"There are no bad characters, only bad creators" is a saying that's been making the rounds for decades in the superhero comics business. I suspect it's often not true, but whoever said that must have been prognosticating the excellent work of Kyle Starks, who demonstrates in an inspired series of portraits that even the most dubious of super-villains can offer us some amount of value -- if only in the form of delighting in their lameness made plain.


In a Flickr set entitled ABCs of Mediocre Marvel Villainy, Starks identifies some of the worst ideas to be found in Marvel's house in twenty-six brilliantly minimal and deceptively childlike drawings. Not included here but definitely worth checking out if you're as captivated by this horribleness as we are is Stark's commentary for each character, which you can find in the Flickr set, and which ranges from amusingly irreverent to possibly very angry: "O is for Owl. Who really has owl powers. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

Check out the all twenty-six portraits after the jump.