WriteHook

We all know Voldemort and Hannibal Lecter, but what about this lot, about whom few people seem to talk when talking about bad guys:

Anarky: Batman has no shortage of great villains. And we already know who the best one is. But the teenage Anarky has one quality that villains ought to have more often -- he's weirdly admirable. His sense of justice is immature and adolescent and somehow intoxicating. I wouldn't call him scary, but Anarky comes closer than any other villain to showing the way Bruce Wayne could have gone in his teenage years.

Montresor: We're all aware of Edgar Allen Poe's  odd, disjointed protagonists, who live in madness and love every minute of it. Montresor, from Poe's The Cask of Amontillado, however, is one of the creepiest -- a perfectly rational, arguably sane monster who uses patience and booze to lure his victim to a rather hideous death. And he does it without a whiff of affectation.

Edgler Vess: Dean Koontz never seems to come up in a discussion of bad guys. This surprises me, because he has written his share of doozies. Edgler Vess, from Intensity, is one of the scariest, if for no other reason than the actual passion he has for killing people (and for word games with his name). Like Montresor, his strength lies in his matter-of-fact way of dealing with his victims.

Norman Daniels: Stephen King is another one who never comes up in discussions of great villains. Unless you're in a fan forum or part of a group that likes mainstream fiction, people dismiss Stephen King as not a "real" writer. You should be so unreal. I know I'd like to be. But I digress . . . Norman Daniels from King's Rose Madder is one of the great lost villains. Probably due to the volume King writes and the amount of great villains he's crafted. But Norman is scary because we all might be living next door to him. He's an abusive, murderous husband, a relentless stalker -- and a highly respected and decorated cop! Scary.

Buffalo Bill and Francis Dolarhyde: Hannibal Lecter gets all the praise. Much of it is deserved -- we all wish we had the insight (if not the appetite) of Thomas Harris' evil genius. But the other villain in The Silence of the Lambs is Buffalo Bill, the detached, delusional, Ted Bundy-like stalker of women large enough to skin for clothing. He is, like Harris' other unsung villain, Francis Dolarhyde of Red Dragon, a made monster -- someone born fragile and weak and turned into a vicious killer by years of systematic abuse. So don't forget the unseen guardian figures who destroyed these men and made them the horrorshows they are. They're some powerful (and rarely discussed) villains too.

How about you? Know of any great villains that nobody seems to ever bring up in a conversation? Let the world know -- leave a comment.

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