Welcome to part one of a five-part installment of Legendary Focus that will be spread across the week, like breadcrumbs leading to absolutely nothing. This week I’ll be presenting a “top five villains” I’d like to see during SDCC. These will be in no particular order, but I will say that today’s installment is my personal number one choice. But truthfully, any time a brand-new villain debuts in the Marvel line, I get a little bit excited because bad guys are awesome, and it seems like we never get enough of them. Although lately that seems to be shifting a bit. We’re living in fascinating times.
My favorite type of bad guy has always been the ones who can take on entire teams all by themselves. That doesn’t mean I don’t love the planners, the leaders, the thinkers, the henchmen, or the cannon-fodder guys, but there’s something very gripping about a villain so powerful that whole teams have trouble against them. This is the level of the baddies like Thanos, Ultron, Juggernaut, and the star of our feature: Count Nefaria.
The Count had fairly humble beginnings, starting out as a grand guignol-type villain who dressed a little bit like Dracula — with the addition of a Bond-villain monocle — before getting an ionic upgrade to a super-evil Supermanesque character. That’s another character-group I dig: the Supermen. But that’s another article entirely.
With the ionic Upgrade, Nefaria ditched the Eurotrash ensemble and slapped on a snazzy spandex costume and a cross-shoulder cape. Now he was no longer just a villain — he was a super-villain! And he was no longer relegated to the sidelines or employing fancy henchmen to do his bidding. Newly empowered by a nearly limitless supply of ionic energy and with the power to crack mountains in his hands, Nefaria could go toe-to-toe with Gods like Thor and God-like heroes like Wonder Man — all at once. Nefaria could take a full-on blow from Mjolnir and laugh it off as if a gnat had run into him. If that’s not badass, then I need a new dictionary.
It’s all about fascinating levels of power with people like Nefaria, and when one guy can take on two supreme powerhouses like Thor and Wonder Man — two of the strongest entities on the entire planet — and come out the winner, you’ve got someone that needs an action figure and needs one right away. Of course, that requires a good Thor figure and a Wonder Man — but again, those are other articles.
Count Nefaria is one of those villains that comes in, makes a memorable appearance, and then disappears for years at a time. Because of that, there’s no way he could ever be called “overused.” But that just means each appearance leaves a decent impact and brings with it a handful of awesome fight scenes because comics at their core are about super-strong dudes in spandex punching the bejeebles out of each other for our amusement. Beats watching MMA stuff, right? Right!
With Gladiator finally getting a figure, Count Nefaria stepped right up into my number one slot of “unbelievably strong dude.” While I will maintain that Gladiator was made on the wrong body, Count Nefaria would be a perfect use of the brand new Grim Reaper body that Gladiator should have utilized. That body sits right between the Hyperion body and the BuckyCap body, which means it’s perfect for someone like Count Nefaria who needs a slightly-larger-yet-not-too-oversized stature. The Count only needs a cape, a new head, and a pair of fists added to a blank body to exist, which means he’s a low-fuss, low-muss addition to any line.
As Avengers and Avengers-related characters are pretty hot nowadays, Nefaria could easily be slipped into any line featuring pretty much any Avenger figure. That means, much like Ant Man’s toy line became a catch-all for a host of random villains, Count Nefaria could make it out in a Captain America line, or a random Avengers line, or… ok, I don’t know, put him in an Irving Forbush line for all I care. We got a Blizzard and Tiger Shark, so Count Nefaria is just a slot away. Let’s see this ionic dude at SDCC this year!
