Let’s face it, villainy in the Marvel U. has been a little… waining as of late. With heroes fighting heroes, it seems a lot of the threats superheroes once faced have either taken a vacation or are building up to something big while they have the time. A bank robbery seems ironically small change when the Hulk is building a gladiatorial pit in New York and Iron Man is enforcing his law over the United States. Even ol’ Doc Doom hasn’t succeeded along the lines of those who’d thwarted him time and again! Things have gotten so intense for our heroes that consistently trying to step up and outdo the latest big thing is getting more and more difficult.

So what can you do? Are villains even relevant anymore? How can you make your mark as the opposition when the stakes have been raised pretty high by the people who are supposed to be defeating them in the first place? Well, you can take the quick approach, gather up some folks we haven’t seen in awhile (or… at least since Omega Flight), give them some seed money, show them you’re a viable force and complete your first gig all in one issue. This sets you up as fast as possible to get to the meat of a story that or you can take your time. Hit them truly where it hurts. Show some smarts and prove that being a villain is more than just taking cash or beating up people. Show them that it’s personal.

(NOTE: the following has some spoilers for today’s Daredevil #101 and I am distinctly lacking a proper scanner, so grab your own copy, enjoy and read along!)

Because that’s what’s going to really hit the audience hard. That’s what’s going to take this from quick cash to long term rivalry. And it doesn’t even have to be personal for the hero; the Distinguished Competition did a fine job of fleshing out Flash’s Rogues to the point where their motivations are entirely rational to the reader despite despicable acts. Magneto came from very real and very personal tragedy to lead a war against the human race and from a certain viewpoint, you can almost believe he’s doing the right thing. I mean, raise your hand if when you saw mutants getting tracking-control implants in the 198 mini-series and thought to yourself, “Man, Magneto might have had a point when he wasn’t trying to crush us all.” This is the way to make a main event and maybe why heroes are being used as the heavies; these are the characters we’ve spent the most time with therefore their actions have more weight with us.

In this week’s Daredevil #101, we have two really good examples of villainy hooks that I’m going to gush over, and hopefully for a fair and honest reason. On one hand, we have the main threat of Mister Fear. He’s been with us as far as the start of Brubaker’s run on The Man Without Fear in the form of the lovely young Lily who evokes the memory of lost loves through scent (or at least it makes sense that she’d been connected to Mister Fear, I’m getting ahead of myself here). Recently, he’s a lot more blatent, working over Hell’s Kitchen through his work with pheramones and hitting Daredevil where it hurts: his wife. Milla Donovan is no super-heroine, she has no ties to the Registration, she’s blind for heaven’s sake and she’s slowly being driven mad. After a sudden outburst had her push an innocent bystander in the way of an oncoming subway train, she’s been arrested and charged with murder. Confused and feeling out of control, both Matt Murdock and Milla Donovan are forced to live out this horrible situation neither of them can fix. It kills Matt Murdock a little inside to see someone he loves put in serious danger and be helpless to do anything immediate to resolve the situation, either as a lawyer or a crime fighter. That’s hitting the man on two levels and that is what we call making it personal.

Not only is Mister Fear hitting Daredevil’s home turf by influencing Hell’s Kitchen, but he’s hitting Matt Murdock as well by putting his wife in serious peril. All he had to do was pull her emotional control out of whack and let the justice system do the rest the moment circumstances turn on her; no one is hurting Milla but herself and it is agonizing to everyone involved. A criminal of some repute amongst his peers by the name of Turk at the start of the book makes the wise proclamation of, “You don’t push Murdock too far. There’s a monster sleeping in that man that you don’t wanna wake up.”

Also in this issue is a twist: the Turk I just mentioned? Apparently, he was working for… The Hood! As the Hood and his flunkie watch Daredevil unravel while flushing out Mister Fear, Turk inquires asto what they’re going to do about all this and the Hood answers sensibly: “… if Mister Fear is playing it safe right now, hiding out… then maybe we’ll just let Daredevil lead us to him. Then me and my guys can finish off whichever one of them is still standing…” It’s a brief appearance, just a shot on the last page when he’s talking to Turk, but it’s an important one. Not only are we getting a larger sense of what Daredevil’s up against, but we get insight into how all this is going to fall out, plus (and most importantly)… the Hood is a clever man. After all, the monster is loose so to speak and going after an angry Daredevil is not smart for a new guy on the scene as much as the Hood is. He knows full well that he’d probably get his rear end handed to him, spooky demon powers or no, and is not underestimating either Mister Fear or Daredevil. Letting these two maniacs go at it and them come into sweep up the pieces would not only be prudent at this juncture, but give him a really big piece of territory if he’s the one left standing in Hell’s Kitchen. This is a smart tactic and what I consider getting personal with the audience; his actions make so much sense that we the reader can kind of nod our head with them. While we may not be on his side, we understand his line of thought and are sort of looking forward to how it’s all going to turn out.

Villains are a necessary story component to the Hero’s Tale. Without them, there is litterally nothing for the super-hero to do besides turn on himself. The villain pushes us forward, advances plot and provides a drive to the story to get us to our conclusion, win or lose. While Marvel might be lacking in the villainy department, evil never sleeps.

It waits.