is launched into the sun

Nuclear Man is about as lame as superhero villains, let alone Superman baddies, get

Reliant on the sun for power, rocking a truly ridiculous costume, and inexplicably sounding just like Lex Luthor, because Hackman redubbed the lines of course

there simply isn't a single redeemable thing about him. And just a hair ahead of Nuclear Man, we have another Superman 4 baddie, Lex Luthor's goofball nephew, Lenny

As Lex's bumbling assistant, Lenny isn't an out-and-out villain, and Supes even takes pity on him at the end of the movie

But he's still fallen in with the big bad. He's less of a joke than Nuclear Man, albeit only just

But you're left continually questioning why anybody thought that Lex Luthor needed a nephew at all

Was it just a cynical attempt to rope in younger audiences? If so, it did not really work, did it

Number 18, Doomsday, Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice While many were left disappointed that Batman v Superman's trailers spoiled the presence of Doomsday

it was probably for the best that they let fans know ahead of time that he'd be nothing more than a generic digital cave troll

Doomsday gets shoehorned into the versus movie's third act, produced from a combination of DNA belonging to both Lex Luthor and General Zodder

Though Doomsday is certainly presented as a powerful creature, who was only taken down by the combined might of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, he never rises above feeling like a garden variety CGI monster

At least he got to kill Superman though, yeah? Well, for a little bit anyway

Number 17, Gus Gorman, Superman 3 Bumbling computer whiz Gus Gorman isn't Superman 3's primary villain, but he is a foil for Superman while being blackmailed into helping industrialist Rob Webster take him down

Gus gets major points for his intelligence despite his, let's say, interesting personality

But overall, the presence of Richard Pryor in an already credibility-straining Superman movie is just too damn much

Gus would feel out of place even if Pryor wasn't playing him. And though he's far more memorable than Webster, he's also considerably more annoying

Gus does the right thing in the end, of course. And just like Lenny Luthor gets cut a break by Superman

So as villains go, he's pretty weak sauce, isn't he? Number 16, Mercy Graves, Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice

Many DC fans were excited when Lex Luthor's assistant slash bodyguard from Superman the animated series

was announced to be appearing in Batman v Superman. But Zack Snyder did disappointingly little with Mercy Graves

who has a teeny tiny role as Lex's assistant, kicks no ass at all and then gets blown up by Luthor at the congressional hearing Some fans were so frustrated with Graves death that they convinced themselves she eventually resurface but that evidently hasn happened all these years later

Number 15, Ross Webster, Superman 3 The great Robert Vaughn is absolutely perfectly cast as a slimy industrialist

who plots to control the world's oil supply, but there is no denying that he's also basically

and ersatz Lex Luthor, and a vastly inferior one at that. Vaughn's plan isn't terrible

blackmailing Gorman to use his tech know-how to battle Superman, but he's also not that

interesting as comic book movie villains go, and following on from Luthor's own zany schemes

his ploy can't help but seem a bit naff. 14. Lex Luthor, Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice

Jesse Eisenberg seemed like a totally inspired choice for the DCEU's Lex Luthor

On paper, that is. A new age tech bro in the vein of Mark Zuckerberg

but you'll struggle to find many who have much time for Eisenberg's rendition of the character

His nervy, twitchy interpretation of Luther just felt too different from typical conceptions of the villain

and too eccentric for its own good. Add to this fact that he has cloudy motivations related to gods and daddy issues

and his plan to pit Batman and Superman against one another is thunderously stupid

and it's easy to see why so many hated this version of this iconic supervillain

Number 13, Otis, Superman. Of all the bumbling henchmen in the Superman franchise

a lot of fans have a special place in their hearts for Lex Luthor's original lackey, Otis

Sure, he's dumb as a brick and goofy as all hell, but between the genuinely funny writing and Ned Beatty's charmingly dopey performance

there's actually a lot to like here. Who among us can think of Otis and not immediately say to ourselves

Mr. Luthor, nobody, that is who. Number 12, Anatoly Knyazev, Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice

Anatoly Knyazev is a villain from the comics better known by the moniker KG Beast

and many fans ears pricked up when they heard Knyazev name-dropped by Bruce Wayne early in Batman v Superman

Knyazev sadly doesn't have a huge part in the movie, especially not in the theatrical cut

but he does have a majorly imposing presence during his scant screen time, courtesy of actor Callan Mulvey

While most of his comic book characteristics have been ditched, namely KGB conditioning and cybernetic enhancements

He rocks a badass flamethrower and sunglasses, which is a fair substitute, I'm sure you'll agree

11. Vera Webster's Superman 3 For most of the movie, Ross Webster's sister admittedly isn't terribly interesting

But that all changes when she's transformed into a cyborg zombie thing by her brother's now self-aware supercomputer

In a sequence that wouldn't feel out of place in a David Cronenberg film, Vera is grabbed by the computer and has metal forcibly grafted onto her body

turning her into a Bride of Frankenstein-esque abomination. She ultimately doesn't end up posing too much of a threat to Supes himself

who deals with her relatively easily, but unlike most prior villains on this list, she's at least genuinely scary

Number 10, Steppenwolf, Zack Snyder's Justice League. Had Zack Snyder never had the opportunity to release his own cut of Justice League

Steppenwolf would be much lower down on this list. In the original Whedon cut of the movie, Steppenwolf was a generic CGI beastie and little else

But the Snyder Cut expanded his role and motivations considerably Surprisingly Snyder version of the movie painted Steppenwolf as a desperate pathetic character existing in the shadow of his more powerful nephew Dirk Zedd

