Being a hero can mean skirting the fine line between keeping and breaking the law. Sometimes the temptation to do something bad to stop something worse from happening can be overwhelming; as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Some heroes are so close to the edge it wouldn’t take much to push them over to the dark side.
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In fact, maybe being a hero isn’t so different from being a villain; maybe it’s simply a matter of perspective. These are just a few heroes who’d make amazing and absolutely terrifying villains … given half the chance.
Tony Stark can be hard and cynical, but what he also possesses is a streak of anti-government libertarianism - like refusing to hand over his suit to the government inIron Man 2. And a contradictory streak of authoritarianism - like siding with the UN inCaptain American: Civil War.
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What if Iron Man had gone the whole hog and become either an enemy of the US government to protect his invention or to be left unhindered? Or alternatively, an enforcer for the UN against other superheroes,a role he never surrenderseven after The Avengers are reformed? In either case, he would prove a formidable and perhaps unbeatable villain, and the MCU would have taken a very different path.
James Bond
Even as a ‘good guy,’ James Bond is smooth, arrogant, a cold-hearted killer for the political establishment, and theperfect specimen of unrepentant old world machismo. MI6 takes him off the leash when they want someone inconvenient moved out of the way … permanently. For an audience to see Bond as a villain would take only the barest nudge of perspective.
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And what a villain he would make! If all the violence he’d committed finally tipped him over the edge then he might hunt down and kill anyone who crossed him, including old allies. Backed up by his stash of Q’s gadgets, his own lethal skills and decades of experience, who could stop him?
Aragorn II
Towards the end ofThe Fellowship of the Ring, whenFrodo offers Aragornthe One Ringthere is the slightest fraction of a second when the ring’s power tempts Aragorn to a different fate. But like Gandalf and Galadriel before him, his true nature wins through, and he refuses the offer. But what if he’d succumbed to temptation instead?
With a just cause driving him, a band of devoted followers and whole armies at his back, he wouldcut a swathe through Nazgûl, orcs and Easterners, and perhaps ultimately even have the strength to overwhelmSauron’s own spirit and truly become the sole possessor of the One Ring. What then for the Free Peoples and all of Middle Earth? Not the darkness of Sauron, but an ever greater evil; greater because the man behind it had once been good and pure of heart.
Van Helsing
Abraham Van Helsing has always beensomething of a fanatic, a narrative counterweight to the bloody fanaticism of Dracula. Without Van Helsing there can be no victory over Dracula; he brings dedication, knowledge and experience to the hunt and final destruction of the undead count.
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But fanaticism can make good people do terrible things for ‘the greater good’, including sacrificing the innocent. What difference would there be between Count Dracula - striving, come what may, to survive in a world that fears and despises him - and Van Helsing - striving, come what may, to rid the world of his influence? As far as their victims are concerned, no difference at all.
Robin Hood
Robin Hood is famous for taking from the rich to give to the poor. But what if he took from the rich and kept it for himself? Or worse, made no distinction between his victims and took from rich and poor alike? And worse yet, led a gang of petty ruffians filled with characters such as the brutal giant Little John and excommunicated Friar Tuck?
It isn’t hard to imagine a film where the audience is rooting for the Sheriff of Nottingham. He is a respected officer of the law hunting down a renegade nobleman whose only interest is looting every coin from every household in Nottingham and Sherwood.
Queen Elizabeth I
There were two dark aspects to Elizabeth’s character. First, she was always terrified of being executed like her mother Anne Boleyn, and indeed more than once came close to having her headset on the block. Second, a fear of running out of money, not just for her own sake but her kingdom’s as well. And of course, from some points of view she’s already a villain: ask someone from the Spanish court what they think of Elizabeth I.
But what if she had given in to that streak of Tudor fanaticism that so benighted her father, Henry VIII, and sister, Bloody Mary? What if she had persecuted Catholics to a greater degree that she did historically? And what if she had burned all her opponents at the stake, political as well as religious? And what if the Spanish Armada had successfully invaded England? Would Elizabeth then have gone down as one of England’s most villainous monarchs rather than its greatest?
Tarzanoriginally represented the perfect scion of a white 19th century gentleman, with all the prejudices and assumptions that entails. As his story is told and retold over the decades sinceTarzan of the Apeswas first published in 1912, it has beenmodified to fit in with the 20th century’s evolving morality.
All that is necessary to turn Tarzan into a modern-day villain, then, is to filmEdgar Rice Burroughs' original story where, despite being fearless and honorable according to the code of his own class, Tarzan is also deeply racist and violent. This would make an eye-opening examination of ancient prejudices, with the story’s protagonist being the villain of the piece.
Luke Skywalker
There is a hint of the anger and violence contained in Luke Skywalker when, inThe Last Jedi, Kylo Ren tells Rey how he woke one night to find his uncle hovering over him with a drawn lightsaber, ready to kill him. This should come as no surprise. After all, Luke is the son of Darth Vader.
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At the end ofThe Empire Strikes Back, Vader reveals to Luke that he is his father, holds out his hand and asks him to join him in accepting the dark side. Echoing Aragorn’s refusal to accept the temptation of the One Ring, Luke spurns his father. But if instead he had taken that hand and accepted the dark side, cinema would have had one of its greatest and most powerful villains, overshadowing Darth Vader himself.
Indiana Jones
In a sense, Indiana Jones is already a villain. He steals rare objects of historical value from their home country, so they can be placed like trophies in Marcus Brody’s museum - objects for which he gets paid. That Jones was only doing what every other archeologist of the period was doing doesn’t change the fact that many famous museum exhibits are, in fact, stolen goods.
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Jones could have been a great movie villain if his ruthless quest for ancient artifacts no matter the cost was his true calling; then he would have been like his rival René Belloq inRaiders of the Lost Ark. In this version of the film, perhaps,Jones might have helped the Nazisobtain the Ark of the Covenant, and Belloq tried to stop him.
Miss Marple
It isn’t difficult imagining Sherlock Holmes as a villain, or at a stretch even Hercule Poirot, but much harder to imagine the same ofAgatha Christie’s diminutive and elderly sleuthMiss Marple, who is so unassuming she has the knack of being invisible even when she’s in plain sight. Which is why she would be so perfect as a villain, and her home in the quiet rural village of St. Mary Mead would be so perfect as the headquarters of the international criminal organization she runs.
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Of course, being Miss Marple, she would commit crimes with a kind of weary acceptance of the gullibility of her victims and would run her gang with grandmotherly sternness rather than wicked cruelty. The thing is, Miss Marple is such a delight that even if she was the villain the audience would still cheer her on.
