King Crimson's Thoughts On Categorizing and Writing Evil in Comic Books
Introduction
Evil is an interesting concept to write about. It's inherently relativistic to at least some degree and there's a lot of philosophy around it. Not only that, it's philosophy that's often easy to digest and can include nuance. With the superhero genre fundamentally being about heroism, or in other words good, it's only natural that the antagonists be evil in some way or another. It is important to note that in story's the antagonist does not need to be evil. Antagonists can oppose the protagonist without in any meaningful way being evil. It's not often handled well when people do this but you can have conflicts where both people are good or at the very least do not actively act evilly.
Now I don't want to devolve too far into philosophy but I would like to introduce the idea that both actions and actors can be evil and they are not intrinsically linked. Someone could rob a company thinking that they're doing good as a Robin Hood-like figure only to unintentionally harm the livelihoods of thousands of people and make the act actually evil without being evil themselves. Someone could lash out in anger and accidentally hurt someone and while the act remains evil the person does not. The reason why I bring up this little bit about philosophy is because it's important to understand my own positions on evil with supervillains.
Now with supervillains I like to categorize them into a few different types, inherently evil, incidentally evil, intentionally evil, identifiably evil and ideally evil. Each of these categories is tied to the characters inherent relationship with evil and each one of them ought to be written in my own humble opinion.
Inherently Evil
Inherently evil characters are often the simplest and least nuanced characters but at the same time they can be the most difficult to handle. Inherently evil characters are characters to whom evil is an inherent part of their character. It's so baked into who they are that they simply cannot be any other way. Inherently evil characters lack moral agency in that they did not choose to be evil they were simply born or created that way. Examples of this kind of character in DC comics include, parademons, monsters, Nekron, the Rot, killer robots and more.
Inherently evil characters lack any real depth to their reasoning as to why they are evil as it's reduced to simply being their nature. They cannot be anything but evil and so there's no real exploration of their motivations. Oftentimes inherently evil characters lack any agency and are only evil because some higher power compels them to be evil. As such they tend to work well as minions that the hero can unload the full force of their skills on or that a group of people with different morality can team up to fight against, because there is no chance of reform or improvement of that entity. They exist to be used and disposed of.
What is interesting about an inherently evil character is what they show about another character and what additional traits they have. Nekron for example is interesting because of how people work together to deal with him and because of his role in the greater cosmology in the DC universe. The Rot is fascinating as an evil force that doesn't actually want to kill all humans and is a necessary part of life. Parademons are often simpering, cowardly and cruel and in doing so they demonstrate something about Darkseid that this is what his footsoldiers are and how they act as well as the fact that he freely throws away the lives of parademons says something about how he doesn't value them as resources. The manhunters are inherently evil but their creation shows the Guardians as fallible and highlights their arrogance but at the same time shows that there are lines they are unwilling to cross and that for all they do argue with the Green Lanterns who are our protagonists, they are still good. Inherently evil characters are basically a fulcrum which you can use to explore more interesting characters.
As such I don't think they make interesting POV characters but they make excellent minions, background elements or even serving as part of an ensemble. What they contribute to the story is not something interesting in who they are, but rather in what they do and how they act. They're less a thematic statement and more a plot element.
Incidentally Evil
Incidentally evil are a notable distinction in that they are a character who are in a sense disconnected from their evil and aren't culpable for their own actions. As such the evil acts they do perform aren't their fault. The individual in question happens to be evil because of circumstances beyond their control and not any choices on their part.
Any character who is mind controlled to act evilly falls under this category but, while it is the rarest form of evil in comics in my opinion, there are still characters who fall under this categorization. Characters like Humpty Dumpty or Big Sir perform evil actions not because they choose to perform evil, but because they are incapable of understanding what they are doing and can't be held accountable for what they do.
Characters who are incidentally evil ought to have their evil be considered tragic in some way shape or form. They're pitiable and unlike a lot of villains I think some degree of compassion should be given to them. Granted all of this is contingent on the idea that the character can't recognize that they did anything wrong and the moment someone manages to explain it to them they'll instantly stop but it is something I think should be included.
Incidentally evil characters are tricky because just beating them up and disposing of them (through death, imprisonment or however the story is going to cycle characters offscreen) doesn't give you as much catharsis or resolution. An incidentally evil character needs to be handled in such a way that's different than how the heroes normally do, because an incidentally evil character fundamentally challenges how a hero approaches dealing with evil actions when they're disconnected from anything even resembling malicious intent.
I think that the way to handle these characters is to give them long term ramifications for their actions one way or another. Either, once the character realizes they committed evil and can understand it they have to grapple with that understanding for a good long while (generally most effective for mind control stories) or you have the hero try to wrestle with having to confront said person or search for a way to help them understand what they are doing. Sending someone like Humphry Dumpler to Arkham doesn't resolve the issues he brought up and thus more needs to be done with the character in order to have it have at least some degree of success. Even if it's something as small as the hero talking them down from hurting anyone or giving them something productive they can do while imprisoned or anything along those lines, it still is needed in order to bring the story to a close effectively.
