After watching Iron Man, I was relieved to find that someone, finally, did it right. I was never a fan of the comic, mostly because he was a part of Marvel’s legacy crew, A.K.A. The Avengers. There was zero character development, at least from the “I want it, now.” standpoint of a teenage boy. X-Men and Image comics offered more twists and turns. That aside, I was really impressed by the movie. I thought about it for a while to figure out, why? Sure, the acting and special effects were great, but ultimately the main reason I truly enjoyed it was because the bad guy was a real dick. The mark of a great superhero movie is a villain you can hate with a fiery passion.

Think of all the Spider-Man movie antagonists. You have the Green Goblin, a tortured soul. He wants to do what’s right, but that damned formula is forcing him to be evil. You have Doctor Octopus, tormented by the loss of his true love; manipulated by his tentacles. You also have The Sandman. He killed Peter Parker’s uncle and you’re still not allowed to hate him, because he has a sick kid. So, why should we root for Spider-Man, when there’s no pure evil to balance out the pure good? Another question you have to ask yourself is this, why aren’t we allowed to hate these guys?

The villain should be the unsympathetic embodiment of all the ills that plague our time. Iron Man was dead-on in this aspect. You have a greedy, anything-for-profit, capitalist, providing terrorists with weapons. You hate everything about him and want him to be destroyed. It’s a declaration that popular culture recognizes these traits to be repugnant. In a time with outrageous gas prices and oil companies making record profits, it’s our way of saying, “You have us in your clutches at the moment, but history will hold you in the same regard as slave merchants and robber barons.”

There’s another reason a truly evil villain resonates so strongly with me, personally. I developed my moral foundation from comic books. I didn’t get my introduction to good vs. evil from religion or philosophy. These things are above a child’s head. All I needed to know was Superman fought the bad guys and I wanna’ be like Superman. Of course, I learned of the varying degrees of grey, as I got older, but there’s something comforting in seeing a real asshole being defeated. It’s an affirmation that my initial beliefs still hold true and the Universe has balanced itself out, yet again. It’s also profoundly refreshing to see that some unredeemable jerk has been held accountable for his actions.

I say, bring on the dicks. Give us someone to hate. Although, taking jabs at the untouchables is no ground-breaking maneuver, at least it’s not cowardly. From a movie-goers perspective, it’s refreshing to see that a few people still have a little bit of backbone. After all, it makes the hero’s victory all the sweeter.