6. Superman
For the longest time, people complained that Superman is just too powerful to be featured in a good story. If he’s perfectly good and perfectly strong, what could possibly challenge him? And if nothing can challenge him, where’s the tension? Those complaints clearly came from people who don’t know much about Superman, because even though he as among the most powerful superheroes, and even though he remains a paragon of goodness, Superman regularly deals with some incredible foes.
Of course, we all know about Lex Luthor and Doomsday, the twin poles of brain versus brawn. Go a little deeper, and you’ll find Brainaic, an alien scientist who collects lost civilizations, Metallo, whose Kryptonite heart immediately creates problems, and the Kryptonian General Zod. But the most interesting enemies are those who challenge Superman on something other than brawn, like the trickster Mister Mxyzptlk, the troubled Rampage, or the cursed Silver Banshee. Superman bests them all, but these villains are more than enough to ensure that the never-ending battle for truth, justice, and a better tomorrow is a battle indeed.
5. Spider-Man
Spider-Man is defined by his suffering. So, of course, he has a host of baddies to give the web-head headaches. In fact, Spidey’s enemies are so awful that they’ve been banding together as the Sinister Six since almost the beginning, and even that group didn’t include his arch-enemy Green Goblin. Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Kraven the Hunter have been at the center of some of the best superhero stories ever told, and even the bottom-rung bad guys—from the Kangaroo to Puma to the Prowler—have had some great stories themselves.
Really, the biggest knock against Spider-Man’s enemies is that the original Steve Ditko creations loom so large that it’s hard for new additions to stand out. Furthermore, when someone like Venom and now even Carnage gets some traction, they soon become anti-heroes, if not full-on heroes, thus diminishing their power. Then again, Peter Parker did recently cross paths with Paul, and it’s hard to think of a comic book character more hated than Paul, so maybe Spidey’s rogues gallery is growing after all.
4. X-Men
Given that they fight to save a world that fears and hates them, all of society counts as the enemy of the X-Men. Fortunately, writers have endeavored to be more specific than that, pitting the team against a surprising range of assailants. Of course, the best remain those who have a bond with the X-Men, but simply manifest their goals in different ways, such as the three-dimensional Magneto or even Sebastian Shaw and his elite among the Hellfire Club.
But the X-Men have plenty of more simplistic bad guys who make for good stories, just by virtue of being weird or just downright evil. The Sentinels and Bastion always pose a threat, and Arcade is perhaps the most realistic depiction of a rich person in the history of comics. Graydon Creed, Reverend Stryker, and Senator Kelly simply hate the X-Men for existing. And then there are the enemies that the X-Men made during the first half of Chris Claremont’s run, back when he could take the mutants from genre to genre and set them against the Shi’ar Imperial Guard, the Xenomorph-like Brood, or the mutant dinosaur Sauron. Turns out, the X-Men run into fear and hatred everywhere they go.