No superheroes forget their first major villain. It’s their first real test that pushes them to their limits and ultimately sets the stage for their career-defining victory that saves those who need them.
The CW’s legendary Arrowverse showcased that well. For the Green Arrow, his first challenge was the Dark Archer, The Flash found himself up against the Reverse-Flash, Supergirl and Batwoman took on family, and the Legends battled an immortal tyrant across time. All of these great heroes overcame insurmountable odds to save the day.
But the Arrowverse told a long story, and with that came plenty of villains. Yes, across Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman, there were countless great villains and threats for our heroes to take on. But not all of them were up for the challenge.
With that in mind, and the unfortunate end of the Arrowverse having come and gone, let’s reflect on all of the shared universe’s major villains and figure out which of them were the best (and which were the worst).
Note: While there were countless villains across Arrowverse shows, this list will take a look at the major season villains. It also won’t include shows that spent the majority of their runs as Arrowverse-adjacent (such as Black Lightning, DC’s Stargirl, or Superman and Lois).
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Cicada II
Before we get into this, we’d just like to say that Cicada II was a major improvement over her predecessor. Her arrival late in the game in The Flash season 5 was unexpected for sure, but it was a welcome addition to the main story, which had long since soured as the show had no idea how to make the original Cicada a worthy villain for a 22-episode season.
Unfortunately, the new arrival from the future also wasn’t able to sustain her prominence for long enough to get a worthy storyline. Grace Gibbons becoming the future Cicada was a genius twist because the backstory was there, but the execution once again let it down, as she came off as a crazed, robotic one-note of a character with little depth in spite of a compelling backstory and solid motivations.
Something that also didn’t help matters was how she was introduced so late into the season when the show had already shifted gears from Cicada being the main villain to the return of the Reverse-Flash. Both Cicadas felt irrelevant and that gave the character very little time to stand out. The season was too overcrowded and the more interesting storylines won out in the end.
Verdict: WORST
Alice
When Batwoman premiered on The CW, Alice was an inevitable choice for the first big bad. In DC Comics, she is considered the Scarlet Knight’s archenemy in the same way that The Joker is considered Batman’s archenemy. Adding to that, she is the sister of Kate Kane, meaning that the story between them would be a personal one. And as we’ve seen in the past with the Arrowverse shows, the richest villains are always those with personal ties to the heroes.
A rich villain is exactly what we got with Alice. With a solid motivation for wanting to cause the chaos that she did, and a disturbingly gleeful delight when she caused said chaos, it was exhilarating to watch her from week to week. The main reason for that was undoubtedly Rachel Skarsten’s magnetic performance, as she not only played the unhinged character extremely well, she brought nuance to the role and ensured we never saw Alice as a caricature.
Alice was a believable villain in the world of Batwoman imbued with depth. You never knew what emotions she would make you feel, but you did know that she would make you feel something. And her redemption arc was undoubtedly one of the very best the small screen has ever seen.
We’re not surprised she stuck around after the first season’s story concluded, because the show would have been worse off without her.
Verdict: BEST
Leviathan
The words “Leviathan is coming” was enough to inspire fear and intrigue when they were first uttered by that old lady in the Supergirl season 4 finale. There was the interest in who – or what – Leviathan was, and the possibility that the lady might have been DC’s Granny Goodness. Unfortunately, she wasn’t, but that would have been okay if Leviathan had lived up to expectations. They did not.
An ancient organization that was seemingly pulling the strings while hiding in plain sight should have been interesting. Heck, I just reminded myself how great the concept was when I typed that sentence. But the execution of it fell flat, with bland and uninteresting characters on Leviathan, specifically the character Rama Khan, whose power-levels differed depending on whatever the plot needed from him.
Gamemnae was a step up but she just started taking center stage when the season’s story was wrapped up. And to make matters worse, she spent her moment in the spotlight in the shadow of Lex Luthor.
Leviathan had all the potential and very little of it was realized.
Verdict: WORST
Reign
Now this was a layered villain.
Up until this point, Supergirl had struggled with convincing villains, with previous big bads coming off as either underdeveloped or suffering from a lack of depth. Reign, however, was the hit we were waiting for.
What made her such a compelling antagonist was the fact that we started the season rooting for her. Well, kind of. It turned out that Sam Arias (one of Supergirl‘s new arrivals in season 3) was actually the vessel for a Kryptonian Worldkiller designed to, well, destroy the world (and eliminate Supergirl). The twist was that Sam was actually a good person, a great friend to Lena and Kara, and a loving mother to daughter Ruby. She had built a life in her three decades on Earth and didn’t want to lose all that to a murderous Kryptonian demon.
Speaking of that demon, Reign was a chilling addition to the show. Let me just take a moment to say that Supergirl did a wonderful job of building her up as a deadly threat before she made her first appearance. There was an apocalyptic aura about her that completely went against everything the light-hearted show stood for, so to see her decimate the Girl of Steel in their first battle; it was genuinely scary.