Incidentally evil characters are probably the trickiest to handle if you're not going for the mind control angle as the mind control angle effectively simplifies some of the nuance and the morality surrounding the situation as there's a clear outside factor that you can immediately blame and assign moral culpability for what goes down.
Intentionally Evil
Intentionally evil, despite what the name I've given it seems to suggest, is not someone who deliberately chooses to do evil. Rather it is someone who chooses to perform an action that is evil that places them into the role of antagonist. In other words while the person's intentions are not evil it is because of their intentions that they perform evil.
This is a very, very broad category as any well meaning individual who performs evil or becomes evil falls into this category. The thing that is most important to note is that the person is evil because of the things they chose to do and emphasis is placed on those choices. Characters in this categorization cannot recognize that what they are doing is wrong even if their choices are marked by the story as being evil to some degree or another. Some versions of Poison Ivy, Anarky, Zoom, Sinestro, Atrocitus and more all fall into this category.
I think it's important to note with intentionally evil characters is that there is a sliding degree of selfishness versus selflessness and that generally affects portrayal. The more selfless the characters intentions are, the more out of touch with reality they are and the more they lean into being some manner of insane or damaged. The more selfish the intentions, even if they are somewhat malicious or uncaring, the more the character is in some way hypocritical or arrogantly convinced that others do not know better than them.
I generally think that when portraying intentionally evil characters it's best to give them a long slow descent. Like with the boiling frog parable slowly increasing how much a character is willing to engage in evil until you reach their end state that is vastly different from the start is in my opinion the ideal way to handle this type of character, especially those who fall more on the selfish side of the scale (more selfless intentionally evil characters can more often get away with a psychotic break pushing them into what they are and speed running some of the logical hoops they have to jump through).
I also think it's important that intentionally evil characters have a point, though not necessarily a good one. They ought to be able to line up an argument that makes sense if their premises are taken to be true. Keep in mind that this does not mean that the audience or other characters have to acknowledge them as in any way right or morally justifiable but they should at least be capable of acknowledging that their argument makes sense from their point of view.
Having a character transition to become intentionally evil is tricky at times but I think it can be done well even if you have to be careful with how you write it. What you essentially need to do is demonstrate how a character comes up with the premises for their argument and then show step by step how they came to that conclusion. If the audience cannot reconstruct the intentionally evil character's logic, then their characterization will ultimately fall flat.
Identifiably Evil
Identifiably evil characters are another broad spectrum of characters and characterizations but they are an important one nonetheless. These are characters who can look at themselves and their actions and recognize that they are in some way evil but they do not care one way or another. Furthermore the narrative itself acknowledges that the characters are evil or are behaving in an evil manner but the focus is not on their evil but rather on something else instead. This is by far the broadest category of categorization of evil as well over 3/4ths of all supervillains can be included under this category (Bane, Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang, Heatwave, Javelin, Sportsmaster, Deathstroke, Deadshot, Black Manta, Brother Blood, Merlyn, Parasite, Metallo, Penguin and many many more all fall under this category).
Identifiably evil characters do not need to revel in their evil and whilst they won't deny their actions evil they'll generally have some degree of excuse for why it's okay or dismiss the question itself as stupid. They'll have a reason for their crimes but it's not one they'll attempt to justify as really being the moral high ground.
There's a lot of range within these characters and they're often the easiest ones to have take up different roles depending on what you need them for. It's difficult to parse something that's a universal bit of advice given these characters but I think the one key element that you can get to portraying these characters is that you should never have the crux of their story be about morality. The hero doesn't need to debate them and their evil does not need to be brought to the forefront of a story or made explicitly clear to the audience.
Ideally Evil
Ideally evil is the last kind of evil character and it's simultaneously the hardest and easiest to categorize. An ideally evil character is a character who in some way is meant to embody evil. Characters like Trigon or Darkseid fall under this category. There is a bit of overlap between this category and inherently evil characters but the key distinction I believe ought to be made is that these characters are meant to represent a concept beyond themselves and in a sense embody evil.
Because of this whilst ideally evil characters aren't going to have their morality explored, their character traits are used to explore something about a facet of evil or the nature of evil. Darkseid's constant ambition and cruel disregard of those beneath him is meant to highlight that the evil he represents is in some way tied to those concepts. Trigon's hatred of all life is meant to mark him as a sort of apocalyptic evil that focuses on scope as opposed to personal cruelty.
In any case ideally evil characters are where you need to get a little philosophical and thematic in your portrayal of them as characters as you're quite literally using them to represent a concept within the story. As such their behavior, characterization and the actions they take ought to be considered within the greater scope of what you want to say about evil in what you are writing. Don't be afraid to have fun with the character and use them in stories without micromanaging everything but be aware that their behavior ought to be in line with what you think evil or at least an aspect of evil would act like if personified.
