My partner and I were watching TV, and while I can’t even remember what prompted him to ask, he was wondering why there are so few great female villains – women who pursued power and wealth by evil or at least illegal or amoral means just because they wanted power and wealth.
And now I’m totally blanking. I can think of a handful of minor villainesses who kind of fit that category (Moonstone, Mystique and Ruby Thursday, and maybe a couple of others), but Ruby only had one major story before she became kind of a creepy joke, and aren’t Moonstone and Mystique mostly redeemed?
Before I could even suggest Catwoman (which I wasn’t prone to do anyways), he discounted her, partly because he views her as sad and crazy and avenging herself on evil men rather than possessing any tangible personal ambitions (based on the second Batman movie) or just using villainy as an excuse to flirt with the hero (based on the television series). Both of these apparently disqualify someone from A-list villainy, and I’d tend to agree.
So who am I forgetting? They don’t have to be confined to comic books.