Reign was the perfect villain for Supergirl, a force-to-be-reckoned with on-screen, and featured an unexpectedly layered backstory that made us actively root for the young woman caught in all the crossfire. Oh, how I miss watching this season for the first time.
Verdict: BEST
Damien Darhk (on Arrow)
Damien Darhk ended up becoming something of a regular presence in the Arrowverse between 2016 and 2019 and it all started on Arrow. Ironically, that was the worst part of his whole stint, and it wasn’t necessarily down to the character but the fact that he didn’t fit in on a show like Arrow.
Darhk is a mystic with other-worldly power and that just clashed with the grounded nature of the show. It’s well-documented that Arrow fared better with more straight-forward, non-powered, villains and Darhk’s arrival during a time in which it was trying to steady itself just didn’t work. He was corny, uncompelling, and had the most basic of goal to destroy the world – a goal which was a little too ambitious for Team Arrow and really should have involved people like The Flash and Supergirl who could have stopped him much sooner.
It also didn’t help that he was the villain of the worst Arrowverse season of all, and not even Neal McDonough’s incredible charisma could save Arrow season 4 from earning that title.
Thankfully, McDonough got a chance to shine over on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow where the quirky one-liner-spewing villain fitted in perfectly. Oddly enough, it was that show that actually afforded him some decent character development – something Arrow couldn’t quite get right.
Verdict: WORST
Prometheus
After two disappointing seasons with two disappointing villains, Arrow went back to basics in season 5 with a more grounded villain that held a personal vendetta against the Emerald Archer. The result was absolute perfection.
While Prometheus’ arc was all about the story, the thing that made it work right out of the gate was the fact that he was mysterious. And terrifying. Very, very terrifying. Ra’s Al Ghul lost an air of mystery due to overexposure (and too much talking) while Damien Darhk was corny and delivered far too many monologues to be taken seriously. Prometheus, on the other hand, was a man of few words – and a lot of action.
The twist that he was actually Adrian Chase, the new District Attorney of Star City and close friend of Oliver Queen, was incredible – especially as Chase is actually Vigilante in the comics. But that livened up the storyline further, giving it life that allowed it to function remarkably well across the 22 episode season.
Prometheus’ look was incredible, but his story was even better. That, and the fact that he was an archer allowed him to take part in more basic hand-to-hand fights with Oliver Queen, made him one of the best villains throughout Arrow‘s whole run. Just when we thought the show couldn’t quite manage to produce a strong villain anymore, they gave us this. And it was, without a doubt, one of Arrow‘s very best comebacks!
Verdict: BEST
Vandal Savage
Casper Crump looked amazing as Vandal Savage. It was really as if the DC Comics villain had stepped right off the pages onto the screen, and Crump played him with such a dastardly flare. The problem was that the material wasn’t giving him much beyond surface level villainy, and that made the character a pretty lacklustre threat for the first season of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
Savage was initially introduced as the villain of the second-annual Arrowverse crossover when The Flash and Green Arrow had to team up to stop him. He served his purpose well and was eventually defeated at the hands of both heroes. But the crossover was essentially a backdoor pilot for Legends and thus he was eventually resurrected to serve as its main villain.
In all honesty, he was a fine villain, and lived up to his Arrowverse reputation as an immortal tyrant who needed all the might of the Legends to stop him at three different points in the timeline, but he just wasn’t all that interesting and rarely had anything to offer outside of typical villain mustache-twirling.
In short bursts, he was perfect, but this wasn’t a character that needed to be a season-long big bad.
Verdict: WORST
Dark Archer
When Oliver Queen returned to Starling City intent on righting the wrongs of his family, he couldn’t have known that he would have been greeted by another archer. Malcolm Merlyn was everything that Oliver’s father didn’t want to be and it was up to the Arrow to stop him from destroying the city – both literally and figuratively.
The Dark Archer was everything you could want in a first major villain. He tested Oliver in every way imaginable because he was his equal. A billionaire by day, vigilante by night; Merlyn was the ultimate test for Oliver and he matched him at every turn, with his experience often giving him the upper hand. John Barrowman played the charismatic and charming billionaire well, and he was also terrifying as the Dark Archer, bringing both sides of the character to life with ease.
It was a more grounded interpretation of the DC Comics villain and it suited Arrow’s tone and style down to the ground. Though later seasons would water the character down to a shell of what he once was, that first season with Merlyn at the forefront of it solidified him as one of TV’s greatest villains – and he remains one of the Arrowverse’s very best.
Verdict: BEST
Deathstroke
Arrow might have gotten a bit of a reputation for using Batman villains, but when we saw how well Deathstroke worked in this world, it’s really quite easy to understand why.
Slade Wilson’s arrival in Star City was the culmination of a gripping two-season story that played out across the flashbacks of seasons 1 and 2, as viewers learned how he and Oliver Queen were once allies on Lian Yu before tragedy pitted them against each other in a battle that had seemingly killed the former. That was only the beginning of their story, however, as Slade returned to make Oliver’s life a living hell, destroying him by killing his mother and very nearly taking Starling City down.
