Warning: contains spoilers for Aquamen #4!
While many C-List villains are beloved by comic fans for their over-the-top nature, Aquaman’s nemesis Black Manta just revealed the tragic truth behind them. While Black Manta himself is an influential villain with a seat on the Legion of Doom, the rest of Aquaman’s foes are far less threatening, meaning he’s familiar with some of DC’s least impressive rogues.
C-List villains are generally villains who have an absurd or outdated gimmick and are not viewed as a serious threat by either the heroes they fight or the general audience. Many of these characters originate from the early days of comics, which featured less grounded plots and characters. Despite their over-the-top nature, some of these characters, like Kite Man, have received modern storylines to make them deadlier or lend them pathos, but many are still used just for jokes or as a minor distraction to show various vigilantes hard at work. This doesn’t mean that these sorts of characters aren’t popular, as many are beloved by comic fans for their outlandish costumes and weird obsessions, but it does mean they’re rarely seen as significant threats.
In Aquamen #4, written by Chuck Brown and Brandon Thomas with art by Sami Basri and Vicente Cifuente, the Scavenger, a minor Aquaman villain, is using a magical upgrade to his suit to fight Jackson Hyde and his father Black Manta. At one point in the fight when he thinks he has the upper hand, he gloats that Manta and everyone else won’t be able to laugh at him ever again. However, Black Manta responds by revealing something much more heartbreaking: he doesn’t laugh at Scavenger, because he never even thinks about him. In fact, nobody in the DC Universe even cares about the Scavenger.
This reveals the saddest part of being a C-List character. These characters are absurd and often receive ridicule from heroes and civilians. They may not enjoy this derision, but they have the self-awareness to expect it. But in the eyes of the people who matter most to them – the heroes they fight and the major villains whose schemes they get wrapped up in – they’re totally forgettable, just one of many absurd characters with dumb names and gimmicks. This is worse than being made fun of, as it shows that they are unimportant to anyone who may actually matter to them in their own universe.
Scavenger is on the more threatening end of the C-List Villains, due to his willingness to target Aquaman’s family, but even he is ultimately forgotten when he isn’t posing an immediate threat. Even now, when he is actually strong enough to go toe to toe with Black Manta and the Aquamen in battle, none of the heroes deem him worthy enough to go after when he flies away after the fight. This just serves to underscore that what Black Manta said is true: C-List villains like the Scavenger may be laughed at by comic book readers, but they are tragically ignored in their own world.
Aquamen #4 is available now from DC Comics.
