Why isn't Superboy Prime heralded as one of the greatest villains of all time?

DudeistBelieve

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Let me get this straight...

Here we have a character, who has all of superman's powers. So he's basically unstoppable. And too boot he's a whiny emo teenager who's kinda ticked off about his place in the world and has the desire to take it out on said world.

How does that not send a chill down your spine?

The very character is like giving Superman powers to Eric freaking Harris. I don't understand why anyone would ***** that he's whiny, that's the EXACT reason he's so terrifying. You have an unhappy teenager, AND he's the ability to melt your face with laser vision.
 

DoPo

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You seem to equate "potential danger" with "greatness". Why is that?

Is a monkey holding a grenade a greater villain than Darth Vader? After all, who knows what the monkey would do with the grenade!
 

DudeistBelieve

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DoPo said:
You seem to equate "potential danger" with "greatness". Why is that?

Is a monkey holding a grenade a greater villain than Darth Vader? After all, who knows what the monkey would do with the grenade!
Monkey with a gun? No.

But I'm far more afraid of an angsty teenager with a shot gun than I am, say, ISIS.
 

Erttheking

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http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/62058/1260144-killyoutodeath.jpg

That's why.

For all of his potential powers, he's little more than a whiny brat from what I can gather.
 

DoPo

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SaneAmongInsane said:
Monkey with a gun? No.
So, by your own words, potential danger, doesn't correlate with greatness. Good. Again, what's with the thread again?

SaneAmongInsane said:
But I'm far more afraid of an angsty teenager with a shot gun than I am, say, ISIS.
Which does not make the said teenager great, correct? How does that sentence even tie in with anything?
 

Scarim Coral

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Since when does a powerful loosecannon means awesome villain materials?

It take more than just raw powers to make a villain great. Sure I haven't read any of the stories with Superboy Prime but las time I've check, "whinny" does make a character great. I mean lets take a look at Darth Vader, he was threatenning villian until the preclude came.

Villains like The Joker is great cos he's so psychotic but powerful eventought he just pack some joke gadgets or Ozymandias is great for being manipulative and for his intelligent or Dr Droom for his charisma. Superboy Prime is superman but a whimer cos he lost his universe and never get to shine like the other Supermen did? Yeah not so much.
 

EternallyBored

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SaneAmongInsane said:
Let me get this straight...

Here we have a character, who has all of superman's powers. So he's basically unstoppable. And too boot he's a whiny emo teenager who's kinda ticked off about his place in the world and has the desire to take it out on said world.

How does that not send a chill down your spine?

The very character is like giving Superman powers to Eric freaking Harris. I don't understand why anyone would ***** that he's whiny, that's the EXACT reason he's so terrifying. You have an unhappy teenager, AND he's the ability to melt your face with laser vision.
because what's frightening from the prospective of an outside observer is not always the same as what scares someone in person. If superboy was real I would absolutely fear him, in a fictional setting, reading about his whiny antics was not entertaining, just having a villain be powerful and unhinged is t enough to make them a good villain if they aren't entertaining to read about.

Superboy ruined the story he was in, he basically just flew around, blew up a bunch of alternate earths no one cared about, and whined with absolutely cringe worthy dialogue like, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you to death!". See, I'm not actually being threatened by superboy, so to be a good villain he needs to also be entertaining, which he wasn't, he was whiny, annoying, and his dialogue and motivations were weak. A good villain is not just someone with a lot of power and a scary motivation, just like superman is not automatically a good hero just because he has a lot of power and fights for good, good characters need good dialogue, story, and scenes, of which superboy had nearly none, just a lot of whining and flailing about before being defeated in a lame finale.
 

Asita

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Because "powerful brat" doesn't make for a compelling or chilling villain. Oh sure, it would be utterly terrifying to live in a world with a powered up Superboy Prime, but despite his greater damage potential, he's not as scary as the instinct driven hunter that is the T-Rex, the natural cunning of the Xenomorph, or the cold malevolence of Johan Liebert, the sociopathic sadism of Dolores Umbrage, or the unnervingly childlike glee of Mad Pierrot. For all that Superboy Prime's demeanor makes him objectively more dangerous, the same immaturity makes us as readers more annoyed or angry at his tantrums than terrified of them. It's like griefers in MMOs, you don't get scared of them, you get angry at them.
 

Eddie the head

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erttheking said:
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/62058/1260144-killyoutodeath.jpg

That's why.

