Man it’s so annoying that Hades is always turned into a villain. Just because he’s the god of the underworld doesn’t make him evil. Actually, he’s one of the most reasonable gods. Second to Hestia

There’s what happened to Bane. Basically all his years of venom usage caught up to him, and now he’s just a shell.

Kronos' time loop isn't so bad when you realize his memories are also reset. He experienced verbal abuse for all eternity, but for him it will always be a couple of seconds.

Kronos is such a sad tale man. Bro was definitely an evil Nut Bar villain, but lets not ignore the fact that he was out here defying the very laws of Creation itself with a Time Travel Suit that he created. And doing what most people dream of being able to. And his girl still found reasons to be uspet.

What they did to Kronos might possibly be the worst thing The Justice League has ever done.

This made me think of Ian Peek from Batman Beyond. This man is going to either fall for the rest of forever, fall until he gets lost in space, or be trapped in the center of the earth until he dies of malnutrition. If he can even die at all. And his screams has he's falling are genuinely horrifying.

Ah Freeze. He died as he lived. Broken and alone with Batman trying to save him.

R.I.P Kevin Conroy's Batman 🦇😭🤧 (1955-2022)

Despite being trapped in an infinite timeloop or being personally tortured by Hades himself, I think and agree that Mr. Freeze's freezing immortality is by far the worst for me. Think about it: never being able to experience warmth, the sun beaming on your flesh, being able to experience the ocean currents on your feet, being unable to eat normal food, basically anything that you need to survive. Mr. Freeze can not do none of that nor can he experience anything like that; he literally is not only trapped in a frozen state where cold is the only paradise for him but he cannot even experience the fundamentals of being human anymore.

Solomon Grundy's existence is also pretty tragic, he kinda fits in the same boat as Bizarro. Especially since the animated rendition of his character in Justice League Unlimited seems more sympathetic.

I agree with every pick but the first one , kronos's fate is awful but one thing that makes it slightly less bad is that he doesn't realise or is aware of the fact that he is in a time loop. Everytime the loop resets , so does his memory. He does live that same moment of misery for the rest of eternity but to him he only lives that moment once before forgetting it and then relieving it. I believe that sneak peak from batman beyond deserved a mention. He would sink to the center of the earth , where he would either burn up or die of thirst or hunger. That is assuming that heat , hunger and thirst even affect him any more. As far as we know he could stay in the center of the earth for the rest of time , fully alive and concious. The mere implications of his defeat deserved him a mention. Also , blight could have been given a mention as in the follow up comics to batman beyond , it is revealed that his radiation is terminal and is basicaly turning him into an atom bomb. In the end he gets buried alive and he is turned to nothing. He kind of deserved it but still a pretty horrible fate.

I doubt morgana could turn her son back even if she wanted too. My reasoning being that when her son freed himself from her spell he used magic far stronger than his mothers. So even if she tried to fix it her magic would just be nullified by the superior magics at work.

There’s a few others with unpleasant fates. Bane, after decades of using Venom, became the cautionary tale for drug abuse when we see his withered body. Blight eventually was driven mad by the radiation, then exposed by his own son(et tu, Bruté) until finally disappearing at sea. Ian Peek used stolen tech to walk through walls until he couldn’t hold it together anymore and fell through the floor. It doesn’t explicitly show him dying, but after a few days without food or water, that will eventually happen. So he’d have to wait for death, surrounded by the stuff of Hell itself. Clayface’s death is never shown, but he gradually struggles to maintain his body form. And then there’s Inque, who also suffers degradation and the guy who helped her, he got part of her ability but not enough to do anything so he’s stuck listening to some woman tell him all her problems. Powers and abilities gone wrong does seem to come up a lot.

