Usually our consciences will keep us from going too far. But what if someone ignores their conscience? What if the potential thrill, the adrenaline rush overrides that little voice in the back of our heads saying “Don’t do that”? Or the little voice is too weak to start with? For that matter, how many of us are “good” simply because we’ve never been seriously tempted to be otherwise? Take undercover cops for example: how many of them get corrupted and seduced by the criminal activities they take part in during their assignment? How many get drawn in by the money and the power of the criminal organizations they infiltrate? More than we’d like to think about I imagine.

And then there are the insane ones, like the Joker and your own Dr.Synn. I’ve noticed you’ve never done a serious origin story for him, and I don’t see any need to-often the kind of mental illness that he exhibits doesn’t come on all at once, and may emerge and steadily get worse over time. There usually isn’t any defining moment like a drop in a chemical tank or having acid thrown on half your face, just a slow but inexorable deterioration of the faculties.

I mean take Venom for instance. The guy is pretty solidly a sociopath when he first showed up. Oh sure he didn’t enjoy killing people but he would, later on the watered him down to being a freak about innocence, but at his core Vemon was a evil lunatic who wanted to kill spiderman for fairly twisted and crazy reasons. The difference was we understood those reasons. We could see that Brock had done some pretty sleezy things, go caught and wanted to blame it on someone else. This didn’t make Vemon an angel by any stretch but it was someone we understood. We could see someone we know doing that.

Another good example is DC’s Scarecrow. That guy has between Nil and Zero good characteristics most days but a reader understands why he is crazy evil. He is a psychologist who went nuts and gets a power trip on fear. They can get into the mind of scarecrow.

But part of what makes Scarecrow stand out is also the fact that their are other shades of gray villians like Two-Face whom we empathize with.

The thing is we don’t really know why some of these characters ended up as super villains instead of wife beaters. What opportunity or event made them super villains. Are they true blue evil and just playing in the big leagues trying not to show anyone they can bleed.

Not everyone needs a deep origin story but it is one of the staples and most beloved parts of the super hero genre. Really major villains like Tactical really deserve a little origin story, it makes there actions that much more interesting to the reader when they know where they come from.