Deathstroke was the perfect villain for a show like this, not only because he was a grounded antagonist but because he was equally matched with the Arrow, making their hand-to-hand-combat scenes a gripping watch. Moreover, his personal vendetta with Oliver raised the stakes immensely, taking the best of what worked in season 1 with the Dark Archer but making it that much more personal.
Arrow‘s portrayal of Deathstroke wasn’t just true to the character, it was the very best live-action version of him yet, and Manu Bennett’s performance as a grief-stricken (and Mirakuru-crazed) assassin was nothing short of incredible.
Verdict: BEST
Cicada I
Most of you probably aren’t surprised to see Cicada near the top of the “worst” end of this list. Without a doubt one of the most anticipated arrivals in The Flash, he ended up being a major disappointment.
This version of the DC Comics character used a super-powered blade to kill metahumans in a bid for revenge after his niece Grace was injured by dark matter. The concept was strong and the backstory was there but the show failed to deliver on any of that promise. Instead of making use of what worked for Cicada (including his intimidating look), it gave us a monotone cardboard cut-out of a villain that had nothing but moody one-liners or logic-defying escapes to offer in each of his appearances.
It’s a real shame because the aura was definitely there for Cicada. The characters treated him like he was their greatest threat yet, and there were occasions were it really could have felt like the metahumans on Team Flash were in imminent danger, but the show just didn’t capitalize on that. He repeatedly failed after mumbling a few of the same old lines and the heroes allowed him to escape from every one of those failures, making them look like bigger villains than he was.
Nothing came together for Cicada and it really could have.
Verdict: WORST
Zoom
And we thought the Reverse-Flash was scary.
The Flash kicked off its second season by diving into the multiverse and that meant it needed another evil speedster for our hero to take down. That brought us Zoom, a twisted runner from Earth-2 who was still very much the reverse of the Scarlet Speedster, but this villain was a far more intimidating presence than just about any baddie to ever feature in the Arrowverse. Nearly a decade on, and we still feel the same way.
Hunter Zolomon sought to become the greatest speedster in all the multiverse and was willing to do anything to make that happen. There was just one problem; his speed wasn’t a gift as much as it was he result of the drug Velocity 9. And thus, he wanted to steal the speed of The Flash because, after all, he was The Fastest Man Alive.
After the Reverse-Flash, we never thought we’d see another villain so darn compelling so darn soon. But The Flash pulled it off, giving us a bad guy who was almost as convincing as his predecessor. Some even consider him the greatest villain in the Arrowverse, and you know I won’t argue with that.
Zoom was the personification of a nightmare, and that made him an exquisite villain.
Verdict: BEST
The Forces
The Flash season 7 was a mess. I hate to say that, because it had so much potential, but it all fell apart so darn quickly. Not only was it forced to recycle the whole “Barry Allen has lost his speed” narrative, the creation of the Artificial Speed Force was such an unnecessary and convoluted extension to the already convoluted mythology of the show. And in hindsight, it’s clear that it was a major mistake.
This led to the creation of the Forces of Nature. The Still, Sage, Strength, and new Speed Force, their four avatars were initially enemies for Barry and Iris. Then we learned that they were actually Barry and Iris’ sort-of-but-not-really children as they were born out of the pair’s love (which was awkward because the Speed Force still looked and behaved like Barry’s mother). Then three of them turned against Speed Force Nora, who had lost the plot. And then they all came together out of love to balance the universe which they all knew was their purpose already? Oh yeah, and then there were inherently evil versions called the Negative Forces, too?
The Forces storyline was mercifully short, but it was a major misstep for a great show that had unfortunately started making too many of them. Audiences struggled with these characters, and it isn’t hard to see why when we barely knew them and their shifting allegiances made it hard to like, trust, or care about any of them.
None of it made sense. None of it.
Verdict: WORST
Reverse-Flash
The Arrowverse has given us some truly memorable villains, but it was always going to be the Reverse-Flash at the top of this list. The Flash‘s portrayal of the infamous DC villain has gone down in history as one of the best live-action adaptations of a comic book baddie and it’s hard to argue with that, because he lived up to his name and more, exceeding all and any expectations.
It all had to do with the strength of the first season that just succeeded on all fronts. The Man in the Yellow Suit was Barry Allen’s archenemy as soon as the show began, as he killed the Scarlet Speedster’s mother and framed his father. But Eobard Thawne was trapped in the past and had to train his enemy to become a speedster and hero, doing it all under the guise of Harrison Wells.
Thawne is a ruthless mastermind out to serve his own needs and both Tom Cavanagh and Matt Letscher did phenomenal jobs at bringing that to life. While the standard of the writing around the character faltered after the first three seasons, it was an exhilarating experience to watch either one of them bring him to life; and The Flash exceeded in showing us why the Reverse-Flash was Barry Allen’s nemesis.
Every great hero needs a great villain, and that’s exactly what The Flash got. Thawne was the greatest, most dastardly villain of all.
Verdict: BEST
Which Arrowverse villains were your favorites? Do you think any missed the mark?