With the arrival of “Suicide Squad” and its cast of villains, we started to wonder — who are the best and the baddest superhero-movie villains? Here’s my list:
Heath Ledger as The Joker, “The Dark Knight” (2008). This one had to be first, right? The only superhero villain to win an Oscar (tragically, a posthumous one), this vicious clown had a face encased in creased, grotesque makeup, a laugh that sounded like a cackle turned inside-out, and an odd, random way with dialogue, as if speaking from a flawed translation. Nobody who saw this performance ever forgets it.
Ian McKellen as Magneto, three “X-Men” movies (2000-2006). Nobody does chilly precision quite like Sir Ian, who with his good-guy nemesis Patrick Stewart easily carried a trio of blockbusters. Just listen to him, in the final battle scene of “X-Men: The Last Stand”: “In chess,” he silkily intones, watching the front lines march to their doom, “the pawns go first.”
Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, “Batman Returns” (1992). Many are partial to Danny DeVito’s Penguin in this movie, but I’m a sucker for Pfeiffer’s transformation from mousy Selina Kyle to the “so much yummier” black-latex-clad kittycat, with every line a dark purr.