He's still not a great villain by any means, but he's got way more personality

and feels less like a perfunctory bad guy than he does in the Whedon Cut

Number 9. Kitty Kowalski's Superman Returns In Superman Returns, Kitty Kowalski is basically Bryan Singer's not remotely subtle stand-in

for Richard Donner's Eve Tessmacher, Lex's henchwoman who similarly has a crisis of conscience

when Lex enacts his insane plan to grow a new landmass in the northern Atlantic Ocean

A lot of the credit here goes to the great Parker Posey, who takes her so-so character

and imbues her with a uniquely amusing, quirky personality. Deeply sarcastic, even while clearly

harboring a certain fondness for the Man of Steel, Posey's kitty is a lot of fun, even if

like most all of Luther's lackeys, she is not exactly super effective, or faithful for that

matter. Number 8. Lex Luthor, Superman Returns. If following Gene Hackman's lead as Lex Luthor was

an unenviable task for any actor, Kevin Spacey was an absolutely not perfect choice to succeed him

And for all of Superman Returns' many problems, Spacey's at least a lot of fun as this comically

psychotic, wildly over-the-top Luthor. Sure, he's basically just doing a Gene Hackman impression for

large stretches of the movie, but Spacey's Luthor has also got genuinely unnerving screen presence

If you're not a comic book reader, you'd probably reasonably assume that Lex Luthor's love accomplice Eve Tessmacher was ripped straight from the source material

But alas, she was actually an original creation of Richard Donner and Mario Puzo, and a rock solid one at that

Tessmacher ultimately isn't a majorly effective or persuasive villain, clearly not sharing Lex's enthusiasm

but she is by far the most well-written of Lex's many psychics, and terrifically acted by Valerie Perrine

Her later desire to break free of Lex and save Superman is rooted in a very real desperation to save her own mother from Lex's insane scheme

Though by the time Superman 2 rolls around, she's back in Lex's clutches. 6. Ursa and Non, Superman

We're lumping General Zod's two lackeys, Ursa and Non, together because they're basically a package deal anyway

On one hand, Ursa is Zod's sexy, dangerous second-in-command, rocking a major killer instinct and severe hatred for humanity

The Richard Donner cut of Superman 2 does an especially good job of cementing this

while the theatrical cut unfortunately softened her character somewhat. But overall, it did feel like Ursa never quite realized her potential

And then there's Non, the gigantic, brutish mute whose strength approximates Superman's own

He's definitely the less interesting of the pair, but nevertheless provides fun contrast to Ursa's more calculating eloquence

Number 5, Fyora Uhl, Man of Steel. Talk about an awesome character who could have been even better if she had had more screen time

Man of Steel's Fa'ura'ul is an absolute badass. General Zod's military commander kicks ass, takes names, and shows no mercy whatsoever

Between her stunning beauty and immense power, she's a prototypical Zack Snyder strongwoman

brought to savage life by Anche Traor. Given that Fa'ura quite categorically bodied Superman during their first fight

and even drops a killer monologue to boot, she automatically a top Superman villain albeit one we desperately needed to see more of 4 Evil 3 Superman 3 has a ton of problems but the whole Evil Superman plot surprisingly isn one of them

Clark ends up suffering a nervous breakdown as a result of his exposure to synthetic kryptonite

and quite literally splits in two, leaving behind the mild-mannered Clark Kent and Evil Superman

You can tell that Christopher Reeve really relished the opportunity to do something totally different with Superman here

and he's an absolute blast as the booze-chugging rage monster version of the Man of Steel

even sporting a five o'clock shadow to hammer the point home. Evil Superman is genuinely terrifying at points too

culminating in a legitimately fantastic battle between him and Clark at a junkyard

That's by far the best part of the entire movie. Number 3, General Zod, Man of Steel

Living up to the brilliance of Terrence Stamp's General Zod is a totally thankless task

but Michael Shannon quite sensibly decided to not even try, giving us an impression of Stamp in Man of Steel

His take on Zod is considerably more serious-minded and less campy, per Zack Snyder's general tone for the movie

But Shannon absolutely nails the character's desperate psychopathy. This is a man who wants to preserve the dying embers of his race by any means necessary

An intriguing and innately sympathetic motivation, despite the completely unhinged, murderous way he goes about it

Number 2. General Zod Superman As great as Michael Shannon is, There's just no beating Terrence Stamp's original big screen portrayal of Zod in Richard Donner's two Superman films

Stamp gives a mesmerizing performance as Zod, alternating between icy cool and indignant rage as a scene requires

but maintaining a ferocious distaste for humanity in every which moment. Despite his intimidating persona, he is also a surprisingly funny character at times

Plus, who else on this list managed to breach the White House and make the President of the United States kneel before him

He's a rare villain who achieves a winning mix of playful and terrifying

1. Lex Luthor Superman But the quintessential Superman villain across media is undeniably Gene Hackman's original big screen iteration of Lex Luthor

Even though he didn't initially shave his head for the part, Hackman absolutely nails the pig arrogance of the character

making us take him seriously despite the inherent absurdity of his various schemes

He's a villain so damn good that he's cast a long shadow over every Superman movie since

an undeniably ferociously intelligent yet easily detestable megalomaniac, with one hell of a wardrobe and a bevy of less than loyal sidekicks in his orbit

Hackman's performance is fantastic, even in the lesser sequels, serving as the perfectly misanthropic opposite to the earnest Man of Steel

Every single actor who ever portrays Lex Luthor will be compared to Hackman until the end of time

because he so successfully created the blueprint for not just the character, but superhero movie villains as a whole

And that is our list How would you rank Superman's collection of big screen nasties

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Just like the one this video you're watching right this second is based on I have been Super Gareth from whatculture.com

Bringing you all the super goodness right here and now Hopefully I'll see your faces very very soon

But in the meantime just be good to yourself Bye bye Thank you