040 - Of Good & Evil

Why is it that when a Man is the villain, they come up with all sorts of crazy details for his back-story that make him a sympathetic, identifiable and even slightly righteous person? Magneto comes from a concentration camp and wants to ensure that his people are never subjected to that kind of horror again. Lex Luthor is a standard American Business Man who doesn't like the idea of a secretive all-powerful alien being praised as a God. The Joker was just a failing stand-up comedian who got tricked into committing crime and had an accident that made his mind snap. They're all sympathetic and leave the reader thinking "Wow, yeah... y'know, he has a point there".

But when a WOMAN is the villain, it's simply because "Mmmmmm Evil Feels *So Gooooooood*"? *IF* they have a motivation beyond that, they're crazy and/or they want revenge, usually for romance-fueled reasons. This makes me SO ANGRY!