For all of his potential powers, he's little more than a whiny brat from what I can gather.
Well I think that speaks for it's self. But hay at least it's kind of funny. It's not cringe worthy like a lot of the female Thor comics I've seen.

On that note. I've always heard it has to do with the fact that he's basically a straw man of the comic book readers who don't like how the superheros act now. Like he's pissed that the hero's he knows don't act like the one's he knew when he was a kid. So every time he shows up it's an excuse to "punch down" at the readers as it where. People don't like being insulted.
 

Mangod

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SaneAmongInsane said:
Let me get this straight...

Here we have a character, who has all of superman's powers. So he's basically unstoppable. And too boot he's a whiny emo teenager who's kinda ticked off about his place in the world and has the desire to take it out on said world.

How does that not send a chill down your spine?

The very character is like giving Superman powers to Eric freaking Harris. I don't understand why anyone would ***** that he's whiny, that's the EXACT reason he's so terrifying. You have an unhappy teenager, AND he's the ability to melt your face with laser vision.
The problem is that, in the same universe that gave us Darkseid, Lex Luthor and the Joker, Superboy Prime feels petty, childish and superfluous.

Unlike Darkseid, Prime lacks any kind of charisma, unlike Luthor he's not a cunning genius, and unlike the Joker, he's not frighteningly unpredictable; when he show's up, he'll whine about how "Everything was better on MY Earth!" without fail.

He's got no reason for existing, since if you just want Superman levels of power in a villain, there's already General Zod, Doomsday and Bizzaro Superman to provide that.
 

LordLundar

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Let me point something out to you.

Superman has been beaten. Lots of times in fact. In several various manners. Hell, if it wasn't for the other League members there would have been a grave that said "Here Lies Superman" a long time ago.

Now Superman has the powers and the training to use them to their utmost effectiveness and the focus to get the job done. Superboy Prime has the powers. He lack the practice and training because he never bothered and he's a whiny teenager who is not known for having any real focus. He would need all of that to even be something that would be considered a threat. As it stands half the league would knock him out in a flat second. That doesn't even factor in Batman who does have response situations for Superman which would easily be more effective on Superboy Prime.

To be blunt, you say he's the greatest threat? Half the league would look at him and go "***** please" before schooling him before lunch.
 

Redd the Sock

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It something I blame more on comic rules than anything. I've said as much myself: a Superman level threat with no moral compass, quick to anger, a huge chip on his shoulder, and few exploitable weaknesses should be a AAA threat. Superman gone bad, yeah, it's the stuff of nightmares. Shame all he pulled off was killing a couple of Z listers and nameless green lanterns.

Comic book rules pretty much state the good guys win, and except extreme circumstances, don't even get hurt. As much as we remember Luthor, the Joker, Darkseid, etc. as major villains, their track record of success is minor, and rarely sticks it to a main hero. Done with a sense of class it can be carried off, but Prime, between some childish characterization (often called a strawman of whiny comic fans) and very quick overexposure, and this character that should be a threat, that did inspire enough fear to get a yellow ring, quickly became that supposed big bad that never really succeeded at anything because ultimately, he couldn't without really parring down the hero population.
 

Shoggoth2588

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erttheking said:
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/62058/1260144-killyoutodeath.jpg

That's why.

For all of his potential powers, he's little more than a whiny brat from what I can gather.
I knew I wouldn't be the first one to use that so I'll just quote you.

Superboy Prime (Superman Prime?) seems to be most known for that phrase right there. It seems like DC just kinda of cut and ran when it came to SP since characters like Ultraman from The Crime Syndicate does the evil Superman thing so much more efficiently.
 

Rebel_Raven

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Because Lex has virtually zero super powers, none depending on who you ask, yet is way more charismatic, and still plenty deadly.

I guess this might relate to Kylo as he seemed to come off similarly? Not really sue what separates them, but
Kylo is far from being at his potential. His training isn't complete.
 

runic knight

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Why? Because the writers of the character are horrible at their job and it showed.

The character is an unlikable douche who's power comes not actually from his backstory, but rather, from terrible writing of the past all gathered together and left in a pile for the readers to deal with. Honestly, if not for the writers making him the equivalent power to the epitome of all supermen across multiverses, he'd not even warrant consideration. And that is a mark of a bad villain, not a good one, if their powers is all you can recall about them.

