supervillain n.

The play itself was written by Lorin J. Howard and Ralph Kettering and is the traditional melodrama of the tropics with modern touches in the way of a Japanese plot against the United States, the tapping of the wireless, etc. One Dr. Oagi Sankura, a Japanese scientist, is the supervillain who does the plotting, while a bird of paradise flavor is introduced by a native priest.

Sax Rohmer…was the creator of the famous Chinese super-villain, Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Professor Sheldon was determined to succeed. As his wave-plowing craft came within fifteen feet of scraping the side of the Aquamarine, the fiend gave a sharp command. His gloating cry came as a note of terror to those aboard the yacht. Uwittingly [sic], the captain and his victorious crew had played into the hands of the supervillain. The passengers, too, had made the same error.

[T]o an Earthly member of that rabid army known as scientification [sic] fans, the words would have brought a tinge of awe. For this was the room where far-flung systems were denied existence, by one shake of a firm, unyielding head; where the most expressive cuss-words of super villains were brutally censored with a fiendish swipe of a little, blue pencil—the editorial office of Galactic Adventures.

The magician claims vast powers, but he also peoples the world with hostile demons, ghosts, and witches, who can be blamed for failure. Similarly the creator of Superman made his hero so mighty that human villains were the merest pushovers, and the cartoonist was forced to invent super-villains of transcendent power to enliven his strip.

The one you’ve been waiting for! The first tale ever told of the F.F. after Reed and Sue are married! With a brand-new super-villain, all-new problems, and the return of—aw, why say more? It’s the greatest yet!

[C]onsider comics. Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, for instance, and Thor, are fantasy heroes, with magickal paraphernalia. They are constantly involved in SF plots. The comicbooks are in the superhero and supervillain era—along with heroic fantasy.

It was often difficult to take decent pictures when you weren’t behind the camera, but in front of it as Spider-Man. It was tough to pay much attention to ƒ-stops and exposure times when you were duking it out with some bad guy. It was the devil to keep the camera pointed at the action when you were swinging by your webline from one rooftop or another. Also, criminals, both the elite supervillain types and your ordinary garden-variety crooks, were generally not very amenable to staying in the camera frame while you were having it out with them.

[D]oes Superman’s x-ray vision violate the Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search? Does his habit of scooping up bank robbers and taking them directly to prison cheat due process? Is taking down a super-villain with a blast of his heat vision an unconstitutional use of excessive force?

Clearly, ‘super’ means more than just better here: it means going beyond. He’s not just a stronger version of us: Superman can do things regular people can’t. Therefore, a supervillain should be as far beyond our understanding of villainy as we are above a villainous ant, which means a supervillain should be able to do things regular villains can’t.