[Andrew999]

One of the stand-out points of the Gotham TV series was the way they made the villains sympathetic - tortured souls moulded by their pasts. Of course, that doesn't justify the psychopathic mayhem they created - there are many tortured souls who don't go around wiping people out - but at least it made them human.

What villains do you feel most sorry for in comicdom? (Wile E Coyote springs to mind!)

[Robb_K]

One of the stand-out points of the Gotham TV series was the way they made the villains sympathetic - tortured souls moulded by their pasts. Of course, that doesn't justify the psychopathic mayhem they created - there are many tortured souls who don't go around wiping people out - but at least it made them human.

What villains do you feel most sorry for in comicdom? (Wile E Coyote springs to mind!)

The Big Bad Wolf, who chased The Three Little Pigs.  Especially Disney's version of that Folk Tale, which had his one son of the three, who ended up living with him in the comic book series, Little Wolf, who was friendly with The Three Little Pigs, and constantly helped them sabotage his father's efforts to catch and eat them.  Wolves are carnivores, and eating smaller or weaker animals is only natural for them, to keep them alive and healthy.  Zeke Wolf, constantly having to eat beans makes him constantly an unhealthy victim of malnutrition.  And having the only son left with whom he now has contact constantly sabotaging his chances for enjoying life and being healthy, is embarrassing, and an act of major disrespect and betrayal.  Very sad.

[The Australian Panther]

I think Kirby and Lee's origin of Dr Doom [In FF Annual #2] was ground-breaking, in that they defined Victor as a three- dimensional character with major issues. Definitely a Villain, but a complex person as well.
And Magneto - He goes from Hero to Villain and back again. And in the movies he is more of  a misunderstood hero. Hmm.  Thinking. Probably the earliest was Namor the SubMariner.
The Original Marvel Miniseries, The Sentry, was an exploration of the dichotomy between Hero and Villain.
And with DC we have Black Adam. Sinestro? Lex Luthor is not a villain in his own eyes.

Cheers!     

[Robb_K]

I also feel sorry for J.P. McBrine, the pickled vegetable baron, whose grandfather packed a million jars of pickled  rutabagas (McBrine's Folly), back in the early 1900s, which, unfortunately, didn't make a hit with the pickle lovers.  All 3 of the grandfather, his son, and grandson, J.P., were the butt of jokes and ridicule for the grandfather's mistake.  When his grandson, J.P. learned of Auger-nosed Pickle-Haters, an insect that devastates cucumber crops, found in The Amazon Rainforest, he went crazy, finally having hopes of selling off his giant stock of his grandfather's folly, and finally getting respect as a pickle canner, when the finicky elite cucumber pickle lovers would be forced to settle for rutabagas to satisfy their pickle appetites.  He couldn't help himself, paying the Amazonian Stickaree Indians to capture hundreds of those destructive insects.  In this 1957 Carl Barks adventure story, Donald Duck is sent by Duckburg's cucumber growers/picklers to The Amazon, to bring back Razor Wasps, that eat the pickle haters.  It's a remake of "The Forbidden Valley", with a remote valley still containing dinosaurs, and ancient animal and plant life from eons ago, thought to be long extinct.  McBrine does everything he can to try to keep Donald and his nephews from succeeding.  In the end, McBrine finally tries tasting a pickled rutabaga to celebrate his apparent victory.  He HATES the taste.  Poor man.  So, he ends up joining Donald and his nephews trying to catch the razor wasps that he scattered to the winds by busting the box Donald had used to transport them. 

A 3rd villain, for whom I feel sorry, is the mysterious thief who is stealing all the garden gnomes (elves) in a middle-sized town, which has the police force completely stumped.  They think it must be some kind of artist (perhaps sculptor?) who has flipped off the cliff from rationality, and absolutely HATES what he considers "bad taste".  But, in the end, we find out that the thief was just a harmless, lonely, comedian wannabee, who was so tired of failing with his pitiful, failed stand-up comedy act, that he gathered thousands of gnome statues from people's lawns in the middle of the night, and hid them in a cave in the woods in the nearby hills, to use as a non-beligerent audience for experimental changes to his stand-up comedy act.  He plays a recording of people laughing to build his confidence.  Poor fellow!