For every good hero there has to be an equally bad villain. But what if the hero isn’t necessarily successful at being heroic? Then the villains don’t really need to be all that bad, do they?

The best case-in-point is our first ‘hero’, at least in his own mind:

The future self of Daffy Duck, this 1953 Warner Brothers character was a huge hit with cartoon fans! But was he a hero? Well, he spent a fair amount of time vainly yelling his own name before falling off of things, so… not really. But was he fun to watch? Oh yeah!

FUN FACTS: In 1994, Duck Dodgers was voted #4 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.

Next, and only slightly less inept, is:

Darkwing Duck and Negaduck

“When you’re in trouble ya, Call D. W.!” It sounds better when you sing it. From a television cartoon that aired in 1991-92, it stars an egocentric hothead who never learned to play nice with others (especially with other heroes who might steal the spotlight and credit) named Darkwing who still manages to save the day.

But from an alternate reality comes his doppelganger Negaduck! He has all of DW’s bad qualities with a heaping dose of evil thrown in for ‘good’ measure.

Funko Pop! did a great job with these figures! The heads move giving the characters a surprising amount of emotion when posed.

From animation to vintage live-action television, we now introduce:

This character was believed to be a villain by both the police and criminals. Only the D.A. new he was on the side of goodness and niceness. This was an underrated show that ran from 1966 to 1967 concurrent to the wildly popular Batman series. They even did a crossover episode! The series’ claim to fame was the casting of martial arts legend Bruce Lee in the role of Kato, the Green Hornet’s sidekick (literally!).

Some day I hope to find the Funko Pop! version of Bruce Lee as Kato.

But as the title of this post alluded to, where there are heroes, there are villains. But with the roster of heroes we have here, the next villain doesn’t need be that ‘good’:

Yeah. Not that good. The Underminer got his 15 seconds of fame at the end of the Pixar movie The Incredibles. He is a direct rip-off or homage to the Marvel Comics character named the Mole Man. Still, a fun character, and voiced perfectly by John Ratzenberger.

Not all characters made into Funko Pop! figurines look good, but I thought these ones really captured the look and fun of the source material.

If you like Darkwing Duck, check out this Disney Trading Pin that features him in his original incarnation of Double-O-Duck. What might have been!