Static Shock gave us two Fates Worse Than Death that I can think of off-hand: Madelyn Spaulding, and "Heavyman" Koenig. Madelyn Spaulding: a top student attending the same high school as Virgil, Madelyn was exposed to the same gas that gave the other Bang Babies their powers while trying to help a homeless man (Patches, another villain from the show) the night of the Big Bang. During a stressful student council election, Madelyn finally unlocks her telepathic ability to control other people's minds and goes a bit mad with power. She's defeated when Static fries her brain with his electricity (as in, grabs her head and shocks the crap out of her) and causes some brain damage; not only does she forget that she learned that Static is Virgil, but she also reverts to a childlike mental state while losing her ability to actually use her telepathy. She returns in another episode that reveals that her powers have changed from telepathy to telekinesis (meaning that some of the damage done to her brain was permanent), and Static cooks her brain *again* to beat her. It's implied that the second time did even more severe damage, and it's made worse since Madelyn was a decent (if a bit stuck-up and high-handed) person when compared to a fair chunk of Static's rogues gallery. "Heavyman" Koenig: a scientist trying to recreate the process that created She-Bang, Heavyman had the ability to absorb mass that he came in contact with. Unfortunately, he can neither control when his powers activate nor divest himself of any mass he's absorbed, leading to his body becoming super-dense; when he appears on the show he's already heavy enough to crack any surface he steps on, and his body is so dense that his chest muscles are barely strong enough for him to breathe. He kidnaps She-Bang's parents to force them to find a cure for his unstable mutation, but his overdensity makes it impossible for his body to absorb the gas that should fix his powers. He's too dense to move at the end of the episode, and is last seen being taken away on a flatbed trailer because nothing else will be able to transport him.

When Bizarro shows up in JLU, he has a scar on his head. The writers said that Luthor performed surgery on Bizarro's brain to make him easier to control.

"I can only beg your forgiveness, and pray you hear me somehow, someplace... someplace where a warm hand waits for mine." It took 50 years, but the wait of Nora's warm hand finally ended

Hellraiser 101: death is often a mercy.

Cannot imagine what Freeze must have felt during his 50-year confinement, being just a concious head completely unable to do literaly anything

To be fair, I doubt Batman would make the entire timeline they come from suffer just because of Kronos’ mistake. So I feel like the looping of time is concentrated to that one area, meaning that Kronos is going to suffer for a long time, but eventually someone’s going to have to wonder why neither of them have been showing up to work, paying the bills, or leaving their house in general. So someone’s gonna have to break the loop eventually. And win the two swear that only 10 seconds has passed people are going to think the couple are crazy and most likely take away his super suit. Of course, this is all a theory, but it feels like something that would logically happen eventually

Solomon Grundy getting brought back again only as a mindless killing machine, only to have to be put down by Hawkgirl was definitely sad. I can only imagine what Grundy felt during that rampage

I would also put Inque's assistant from Batman Beyond on here; he was given a partial dose of whatever was used to create her, and was promised an antidote that was never delivered. Now he's stuck in a modified jail cell as a near-formless mass, listening to a woman (presumably his nurse) with no skills in "reading the room" prattle on incessantly.

Honestly for me the best moment of all time in DCAU was when Lex Luthor says to Amazo "For all my struggles to make my mark in life, for all of I've accomplished....in just a few short generations my name will be forgotten. Even the greatest of us can't compete with time....and death." I relate to that. I know that death is natural part of life....but it's scary, because you don't know if you will be remembered and what's after that. And hearing this coming from Lex Luthor.....it feels strangely comforting 😥. And yeah Mr Freeze is the saddest example for me.

In other words, in the words of Dark Raiden in Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11, "There are fates worse than death".

Kronos should have used that power to tell his younger self to avoid marrying that horrible woman. Anyone intelligent enough to create a device to time travel deserved better than that Karen.

One villain I think definitely deserves a spot on the list is Dr Destiny from the JL episode "Only a Dream". In the climax of that episode, he fights Batman, trying to inject him with a syringe filled with a serum to make him fall asleep. But, Batman is a skilled martial artist and fights back. In the end, Dr Destiny ends up injecting himself with the serum, putting himself in a catatonic state for the rest of his life.

Kronos has it really bad. Having to deal with a Karen for eternity is much worse than death

6:10 don’t forget that one rich dude from btas who made himself like mr freeze and made himself mr freeze suit and sink to the bottom of the Gotham ocean

Video Idea: Joker's most Human moments. There aren't a lot, but they are there.

"Believe Me. You are the only one who cares" To this day, only three supervillains have made me cry like a baby with their deaths. The first one was Red Skull in "Captain America 300". The second one was Moloch in J. Michael Straczynski's miniseries of the same name. I don't think it's necessary to say who the third one is...

