Villainy is, well, a necessary evil. At least so far as popular adventure is concerned. What is a hero without an antagonist, morality plays without sin? Whether it is the Satan of Genesis or of Milton, the slave-driving Simon Legree of Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Holmes’s worthy nemesis Moriarty, villainy is always a statement about evil itself that is somehow embedded in its time and its creator’s world view. That is what makes baddies so much fun to unravel. Paradise Lost is the original object lesson in our finding evil more intriguing than heroism. But the comic strip had particular roles in the evolution of popular scoundrels. Along with dime novels, pulp magazine fiction and film serials, it was among a cluster of turn-of-the-century mass media that relied on serialized heroes and stories. From these new modes of endless storytelling arose a popular sensation, the recurring villain. Moriarty (Conan Doyle), Fu Manchu (Rohmer), Fantômas (Allain and Souvestre) and a range of black-masked kidnappers of the chronically imperiled silent film heroine Pauline (Perils of Paulin) set the pattern. But the comic strip brought to evildoing its unique aesthetic strengths: believable absurduty, the light tone of caricature, and relentless irony. With some exceptions, this medium made evil unserious, fun, or at least safely farcical.