The character makes me think of bad fanfiction, where someone mary-stu'd all over established cannon and ass-pulled about scope of the power as a poor attempt to make the character threatening, while sabotaging their own efforts by having the character be the most whiny, annoying brat readers are forced to deal with. Hell, they even "nu uh'd" the standard superman weaknesses with bullshit, so that kyptonyte barely worked and red sun radiation merely reduced him to the power of the standard superman instead of depowering him completely. Hell, spoilers if I remember right, they couldn't even kill him, they had to literally cage him within a red sun with a swath of green lanturns constantly watching just to keep him pinned down.

Good villains can express aspects of humanity gone astray in a way that makes the character threatening beyond their power. The joker, not counting some weird eternal life stuff going on recently, was always just a madman. A single man who's threat was minimal in skills and ability but who's threat was super villain territory because of madness and unpredictability. Lex Luther is a single man who's intellect is indeed powerful, but it his ambition and drive that makes him a good villain (when done right anyways), as it is ambition that makes him threatening.

Superboy is what happens if a toddler was given the power of a god. The result is as villainous as a natural disaster. Sure there is a lot of destruction, but it is so pointless in the end, and not impressive outside of the scope.

Now the character had potential. It had a lot of potential as a concept. A being who is a god, who's power is so vast and dwarfs even the main universe's superman grieves for the loss of his universe and wants to right the world regardless the cost. That is a decent motivation there. The power of loss mixed with the the faint hope of fixing what was wrong all mixed together in the mind of a teenager who's pain fueled the direction he started down, and who's pride made him see it as the only way once it started to cost his soul and his morality as he went. Even more, the character would have sympathy and if the writers presented it well, could actually argue the point with some degree of reason, making the efforts that much more fitting. Superboy was a hero, if the situation was presented as, say, the universe could be fixed so he had his lost ones back at great risk to other universes, then it pits the heroic idea in his own head of fighting impossible odds against the risk of great harm the others see much more clearly. Many good villains see themselves as the hero after all, and of those that do, the best ones actually have a point.

Sadly, none of that gets through well with the character at all. The grief is displayed as petulant whining. The determination conflicting with moral uncertainty about what he was doing barely mentioned. The situation very black and white, and the character actively knows it means the end of everything, even from the start if I remember right.

The character is just bad, and the only villain I see when I think of him is the fanfic writers
 

Dragonpit

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An emo teenager? Comparable to a villain? Yeah, no.

You see, an emo teenager is not nearly as unstable as most villains. If anything, most emo teenagers are just trying to get a handle on their emotions. And, unlike villains, they generally *do* have a grasp on the fact that their actions have consequences. It's why I can't equate Superman Prime to the likes of the Joker, or Lex Luthor. Those just keep doing wrong and they damn the consequences that occur. Superman Prime? If he ever does anything like that, he'd sooner mope about it than do it again. It's not conducive to fixing things, sure, but it doesn't make him evil.
 

crimson5pheonix

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Because there is a far better way to do "evil Superman" stories. Irredeemable had a great one (though just a Superman expy).

You can read that quote above, and compare to how this guy reacts to lasering somebodies face off.



The worst part is he's as disgruntled as Superboy. But instead of getting whiny, he gets even.
 

Adaephon

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Because his most memorable acts all came out during Infinite Crisis where he was at almost all times under the control of Alexander Luthor. He did not, and probably could not, do any of his big feats on his own. Granted he had some good scenes in that book. The fact that he always broke out of whatever trap or prison he was stuck in (including the center of a red sun) and had seemingly endless tenacity was pretty cool. The fight between himself and the real Superboy and Nightwing was also pretty good. But regardless of that, he wasn't anything too special.

Alexander was far more powerful (he smashed entire universes together like tinker toys for crying out loud), more intelligent, more cold-hearted, and overall more memorable. Alexander also had a really great villainous death while Superboy Prime had more of a "to be continued" type thing, which led in to a bunch of mediocre-at-best stories, including of course Countdown. Even when he killed real Superboy, it seemed like Prime actually lost since the Titans were able to get in and allow the Flashes to save the day. So in short, Prime never did anything super memorable and he was subservient to a way better villain during the first, and best, book that he was in.
 

Trooper924

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Eddie the head said:
erttheking said:
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/62058/1260144-killyoutodeath.jpg

That's why.

For all of his potential powers, he's little more than a whiny brat from what I can gather.
Well I think that speaks for it's self. But hay at least it's kind of funny. It's not cringe worthy like a lot of the female Thor comics I've seen.
If you want cringe worthy, go look up the issue where Superboy Prime killed a pregnant woman with his heat vision. No idea why anyone thought that was a good idea.