I am better than I was last week, at least, physically. Emotionally I’m garbage but at least I have a haircut and I’m not too sore to go for morning walks (though it is cold and windy).
Let’s talk about Vandal Savage. There are some spoilers for Young Justice.
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Vandal Savage as a Complex Villain
Vandal Savage is one of the best DC villains that’s almost always terribly underused.
Okay, so for those new to DC Comics stories: Vandal Savage is a fictional supervillain who is immortal. He was a prehistoric man who came into contact with a meteorite of unknown origin, and he became impossible to kill. In the comics he was either every conquerer in history (Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, etc.) or he was an advisor to them. He’s a persistent threat to the Justice League because he never dies and is incredibly cunning and intelligent.
Adaptations have used him: the CW Arrowverse made him the immortal enemy of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and he’s the main antagonist of the first season of Legends of Tomorrow, although he was never a very popular character on that show. He shows up in the special for the Justice League cartoon, titled “Savage Time,” where he takes over Nazi Germany and manages to win World War II; after that he’s only in a couple of episodes, one of which shows him as a repetent villain in an alternate future where he’s successfully killed the Justice League and accidentally destroyed human civilization. And he’s in a couple of animated movies: Justice League: Doom and Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, both of which he’s just kind of there as a villain to be overcome, and in the latter he actually finally dies at the hands of Reverse-Flash.
But you know what? I think the version in Young Justice is the most interesting version we’ve ever seen. And that’s even before the show bothers to give him a backstory.
So: Young Justice quickly establishes that most of the villains are being controlled by a group of behind-the-scenes figures who call themselves “The Light,” and about halfway through the first season we’re given all the faces of those characters, some of whom are familiar (like Lex Luthor and Ra’s al Ghul) and some of which aren’t. Vandal Savage is the head of the organization, though admittedly in a “First Among Equals” sort of way. He’s the face that the viewer ascribes to the organization, and the one who takes the lead during major operations.
Vandal Savage’s goal is to take over the world. Scratch that--it’s to take over the universe. Living throughout all of history has convinced him that only the strong survive, and with his organization, humanity can adapt to be the head of a galactic empire, especially since Earth has more people with superpowers than pretty much any other planet. It’s a villainous motivation, sure, but it’s also very odd because it’s a villain that’s got a lot of faith in humanity. And make no mistake, he’s a villain, all right--he will happily have people murdered for getting in his way, or do it himself if he has to, even if it’s a member of his own family. But he ultimately wants humanity to triumph. In the most imperialist way possible, but he believes in humanity. It’s just that the Justice League gets in the way of humanity’s evolution, and prevents them from reaching their full potential by insisting that we do things like follow laws and stuff, those dickbags!
Maybe it’s because I’m wrapping up this sporking of _Hounded_ in which our main character is also an immortal douchebag (although in _Hounded_ we’re supposed to view him as a hero for Reasons), but when I saw an episode in season three of Young Justice that explained a lot more of Vandal Savage’s backstory, I was kind of blown away. And weirded out because I found out that he’s blood-related to another character who I never thought was a flesh-and-blood being, but also I remember thinking Vandal Savage was a really interesting character. We see Vandal Savage actually grab a sword and fight off an alien invasion himself. And yeah, the reason is because if aliens take the world, he won’t be able to use the world to his own ends, but still, Vandal Savage saves the world!
He’s also mostly refused to kill our heroes. It’s not because he likes them but because every time it comes up, he recognizes how it’s not in his best interests. Killing these characters robs them of assets, assets that he can use to accomplish his goals no matter how much he doesn’t personally like them. Savage will resort to killing if he feels like he has to--we see that in between seasons he has Ted Kord killed, for instance.
Here is an example of a villain who is interesting, but not at all sympathetic. He’s not meant to be sympathetic at all. If you look at Vandal Savage in Young Justice and you sympathize, maybe see a specialist. His first time on screen is attacking cops so he can catch Kid Flash’s attention in order to prevent him for delivering a heart transplant to a child on the other side of the country on time. But he is interesting, because he is laser focused on a single goal, and that goal is delivering humanity to what he believes is its rightful place: the imperialistic rulers of the universe.
Imperialist villains aren’t exactly revolutionary, but ones who are humanist imperialists aren’t as common. Here is a man who firmly believes that we deserve to rule the universe, and is willing to go to war with Darkseid to do it (after allying with him first). That takes some interesting mentality.
“Let’s take an immortal villain, and turn him into an actual complex character!” They very easily could have ascribed to him a basic stereotypical personality and set of motivations, and instead they make him a character that blows most other superhero villains out of the water. I’m glad they went this direction, and this show’s take on the character makes him one of the most interesting villains I’ve seen on screen in ages.
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