I know this isn’t DC related but I remember playing Mortal Kombat X and the ending of the story of Raiden throwing the decapitated head of the Elder God Shinnok on the floor of Lui Kang and Kitana’ throne room and proclaimed that their are worse fates than death. The one thing that shocked me the most about this scene is that Shinnok is immortal and his decapitated head was still alive but couldn’t speak essentially making him a vegetable for the rest of eternity

I can't remember the source of this, but it was rumored that there was going to be an extended scene after the end of JLU where Lex Luthor and Darkseid are inside of the Source Wall (after Lex gives Darkseid the Anti Life Equation), screaming in agony. Idk about yall but if this is true and it made it, it would've been easily #1 worst fate in the DCAU.

Yeah, seeing her son all aged up like that, I felt really bad for him.

I would add Vandal Savage to that list. An episode of Justice League sees Superman seemingly killed but he was instead transported into the future. The only person left Is Savage. He was alone for thousands of years after successfully defeating the Justice League and destroying the world. The loneliness drove him insane to a degree, but also helped him find his humanity. I find that to be kind of tragic.

This video kinda deserves a 2nd part, cuz it’s really interesting

About DCAU fates worse from death. For me, most of the examples are the villains from Superman TAS : Metallo, why? Imagine your brain being transferred into the terminator-like body. Firstly you feel strong, powerful......but then you realise......you can't feel anything. You can't feel air, you don't sense the smell of anything, you don't feel like you have a full control of your body. Not to mention moving your brain from normal flesh and bones to robotic body just feels...wrong. Livewire, why? Imagine being a normal person, then being electrified by a lighting, which is already painful enough, but then you discover that you're a pure enegry, and you can't touch anyone or anything without sucking the energy out of it, or overloading it, or killing someone. Parasite, why? Imagine, again, you're a normal person and then experimental chemicals pour over you and you transfrom into a purple monster. Again you can't touch anyone without taking their life-energy and potentially kill them and you being rejected by the people because you look like that.... Of course these examples are scary if you're a good person and not the evil one. Man I feel Superman's villains are even more messed up then Batman's.

I think those heroes cooked up by Cadamus had bad fates. Yes, they died but the ones we saw died knowing they were just artificial people and there was another batch of them on the way. To die knowing your life was meaningless is pretty bad.

Another villain with a tragic fate is Two Face. In the final episode of "The New Batman Adventures", Two Faces sick mind created a third personality, "The Judge", who acted as Gothams lethal vigilante. Batman managed to stop him and send him to Arkham Asylum, with his Two Face and Judge personalities constantly clashing with each other.

The surviving SS members got off super lucky with that 5 minute head start.

12:37 with enough popularity the writer will pull the Bull suit were oh after being in this time loop so many times he became aware hes trap an excape

The worst fate in the dc universe is becoming a victim of pyg tho and mr freeze i still remenber that heart of ice episode it made me wish that batman would lose vs him

I think Freeze shouldn't have appeared again after the Sub-Zero movie. That movie was a pretty satisfactory conclusion to the character's arc, as Victor could have lived happily ever after in the North Pole after Nora's reviving. TNBA just screwed up everything

The true villain wasn't Kronos. It was his verbally abusive wife. She pushed him to distrupt the timeline by making them (or more accurately her) rich and powerful

The thing is. Cronos doesn’t know he’s in a time loop. It doesn’t get worse. It’s just the first time he’s hearing it every time.

R.I.P Kevin Conroy as Batman/The Dark Knight of Gotham City💔🕊 🦇👨

Why does the spell cast by her son only left a world of children instead of a world of children and teenagers.

Clayface was pretty tragic what happened to him. Although he was my favorite batman villain

I love your content needlemouse you have helped me through a lot belive it or not so thanks

Freeze is my favorite but Kronos is extremely brutal no wonder it's the last one in the video

Would Ace count as a Supervillain in the DCAU since she created the Royal Flush Gang and caused the world to go mad thanks to the Joker? Because if so, getting your childhood taken away from you and dying from an aneurysm is the worst way to go in my opinion

Do a video of the five least known characters in the Marvel and DC universe, who had a happy ending

We’re all forgetting one of the cruelest fates in the franchise, Tim Drake getting turned into the Joker.

