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Monday, January 27, 2014

The Purples and Greens of Supervillainy

I’m not sure what purple and green combine to represent in the real world, aside from maybe Mardi Gras, but in the comics world they symbolize evil. I’m not clear why. At least at the beginning, someone probably picked purple and green to contrast against the good guy, and that good guy may well have been Superman, what with his emblematic trio of primary colors. But at some point, purple and green ceased to be a contrast and instead came to represent evil outright — a comic trend that was perpetuated just because it already existed, kind of like the whole double initial thing. Right? Doesn’t that have to be it?

Observe.

The Joker (via)
Lex Luthor (via)
Green Goblin (via)
Old-school Catwoman (via)
Mysterio (via)
The Impossible Man (via)
Brainiac (via
The Lizard (via)
The Riddler (via)
Skrulls, in general (via)
the Marvel version of Morgan le Fay (via)
EDIT: I’ve added a few more, as a results of comments pointing out some purple-green villains that I’d missed.

Firely (in the early days, when he was redundantly called ”Human Firefly” (via)
Certain versions of Two-Face (via)
the DC version of Circe (via)
The Beetle (via)
Mesmero, looking entirely too provocative (via)
Kang the Conqueror (via)
Of course, you have to wonder how The Incredible Hulk fits into all this.

(via)
I mean, you have to wonder how The Incredible Hulk fits into his pants in general, but he seems to come from an era and his colors should have signified villainy.

So who have I left out? And who have I overlooked in an effort to prove my theory that there exists an unusual preponderance of purple-and-green-clad bad guys in comic books? And could this support my theory that eggplants, too, are evil?

Superheroes, previously:

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