20 Film/TV Villains Who Were Just Misunderstood

6) Catwoman – The Dark Knight Rises/Batman Returns

Let’s pretend that the 2004 travesty that was Pitof’s Catwoman (starring Halle Berry) never happened, and instead focus on Batman Returns and The Dark Knight Rises, shall we?

Catwoman is the villainous alter-ego of Selina Kyle, and is a long-term fixture in Batman’s city of Gotham. She is a complicated, unpredictable character, as likely to align herself with a villain as a hero – it all depends on what’s in it for her. While Batman Returns presents her as the victimised “lowly secretary” that rises up to seek revenge against those that wronged her, The Dark Knight Rises adheres to the most popular comic-book source material, in which Selina is an orphaned cat-burglar who has had to learn to fend for herself on the mean streets of Gotham.

Though all versions of Catwoman cause extensive problems for our Caped Crusader, Selina’s motives are often ethically complex. When she teams up with The Penguin in Batman Returns, it is for the ultimate purpose of clearing a path to her target – the evil bully, Max Shreck. When she steals Bruce Wayne’s fingerprints and unwittingly leads him into Bane’s trap in The Dark Knight Rises, it is to earn a “Clean Slate” computer program that will expunge her criminal record and allow her to start afresh. Selfish? Yes. But where Catwoman comes from, her number one priority always had to be herself.

5) General Zod – Man Of Steel

Though General Zod featured heavily as the villain in Superman II, very little was made of his motivations as he set about trying to conquer the world. It was not until Man Of Steel, that we discovered what really drives this evil character.

As Zack Snyder’s Superman re-boot begins, we discover that the planet of Krypton has been living far beyond its means for many years. While creating ‘outposts’ by terra-forming other planets, population control was introduced, with genetically-engineered Kryptonians being ‘grown’ in special chambers. Each Kryptonian is bred for a specific purpose – to be a worker, a scientist, a leader, a warrior – filling all the needs of a productive society.

General Zod was bred for the specific purpose of defending his people. As the natural resources of Krypton are depleted, and the destruction of that world imminent, the future generations of Krypton are taken by scientist Jor-El when he steals the Codex containing their genetic imprints. He infuses the cells of his newborn son with this genetic information and dispatches him to Earth. Zod and his followers are imprisoned in the Phantom Zone for the murder of Jor-El and for attempting a coup against the Ruling Council. Thirty years later, with his home planet long destroyed, and no people to defend, Zod arrives at Earth to reclaim the genetic imprint of his people, and transform the planet into a new Krypton through terra-forming.

Though his intentions are monstrous, and his methods terrifying – in a particularly powerful performance by Michael Shannon – General Zod is simply carrying out the job for which he was created. Finding himself without a home, and without a people, he has no choice but to try to recreate those things elsewhere – and where better than on the planet that has unknowingly sheltered the object of his thirty year hateful obsession: Kal-El.