Death Has Always Been A Risk For Others To Take.

i wonder how Shazam would work with morgan la fay's spell, would he be fine as billy batson but get transported as shazam or would he stay as shazam?

Huh so this version of Hades is litterally just the devil rather than the well adjusted goth guy he mostly is in the actual mythology

I don't know if it's the worst, but I always think back on Grodd. Just the realization that a subordinate who was planning your demise got sick of waiting, shot you non-fatally and then put you in an airlock so he can insult you to your face one last time before casting you into the cold abyss of space while you make impotent threats.

Hades gets such a bad wrap in media. He's such a good god.

Hell I’d rather die than being stuck as a vegetable or being forevered imprisoned since I wouldn’t be able to “live” but just exist.

Surprised you didn’t go with that rich guy trying to use Freeze to make himself immortal. The ending implies he’s stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a prison of ice.

Man, Powers/Blight's death was EXTREMELY PAINFUL(Even to him) Spending Years contained in a suit With inanission & THEN he gets slowly Desintegrated after it breaks _AS I SAID, EVEN FOR A MONSTER LIKE POWERS, THAT WAS EXTREME_

I always felt sorry for Mr Freeze. All he wanted was for his wife Nora to be well. Felt bad about Solomon Grundy after watching the Justice League Unlimited series

Do which cartoon network characters would fit the lantern corps.

Mr Freeze reminded me of Spider man in comics

As someone who looks after their 90 year old nan who has her mind problems and pretty sure early parts of dementia I don’t need to imagine loosing your mind And someone who was bullied from year 4 onwards till I left school year 11 I don’t need to imagine being verbally abused for so long ever day felt like the same day over and over only for me when it ended it was shocked I made it through hmm funny thinking about that was like 9 years ago doesn’t time fly

I can think of some. 1- Sneak Peek "Death" is actually a WORSE than what Bruce said. He wouldn't just fall to the center of Earth. He would get there yes but eventually he would "fall" back again through the world to the other side and then get pull back into an eternal loop. Seeing as how his matter has essential just become atoms he is, to our understanding, immortal. Imagine being stuck forever falling through earth. 2- Melted guy from Static Shock. In episode 1 of the show there is an unnamed Meta Human who immidiately starts to melt, at the end of the episode he is shown to still be alive but he has being reduced to a puddle. Now if we go by series canon, he got cured as well as many others but that assuming he didn't died slowly melting or that his body was able to reform with the cure.

I read that originally in the Batman Beyond episode that featured Freeze. At the end, Terry goes to the fridge to get a cold drink, and inside is Freeze’s severed head tis still alive. This was considered to be in poor taste and dropped.

Well let me first say excellent work on the video today Needlemouse!!!! And secondly I quite agree these are the worse fates then death in DCAU!!! Like the Chronos one oh man that does not sound good at alll!!!! Keep up the great and I can't wait to see what you have next!!!!!

I mean, Grundy had it pretty bad once he realized what had happened to him. Murdered, cursed, stripped of his mind and soul, rising as a living dead man, used and abused, and then finally dis only to get brought back as a comlpetely mindless murder machine before having to be put down.

Now the question is.. do you remember every moment when you get yelled at or do it just reset it all with no memory of it? Cause if you can't remember being yelled at after it once happened, then is it really such an horrible fate? I mean yea You are still technically stuck in time.. but you only experience one thing, with no memory of it happening more then ones. So the only people it would really suffer for it would be people around you that knew you and might miss you because you disappeared from the world. While You are just reliving one moment but only remember it happen once before it reset again.

Honestly, I think Metallo should get an honerable mention here: John Corben is a merc for hire that serves a lot of Lex Luthor's schemes faithfully, and then gets infected with a lethal disease. He then has his mind put into a machine that mimics the human anatomy, called "Metallo", but his senses are rapidly diminishing until he cannot recall what a flower smells like, nor the touch of a loved one. He even loses his memory and experiences a sort of amnesiac alter-ego for an episoe when some kids find him in a DC equivalent to Hawaii, and he eventually gets his memories back, threatening Lois Lane in the process which inevitably draws Superman into the mess. He then gets sealed in lava as it cools, trapping him again for an indeterminate amount of time. (I'm not familiar with the JL/JLU episodes where he gets brought in again). Losing your physical senses while still being able to live, and eventually even losing the ability to move or interact with the world has got to be one of the absolute worst fates I can think of.

Very nice video you should make more part of it

Bullwhip’s fate in Batman Beyond is pretty chilling. Guy thinking he still has leverage over the cybernetics surgeon who’s wife he kidnapped to coerce him in to giving him cyber upgrades. Goes to him and asks for the full body upgrade. Unaware the Doc now knows about his affair with his wife. It ends with Bullwhip lying on the surgery table, saying ‘No holding back’. The Doc holding a drill in his hand takes his instructions to heart.

While Ian Peek from Batman Beyond is definitely worthy of spot on the list, the fate of Earthmover deserves an Honorable mention. Tony was an otherwise normal, single-father, working for an industrial company that was just getting off the ground, but because of regulations around toxic waste disposal, the company couldn't afford to get rid of it through the proper channels, and instead sealed the cannisters in abandoned mine shafts. Unfortunately, an accident caused Tony to be trapped inside with the toxic chemicals fusing his flesh to the very earth itself. Over the next ten years his mind would degrade to the point where his love for his daughter, Jackie, became twisted into an obsessive desire to reunite with her, and a drive for vengeance against his ex-partner, Bill, who he falsely believed had intended to kill him.

In the case of Mr Freeze, it's less that his body was rotting and more that he was suffering from frostbite, I suppose. Speaking of which, in the game Arkham City, I remember Rocksteady did a pretty good job at conveying that he was loosing very small pieces of skin, especially around his ears. In Arkham Knight, with the increased quality and re-design, you can clearly see on his face that he is in a terrible state. It's like the skin on his cheeks and lips is flaking. Also good to mention that in Batman Beyond, he doesn't blow-up Derek Powers' compound just for the heck of it. He does it because they backstabbed him by trying to kill him in order to study what went wrong with the procedure.

Thus the trope "And I must scream!"

Earthmover, Aaron Herbst, Cuvier, Blight, Sneak Peek, Kragger, and Dr Destiny all had some pretty messed up fates ngl

Faora-Ul, thank you for the wise words. "A good death is it's own reward."

I'm disappointed you left off Metallo (though you did show him at the end) and the guy from Batman Beyond with the suit that makes him intangible...whose device breaks and causes him to fall forever. Or the guy from Earthmover, who gets fused with rocks and is just an irradiated skeleton.

I think Vandal Savage’s existence is pretty horrible. Imagine being an early human, being granted immortality and seeing everything you ever have loved or created turn to dust. You will still be alive when the earth is swallowed by the sun and can do nothing about it

This was great!

After all these years, either I never heard of or have any recollection of "The Zeta Project." Much appreciated.

Thing is, most of Batman's bad guys have really tragic stories. Most of them also cope with tragedy by becoming psychopaths. But like, Oswald Cobblepot (the Penguin) was born with diformities in a family that already has a long history of terrible people (in most version, the Cobblepot family and Wayne family have been at odds for a long time), so he already got a terrible start in life. And you can see how bad it went for him when he tried to redeem himself in one episode of BTAS, but the high-society used him like a funny retarted mascot. Let's not forget Matt Hagen's Clayface, in the realm of tragic, he's right there. Then there's the Extended DCAU. Kirk Langstrom is dealt a terrible hand, there. When you think the second episode featuring his wife Francine transforming into Woman-bat ends well, in the extended DCAU, it's explained that Francine later gets a violent case of Parkinson's disease. Kirk convinces himself that he can cure her by turning her into Woman-bat again, she refuses (because duh), and he gets obsessed with that idea again, to the point where he neglects his wife and kids, basically isn't even there the day she dies, and he turns himself back into Manbat out of grief, but a new version where he keeps his mind. Bit like "Maestro Hulk" in Marvel. The very last episode of BTAS shows how Two-Face's mind breaks down, creating the third personality of the "Judge" to balance Harvey's criminal one. The episode ends with Dent in Arkham repeating "guilty" over and over. In a storyboard for a deleted scene of the movie "Batman Beyond : Return of the Joker", after Joker made his big return in front of the crowd and in front of Bruce, Bruce goes to the ruins of Arkham Asylum, where Joker left him some hanging dummy made to look like his old rotting corpse. Before that, when exploring the ruins, notes indicates that Bruce passes next to what was Harvey's cell. Bruce shivers with the slight implication that Harvey possibly died in Arkham, following the events of 'Judgement Day'. His mind might've been shattered for good after that.

The part, for Morgana's son is a lesson to all who wants eternal life... make sure you get eternal youth as well

I always thought kronos didn't remember the previous time before. Like the time line reset every time and he would just say what he said and did what he did-not knowing he was in that loop. So is it evil and mean? Yes...but if he realized it it would be much worse

Darksied and Lex Luthor's shared fate deserves mentioning.

I love your videos man and you one of my favorite KZfaqs

Eternal life stuck as an old man sure sounds maddening

Only the living suffer? What about vampires? They’re dead immortal being that can only come out at night. Seems pretty lonely & sufferable to me.

“Some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. It’s not the time that matters it’s the person. And I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired. Tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone” -The 10th Doctor A very true and important quote. I could’ve think of outliving and watching the people I love die. I absolutely agree with you about not being afraid of death

Morgana's son won't stay ancient forever. She is just punishing him for a time.

13:40 All I ask is can we get a part two

Ian Peek that dude just falls through the planet stuck with me throughout Batman Beyond

What is your favorite DC comic hero character?

This is a good topic for a video.

[ 6:14 ] in the short term. Unfortunately, in the long term, it would result in unending misery and suffering.

I love that the Justice Leagues depiction of Hades is way more accurate than most portrayals 😂

Can’t thank you enough for taking me back to my childhood with this list. What Batman did to Kronos is most definitely a fate worse than death.

- Mordred got what's coming for him. Still, he better be turned back to normal during the Batman Beyond timeline. - Well deserved. - You should see how he's treated in the tie-in comics. Even his wife Nora isn't spared from pain. - In my opinion, he unfortunately reverted back after Brainiac destroyed his planet and possibly killed his pet Krypto (as hinted in the Justice League Season 2 premiere "Twilight"). Either way, sad to see his "redemption" be cruelly undone. - Ultimately necessary. The henpecked fool had done a lot of damage during his reign of terror. (Granted, he got better in, hmm, the alternate continuity of the Legacies of the DCAU fan webcomic, but still.) Surprised to not see Grant Walker from B: TAS here (although his fate was rendered moot by the Gotham Adventures comics, though their canonicity is debated), alongside Parasite, who was born a wimp, and died like a wimp in JLU.

Needle Mouse's entire list summed up in two words: "Eternal Life"

I actually do feel bad for Kronos, at the end of the day, he made a terrible decision not even by his own desires but by a wife/girlfriend/partner's and you give in to their request because you love them and wish to be able to do anything that would give them happiness and pleasure. So deciding to step out of your own comforted boundaries and attempt to mess up the timeline of the world extremely badly and are then faced with the hero's there to stop you, must just hit really hard in the face and to think and contemplate if it was all worth it. He could have weighed his options and risk assessment. But he gambled on the wrong side of the quarter. And the consequences for that being a endless time loop of being bashed and having insults and hatred screaming at you 24/7 must drive a man crazy but rightfully deserved after he had a second chance and still blew it. Probably regretting it for the rest of his life. Justice League probably tried to see if they could go back in time to stop him from getting the time travel ability but realized they would extremely alter the timeline of events if they did unfortunately. And so he has no other option. The worst part of it all though? He was a good kind man , using his ability for a fun hobby and enjoying life . He seemed like he really appreciated and cherished the small things in life. He seemed like a good soul. I know the story was written that way but if he had my self esteem , thought more highly and better of himself he probably would of shut her down and none of this would've happened. Thanks for the video Needle Mouse! Been a few a little over 3 years now ! Great content brother keep it easy and positive man. 🙂

# 5 mom never thought of a lazarus pit? ra's al ghul is older I think and he use it